Saturday, July 19, 2008

A Moment of Truth

Never trust the man who tells you all his troubles but keeps from you all his joys. Yiddishism

Mondays are always frantic, with the first of the daily Chinese listening and writing quizzes that make every evening a blizzard of scribbling and endless memorization. So my run this morning was necessary circumscribed as well.

The highlight was certainly returning to the large park I had visited the day before. I made sure to enter by a different gate and leave by the same one I had used yesterday. While exiting at the latter gate, I stopped to purchase and hand a park ticket over to the guards. When I turned down the street and began heading for home, the guards raised a hue and cry, confused as to why I had just paid for an entrance ticket and was now leaving! My explanation that I was the same young guy without cash from the previous morning who had promised he would return to pay the ticket fee only made them more surprised that I had actually made good on my word. The small price of two yuan was nothing compared to the chance to leave the guards stunned at my behavior as I ran off down the road.

2 comments:

  1. That's a pretty cool story, but I can't believe they let you in the first time without paying.

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  2. That's pretty awesome, but how did you end up going somewhere without even 2 yuan on you? Also why are you running in Beijing at all? I thought the idea was to get healthier through exercise.

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