My last customer meeting ended at 2pm today, so when I was originally booking my round-trip flight, I wasn’t sure when they would have availability with me and arranged to come back on a 7pm flight. I called AA to rebook me onto an earlier flight, and they placed me on the 5pm flight. At the airport as I was finishing up some work emails, I received a cancellation notice for my flight. While on my computer, some massive grey clouds descended upon Boston Logan airport. For a while, I couldn’t even see through the window because it was like we were being fully drenched in endless streams of water. When the rain dissipated, I tried to go to the nearest gate to see if I could get on the next flight out. And I overheard that a small tornado hovered over the entire Boston Logan airport, resulting in countless cancelled flights, including mine.

I was imagining a tornado spinning, fully surrounding this airport, and imagining all these people, including myself, sitting there, typing away on their computers, reading on their smart phones, completely oblivious. I’m not sure if that is a good or a bad thing.

I silently dealt with the flight rebooking and sat down. Unfortunately, not everyone was as quiet as I was because some rather overweight gentleman came barreling through the crowds of people surrounding the gate I was at while on his phone, complaining at the top of his lungs how mad he was that he had to rebook flights and hotels due to the weather here and how terrible everything is for him. And when he wasn’t done, he proceeded to call four more people to tell them the exact same story. His voice was nearly at shouting volume. Many, many people turned to look his way to give him disapproving looks. He had zero self awareness.

I realize that everyone has different coping mechanisms when travel plans do not work out, but is it really necessary to be complaining loudly so everyone within 200 feet can hear about how horrible your life is when a flight gets cancelled or delayed… when literally every single person standing around you is facing the exact same thing?

While I spent four years in college in the Boston area and then subsequently went back very regularly to visit my then boyfriend for three additional years, there was always one restaurant in the North End I always wanted to eat at, but just never got around to because it was infamous for its long wait (they don’t take reservations), plus it was cash only. From what I’d heard, they were also pretty arrogant and had terrible service, but sometimes, that’s just what you deal with to get good food, right?

Finally, this work trip, some friends in the area suggested we eat in the North End, so I asked if we could go to Giacomo’s. We didn’t wait long; in fact, we waited just long enough for our third friend to arrive and got seated right away. It probably helped that it was a Monday night at around 6:30, too. But when we got seated and I took a look at the menu, it all seemed pretty standard. I couldn’t tell if these were all fresh pastas or not. We ordered the veal parmagianno, the fettuccine with mixed seafood, and the lobster ravioli, as well as the fried calamari to start. The fried calamari was mediocre at best, full of fillers, even fried onions and peppers! The veal and the lobster ravioli were delicious. The mixed seafood was all cooked well. But the fettuccine, although al dente, wasn’t anything remarkable. I wondered why a place this famous wouldn’t have fresh, homemade pasta as a default, or even an option on the menu… until I read a Yelp review that said you actually have to “know to ask” for the fresh pasta with a small uncharge. Why should an Italian place have that be an “off menu” item — isn’t that something so basic to their cuisine?! But almost to make up for it, the prices were pretty reasonable, especially for the North End of Boston; with one starter, three mains, and tax and tip, we ended up paying $26 per person, which is pretty unheard of in this part of town.

Giacomo’s has decent Italian food, but other than the for the prices, I’m not sure why this place is so popular and always has crazy lines. It seems far more overhyped than it should be. I definitely think that New York City is infinitely better for Italian food overall, for the range in price points, quality and variety of Italian dishes, as well as.. well, places that actually offer fresh pasta and don’t make it some senseless secret.

Every time I come to San Francisco for work, I feel grateful that I have a number of colleagues here who I like, value, and appreciate, even beyond work, but I feel conflicted because I rarely get as much work done as I would like. The reason for this is because I end up spending a lot of time catching up 1:1 or in small group settings with them, whether it’s over coffee/tea, lunch, or snack breaks, that I never end up getting all the tasks I originally set out to do done.

The way that I circumvented that this time was by front-loading my month to ensure that the majority of my calendar was free while I was here this week. It’s the end of our fiscal quarter, so while sales is scrambling to close their last deals, I’m pretty much done with my planned customer engagements and can calm down a bit and catch up on other “nice to have” tasks that I don’t always have time for.

It felt much better this time around. I didn’t have to feel as rushed or time pressed. I actually could enjoy myself and my catch-ups, and I didn’t constantly have to check my phone for messages, emails, and the time. It was a “relaxed” state of work for me.

In the summer of 2007, I had a summer internship at Fleishman Hillard, which is one of the largest public relations firms in the world, in their downtown San Francisco office. I was working for its technology practice with a very large and busy team. It was located at 555 Market Street, which I’m assuming it still occupies, one of two twin towers that shares a grand entrance complete with a ramp that runs over a waterfall and pond fixture.

Today, I went to its twin building for a customer visit, and it felt a bit funny for me to be entering these buildings again, 12 years later, as a working professional, visiting from New York to meet with one of my customers. I no longer work in public relations (and thank God for that), but I still am in the technology sector. I walked in, feeling grateful that I left PR to pursue technology for many, many reasons. Life would have been very different if I had continued in that career path, and it would have felt pretty lifeless and boring. That entire summer was painful at work, and I waited every day until 4:30 or 5 when it was okay for me to leave. That office was a sea of politics and favoritism, and knowing how low the pay was and how unattractive the benefits were made it even easier to turn my back on it.

A lot is wrong in the technology industry, particularly when it comes to women and people of color. But where I am today is far, far better than the choices I left behind from my college internships.

Chris and I were traveling today from New York to San Francisco for work on the same flight, and we both requested an upgrade via miles. Due to a system malfunction, AA failed to properly process his credit card for the mileage upgrade, so he got skipped over in favor of two people behind him on the upgrade list. I got upgraded in advance of our flight, so I was already set up in business class. He was not happy about this.

So I set myself up in the first row of business class, and as the flight attendants shut the plane doors to complete the boarding process, I stood up to take a look back at the rest of this cabin. Lo and behold, as with nearly every other upgraded flight I am on, it’s always the exact same view: a large sea of white men gracing the entire cabin. The few exceptions are the occasional one or two white or South Asian women, and of course, me. In this case, every single person in business class was a white male except for the white woman seated next to me and myself.

We have a legacy of racial inequality that we cannot escape, as much as people want to assume that race does not affect or factor into everything. Once someone claims he is sick and tired of viewing everything through a lens of race, that’s when you know he is blinded by his own privilege and the injustices he may never have had to encounter himself. Why is that? Because it is such an extreme privilege to not have to think about one’s race in daily interactions, how we are treated, how we are looked at. At this point in my travels, I shouldn’t be that phased by this view behind me. I should accept this as the reality of travel. But it still irritates me a little bit every time, particularly with these transcontinental flights. I am a tiny part of that change, but fliers like that white woman next to me and/or Chris are not enough.

I’m on a plane again just two days after coming back from China. My colleagues were making fun of me yesterday about this. “You just got back last night, and you’re on a flight again tomorrow? You’re crazy!” Well, when work has to get done, work has to get done. And I’d like to say that I pride myself on being productive and getting crap done, which means I oftentimes need to travel to do this with customers. 

Traveling to see customers also takes me out of my usual day-to-day routine, which helps me keep my sanity, especially when yesterday’s snafu occurred. I don’t have to directly deal with the same politics, the same insipid nonsense of office life that makes me want to grind my teeth down. And, I also get the ability to have little luxuries like a hotel room that overlooks a manmade lake at a resort in Orlando, or enjoy lobster deviled eggs at a well-appointed bar at the JW Marriott in Grande Lakes. In this sense, I don’t have much to complain about and recognize that I am quite a lucky person. 

The last time I transited in Tokyo Narita International Airport was two years ago when Chris and I were passing through to and from Taiwan. I remember thinking that on our way back to New York, I wanted to stop by one of the duty-free shops, Akihabara, to pick up some Royce chocolate that I love. In Japan, these Royce Nama chocolates are only the equivalent of $4-5 USD, while at the duty-free shop at Narita, they are around $6 USD. However, if you want to buy them in the U.S. at an official Royce shop, like the ones that are in New York City, for the same box, you’d pay $18 USD, which is crazy! I understand why they would do this from a capitalistic, money-making perspective, but on the consumer side, there’s no way I would be that desperate to pay over three times as much for the same product, even if I only pass through Tokyo every few years. These are little luxuries I can live without.

Two years ago, though, I failed at my attempt to buy them because the line for checkout at this duty-free shop was far out of the store and snaking out. I couldn’t believe that I was seeing this with my own eyes; the wait would have been at least 45 minutes in line, not to mention all the aggressive Chinese tourists literally sweeping up shelves and shelves of products into their shopping carts. Others were running around chaotically, grabbing whatever was available and barely even looking at what they were snatching up to buy. I was really upset then and determined to make sure I actually came out successful this time. And I was successful this time at two different stores, one without even a minute’s wait. There was slightly less aggression from Chinese tourists, but this time, I noticed that some of the people buying multiple shopping carts-worth of Japanese chocolate and green-tea biscuits were not just Chinese this time, but white American and European tourists! More competition at duty-free now! It seems like everyone is discovering all these Japanese sweets and wanting to take them home, both for themselves and as well as their family and friends as gifts.

Chris’s commentary on food has certainly evolved over the course of our relationship. While he’s always enjoyed food, as the years have gone on together, he’s become far more vocal when it comes to flavors, textures, and presentation. This has even extended itself into foods he feels okay about, but doesn’t necessarily love or gravitate towards, such as bubble tea/tapioca tea/boba, and loose leaf tea, like the ones we’ve been tasting throughout this China trip. Before this trip, Chris never had a strong opinion about any bubble tea or loose leaf tea I’ve tasted or bought and had him try. He would just say they were fine or good and say it was my choice whether I liked them enough to buy them, and leave it at that.

As far as I can recall this trip, we’ve had about five different bubble tea drinks, and he’s declared the Yu Cha outside of our Chengdu hotel his favorite: in the taro milk tea, there was a very generous portion of minced and stewed taro — creamy, slightly sweet, and very rich. Then, in the egg pudding milk tea, the egg pudding was also creamy and rich, eggy and custardy. He disliked one of the ubiquitous chains we went to for their milk tea, insisting it wasn’t that sweet or unique, that the tea flavor felt watered down. And he’s not a huge fan of the “cheese” top with the salty-sweet milk foam, even though I love it. “That’s not good… I don’t want that,” he thought out loud. “That’s just tea with some milky thing on top, and that is not milk tea. Milk tea is tea with milk incorporated into it.”

The worst tea tasting we had was of a few Sichuanese teas at a Tianfu tea shop in Beijing. I was unimpressed by all four of the teas we tried. Two of them tasted like vegetables in a cup. A third one tasted like… nothing. The fourth one was probably the most flavorful, but that was a sad comparison when holding it against the other three. Chris sat there, also unimpressed after sipping from his tasting cup, and insisted that two out of four of them were “grass in a bowl. This is like drinking grass. This is not good. But, you’re drinking it, so you decide.” Luckily, the shop assistant helping us knew zero English and understood nothing that Chris so vocally stated. When she asked our opinion, I simply said that we were not particularly fond of any of these, and left it at that. She seemed crushed knowing she wouldn’t get a commission off of us.

But while at Zhu Ye Qing and the tea tastings we did at the tea market in Shanghai and Beijing, Chris declared these tastings far, far superior to the one at Tianfu tea shop, which is a mid-tier tea chain throughout China. “Not even a single tea we tasted at this place (Tianfu) can compare to the quality of teas we had at these other places. They’re just charging you for grass,” he insisted.

Tastes evolve over time, even for things you don’t really think you like much. That’s why it’s good to keep an open mind when traveling to places you aren’t very familiar with and still tasting things when you previously thought you might not have enjoyed them. You might actually discover you like said food or drink because maybe, just maybe you will have a version of it that suits your tastes.

I’ve eaten quite a bit of Peking duck in my life. I’ve felt disappointed by duck experiences in cities other than San Francisco to date. In Boston, they were subpar. Here in New York, it took nearly ten years of living here before I was able to find a place that I could reliably go to and enjoy (and stomach the cost for, since here, it seems like you need to empty out your life savings just to have some version of a Peking duck… that isn’t even that great in the end). In Hong Kong, we had a delicious Peking duck experience, but for me, it was a bit tainted because the thin pancakes that were served seemed underdone and as though there was still flour on them… Were we being served raw pancakes…?

So when we were planning our trip to Beijing, I knew that we had to optimize our Peking duck experience, so I did pretty extensive research before I landed on one specific place that I knew we absolutely had to go to: Siji Minfu, which just happens to be a few blocks away from our hotel. They don’t seem to take reservations anymore, so after our half-day trip to the Great Wall, I asked our driver if he could drop us off there at around 1:30, which is considered “off-peak” hours for the place. I’d previously read that since they stopped taking reservations, diners, both local and tourist, can wait up to two hours for a table, and neither of us was interested in waiting that long for anything.

We were in luck: the hostess told us that only eight parties were ahead of us, and it would be anywhere from a 15-20-minute wait. I was already salivating, thinking about how glorious this meal could be that was just half an hour away.

Oftentimes, the uninitiated ask, what makes Peking duck different from the average roast duck? Isn’t duck just duck? Well, no, it isn’t, and it’s an extremely laborious and time intensive process that no average home cook with an average kitchen could replicate. Peking duck, from a historical standpoint, has existed for several hundred years, but it wasn’t until the mid 1800s when someone decided to open a restaurant here in Beijing that publicized this duck making process to the everyday Beijinger: chefs would hang the ducks upright in an oven heated with fruitwood fire. This hanging technique allows for more space for the duck’s endless rendered fat to properly drain, which results in a crispier, drier skin: the pride and joy of Peking duck. In a good Peking duck, the skin and the meat is fully and completely separated so that the skin can render out fat from both the top and the bottom, and also bastes the meat as it cooks.

We waited a long time for our duck after ordering.. it felt like at least an hour. It was so long that Chris started getting cranky as he saw other tables being served their ducks and having them butchered for them alongside their tables. Once the duck is taken out of the oven, it is hung and rested, then the chef wipes off any excess fat from the skin, and puts the duck on a serving tray and gives it to one of a handful of butchers who will present this glory to you, the diner. You have the option of ordering freshly made, paper-thin pancakes for wrapping, as well as little condiment trays that are filled with crushed garlic, various pickled vegetables, batons of thinly sliced cucumber and scallion, and the most savory and complex hoisin sauce I’d ever tasted in my life. It was very obviously fermented and made of beans… When I think about it now, maybe it wasn’t even “hoisin sauce” as I know it here. But regardless, it was the most delicious sauce I’ve ever had served with Peking duck. Chris was in love with this.

The skill with which the butcher exercised as he cut through this duck was so impressive; each cut was quick and swift, and not a single piece of skin or meat was wasted or left on the bone, unlike in the States, when I oftentimes am lamenting how much meat is left on the bone and sent back to the kitchen after slicing. I couldn’t believe how quickly he cut up this entire duck for us. When it arrived, beautifully laid out and presented on three different serving platters on our table, it was still hot and steamy. The duck was finally ready for us… even though we had been ready for the duck ages ago.

One bite of the skin and the meat, and I was in heaven: the meat, despite being fatty duck meat, was not even in the least bit fatty or greasy. It had the perfect soft texture and taste, and actually felt lean! And the skin is a completely different story: it was crispy without being crunchy, if that makes any sense. It literally just shattered in my mouth. And when I left it to linger on my tongue, it would dissolve within seconds, pretty much melting away. The flavor was so sweet, rich, savory, smoky, and deep; there’s truly no other duck experience I’ve had that is even a fraction of what this was to me.

When I’ve spoken with people who have traveled around China, most often say that Beijing is not one of their favorite places. Whether that is related to the food, the constant feeling of the government watching you everywhere given that it is China’s capital, to the sense of arrogance one can encounter from Beijingers, it seems to generally be agreed upon.

So, I wasn’t that surprised when we arrived, and I immediately felt irritated not only by the level of heat and humidity, but also by the constant stream of cabbies who either tried to lie and tell me that their meter wasn’t working and that they’d have to offer me a fixed fare, or they’d tell me that they’d only take me if I’d pay them 100 yuan (for a ride that probably shouldn’t cost more than 15-20). It was never like this in Shanghai, in 2006 or a few days ago. It was absolutely nothing like this in Chengdu or Leshan. So this was just infuriating. I would yell at them and tell them I wouldn’t accept it, that they were trying to cheat me and that they were con men. I’d then walk away in a huff. Chris, more aggressively, would yell at them, leave their cab doors open, and even kick their cars (to which they seemed genuinely frightened. I mean, he’s a brown man in a yellow country, after all… and they can never quite predict what the brown man would do, right?).

So, it was a welcome break to spend half a day with Zhang Feng, our driver, who took us to Huanghuacheng, or the “yellow flower” section of the Great Wall, about 90 minutes outside of Beijing. I’d read previously that this section of the Great Wall had previously been closed to the public, but two years ago, they’d opened it back up. It is not maintained and restored at all, and the section where you actually enter is technically on private land that is owned by some local people, who Feng paid via WeChat (seems sketchy, but I’m okay with that… but if you think about it, this is private land for a public landmark… what…?!). I asked him how much the admission was that these people were charging, and I think he said it was only 30 yuan, which is crazy to me.

Zhang was a bit relieved when he found out that I could speak some Chinese. I knew when I booked this that the company I was interfacing with had run out of English guides, but given I was desperate to a) go to a section of the wall that would be less crowded and more unpreserved and b) not do a big group tour, I told the person I was corresponding with that a driver who speaks limited English would be fine… since that was all that was available. If he was just our driver, he could just be that. And if he would be willing to chat, I could always translate to Chris. And through chatting with Feng, I realized “limited” English really just meant that he could say hello, goodbye, and thank you. But he was smart in that he used his mobile device’s translation app when he wanted to convey things he couldn’t do with language. In the end it was fine because it meant I could practice my Chinese and work on my listening skills. He was extremely chatty, asking about everything from our trip to what the U.S. was like to my family, even asking me when I was planning to have kids (I expected this when I told him how old I was. Chinese people don’t seem to think any topic is off limits, especially when they are talking to people of their “own kind”).

So he took us to this section of the wall, which is also known as being the only section of the 13,000+ mile-long wall that has a body of water. The wall stretches from Gansu province in the west all the way to Liaoning in the east — if you take a look at a map of the wall laid out over China — that’s pretty darn long. It was a bit ominous given that we could see that an entire section had broken off. He kept yelling from afar not to get too close to the break-off point at the end, otherwise we’d literally fall into the lake. And it was even more ominous given that it was grey and raining, so it was extremely wet and slippery everywhere. In many sections of the wall, there are no steps; it’s just a steep incline that you’re supposed to navigate on your own. Going up is fine… coming down might be a concern. With the slippery surfaces, many times, we were forced to use our hands to actually climb up. I understand why now, the description on their website suggested that anyone who is elderly or pregnant not visit this section.

The greatest part of coming here, though, was that there was almost no one there. At most, we probably saw 16-20 other people total, but most of the time, we were together for a few minutes in passing, and they’d leave. The rain eventually stopped, and given the heat and humidity, the bricks from the wall started slowly but surely drying up, so when it was time for us to climb back down, it wasn’t so bad. We kept looking out into this endlessly long wall and fortress that would keep going and going, and see absolutely no one. It was the eeriest feeling standing along the wall and looking out to see no one. There were many moments when I didn’t take any photos and just kept looking out into the mountains and the zigzagging wall, wondering… how strange it is to literally be standing in the most populous country on earth… in what feels like its most deserted area, all by ourselves. We’re alone here, and no one else is here. It almost felt like an echo in my head. It was a very strange feeling, but so peaceful and calm. I smiled to myself. This is really amazing.

Feng was extremely enthusiastic and took endless photos of us in all different angles. He got worried about my photo quality, especially when I was wearing the poncho he gave me to stay dry. “That won’t look good in your photos at home when you frame them and show them to family and friends!” he kept saying. And as we passed through for him to pay the locals our entrance fare, the women fussed over Chris, insisting he either use an umbrella or buy a poncho, otherwise he’d catch a cold and get really sick. Chris was unamused by the mothering.

This was Chris’s second time visiting the Great Wall, and he said that the last section he visited definitely had far more people, and this was an altogether very different experience from his first time.

It felt so strange to be at a tiny section of the Great Wall today, something that was put into production beginning in the seventh century; it’s hard to even fathom anything still standing from them. I was standing on the longest man-made construction in the world, of all time. How crazy, I kept thinking. And it’s far more beautiful in person than I’d imagined from the photos I’d seen before. It’s so famous, something that everyone knows and recognizes, yet not everyone actually goes to see. But then if you think about it, given how long it is, no one ever really goes to see the very beginning or the very end of the wall; the majority of the people who come to see it are like us, visiting from Beijing and doing a half-day or day trip there. I would really love to see what this wall is like at the ends, whether it is in Gansu or in Liaoning.