BeijingSummer 2004 We rented an apartment in Beijing, half a block from the North Korean Embassy, across the street from barracks that housed the Chinese military embassy guards. Every morning at 5:00 A.M. the troops sang patriotic tunes. They dried cabbage and socks on the roof. Whenever we ran across to Jenny Lou’s, the expat grocery, to buy crusty German bread, or strolled over to Yabaolu, the Russian market, past the fur-coat stores and the pink-haired ladies, to buy mittens or frying pans, we dodged little platoons of mechanical soldiers, rigid and brisk, marching to keep watch over the embassies or marching back to the barracks to cabbage and noodles. Our apartment compound was full of families, both local Chinese and longtime expats. Our girls had instant friends. With our neighbors’ help we found an ayi to look after our home and lives. We loved Gao Ayi at once. She was openhearted, playful, and semiefficient—a round-faced beauty who was way too smart to be anybody’s servant—she’d just had some bad breaks in life.
