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Sister Song suddenly lowered her voice. “You should talk to her, try to get her to stop all her antics.”
    “I only ran into her briefly at a bookstore. Will she be coming over?”
    “Definitely not.”
    “But do you have her cell phone number so I can give her a call?”
    “She doesn’t use a cell phone.” Big Sister Song kept her eye on the door as she spoke. “She’s on e-mail. She spends all her time arguing with people on the Internet, and she keeps changing her address. I wish you’d talk to her.”
    I figured dropping her an e-mail would be better than not being able to reach her at all.
    Big Sister Song stood up purposefully. “I’ll get you her new e-mail address.”
    “There’s no rush, you can get it later,” I said rather insincerely.
    “I’m afraid I might forget.” And she hurried off to the back.
    Big Sister Song is still so gracious, I thought, an old-style Beijinger.
    At this point, a young guy walked in. He was the kind of young guy who would have all the girls chasing him—tall and muscular like an athlete. He was wearing white high-top sneakers. There is so much dust in Beijing that most men don’t wear white sneakers. He looked me over very confidently like he wanted to know who I thought I was, but then he said politely, “Hello. Are you … ?”
    “I’m … a friend of Big Sister’s.” The penny dropped. “You’re …” I was going to say “Little Xi’s son,” but for some reason I didn’t.
    “Grandma!” The young man greeted Big Sister Song.
    “Hey, you’re back. This is my grandson. This is Master Chen.”
    I acted surprised. “Your grandson!”
    “Master Chen, I’m Wei Guo.”
    “Pleased to meet you. What a handsome young man you are.” We shook hands. I remembered that when I’d last seen this boy over ten years ago, Little Xi had told me he used her maternal surname, Wei.
    “Master Chen is Taiwanese and an old customer,” Big Sister Song said about me.
    “I don’t think we’ve ever met.”
    “He used to come to the old place,” Big Sister Song explained. “Master Chen hasn’t been in Beijing for years.”
    “Big Sister, I
live
in Beijing now.”
    Wei Guo didn’t ask me what district I lived in. Instead, he asked, “What do you do, Master Chen?”
    “I’m a writer.”
    This seemed to pique his interest. “What do you write?”
    “Everything, fiction, reviews, criticism …”
    “Criticism about what?”
    “Food, drink, entertainment, cultural media, business management …”
    “And what do you think about China’s current situation?”
    This was turning into a cross-examination, so Big Sister Song broke in. “Stay here for dinner!”
    “I’ve got something on tonight—maybe next time, Big Sister!”
    “You two keep talking,” she said and went into the back room.
    Wei Guo looked at me with a very steady gaze that bordered on intimidation.
    I wanted to know why Little Xi said she could not talk to her son, so I said quite deliberately, “Today everybody says that no country is as good as China.” Little Xi had said this would sound like something her son might say.
    “That’s right, quite correct.Ji Xianlin said the twenty-first century is the Chinese century.”
    I decided to tease him a little. “Well then, what do you intend to do in this Chinese century?”
    Most young people would act a little bashful before answering such a question, but Wei Guo did not hesitate. “Right now I’m in the Faculty of Law at Peking University. After I graduate, I’m going to take an exam to become a government official.”
    “Do you want to be an official?”
    “Yes, I do. The country needs talent.”
    “Wei Guo, if you could choose, which ministry would you like to join?” I remembered Little Xi mentioning the Central Propaganda Department, and so I wanted to sound him out.
    “The Central Propaganda Department.”
    I hadn’t expected him to be so frank.
    “Of course, one can’t just join the Propaganda Department, but