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A Slice of Nostalgia in China Part 1
A sense of belonging in a strange environment
September 25, 2017, 12:00 PM, Beijing, China
The cars honking in Beijing suddenly started getting quiet. The brown sky was fading to black. I was fainting. Instinctively I sat down on the concrete steps outside the Bank of China branch, where my friend James had been inside for more than 20 minutes.
I had enough time to lay my giant suitcase on its side, so it wouldn’t go rolling down the steps.
I leaned against my suitcase as a feeling of deep inner peace swept over me. It was 96 degrees (35 C) on a Beijing afternoon. The AQI index was 250, just below the smog threshold of 300 where it’s dangerous for anyone to go outside.
Now it felt like nighttime and the whole city was quiet.
48 hours prior, I had been food poisoned by undercooked beef in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. After being unable to keep even water down, my friend James offered to take me to the emergency room. I had never felt more sick.
I imagined being stranded in a Mongolian hospital, and then having to wait seven days for the next train to Beijing.
We had arrived by the Trans-Siberian railroad from Moscow, which took seven days with no…
