The Rough Guide says: "The city is home to a large expat population, housed for the most part in separate suburban ghettos with little contact with the local Chinese. Indeed, it's quite possible to spend years in Beijing eating Western food, dancing to Western music and socializing with like-minded foreigners. Hardened veterans of the expat scene compare it favorably to Hong Kong."

An advertisement for a new compound of Chinese-style mansions.

The roof of my mouth is badly burned. This is from dim sum and the hot water of a Starbucks americano and Chysanthemum tea (good C. tea turns more green with each infusion). Water temperature isn't regulated. Hotter than ever are the beverages and the shower. It's a funny thing to notice.

We went to the Holiday Inn for Dim Sum. Y says she rarely eats Chinese food here because she doesn't trust the meat, but I guess she trusts the dim sum at the Holiday Inn. We met two of her acquaintences, one of whom is a psychologist. The psych says she wishes she'd gotten more training in depression and family counseling, two common barbs in expat life. Y says that to do business in China, you have to live in Beijing, where the government is, because all business is conducted through the government. But all of the manufacturing occurs outside of Beijing, so the men mostly are traveling and the women are alone. The two biggest health problems for expat families then: STDs and depression.

I'm up earlyish again, raiding the kitchen for Cheerios and chocolate. The sun leaves orange bars on the wall at this hour, whatever the hour. The sun itself is invisible, muted through the crowd of atmospheric particles. We are in a perpetual fog, even way out here. It's like the air always was (is) over the Yellow Sea. Eerie like that.

At 8:00 a.m. or so, construction on a neighboring house begins. There's much banging on metal—a metal railing being installed—and the sizzle and spark of welding. If I walk to the patio door, I can look down upon the work, the unshielded welding, and see the crumbling concrete that makes the mansion's facade. These houses are fake, like the lardcream frosting on supermarket cakes spray-painted with elaborate and inappropriate scenes.

The dishwasher doesn't work, neither do the outlets. The tile in the bathroom has crumbled in places and some of the bathroom fixtures are broken. All are mottled with corrosion. Y says the floors must be swept twice daily or the black builds up.

I don't think Y is well, and it makes sense that that is the case. I'm revising my expectations of the trip now that I see how she lives, the way she feels about living here, and the state of her health. I won't see much. But from this American bed on the third floor of her Potemkin mansion, I'm elated to be on vacation, to be away from the stressful nonsense.