The thunderstorm that swept through Beijing on Sunday filled us with a collective terror that ramified into the outer ring roads. Everything that follows is true. At Capital M in Qianmen, Gady Epstein of the Economist had just begun to talk about Bo Xilai when the thunderclap sprang from the direction of Zhongnanhai. That morning at eight, a sanitation worker outside Terminal 3 of Beijing Capital International Airport was struck down by a bolt of lightning. At a midday brunch in a homey apartment near Sanlitun, an AFP journalist noted that the lightning that morning, accompanied by explosions in the sky, was the fiercest she had ever encountered. And in a subway station, which is every subway station, people stood elbow to elbow. Only the occasional brave soul broke the line and sallied forth, sprinting through the rain to the percussion of God’s composition.
