Monday, October 15, 2012

All the Cheese in China, with added jetlag

It's about 5.20am in China. I know this because I'm in a Beijing hotel room, snacking on my usual 5.20am cheese.

It's a very nice comté I had in my bag for the plane journey over here. Didn't finish the comté on the plane because I also had a packet of Parma ham and some figs.

Now I'm wondering whether I really do have cheese at 5.20 every morning. Everything is a little foggy. It feels right. Yes, cheese now feels very right.

But it also feels right to go to bed. Strange. And then again, it also feels right not to go to bed but to go and find more cheese.

All the cheese in China. That's a thing, isn't it?

I remember arriving in China. That was yesterday, I think. I remember a whole district of the city dedicated to tea. I drunk a lot of tea. Green tea, oolong tea, high mountain tea, puerh tea, more green tea, danchong tea...

All that tea can't have been a dream. I know it was not a dream because every hour I am producing enough urine to irrigate a farm.

I remember a dumpling.

Many dumplings. Yes, I don't know when that was, but there were many dumplings. Oh, and the dumplings were good. The best dumplings. My emotional memory is creating a splendid wash of pork and leek and dumpling-y joy. Maybe the dumplings were a dream.

I'm in China to speak about my books and run workshops at an international school. But really I'm in China for the tea and the dumplings.

Why is there a piece of cheese in my hand?

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