Shenyang, China

November 2008

Having come to China under the umbrella of an American university to teach English composition to students at a university in Shenyang, I was just getting to know this city of about seven million people and how vastly different it was from my small hometown in Vermont, when one Friday night I joined other American teachers at a favorite expatriate bar called Sophie’s. Less than an hour after we arrived, my friends left for a noisy dance club I didn’t like. I decided to finish my second Long Island iced tea and catch a cab home alone; there’d be plenty of cabs in front of the bar, and I knew enough Mandarin to tell a driver how to get to my apartment on the outskirts of Shenyang.

Remaining at Sophie’s on my own was the first of many bad decisions I made that night.