{"id":43,"date":"2023-03-14T21:10:16","date_gmt":"2023-03-14T21:10:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/?p=43"},"modified":"2023-03-16T19:38:02","modified_gmt":"2023-03-16T19:38:02","slug":"preface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/2023\/03\/14\/preface\/","title":{"rendered":"Preface"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>On a Friday in January 2022, Jess and I were having lunch with a co-pilot who flies for Hainan air. We first met him in the mountains of Yunnan, when he returned from his last flight to Toronto, and we were supposed to meet in Shanghai today. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As usual, we talked about work, travels, living in the city, parents. Through the eyes of this young man in his thirties, life seemed like a board game. \u201cSkip 1 turn\u201d (quarantine). \u201cGo back 1 step\u201d (emotional breakdown). \u201cGo 1 step forward\u201d (found a way to secretly break a quarantine lock). Some seemed to be on the winning hand\u2026 although no one knew then if and when this all would end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Over the course of one year, some of his colleagues have been quarantined for 180 days. Our friend has learned how to balance the rules. At night, he broke sealed hotel room doors and dived into the city, and what happened there remains unmentioned, we can fill in ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The world has changed, but then again it hasn&#8217;t. There are still everyday people who experience everyday things and discuss daily affairs. As deceptive as rice soup: colorless in appearance, but, if you&#8217;re lucky, colorful in taste. Stories that amaze, and it is amazement that drives my pen, in this world, in all ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sam, March 14, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-columns is-layout-flex wp-container-core-columns-is-layout-9d6595d7 wp-block-columns-is-layout-flex\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-column is-layout-flow wp-block-column-is-layout-flow\" style=\"flex-basis:100%\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On a Friday in January 2022, Jess and I were having lunch with a co-pilot who flies for Hainan air. We first met him in the mountains of Yunnan, when he returned from his last flight to Toronto, and we were supposed to meet in Shanghai today. As usual, we talked about work, travels, living&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-orangebooklet"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":106,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions\/106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stories.squaredant.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}