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August 10, 2005

WJ, a good friend of mine, came back home on vacation. We knew each other when I was at Florida Atlantic University where he was a professor computer science. We normally tried to meet every time when we both were in Shanghai. Last year, I postponed my trip by one day just trying to be able to see him. This was the third time we met here. He is a native and knows what’s going on. Apart from being helpful, he is also super nice.

We met in front a new shopping mall near People’s Square. This impressive building was not here last year but now already open for business. The pace of development in Shanghai was incredible. One of his students CX also joined us. She now worked in Texas State University and just recently obtained her tenure track. This was a good reason for celebration.

On our way to a restaurant we walked through different shopping malls to avoid hot wave outside. The malls were no different from those in the States. When we got a row of restaurants, we had a hard time deciding which one to eat in. Finally we decided to select that one we had dinner last year. We ordered shanghai style dishes and wine. Not surprisingly the food we ordered was again more than enough.

When the bill came, we all wanted to pay. Finally we agreed on CX for celebration of her recently acquired tenure. After dinner we went a new district of bars. There were two existing well known places HengShan Road and the New World. Both places were rather crowded. We selected the new one for its freshness and calmness. First we tried a bar called Baby Face upon a friend’s recommendation but the attitudes of servers were terribly unfriendly and it was rather noisy. We decided to go to a bar by the name of Chez Simone near by. We all liked the place. It was clean and quite with soft music in the background. A while later, Vivian, another mutual friend of WJ and mine, showed up. She worked in a newly open 5-star hotel and was rather busy. She invited us to pay her a visit and check out the hotel. She was very proud of what she had achieved. I remembered for awhile last year when I talked to her on the phone she was under tremendous pressure to get things in order.

We just sat there drinking and talking. Before long it was already mid-night when we said goodbye to each other and got on our own way.

You may be aware of the theory of 7 degree separation. I have a proof. Last night when talking to ZL, I found that he went to a conference at the same time as WJ did. I casually asked him if they happened to know each other. Guess what, they sat next to each other once at a dinner table during the conference. When I asked WJ today, he said he remembered this young professor who always spoke very orderly and dominated conversations. So much for 7 degrees!

posted by Unknown @ 6:22 AM