A couple of years ago I took a business trip to China for a couple of weeks¹, and part of the Beijing segment involved a visit to Tiananmen Square (it’s just outside the Forbidden City).
We were travelling with our hosts, who, in addition to being workers at an engineering company, were official representatives of the Chinese Government, when the following exchange occurred:
Dramatis Personae:
J: An MIT-educated child of privilege, whose previous job experience was that of a ski instructor in Aspen, but who somehow got the position of project manager on our job by virtue of being our mulitnational corporation’s president’s fraternity brother at said institute of technology. Every day his main mission in life is to find a Starbucks.
Lily: Translator for our Chinese hosts.
Fancycwabs: Everyone’s hero.
Setting: A tour bus, travelling from the frozen Great Wall to Tiananmen Square
J: Lily, you remember when there were tanks in Tiananmen Square a few years back?
Lily: WHAT? THERE WERE NO TANKS IN TIANANMEN SQUARE, EVER
J: Sure! Everyone saw the pictures! Remember the dude standing in front of the tank?
Lily: WHAT? NO TANKS! MAYBE TANKS IN A PARADE IN THE FIFTIES!
J: No, really! You mean you don’t remember?
Fancycwabs (sotto voce): shutupshutupshutupshutupshutupshutup
¹ When you go to China with hosts, they show hospitality by ordering vast numbers of delicacies from the menu. When your animal has four stomachs, there’s a lot of stomach to go around. I think “udder” is still on my “to try” list, though.
