Oh, I Hate Talking About Work...

I've always said that who I am and what I do in my professional career are entirely separate and bear no relationship to each other. But after the past week, I think that's becoming less true each passing year.

Of particular interest to me was a meeting I had this previous week.

On Monday last, a representative of the State Department contacted us about meeting with a delegate from the People's Republic of China to meet with our agency to discussing housing options.

It was a fact-finding tour for the Chinese government to find more options for their disabled population.

In my previous political work, I was in the position to meet a lot of state and national leaders. While the work that they do is interesting, their elected status never changed their personal stature, is my observation. That is to say, I've never been intimidated meeting anybody whose name has appeared on a ballot, no matter the race.

While meeting with the delegate, the differences between this meeting and all others I had was obvious.

It took quite a bit longer. I've never been in a meeting before that required a translator. It's amazing how nuanced and lingoistic the English language is and how often we forget that.

It was also the first meeting I had with a bona fide Communist. I couldn't help but think that the person I was meeting with was a representative of the government responsible for Tiananmen Square. I also kept wondering if I could work in lines from Allen Ginsburg's poem about Chiang Kai-sheck, which brings me to my last observation.

For all its faults, for all its shortcomings, for all its overzealous pomposity, there is no other country as generous to its own citizens as this country.