Doubling Up

My workout for baseball season was running for my life on the football field. Bo Jackson

Two summer ago I worked on Capitol Hill for a legislative arm that advises Congress on Chinese-American relations. Nearly a quarter of the twenty person staff were Minnesotans. Last summer I studied Chinese near Shanghai, in a city named Suzhou, with a State Department Scholarship program. Nearly a quarter of the twenty participants were Jewish. So I was not surprised when I discovered that the program I am now studying with in Beijing has a disproportionate number of Minnesotans and Jews. I am the only one on the program contributing to both spreads. Not sure if it is comforting or weird how the two identities seem to be shadowing me everywhere I go with this China business.