LAST DAYS OF SHANGHAI'S SUMMER

If my weather sources serve me better than daily astrologers (and what are they doing about the Pluto controversy?) than it seems we are winding down from a recent walk out the door sauna or if you prefer furnace blast of diry damp air that hasn't bothered me over the last month while others complained. I thought they were whining until I spent the longest time I've ever spent waiting for a taxi, on Yan An Lu (under the elevated highway). The smell of diesel and exhaust, the heat, youza! Then the only cab driver around to pick me up after a baffling, how will I get home, where do these buses go, was smoking so I cracked the window for some breeze.

I thought he didn't have air until we swung by my street and Mr. F. hopped in - He knew the word for air conditioner and when it went on, said to me, "He must have thought you were crazy to pull down the window!" Several minutes later we were at the nearest thing to Mexican food in Shanghai and then more than a little startled by the jarring sound of rev themed Mexican and southern american bands. It made LA life more real than here and I could see how upset Mr. F. was, like it was better then, "it was my old life" and in a way it was better for him. But here we are, estranged from the streets of LA, two years to the day, the end of August, the end of summer.

On a bright note, a great meeting with colleagues today about what we'd do with our classes on certain issue - it wasn't top down from the manager, but she listened to everyone's ideas and then we decided. Colleagues who, by age grew up "in the day." When she said, "we won't be having classes the afternoons when they do their political classes, history of the Party, Marxism, etc." I thought, this could never happen where I come from, where not so long ago, nasty and ugly treatment of not nearly as controversial progressive voices in faculty. But here, we were discussing these things "business-as-usual."