A Connection with China

Reading an article today about the swing to the left in China, I was reminded of a conversation enjoyed recently.

Ping and I met at the Philosophies of Travel conference held in Sydney last weekend. We ended up sitting side-by-side at the closing dinner. Ping is ten years older than me - fifty - and grew up during the tail end of the Cultural Revolution. I was fascinated to have the opportunity to spend some hours chatting with a woman who had lived through those times. She told me about being separated from her parents and sent out into the country as a teenager, what it was like growing up in an "intellectual" family, and how when she and her husband left China twenty years ago, they were not allowed to go to the same country; she went to America, and her husband came to Australia, where she was able to join him. Her two children were born and raised in Australia, though one has recently accepted a scholarship to a prestigious American university.

It speaks volumes about our world that two women with such vastly differnt life stories can sit down and share a meal together. We chatted for hours, and she caught the bus back into the CBD with me, a kindness for which I was grateful amidst the rowdiness of a Saturday night.

Two women, two stories; one meal, and one new connection. The world is small, and the world is full of wonders.