scarlet robes on a shanghai-bound train

What can I say except Justin (and Cheryl, Hee-Jin, and Naomi this weekend) have kept me busy? I'm gonna try playing catch-up a bit. Hold off on writing about yesterday's fun and try to drag up early-March memories.

I liked Shanghai more than I thought I would. On Sunday afternoon, upon arrival, I wondered completely lost around the huge many-squared train station, enjoyed a donut!!! and coffee with The History of Love, wondered what the helpful traffic police meant when they used the word "daba" for bus, and eventually (sort of accidently) ended up riding the Maglev (magnetic levitation)train to the airport just in time to meet him. The train, which except for a small group of Japanese tourists was mostly deserted, took eight minutes to get to the airport. Yep, it was pretty fast. And I promise, Dad, that next time you come to China, we will ride on this thing.

pic from: www.monorails.org/tmspages/MagShang.html

I have these phrases scribbled in my yellow notebook, with stars and exclamation points:

Justin is coming!
I'm in Shanghai!
I'm eating a donut!
I'm going 431 km/hr!
The Yao Ming on that giant Visa card ad is wearing lipstick!

Earlier in the Nanjing train station I had written:

The class isn't as exclusively high for this fast train as I imagined it might be. The ubitiquous plaid-striped bags, and one of those huge shapeless fake-jean backpacks that Jesse Bauman bought in Nanchong.

I don't know why people get up and pile up in the lines. We'll all get there eventually, won't we?

Across from me two Tibetan monks in full scarlet robes. One wears zip-up boots that look really warm. Too warm maybe. He has a deep cough. A long-haired companion too, not in robes. I wonder who they will meet in Shanghai. Or are they headed international?

And now I'm drug back to this morning, when I was so sobered by more news about protests in Tibet and in other parts of Western China. Protesters being arrested and killed. Looting, burning, and rock-throwing, while not helpful I agree, are not nearly as scary to me as the stories offered as explanations, and the way that even cynical friends here believe that yes, China is one, and anyone who dares to say otherwise is just asking for (read:deserves) trouble.

(And yes, I appreciate the irony of, in one post, loving on the Maglev and hating on the policies that build face like that.)

Borrowed these pictures are from a good blog by a guy who lives in Xinjiang.