A Small World

On the first day of orientation, I arrived in the evening to our hotel in Beijing and met several of the other students. A group of about 8 of us ended up going out to eat dinner. We managed to find a Hui (Chinese Muslim) restaurant about a 10 minute walk from the hotel. As we were eating, we introduced ourselves and I found out to my surprise that one of the students was also from New York. Not only that, but she was also from Brooklyn. To my surprise, she also turned out to be an alumna of my high school and friends with my girlfriend, who is also a ’07 alumna. Even though we grew up in the same city and went to the same high school, we ended up meeting halfway around the world, on our way to study Chinese in Harbin. What a small world!