Beijing Boyce

This issue marks more than 50,000 words of Beijing Boyce and the completion of a goal that dates decades. I was but a seven-year-old prodigy when I endured my classmates‘ humiliating laughter, stinging me like wet snapping towels, as I announced: “Some day, friends, I shall go forth to a faraway country and live in a faraway city where on the street they roast meat on wooden sticks, where in the apartments they scatter small slots into which you place pre-paid cards to procure utilities such as cold water, and where in the skies they sprinkle silver iodide to hurry down spring rain.” They were already snickering by this point, glancing at one another, rolling their eyes. Yet, like Celine Dion’s heart, I went on: “I shall go to that faraway city and create a newsletter in a language foreign to most of its inhabitants, and that newsletter shall be about the nascent pub scene. It shall aim to be fair and to embrace all establishments: the good, the bad and the ugly, and even those that are slightly attractive, given the right lighting. And by the time I write 50,000 words, I shall be sending that publication not just to a handful or to a few dozen people, but to 407 readers.” They laughed at me. But who has the last laugh now? / As usual, if you like this newsletter, pass it on. To get on the list, and be lucky reader 408, a person needs only send a “sign me up” email. / Eat, drink and be merry. BB.

(From Beijing Boyce XVIII, first emailed on June 8, 2006)