One of the first things I did in Shanghai (after a 13-hour train ride, during which I learned how to play Hearts and slept quite soundly in a comfortable, fourbed sleep car) was meet James Cho. Actually, his name isn't James Cho, but for his sake, I am changing his name. The terms of his parole require that he doesn't speak to journalists. That's right. I said parole. I ran into James outside of a police station in Shanghai where all visitors short term and long must register .

After a bit of small talk, James, a Chinese-American , told me had been wrongfully imprisoned for 10 years in a Chinese jail for tax evasion. He had been released only days before after new evidence surfaced. If you don't believe the story, as I initially didn't , if it seems a bit too out of this world, shoot me an e-mail and I'd be happy to direct you to his Web site. But, regardless of whether his story is true, it sure was an interesting conversation.

Meeting James, however, was more than a weird incident. In a sense, our meeting gave me some comfort, or at least some perspective . See, after a month in China, I was homesick. (I was also sick sick, and forced to be on the BRAT diet Bananas, Rice, Apples and Toast which quickly turned into the BRATS diet: Bananas, Rice, Apples, Toast and Sushi.)

I was starting to miss things from home I never thought I'd miss. I was starting to miss clean toilets (not holes in the ground) and lines and steaks, unblocked Web sites and soft beds.

And of course, I was starting to miss my family, my friends, and my boyfriend. (Well, I knew I'd miss my boyfriend, Casey, but I didn't think I'd miss him as much as a sit-down toilet.)

The world was feeling mighty large, and home was feeling far, far away. But after hearing James' story, well, things weren't looking so bad. Except for the toilets.

Here are the three things I was looking forward to most about Shanghai: 1. My travel buddies Blair, Leslie and Zach and I were renting an apartment rather than a hotel. If we couldn't be at home, at least we could be in a home. On our second night in the city, we had signed up for private Chinese cooking lessons at our apartment .

2. We were going to visit the Daktronics office in Shanghai. I wanted to show my friends that you don't have to be from Dallas or Scottsdale or Philadelphia to still be from somewhere. I really don't have much connection to the company (other than my many friends who work there), but I find myself interested in it and proud of it.

3. Shanghai the commercial center of China has some of the best restaurants in the country. Through one of Zach's connections , we had reservations to dine with the manager at one of them.

The apartment was all we'd hoped for, as were the cooking lessons. Our menu was kung pao chicken (my favorite), sweet and sour chicken (my other favorite), shrimp dumplings and fried rice. We started the lesson very, very attentive and eager to be real Chinese chefs. But when hunger started to kick in, we quickly found ourselves seated at the table, chopsticks in hand, just wondering when those darn dumplings would be ready.

The next day was our Daktronics visit. In a sleepy moment of confusion the night before, Zach drank water directly out of the faucet. BIG NO NO. Unable and unwilling to stray too far from the toilet, he couldn't take part in our little excursion . So Leslie, Blair and I were the only ones greeting the Daktronics driver outside our apartment. There is nothing like a driver, after weeks of subways and buses, to make you feel very fancy and official. Dan Chase, from Brookings, is the general manager and led our little tour, along with the Keyframe supervisor Emily Minor. The building, quite honestly , is not state-of-the art. In some of the halls, the paint is peeling off the walls, which Dan jokes he plans on replicating in the new building, an attractive new structure that will help house the expanding business.

During our tour of the Keyframe room, one of the Chinese designers was working on a dragon, a lucky symbol in China.

It's not new news that China is changing very rapidly, especially in terms of communications and technology, and Daktronics seems to be keeping pace with all the changes. As far the Olympics go, Daktronics provides the basketball scoreboards. (Of course, I volunteered my extensive knowledge of LED screens in exchange for free tickets , but apparently they had no need for my expertise.)

I was proud to hear how a small company from Brookings, South Dakota, had grown into such an international success. My friends who had never heard of the company before talked about it for the rest of the day. "Is that a Dak sign?" "Nope, it doesn't look good enough."

That night, we had reservations at Three on the Bund. (The Bund is the area along the river in Shanghai, which overlooks the awesome skyline, including the tallest building in Asia, the Pearl Building.)

As expected of a place where the likes of David Beckham dines, the dinner was out of this world, and 30 percent off, with free drinks! My ahi tuna and pumpkin soup hit the spot after so much fried rice. So did the champagne mojito. (A complicated innovation in which you add about ¼ cup champagne to a mojito.)

But the best part of the evening was the company. There, on the fifth floor of the building overlooking a beautiful night skyline, it seemed as if there was a representative from just about any country you could imagine. Though I don't think I saw anyone from Uzbekistan.

While my homesickness is still not completely cured, Shanghai was a good dose of medicine. We visited a company that began all the way back in Brookings and now has international offices all over the world. On the way to the office, Leslie called her mom in Texas on her cell phone while Blair called her brother in Arizona. At dinner, we met a Singaporean, an American diplomat and a Korean-born Dane. Now that's fusion.

On our last day in Shanghai, the four of us were walking to the train station. But it wasn't just any train station. This train, called the Z-5 , could travel 500 km an hour just another example of our world getting smaller and smaller.

While crossing the street, in the typical chaos of traffic in China, I was almost hit by a man on a bicycle. There was a moment of confusion, of vague recognition, a moment where life flashed before my eyes. Then all of a sudden it hit me. No, not the bike, but recognition. The man on the bike was James Cho. Four days after meeting, in a city of 13 million people, James Cho almost hit me with his bicycle. "Hello friends! Goodbye friends!" James yells as he crosses the busy street, "See you later, James Cho!" we yelled after him.

What a big, great, small world we live in.

Read Quinn's daily posts and see her pictures on her blog site, "Sweet and Sour China the Dish on the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing." She describes the blog as "a buffet of culture, food, people, places, controversies, politics and shopping." It's located at www.quinnkelsey.blogspot.com. Contact her at qlk5w8@mizzou.edu.