The Knack

M-M-M-M-My Sharona. It's not really a digression if it leads off, is it Dear Reader? More of a diversion. A deke. Baseball (leads off) hockey (deke)...there I went again. Which relates in some way to what I want to relate. Finally, a post about my experiences in Shanghai. During the Host Town Program prior to the start of the games, we were herded in groups of 35 or so, hither and yon, to experience a wee bit of Chinese culture and life. It was truly wonderful, and in fact takes up over an hour of Disc One. I took pictures like a madman. I would run ahead of the group to get good shots. I would linger behind to get good shots. I would leave the prescribed route to get good shots. Always, always, always, one of the volunteers would trail me, gesturing back toward the group, "Please. Please." Very polite Orwellian crowd control. Zamiatin could not have scripted it better. (My preferred spelling of Zamiatin. May or may not be that of the Library of Congress). Enough background. On with the anecdote! We were at a park where groups of people were engaged in various collective (ooooh, good word choice!) activities. Staged? Probably. Doesn't matter though. In this space at least. As we were heading back to the bus, I saw a high wall to the right of our path. Vegetation supplemented the height, and added an element of mysterious concealment. In my mind at least. I saw a sign on a big heavy securely locked door. It struck me, not the door, but the image, as a good picture. There was a certain je ne sais quoi to it. I wandered, volunteer in close pursuit, imploringly, "Please, Please..." I raised my camera, zoomed quickly, and got off a shot. That sounds NRAish. I took the picture. There. Better. Later, I asked Sophie, or maybe it was Julie, what the sign said. "Cangku zhongdi xianren moru." Duh! How silly of me. Translated, "Authorized persons only. Keep out!" Bingo.

Note: Xiaotong, a co-worker, gave me the Pinyin transliteration of the sign, not Sophie, or Julie, as, one might conclude from the way I wrote this. Assuming anyone actually reads this thing.