Perhaps I'm just a hopeless romantic, fetishizing Beijing as some type of post-Apocalyptic Imperial graveyard wherein ghosts and expats might enjoy the subtler flavors of the strange world of today, a refuge for those who don't want anything to do with that, that thing that happens elsewhere, but then I'm floating down the streets and there I see that thing, that thing which I'd seen elsewhere before, and I see those people inside doing that thing that those people do. I'm vexed that here has that too.

Too abstract? To put it more simply, the only thing I dislike more than green eggs and ham is that son of a bitch cat with its sore thumb hat.