Reminders of transience

I finally got around to cleaning up the address book in my mobile phone this morning. It has a pretty tiny memory, and rather too quickly reaches the point where I can't input any new numbers (and thus have to carry them around on pieces of paper in my wallet, or stored in the - even less voluminous - SMS Inbox on the phone).

It's a tiresome little chore that I've been putting off and putting off....

And what do I find from this operation?

In the space of the last 18 months or so:

3 people lost their phones, and thought it too much hassle to reclaim their original number.

1 person changed her number to try to avoid having to talk to her ex-husband.

2 people mysteriously vanished without trace. (Ex-girlfriends? Any connection??)

4 people moved to other parts of China. (Although there are only 2 national mobile service providers, each of these companies is divided into numerous semi-autonomous regional entities; and thus SIM cards here are area-specific - you can "roam" with them [although it is outrageously expensive], but you can only top up in your 'home' area. Hence, every time you move, you need to get a new card, a new phone number. But, of course, you keep your old phone number, just for when you're back in Beijing for the occasional weekend. There's one guy I now have 4 different China phone numbers for!!)

And 14 people quit the country.

I have commented before (most famously, here) on the extremely high rate of flux in the population of my friends here. But this phone-cleansing rigmarole really brought it home to me: I think I 'lose' at least one person a month on average (although it tends to be concentrated into the summer months each year).

And this evening I'm being dragged off to a leaving do for a guy I've never even met! Such is expat social life....