The past few days have been a whirlwind. I would not have imagined it was possible, but I have to say that if there's anything that could top coming to China last year, it's coming to China this year. Last year, I had a new, exciting and wonderful adventure; this year, I've come back to familiar places and the company of friends.

I'm leaving for Harbin this morning after a wonderful few days in Beijing. On Tuesday I was met at the airport by my friend Ying, and I got to have dinner with her, her husband, and her son at the same Peking Duck restaurant we ate at last year - yummmmmmmm! Then, the next day, I hung out with a woman I met in March (when Ying and she came over to the University of Michigan, U. Va., and Georgia Tech - a trip I helped to organiza, and so Ying invited me to stay with them in Ann Arbor). We went to the silk market, and it turns out Qi Chun is a riot - I have never had so much fun shopping in my life. (Didn't hurt that while we were out, Chun learned that she had been promoted from Assistant to Associate Professor, so she was just giddy.) I had dinner with Chun and the other professor who had come to the U.S., too.

Then yesterday Ying was busy, so she arranged for me to have two undergrads chaperone me around at this huge garden (whose name I only know in Chinese :). Afterwards we went to visit the hutongs, which are old-style Beijing neighborhoods. We ended up at a lake . . . and as it happened (I thought we might go to the Water Cubic) I had my bathing suit, so those poor little girls didn't have a prayer of keeping me out of the water. As you may remember from last year, people in China don't swim much. They were swimming here, though . . . except when I got my suit on and approached the water, I realized that all the swimmers were men. Oh, well. Gender was the least of my differences, I figured, and dove right in. What really caused a stir was my underwater camera. :)

Then, just as I emerged from the water, the girls told me that my friend Tang Sai's husband had called and was a few minutes away and coming to meet us. Tang Sai is in the U.S. for a year, and she really wanted me to meet him - and I wanted to meet him, too - but I would have preferred greeting him with clothes on . . . Nonetheless, we had a terrific time; we went for a drink at a nearby bar, and between my smattering of Chinese and the girls' help, we had a good conversation.

Then back to an evening of dinner and a stage performance (the legend of Kung Fu) that deserves its own post with Ying and her mother and son.

So why "thanks, dad" for a subject line? One of the most compelling aspects of this whole getting-to-know-China experience is that it makes me feel like I am using all the gifts given to me by both my parents. In the past few days I've realized that I can crack a joke with my ten words of Chinese and people will laugh; that I can keep the conversation going even when I have no words; and I can put people at their ease. And I learned all of this at my father's knee. My father was the life of the party. He knew how to treat people to make them feel valued, respected, and liked. (Principally because he genuinely valued, respected, and liked most people.) He had more friends than I can count.

So thanks, Dad. I wish we'd had more than fourteen years, but I am enormously grateful for the gifts that keep on giving, and I am warmed to the tips of my toes to be reminded of you this way . . .

More soon. Gotta run or I'll miss my plane.