Guanxi. 关系.

Andrew has dived back into Beijing a little quicker than I over the past week. We arrived, after a total travel time of about 23 hours (Indiana to San Francisco, San Francisco to Hong Kong, Hong Kong to Beijing) on a Tuesday. With jetlag. And zero intention of re-entering our chinese life until the weekend. The plan, basically, was to collapse. And unpack later.

But on Thursday, around 8 p.m., Andrew got a phone call. From the Director. About being in the Talent Show. At the Academy. On Friday. At 8 a.m.

Let's face it. He didn't want to go. Jetlag can be brutal and after a month of living out of a suitcase, sometimes it's nice to just curl up in your apartment and let the world move on without you for a little while. Skipping that to be in a talent show? Like someone doing cartwheels and singing God Bless America while twirling a baton? At work? Seriously?

Well. There's a little something important to know about living, working, operating in China - 关系。Guanxi. Relationships. It's a good thing to have. Being able to speak the language is helpful and all. But you're not going anywhere if you can speak the language and can't get the guanxi going.

Andrew has a pretty good handle on the language part. And quite frankly, a fair bit of the guanxi part. But it's just not a thing that you collect and move on. Guanxi is high maintenance. Especially when you're a Ph.D. student and visiting researcher whose data collection involves interviewing and sitting in on meetings and tagging along on projects and generally a lot of good will and generosity of busy working professional planners.

So when the Director who is hosting your research fellowship in his International Urban Planning Research Studio at the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design calls you at 8 p.m. at night and wants you to come in early the next morning in order to play back-up for your co-workers who, in your absence, have been practicing for weeks their live performance of Claptons' "Tears in Heaven" - well - for the sake of guanxi - you say yes.

In celebration of the upcoming 60th Anniversary of the PRC and also the 55th Anniversary of the Academy, each department and then some at the Academy had an act. An entire day devoted to 26 acts ranging from Flamenco dancing to choir singing to Bollywood lipsynching to patriotic military marching. And one particularly moving rendition of "Tears in Heaven" with one jet-lagged foreigner strumming along in the background.