The conversation Jeremiah keeps hearing from Han acquaintances:

A: You teach Chinese history?

GS: Yes.

A: In Beijing? Really?

GS: Well, I teach students from American universities.**

A: Ah! (relieved) That makes sense. (Furrowed brow) What do you teach about Τibet? Do you teach your students that Τibet has ALWAYS been part of China?

GS: No.

A: Why not!?!?! …

Jeremiah at Granite Studio brings readers up to date with some of the stranger developments in Beijing:

“Apart from everything else, the way this advice (and the previous set of instructions on what not to ask foreigners) is conceived betrays a fatuously anachronistic view of the world as being divided by nei/wai, Chinese/foreign, as if ‘foreign’ was an actual category of humanity. Other commentators have noted that the ‘foreign manners’ presented by the book as the definitive guide for Beijingers’ interactions with the other five billion people on the planet seem to be based primarily on somebody’s interpretation of northern European or even specifically Anglo-American sensibilities. God only knows where it comes from.”