Reading Keillor in China

There is much to say about China. But I'm not the one to say it. The world there was more or less opaque to me. Not surprising, given the fact that I can't speak Cantonese or Mandarin, or any of their other languages.

I did have a grand time in Hong Kong, a city that seems to me a combination of New York, Paris, and San Francisco. I'd been there before. It's a place I could live -- willingly. I liked Shanghai well enough to think I could live there, too, even with its soupy gray mix of "foreign correspondent" fog and smog. But only if I had to. Not Beijing, though. Despite my love of Peking duck, I found the city charmless -- a not uncommon reaction.

Without a laptop, I was largely out of touch. The news seemed far away. I did see CNN's international broadcast on the tube, which was piped into my hotel rooms. It sounded like official U.S. propaganda. Nothing less. I don't know why I was shocked. Maybe because it was so blatant.

I managed to cadge the International Herald Tribune a couple of times. That's where I came across one of Garrison Keillor's columns, THE PERILS AND JOYS OF SELF-ESTEEM. It was worth going all the way to China for. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise, although I didn't really have to go that far. Keillor's once-a-week column is syndicated every Wednesday by Tribune Media Services. Here's another of his columns, HOW AN AIRPLANE TOILET CAN RUIN YOUR LIFE. I'm still laughing.