[JOURNAL ENTRY, OCTOBER 2004:]

There are about a billion and a half Chinese, and they all seem to ride the subway at the same time that I do. Still, it’s interesting to watch people. In China, as elsewhere, girls who really like a guy always look at him in the same way. And when they don’t really care about a guy, they will look at him in a different way, but all with the same expression. Also, Chinese girls appear to show their outrage over men in the same manner as women in other countries express their outrage over men. You can always tell when a girl is talking about some guy who has really pissed her off. And even if you can’t understand the words, you know that it’s the same damn conversation. One girl will tell her girlfriend: “I can’t believe what he did! He has no idea how I feel—and he doesn’t care, either!” Then her friend will commiserate, saying something like, “He’s a jerk! Forget him! You can do better than that loser.”

It’s comforting to know that at that very moment, there are...

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