Once, in Beijing, a young girl in a red gown huddled in a doorway. It wasn't a normal doorway because when I say doorway you think of things like wood and brass nobs and, possibly, hinges.

This had none of those.

And it was hardly a red gown, because you are likely thinking of something you'd take to a ball, or if you're the really twisted sort, and I can tell you are, there's an image of a piece of clothing given out to a somewhat disturbing institution, or asylum, for those less inclined to modern verbiage or intent on invoking a certain off-kilter danger to the whole situation.

Sadly, the 'gown' was none of those either.

And, most importantly, the girl was not a girl. And young, as so many things these days, is a relative term, and for the vast majority of this audience, especially you, she was not that either.

The Beijing thing is spot on though. Beijing will always be Beijing. Jostling, jarring, a turbid scrambling of millions of people all surreptiously shell gamed from one idealistic quasi-religion which was efficient at nothing more than funneling power to the most corrupt and least able, to a more cynical one, which, if looked at in the right light and with certain point and counter-point from various Western movies, slightly better.