JISHOU, HUNAN — This encounter happened this morning, but the stage was set yesterday. I met a Chinese guy who apparently is an itinerant Christian preacher of some kind, and he hit me up for money.
I meet a student every afternoon outside near the basketball courts for our lessons. The weather has been cooperative (no rain) and the trees give us enough shade to make sitting there comfortable.
Meeting in the open means random people wandering by will sometimes just pause by Clark and me. Some just listen and leave. Some interrupt to ask me questions. One asked me to be her teacher, for pay. Yesterday, while I was going over one of Clark’s essays, this older dude kept circling around us, waiting for the opportunity to ask me a question.
His clothes (blue cotton shirt, dark gray pants) were a little worn looking, but not in really bad shape. His mustache and beard were scraggly. I’d say he was about 40ish, or maybe older, since his hair was going salt-and-pepper. His question was a grammatical one, not too hard to answer. So, after five minutes, he said thanks, asked for my business card and went on his way. I took him initially for a somewhat eccentric professor.
This morning, promptly at 8:30, he called, asking to meet him for unspecified reasons. I suggested we meet in the afternoon, but he said he would be leaving around noon, could we meet now?
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