My Friend Beth...

I got in touch with my college friend Beth. She is definitely a character. A culturally open-minded American, married to a French man. They've lived around the world, thanks to his job and family background. She has all sorts of interesting stories about how Americans behave abroad, how the French fear their culture is not as dominant as before or which topics you should avoid when interacting with Chinese officemates in Hong Kong.

She is currently learning her third foreign language, Italian - can already make nasty jokes and also put together sensible sentences. Through all these linguistic and cultural adventures, she remains a New Yorker, her eyes observant of national sensitivities.

When she talks about how she would love to live in Paris, and how people's aloofness there reminds her of New York, it strikes me that she is one of us. Beth travels in her mind, whishing she was elsewhere even when she is on the way to somewhere.