The young women in my neighborhood fix their eyes straight ahead as they pass me, their faces as blank as rocks. They are hoping, I think, that if they give me absolutely no indication of interest, I will let them pass unmolested.

I can’t blame them. Though this Hong Kong neighborhood is dominantly Chinese, it’s just a few short blocks from an area packed with over-priced, over-themed bars that cater to the most feral mass of drunken westerners this side of Key West. And down that street, the behavior is pretty much anything goes.

A girl who couldn’t even be in high school saddles up next to a man at a bar and tells him she needs a drink. At the strip clubs, the dancers stand outside and grab any man passing by, literally pulling them into the place. To the men who frequent this area, Hong Kong is a smorgasbord of the feminine, from the underage to the well-experienced, all to be had on the cheap.

Of course, it’s easy to tell the difference between these hustlers and the women who are just trying to go about their lives. But even easy things take some thought, and I don’t see too much thinking going on around here. A twenty-something crew-cut plops down next to me at the bar and, before he even has his drink in his hand, announces loudly that he’s “just an American businessman looking to get his rocks off.” His words are received with a cheer.

His voice faltered just a little on the last couple words. He must be new here, because the more experienced, with their rugged, beach-town-alcoholic looks, would have made no such hesitations. I can’t decide which is more offensive: those that have made this their lifestyle, or those that just take a vacation from their moral values. And good taste. How many drinks would it take this crew-cut to even approach a woman he felt was on equal standing with himself?

With all this in mind, it’s easy to understand why the girls of my neighborhood fear contact with me. I suspect that starting years before puberty even knocked on their door, they’ve been under constant assault by the whimsical hubris of western men like myself. And I don’t even want to think about how aggressive some of them must get.

Half-awake yesterday morning, stumbling down the street, my gaze falls for just a second upon an attractive woman in a business suit. She’s waiting for someone by the entrance to the subway. As she catches my glance, her eyes widen slightly and she shakes her head: no. This early in the day, I’m just trying to get to my first cup of coffee. But I guess it’s never too early, or too late, for one of my ‘type’ to be out on the prowl. Still, I find myself offended at her assumption, that I’m just like the rest of them.

But I guess that would be her complaint, too.

There’s a man eating at the table next to mine who, in his early thirties, has lost nearly all his hair. Still, he’s not a bad-looking fellow. He’s obviously fit and has a deep-strung voice that is pleasant to listen to. But he’s in no way worthy of the shocking beauty seated across the table from him.

Yet this woman is trying hard for him, hanging on every word he says. A few minutes after they are seated, he tries what is likely a successful line for him: “Tell me something interesting.”

Only he must repeat himself three times before she understands what he said. And then her only response is to shrug her shoulders and giggle. Giggling is something she does a lot of as they eat their way through three courses. The man doesn’t seem to mind; the smile on his face doesn’t even quiver once. And why should it? Despite the near-total language barrier between the two, even his modest western income makes him a powerhouse over here in China, practically guaranteeing him a near-effortless score from a woman who back home wouldn’t even smile if he held the door for her.

And this is just one of the endless examples of the Sino-western couples I’m seeing all around Beijing. There was pimply British kid at the Summer Palace ineptly sharing his ice cream with the girl he was there with; it was as if he couldn’t get used to the idea that women weren’t innately disgusted by him. Then the was the tall photographer, dragging along a tasty little woman who barely came up to his waist. I don’t know if they actually could speak to each other, but in the half-hour I was in the vicinity, they never did. Still, they both smiled a lot. And the great whale of a kid I saw in the Temple of Heaven, skin white enough to blind an bat? Of course he had a dark-skinned Cindy Crawford look-alike under his arm. You’d think he was a Rockefeller, a Kennedy, or the front man to the new hit boy band on the block.

But he’s not. None of them are. Anglo-Saxon men and boys alike are universally enjoying a status here that in their own world is reserved for the elite. Part of it seems to be the perception of wealth. Or maybe the reality of it: every week I’m drawing petty cash in an amount higher than the average family in this city is earning in a month. So why wouldn’t someone’s pretty young daughter want the patronage of a western gentleman? If nothing else, she gets to spend a few days out of the one-bedroom apartment she shares with her entire family.

Whatever’s behind it all, this city feels like one of those sailor’s lies, the one about an island of primitives where all the attractive women are loose in both morals and limbs, and fascinated with the color of the white man’s skin.

And stumbling home late on Chinese New Year’s Eve, a woman as pretty as any picture dashes up to me. She tucks her arm under mine, walks beside me and gushes a thousand rapid-fire words of Mandarin. I don’t understand her words, but her warm hand is caressing my arm, and her soft chest is pressing into my ribs. Then, finished with whatever it was she wanted to tell me, she kisses me on the cheek and skips off down an alleyway, leaving nothing behind but a giggle.

As I watch her disappear, I can’t help but think, “There, but for the grace of God, go I.”

Ground-shaking blasts cut through the night air. Sometimes they’re so distant you can count the time from when they flash in the sky to when you hear the report. Other times, they’re so close they set off every car alarm on the long avenue. These blasts come every two to three minutes. In between, there are strings of rapid-fire teeth-rattlers, some lasting as long as a minute.

This isn’t the Chinese New Year. This is only the night before. This is just the eighteen million people of central Beijing clearing their throat for what I suspect will be the loudest holiday on the planet. The occational smell of burnt gunpower that permeated the early evening has become, by no later than nine, a thick blanket over the entire city.

Fireworks stands on every block are open late, and they all have lines. Children barely able to walk clutch paperback-sized packets of fireworks. Grown men smugly haul eighteen-inch discs of double stands that could just as easily be the spare tire of a mid-sized car wrapped in red paper. Others have enormous single-shots, the size of the waste basket in my office, that require a cart to lug them home.

There’s not much imagination to the Chinese fireworks, they flash and make noise and that’s about it. But they’re good at what they do, and anyway, I always find myself disappointed by fireworks that claim to do more.

And should one ever be called upon to rework the star-spangled banner, they need to no more research than spend a sleepless night on the eve of the Chinese New Year.

When I was growing up, my dad was really into popcorn and he was really into gadgets. As a result, our house had a constant influx of the latest, greatest popcorn technology. It started with the plug-in hotplate-style cooker that you could flip upside down and use as a bowl. Later came the air-poppers, constantly being replaced as improvements were available: first one where the popcorn danced around inside the whole time, then one that tried to feed the popcorn into a nearby bowl, then one that actually did. Several new models appeared just out of hope that the butter tray in each one was better than the last (they never were.) In my house, we were using bags of microwave popcorn before most supermarkets even stocked them.

We even had a few novelty poppers. There was one that looked like an big steel clam on a stick. It was held over the fire and “made popcorn the way the pioneers did.” It didn’t work very well. Neither did the Orville Redenbacher decorative oil popper that looked like a toy popcorn trolley. After two failed attempts, we discovered it really was only decorative. It sat on the counter, proudly, for years, stained with burnt vegetable oil more immutable than the plastic underneath it.

So, because of all this, I went into college without even the faintest clue that popcorn could be created with anything other than a specialty tool, carefully crafted for this purpose. And so for the first two and a half years I was there, I bemoaned my lack of a popcorn maker. But then, midway through my Junior year, a man was to change all that.

He was new to the college, but older than a freshman. I didn’t know much about his background. He came from a northern part of the mid-west, like Wisconsin or The Dakotas. He didn’t say much, but he always had a congenial smile on his face: the sort generated by the glow of inner peace. He was a big guy, a lug would be a good term. Large enough to rip a tree out of the ground, but soft enough to look cuddly.

I’m ashamed to say I don’t remember his name. Such an even-keeled guy didn’t stand out: He didn’t laugh much, or ever get angry. He was probably a good student, but I didn’t have any classes with him. And he didn’t last long. Like so many others that came to my school and realized the advertising was better than the product, he probably only lasted a semester. I didn’t take notice of him until one night, as I was sitting in the commons area of the small cabin-like dorm I lived in (and he did not), he walked in and told me he was going to make some popcorn and would I like any.

Would I? I really don’t think he expected me to jump out of my seat and crowd in the small kitchen with him. After I shoved my way in, I scanned the room for the popcorn maker. It was important, see, because the type of machine he had would tell me what sort of popcorn I was going to be enjoying in a few scant minutes. But, much to my confusion, there was nothing there.

I waited for a moment while he screwed with a large pot, much too big to melt butter in. Still, he was a big guy. He might have wanted that much butter. But I was completely unprepared for the next moment–which I can still see in my mind’s eye–when he dumped a little olive oil and a handful of kernels directly into the pot.

I immediately saw how it would work—much like any oil popper I’d ever used—but I still couldn’t believe it. I made him show me every step. I did again the next night. And the night after that, I had him guide me as I did it.

It became a routine of ours, and for a while we were two peas in a pod: Strangers, with little-to-nothing in common except his knowledge and my desire for it. I remember smiling in a way that made my cheeks hurt every evening when we headed to the kitchen. I remember a little game we made up, leaving the lid off until the first kernel popped, and then trying to catch it in the air. And trying to get the lid on before the rapid-fire explosion that was soon to follow. We rarely succeed in either, I’m sure there’s decaying popcorn in the cracks of that kitchen to this day.

I wasn’t a simple person, and I wasn’t given to simple pleasures. I’m still not. But this man, lost to me now, lent me his world for a few short months and I’ve never lost the insight that came with it. Or forgot how far two people can go with just one simple thing in common.

I dropped a contact this morning and before I even thought about it, I was down on the floor, inspecting the tile at the base of the not-yet-flushed toilet.

After I thought about it, I got up and closed the door.