Where am I? Who is that hysterical Chinese guy? Why is he screaming as if I owe him something? Wait—now I can understand Chinese?! Where’s the mirror… *** This had been hanging in the air for years, just waiting to finally come true now that you’re fifty. It seemed everything was set—pension was right around the corner—alas. Because big Hong Kong companies are being rapidly nationalized by people from the capital, who place their people in business. And you… are no longer needed. And there won’t be a pension because you’ve been thrown off the territory—literally—by new security guards. Entire corporations are replacing old owners with state ones. New times, different politicians. Well, the kids left for Beijing and settled there. Or not so well? Since you’re now like a stranger to them too. Age, age, age. However, at fifty, if you want, you can still do a lot. Even from scratch. Even when very complicated tails of your past are reaching into your popadanchuk life from that foreign past—“thanks” to the predecessor.