Month: August 2022

Catbird seat

Occasionally, people who know that I lived in China for two decades will ask me what I miss about the place now that I have been living in the US again for nine years.

I miss the people, of course, but I still keep in touch with a lot of them. I missed my in-laws very much, but over the last year, they have both passed away.

And I miss taking the train everywhere, especially High-Speed Rail, the G-trains.

That is almost enough to convince me to go back. But the idea of sitting through a thirty-day quarantine simply to deal with the compound challenges and red-tape that now enwrap domestic travel in China carries little appeal. Sadly, my next high-speed rail journey will either be Acela or EuroStar, and I don’t know when – or if – I will ever find myself on Harmony again.

But those were good times, and I want to tip the hat to David Feng and all of the wonderful people on China High-Speed Rail. Thank you all for helping me rediscover my love of rail travel.

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You know those dirty marks left on a jetliner around the outside of the forward left exit door? I have a new term for them: “gate hickeys.”

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Bad idea of the century: taking a corporate jet, extending it 10 feet, cramming it with seats, and selling it as a “regional jet.” RJs are one of the most significant reasons I would rather drive for 6 hours than fly for 1.

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What was the best single-aisle jetliner in the world, and why was it the Boeing 757? Discuss.

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Great Burgers

As I chewed my way through an Angus Burger at Rockit in Chicago back in 2019, a truism occurred to me:

The way to separate great meat from the merely good is to serve it well-done. A patty made from “good” meat will offer decent texture and the flavor of the grill. A “great” patty will give you both along with great flavor from the meat itself, even when on the edge of being overcooked.

So yes, thanks, I will have mine well done, please.

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Thanks in no small part to Mark Wahlberg, I have read my first Spenser story, and now have a new guilty vice.
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Books of 2021: The Myth of Chinese Capitalism

It wasn’t that Tiff told me anything I didn’t already know. It is, rather, the way he lays all the facts out in a cogent argument that made me stop and think. Creating new terms and adding modifiers to frame China’s current economic system and business climate as “capitalism” was once a hopeful expression that China was somehow transitioning to something recognizably capitalist. Today it is clear that any concessions to capital were temporary and expedient, and that the Party has never strayed from its desire to build a centrally-controlled economy that can satisfy the material needs of the people while building national power and prestige.
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