Tuesday

I thought about calling or e-mailing to say I wouldn’t be there. I mean, I’d given my word, but forgotten about the commitment overnight, literally. But rather than cancel, I decide to show up late. The ad says 10am – 12pm. It doesn’t say you must show up at 10am. In fact, the way I’m conveniently reading it now, it says you have to get there before noon.

So, I show up at the café at 10:30 and am greeted by an audience that could easily be confused with that of Oprah Winfrey’s. Aside from our 40-year-old New Zealand host, who’s standing up and ranting, I am the only man in the room. Oh, wait, actually, there is one more man in the room, but he’s a little man, maybe two years old. And I quickly find that he’s very cute when he’s not crying, which is to say he’s rarely cute. Such is the scene at John McKenna’s “Travel the Real China” lecture at Figaro Coffee in South Shanghai.

There must be 30 women in attendance, mostly ranging in age from 35 to 60 and I chat it up with two of them after John’s lecture, which was loaded with good stuff about the nuances of seeing cool China. These women have traveled the country extensively over the last 20 years and can speak the language to some degree. I’m immediately jealous of them. The main thrust of their advice is that the Great Wall is over-rated and checking out the mid-country caves is well worth the time.

Extensive travel looms on the horizon with friends visiting soon, and so I prepare them, and myself, for the Real China.