Free I Stand Corrected by Eden Collinsworth Page B

conclusion that a geographical environment has a marked effect on the emotional and psychological characteristics of its inhabitants and, thus, on their social customs. L.A. resides on shifting tectonic plates where the ground has a startling habit of moving. This very well might be the reason people in L.A. operate with a loose interpretation of acceptable behavior.
    Unlike my East Coast colleagues, those on the West Coast brought their private lives to the office. Histories of substance abuse were revealed and then revisited during staff meetings, as were details of surrogate birthing options. It wasn’t only the office that invited sharing: personal information flowed freely between near strangers. The most staggering example introduced itself at a dinner party when the man seated next to me, late to the table, informed me that he had been in the bathroom checking the color of his urine.
    My slack-jawed reaction did nothing to stop him from sharing more.
    “Clear urine is a sign my system is prepared to digest another meal,” he wanted me to know.
    L.A. is a place thought foreign even by its own countrymen. In many ways, life there was my preparation for the eventual experience of living in China. Like people in Hollywood,people in China seem unable to explain what is wrong with what the larger world considers cheating. And both places required me to function in an elliptical state wherein I was never entirely certain about the direction things were heading, especially in business.
    In L.A., business lunches give the misguided impression that all at the table are friends who happen to be doing business. In China, people bring strangers to business lunches who have absolutely nothing to do with the business at hand. This might explain why, during the summer I was writing my book in Beijing, I was asked to a lunch with ten people I didn’t know.
    A Chinese friend had come from New York on business. She is a financier. One of her clients is a major Chinese cell phone company. As a favor to her, I joined the lunch in honor of the company’s president. He arrived at the restaurant with a retinue; never more than a foot away was his young, vividly alert vice president. The president spoke no English. The vice president did. He was what is known in China as a
haigui
, or “sea turtle,” a young Chinese who comes back to China after being educated in the West.
    The lunch conversation unfurled in Chinese, making it difficult to understand if the person who was talking to me was the same person I should be paying attention to. So I sat, smiling and silent, until the end of the meal, when the president said something obviously meant for me.
    “Our president has asked if you know Angelina Jolie,” translated the young vice president.
    The question was hilarious, but I understood enough about
mianzi
, or “saving face,” to know that even a fleeting appearance of levity would be a serious mistake.
    “No, I’m afraid I don’t,” were my carefully measured words.
    The time it took the young man to translate my answer far exceeded the brevity with which it had been conveyed. Without the benefit of linguistic reference points, I was reduced to watching facial expressions. It looked to me that whatever was being said on the other side of the table had already set in motion circumstances in which my no was not the end of something, but its starting point.
    “I understand you lived in Los Angeles,” said the young vice president.
    “That’s right.”
    “But you don’t know Angelina Jolie.”
    “That’s right.”
    There was more discussion on the other side of the table.
    “Do you know anyone who knows her?” asked the vice president.
    “Do you?” pressed my friend. “Take time to think,” she instructed.
    After more thought, I remembered that the producer of one of the actress’s earlier movies was an acquaintance from L.A. That obscure piece of information caused a rush of activity. Several at the table made