Surprise Encounter

I had to be in Beijing this week for a meeting and ended up not being able to leave right away due to the lack of trains back to my city. We are right in the middle of China's National Holiday, which means that everyone in China is taking at least 3 days off from work to travel and many of them end up here in Beijing. Being here was all completely last minute, but four days later I'm still here in Beijing :). So, I was out and about in a popular part of the city last night doing some shopping (which I just don't do, but hey, I got time to kill :)).



Now, you might know that Beijing has over 12 million people, and with the October holiday week here, the rest of China seems to be here as well. So, it's rush hour (if China even has a rush hour) and I was waiting on the subway platform. I ignored the first train because there was no way humanly possible I could fit. I could see myself struggling with my face smooshed between a person's armpit and the window, and deciding that was not the way to go I waited for the next one. Meanwhile I am just amazed by the sheer masses in a great sea of black heads and start taking pictures of the hounds of people on the subway platform. Through my camera lens I see someone running towards me (which is odd because most people are heading away from me, like a school of fish).
I would have never guessed in a million years who it would be...

One of my best Chinese friends, Tan Chu Michael!

Michael was the very first friend I made in China and over the years we have become good friends. He makes his home in the south (Hengyang, my old city) and I was able to spend some time with him while I was visiting Hengyang this summer. Now, I have not written or talked to Michael since I left Hengyang at the end of July. I had absolutely no idea he would be in Beijing, nor he did me. But there, on the subway platform surrounded by a bajillion people, we ran into each other. How cool is that!?

On his end Michael was with a friend and his friend turned around and said, "look, there's a foreigner taking pictures of all the people in the subway." He kinda rolled his eyes and said that yeah, that's what some foreigners do, not getting too excited about yet another foreigner in Beijing, until he zones in and realizes he recognizes mentioned foreigner :)

Afterward he proceeded to yell at me for five minutes for not calling him or keeping in touch (he has tried and I have not returned his emails, I'll confess)...but, then the clincher "even Ekren (my former teammate who now lives in the far northwest of China) called me from Kashgar and you don't call me!" :) :) It was SO Michael. I saved myself by saying that if I had called he would have known I was planning to be in Beijing and the surprise encounter wouldn't have been nearly as fun.

It's amazing the people you meet along the way.