There will be so, so many courses that will tear this apart. Future leaders will be taught about this fiasco extensively, for generations, and mock this administration for their eyewatering levels of incompetence.
History is not going to be kind to them.
It's past midnight in Changsha and I'm sitting on a curb, eating noodles.
The street is alive the way Chinese cities are alive at 1 a.m. A girl walks past and shouts "VERY HANDSOME MAN!" Another stops and asks for my WeChat. Then another. I've done nothing to deserve this. I'm wearing the same shirt I slept in.
The noodles are so good I almost cry.
The owner is a small woman, maybe sixty. She says something to me in Chinese. I don't understand a word. But she's looking at me the way a mother looks at her son.
I try to tip her. She refuses, and pushes the money back into my hand like I've offended her. I do not fully understand it, but I understand its kindness, and that I'm not supposed to pay for it.
I don't know why everyone here has been so kind to me. I don't even know what the I’m doing in Changsha. I couldn't point to it on a map.
But the noodles are hot. The girls are laughing down the street. The grandma loves me. And somewhere on this curb, past midnight, in a city I can't find on a map, I think this might be one of the best nights of my life.
Thank you, China. I don't know what I did to deserve your people, but I'm grateful for every one of them.