It’s been nine days since I returned from China and I’m still reeling from the trip. I’ve never been anyplace so foreign; glad Rich and I had a minder there, Anne Tan, a great communications person who lives in Hong Kong and is helping spread the Wyndham Hotel word.

I’ve never been so jet-lagged. I was so sleep-starved I couldn’t describe it except by analogy: I felt like I was dying of thirst. China is 13 hours ahead of Cleveland time, so flying home felt like flying back in time. We left Hong Kong at 11:20 a.m. Nov. 19 and arrived home in Newark, 15 ½ hours later, just before 2 p.m. — the same day. Two days ago, I slept normally. I finally feel human.

You can’t imagine the scale of China. People everywhere, cars all over the place (Buicks, Audis, VWs are especially popular), highways bursting, big pollution (the Beijing sun “sets” around 3 p.m.), stores and sidewalks thronged. Beijing is powerful, monumental, mystical, kind of formal; Shanghai is even bigger (it might be 25 million) but more negotiable and human; Xiamen, a virtual hamlet of only 2.5 million, is still developing and quite indigenous; and Hong Kong is a pip, a Western-feeling megalopolis of high style and friendliness. Socializing in China is very different from in the U.S.: In Beijing’s Forbidden City area, people did Tai Chi, Tai Chi with a ball, juggling, stickball, kite flying, banner competition, group singing, voice lessons, miniconcerts with traditional Chinese instruments – or simply walked, often hand-in-hand, the remarkable, 15th-century area, a place of kings (and concubines) indeed. The socializing was rich, cross-generational, non-commercial. In America, we go to malls; in China, they go to historic sites. That’s a simplification, but it’s a profound difference.

I’m beginning to put together a narrative of my trip. It will include being flimflammed in Beijing; the Temple of Heaven/Forbidden City; the Silk Street Pearl Market, a wonderful emporium of counterfeit goods; the Bund and maglev in Shanghai; searching for jade in Xiamen; shopping for jewelry and clothing in Hong Kong.

It’s good to be back in America. And good to finally get some sleep.

Travel in China even a little and you can’t help reconsidering the notion of intellectual property. There’s so much opportunity here, so much energy, so little notion of and respect for ownership. That’s why street vendors badger you with fake Rolexes and Breitlings, why bootleg DVDs sell for $3 and $4, bootleg CDs for even less. A place like the Silk Street Market in Beijing’s Chayoang District is fabulous because things there are such a deal: Many are bootlegs, and even though the quality varies, the price is better than right.

I don’t know where I stand on this issue, because intellectual property is something I value, particularly since I generate some “intellectual property” of my own. Maybe there are so many counterfeits in China because the originals cost too much. Maybe when the Chinese middle class gets even stronger — and it’s booming now — people will buy the originals at full retail, but I doubt it.

Which leads me to my next brainstorm: a Chinese travel portal aggregating hotel, air, cruise and rail, linked to every major hotel brand including international and domestic. It would also link to third-party vendors like Travelocity and Expedia and, like many such sites, provide information and personal reviews (and perhaps blogs) of the components of the travel experience. The portal would have to be in both English and Chinese and likely would be based in Hong Kong, where government regulations are more lax than on the mainland. The first cities on the menu would be Beijing and Shanghai, mainly because Westerners already know them, or at least recognize their names. It’s an idea.

By the way, I really liked Shanghai. More cosmopolitan than Beijing, and more Western, it’s even bigger. But you can walk around downtown, the people seem friendlier, and there’s a gregariousness to it that’s more engaging than Beijing, which seems more formal.

No conclusions here, just an update. Since my post about being conned in Beijing’s Forbidden City, things have gotten better. China’s unbelievable and very exciting.

Just an update about my book. I touted it on Mike Olszewki’s morning show on WNCX- FM Oct. 30, when Mike had me on to talk about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame candidates for 2008. Most of them are OK to me, though Afrika Bambaataa and Chic are a stretch. It was fun; I hope Mike and Mud and Mihalik invite me back to their Classic Rock Morning Show.

In other Cleveland Rock & Roll Memories action (God, I love newspaper formula), I spent Nov. 3 in Wooster at the Buckeye Book Fair, sharing a table with Marilyn Seguin, a writer of history-based children’s books. It was great: I sold out, signing 44 books (a case) over eight hours. Good to know my book has life after a year on the market.

To check out my WNCX visit, click on the link:

Rich and I are in Beijing, China on a business trip. He’s head of corporate PR for Wyndham Hotel Group. I write about hotels in my daytime life. We’re here to check out Super 8s, Ramadas, Days Inns and Wyndhams in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Xiamen. But that isn’t what this is about.

We get to the Days Inn Forbidden City after a 15.5-hour flight, splash some water on our tired faces and meet in the lobby for a brief walk before we’re to go out to dinner with a phalanx of Chinese Wyndham people. We walk into a cool, pop cashmere store where I might return to buy gifts; construction workers—at least 20—stare at us. Then we walk into the Forbidden City area and these girls approach us and strike up a conversation. We fall in with them, they ask would we like to have some tea with them? We agree.

Ten minutes later, we’re in the American Tea House in a private room. I’m sitting next to Mary, Rich next to Angela. Angela is “directing.” We sample eight different teas four ways, complete with explanations and a ton of ritual. We get the bill: 1,245 RMB, or about $167. Expensive for less than two full glasses of tea. I protest; Rich forks over 400 RMB, me 300. The girls seems flustered, maybe caught out; Angela pulls out a credit card and says they’ll cover the rest. She disappears with the “waitress” who served us our exotica. They come back, we leave, they walk us back to our hotel (we are so lost in so foreign a place, it’s not funny) and we wish them luck with their “student” careers. We’ve been flimflammed. It can only go up from here. It’s a souring opening to a stay in an amazing city. More about that soon.

I saw Bruce Springsteen Sunday night, for the first time since his strikingly naked “Tom Joad” tour in early 1996. No, that’s not true; I saw him perform, solo, in Cleveland the night before the 2004 elections, when he delivered for the Democratic candidate, John Kerry. Too bad Kerry didn’t communicate Springsteen’s fervor.

On Nov. 4, Springsteen and the E Street Band played for more than two hours for 20,000 of the faithful at the Q in Cleveland. The band was on; so was Springsteen. He and the E Street Band, which I hadn’t seen since 1974, are touring behind “Magic,” his latest album and the second, following “The Rising,” to mix Middle Eastern strains into his otherwise hard-rocking, white sound. He was great; not only did Springsteen perform nearly non-stop and balls out for more than two hours, he also featured his wife, Patti Scialfa,” on “Town Called Heartbreak,” a particularly soulful track from her recent, very solid and funky album, “Play It As It Lays.” The set list was heavy on “Magic,” which it should be, though it also featured a wildly adventurous version of “Tunnel of Love” and a killer sequence of “Reason To Believe” (done John Lee Hooker style), “Saint” (done Latinate and florid) and “She’s the One” (Bo Diddley and Buddy Holly never sounded so good).

Tunes from “Magic” like “Radio Nowhere,” the downer anthem that launched the gig, “The Last To Die” and the austere title track, which Springsteen said was about tricks (the implication was of the dirty kind), are political commentary about the Bush era that is as astute as any you’re likely to read in those controversial liberal newspapers. Before I forget, the first encore was “Girls in Their Summer Clothes,” Springsteen’s channeling of the Beach Boys and a gorgeous, instant pop classic.

The Q was packed with Springsteen’s faithful, who are particularly idolatrous in Cleveland, where he broke out in the mid-’70s. Lots of singalongs, fists pumping, cheers of “Brooce,” homages to The Boss. Springsteen deserves a better title. Better yet, he doesn’t need one. He’s always been political, always been the voice of the working man, and he’s particularly so on “Magic,” a curiously strong and satisfying album that speaks truth to power without succumbing to hatred or the black-and-white viewpoint the Bush administration promotes over and over as it pursues its narrow agenda of fear and divisiveness.

Springsteen’s no boss; he is, rather, a spiritual leader dedicated to helping people better themselves. It’s why he performed on the 2004 Vote for Change tour; it’s why he touts institutions like the Cleveland Food Bank, which donates food to poor families. His style of leadership isn’t top-down. It’s inclusive, embracing, empowering. What he’s saying ever more clearly in his albums and on-stage pronouncements is that the people have the power and the people have to look behind the façade of authority that the Bush administration—the right wing in general—have so effectively constructed. That’s all theater, he says; it’s all deceit and manipulation, delivered in the name of defense against terrorism. He’s saying there’s a difference between protectiveness and defensiveness, and between an America that used to welcome immigrants and the current one, which fences people in and keeps people out.

I bet if you asked him whether he likes that “Boss” tag, Springsteen would say no. He’s grown out of it. It’s time his fans do, too.