The Longbow Papers

My often needed bridge to sanity and to relative reality while living and working in China is a guy known to hundreds of millions of CCTV International viewers of the program "Dialogue" as the articulate, gentle American giant (he's six-foot-five) and International Relations genius with the distinctive buzz haircut. In academic and publishing circles he is known as Dr. Russell Leigh Moses. I am most fortunate to be able to call him Russ and, far more importantly, friend.

If over time I am going to become even a little bit accurately knowledgeable on the history and the processes of the New China, it will be in very large measure due to Russ. He has been in China for most of the last dozen years or so, primarily with the John Hopkins Center in Nanjing, and now the last two in Beijing finishing his next book. He speaks Mandarin fluently, and colorfully.

Russ and his exceedingly accomplished wife Jie, a native Nanjinger, are in the process of moving into their newly purchased, newly constructed, newly decorated Beijing home. Buying a home is a major commitment anywhere at anytime. But, for an American scholar, author, IR specialist and consultant with major political credits and therefore many economic reasons for being in the States, it is even more so. China is better for the fact that Russ--and Jie--made this commitment.

Russ and I try to get together once a week for a lunch of freshly made jaozi at a tiny, four-table eatery deep inside a still-thriving, not at all gentrified, hutong in the Baitasi area of west central Beijing--so named for its elegant, majestic White Dagoba Temple perpetually o're hanging. After we eat several steaming platters of
cabbage, mushroom and egg dumplings--during which Russ will converse familiarly with the family that operates the shop and the neighborhood regulars that drop in while we're there--we walk them off by exploring the limitless nooks and crannies of a number of central Beijing hutongs.

Actually, I'm the one exploring; Russ is guiding me through a labyrinth of Chinese culture he has tread before. He will have reason to tread these kaleidoscopic pathways of time and senses even more frequently some time next week, after he and Jie move into their new digs.

Below you will see a picture of me on one of the terraces of the new Moses domicile. An almost perfect mix of the best of the old and the best of the new, Russ and Jie's new home is in a small, modern complex that does not detract from the traditions and rhythms of the neighborhood surrounding it. They spent almost a year making it happen; and it is a very good happening. Congratulations!


A note about the pictorial repetition of the same old man in the goofy straw hat (me): Russ has a great new camera, and loves to take pictures; he does not like to appear in them, however. He places me in them for spatial perspective only. And to kill cockroaches. It's a fact. With this face? Zap. Up to 30 yards. Dead roaches.

 

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