Stepping Stones Across the River

This morning in the elevator, oddly enough, I got most of the chitter-chatter gossip. Stepping out onto the grit ground concrete stairs the soap opera of who cussed out whose wife falls into my ears with startling clarity.

I don’t understand the Beijing accent that well.

But, today it is suddenly different. Instead of syllables disappearing into tongue curled “rrrrr” thin air, I hear them being swallowed in the throat.

It is like a Cockney accent; except it is Chinese.