Shenzhen Zen

The good news is that Sally Wu emailed me today asking me to fax passport info for Julian and me. The bad news is that our departure date is "the evening of the 10th" -- two days before previous estimates. Several emails today from me asking if she got the fax and asking for more detailed departure plans, like an exact time and airline, have gone unanswered so far. As have questions about specific return date times. Both are needed to book flights from here and back to and from LA. An aquaintance asked, "How the hell did you find this place anyhow", (meaning the company). Someone else suggested a fortune cookie ad. At the risk of stereotyping, I replied:
"Fortune cookie ad isn't far off. Found it on the internet last year. They are still inscrutable. Seven eighths of their sparse website is in Chinese. sprinkled with generic cartoon characters. No mailing address that they've given me. Won't give me a phone number and I've had three different email addresses for them. It's not a done deal by any means yet. It could fall through at the last minute. Info arrives at unpredictable times via email. Messages can be answered instantly or "never arrived." My crap detector needle has been jammed in the red zone for most of the time, yet I still maintain some optimism. They haven't asked me for money or credit card info, so that's a good sign."