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“Rachel, Rachel, where are thou?”

“Everywhere unfortunately” wrote my 8th grade teacher – a hottie – on the blackboard in some sort of flirtatious way that was in hindsight inappropriate. And so I met a woman whose name is Rachel, who said “nice name” and sat down across from me and she looked at the prayer box pendant hanging from my neck and said, “I have one the same,” and then simultaneously we both said, “my sister gave it to…

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Mandatory evacuation

I was sitting in a Shanghai office building in a glass conference room when the government issued a mandatory go home now, there is typhoon coming, order and I watched from behind the glass as workers ran down the hall and towards the elevator. I turned to the people I was meeting with, one a Mickey Rourke look alike and asked calmly if we should be panicking at this point or not and all of…

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Lost in Translation

A day spent waiting for typhoon Wipha to do her thing again, and a full agenda of meetings where my every word had to be translated once, sometimes twice, and by the end of the day, I felt that much further away from my subject matter as I stared out the window at the wind blowing and the intermitten heavy rainfall. Driving along the roads where people went by on bikes with large umbrellas opened…

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Walk on by Wipha

The preview of coming attractions with floods, torrential rains, high winds by midnight was quiet when that was supposed to be the time we were bracing for the big one – it appears Wipha has skirted Shanghai and for the time being it’s a little quieter than usual because schools closed – and there is speculation we might be getting another bout coming through.

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