I'm getting older, which means the first few twinkling of senility are are becoming apparent. Neural synapses are being destroyed, and as they do I'll get weird recollections that have nothing to do with my current circumstances. So, right now it's Thanksgiving evening, and right now I'm thinking about the time I visited China a few years ago.
My wife, her parents and I had visited the Forbidden City in Beijing. Plenty of interesting ancient buildings. They were the bureaucratic landscape that maintained the Chinese empire for centuries. Outside the Forbidden City is Tienanmen Square, the current bureaucratic landscape of China. No longer "forbidden" China's Great Hall of the People contains the legislative body of China.
Anyway, we had finished touring the Forbidden City, and were looking at Tienanmen Square. My father in law was talking to one of the PLA soldiers about when the lowering of the flag would be, and if Mao's tomb was still open. I didn't speak Mandarin, so I was just looking around like a dumb mute.
I noticed an older, senior officer, possibly a colonel or brigadier, riding a rusty old bicycle. He was in dress uniform, and riding roughly away from the Hall of the People, in my general direction. He had a basket in the front of his bike, with a toddler in the basket, possibly is grand-kid. Two of the soldiers standing guard came to attention and saluted the brigadier. He saluted back while lazily peddling past them.... the kid saluted, too. He didn't even look back to see if his grand-dad was saluting. He must have thought the soldiers were saluting to him. Grand-dad, commander of a brigade containing thousands of soldiers, decided to take his grandson to work today... And is riding his rusty bicycle back home, past the Forbidden City....
Dunno why, but that's something I'll always remember.
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