Rippled

Living overseas, I am amazed at how horrible events somewhere else in the world have a ripple effect on my personal schedule.

Yesterday, a friend called to tell me she would be free for dinner, after all. Her previous engagement for dinner at the Armenian Embassy had been cancelled due to an Armenian plane crashing into the Black Sea this week. A tragic plane crash somewhere else meant I don’t have to eat alone Friday night.

The biggest headline ripple for me, of course, was the 1999 U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. We were living in Beijing at the time. Understandably outraged, the Chinese government bussed in huge numbers of students to Beijing for anti-American protests. The American Embassy there was in lock-down. There were reports of Americans, including a CNN reporter, being roughed up.

For security reasons, my children’s school canceled their annual discovery trips. In fact, school was cancelled. Anyone who might be mistaken for American (including Canadians, Europeans and Australians) found it prudent not to leave our guarded, gated residential compound.

One of my neighbors got a call in the middle of the night from her husband’s employer. They were pulling all their American employees out of China. She and her husband had to wake up their three young children and hightail it to the airport for the first flight out.

I took the precaution of dusting off our personal emergency evacuation plans. Airline tickets reserved? Check. Bicycles in shape to get to the airport? Check. Sufficient dollars in the safe to bribe our way out if necessary? Check.

But mostly, I spent the days trading information with my neighbors, trying to assess the risk by getting a handle on what was happening in the streets. My biggest concern was the government ability to control the protests.

But I needn’t have worried. After about three tense days, things calmed down. Expats returned. School resumed. Life in Beijing went on.

Today, what I MOST remember about that week was being forced to cancel my trip to Hong Kong with Larry. Hong Kong, unlike Beijing, had Mexican food and theaters with American movies. Because the U.S. drops a bomb thousands of miles away, I don’t get to eat enchiladas. That’s a very strange ripple.