Hawk's Aerie

Every time I play Mahjong on my iPhone, I'm reminded of when I was waiting in the bathroom line at one of the imperial guard houses at the edge of Tiananmen Square. I was playing the game while waiting forever and a day, and one of the other women looked over my shoulder to see what I was doing. She smiled, did that happy giggle behind the hand that the Chinese like to do, and pointed out to my screen to her friend.

That memory, along with how the women in the elevator smiled and pointed to my panda hat, are two of my fondest memories of the people we interacted with when we were in Beijing.