Crossing the border at Shengzhen herded through scanning machines and filling in forms so they can trace me if I bring in the Swine Flu. Just make it to the bus and manage to get all my things on in time. Driver comments on the size of my luggage and asks if I didn’t wish that I played the violin. We laugh and I sleep on a bus with beds all the way to Guilin, arriving just in time to catch Bradford at his apartment on his way to work. He makes me comfortable and heads off to teach a class of university students. Sit on his couch sipping green tea. Later take a walk around campus. Loudspeakers blaring Chinese pop muzak and intermittent disk jockey’s singsong voice flowing out across basketball courts and classrooms. Bradford
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