This text was written in Helsinki in the Unioninkatu University meeting room in October 2022, as part of a flash ethnography project. At the time, I was writing a manuscript on multinational engineers based on fieldwork I completed in Israel, where my partner, Teddy, still works as a Chinese engineer at a local hydropower plant. This story came to mind when thinking about the quarrels and cooperations surrounding engineering standards between Chinese and Israeli engineers in their everyday practice.