Eric's Beijing Diary

Tonight was the eighth anniversary of my arrival in Beijing. The 10th of January is also Bulu's birthday, so I decided to make a party of it. I managed to get in touch with Eric Wu, and he invited Lily and Courtney. Bulu also brought another student I had not seen since a bunch of us had dinner together in Yokohama, already five years ago now.

Click for larger image.
I see Bulu every once in awhile, but I hadn't seen Eric for a number of years. He hasn't changed a bit since the day I first met him. Lily and Courtney were both at the party the Software College had for me the night I landed in Beijing eight years ago. Back then they were young graduate students full of hopes. Now they are both mothers, transferring those hopes and dreams to their little ones. Oh, how swiftly go the years!

I remember before I left Arizona, someone asked me, "Do you have any friends in Beijing?" I said, "No, but I will pretty soon." I wasn't mistaken. It's interesting to me that the Streams in the Desert devotional for January 10th is about God's prohibitions. Closed doors. Interesting because when I came to China, it was very clear to me that this was God's open door. The scripture is in Revelation 3, verse 8:Behold, I have set before you an open door, which no one is able to shut. I didn't really understand why I had come to China, but I knew that I knew that I knew that I was here because of God's specific direction. That's a good feeling. But God's direction often comes as the result of our willingness to give up something else that we thought might be His will. In my case, I had thought for many years, at least since the early eighties, that I would eventually be going to the Middle East.

God very clearly changed my direction. I didn't understand it, but I accepted it. A call is a call. After 40 years of waiting, I was ready to take anything. But I almost didn't come to Beijing. When I first got the email from Beihang University, I ignored it. I thought I should go to Western China, because that's where the poorest people are. Fortunately for me, a week later they sent me another email. This time I felt a little guilty because I knew that I was getting this email because of having sent out my resume, so I dashed off a quick email to soothe my conscience. I got a reply immediately asking me how soon I could come, and the rest is history.

January. A new year. The first thing that happens to me at a time like this is to think back to where I was a year ago. My focus then was to find some way to get to the Middle East. I didn't have a job a year ago, and I thought perhaps I might be able to get some kind of work in Dubai or something. I don't know. I was brain storming, but I never really did come up with anything definite. Perhaps that's good, because a job in the Middle East would have addressed one side of my (spiritual) double vision but not the other. Speaking of double vision, it seems to be getting a lot better. I noticed when I was riding the bus today and looking out the window, that some things looked double. But maybe that's not so unusual because of the motion. Most things look normal now. The mega-doses of B vitamins they've been giving me seem to be doing the trick.

But we're still working on the spiritual double vision. What I mean is that I have a vision that has two aspects, neither one of which can happen without the other. I have a burden for the children of Afghanistan. Two million children with no education. Things are getting better, but there are still a lot of kids in the streets. So there is definitely a need for the kind of thing I want to do. But I also have a burden for the young people of China, who are very well educated, and willing to serve, but who have no facility for missions. Chinese churches don't do missions. Strictly speaking, NGO's (Non Government Organizations) are illegal in China, so when people in China want to do charity work, they need to either set up a for-profit company, or they operate illegally. I don't want to do either, so I am in the process of finding some way to operate outside of China, which is the right thing to do anyway, because we are not going to be doing any projects in China.

Angela took me to Tongren Hospital today. I was suprised last week by a sudden onset of double vision. Fits my personality, in a sense, because I have always believed there are two ways to look at everything. But I generally prefer not to see them both at the same time. When I mentioned my condition to Angela, a friend of mine who is a pediatrician, she recommended that we visit the eye clinic at Tongren Hospital. Tongren Hospital is an old 19th Century mission hospital. The Eye Center is regarded as the top eye treatment facility in China.

It's hard to describe how things are in China at a famous hospital like Tongren. Lots of people from all over the country, so treatment takes place in what looks like a reverse assembly line. The docotors are all sitting in an open area, and you line up and wait your turn to sit on the stool in front of the doctor. It all seems really rushed, but the doctor was actually quite helpful, and I peppered him with questions (with Angela's assistance). He prescribed some medicine (mostly B vitamins) and recommended that we go see a neurologist, so we decided to go to the foreigner clinic at PUMC. Very different place. The foreigner clinic at PUMC is more expensive than a regular Chinese hospital, but much, much cheaper than the International Hospital (Beijing United). And this clinic rotates the best physicians in China, so the level of competence is quite good. I am saying that as an outpatient. I have never been hospitalized there. The neurologist seemed to think I might be diabetic, so she prescribed a blood test and also an MRI, but she told me to hold off on the MRI until after the blood test.

This week the topic for the English Majors was "Holidays." I put together a list of the basic facts of Christmas and told them to take that information and make up their own Christmas programs. I divided them into groups of six to eight students. They are pretty good at role playing, so I thought it would be a good way for them to get a feel for what Christmas is all about. They didn't have any trouble coming up with some interesting variations. A bit irreverent in places, but hard not to smile. These kids really are quite entertaining.

Christmas programs. I've seen a lot of them, and I've been in a lot of them. I remember once when I was seven years old, I was drafted to play the role of Joseph for the evening Christmas at the church in Sakata. It wasn't really a full Christmas program--mainly just a nativity scene. I was told that I didn't have to say anything, so I went along with the idea even though I was slightly less than enthusiastic. But there was one problem. Church services in Japan are very long, and standing in that little store room off to the side of the stage, it seemed like forever that we had to wait. I just could not keep my eyes open. When it came time for me to go on, I was out cold. The Mary for that scene was a little Japanese girl. She went on dutifully and did everything perfectly. Me? Well, they shook me awake, and I managed to stumble onto the stage, but my bathrobe caught on something that was stored in that little room, and I managed to drag it onto the stage with me. So if you can imagine yourself in the audience--you're sitting through a long, long Christmas service, and then it's time for Joseph and Mary. Mary comes on and walks to the middle of the stage just like she's supposed to. But...no Joseph. All of a sudden, here comes the gaijin, stumbling onto the stage like he's had too much Christmas cheer, dragging half the back stage with him. I'd never make it in Hollywood.

Dad told me that when he first went to Japan, he saw a Christmas tree, and on top of the Christmas tree was a cross, and Santa Claus was hanging on the cross. Got to give them an "A" for effort. It's interesting to me how Christmas has become such a thoroughly international festival. I can't say "holiday," really, because China does not have a Christmas holiday (yet), but it is quite noticeable here. Different from America, but I do like Christmas in China, because there isn't quite so much emphasis on presents. I remember asking one of my students about his Christmas...

"How was your Christmas?"

"Perfect!"

"Really? What did you get for Christmas?"

"Nothing."

I said, "This I gotta hear." He told me that he had taken his girlfriend out to dinner and given her some flowers. In China, Christmas Eve is called, "Ping An Ye," which means "Peaceful Evening." I like that. Restaurants are open late so that young people like my student and his girlfriend can have a nice evening out.

Had lunch with Mike today. Well, almost. The computer was down at the Bridge Cafe, so they missed our order. We got it straightened out, but Mike couldn't wait, so they returned his money. Just one of those things, and they were pretty good about it, so what can you say? That place is very busy on a Saturday--the only way it works at all is because their system is fully computerized. But when the computer is down, it is pretty near impossible to keep things straight.

But we had a good talk. Mike had read my post about the Shouwang Church, and wanted to see me. He is in China to do some research for the latest edit of his book. I told him that I felt that what happened at the Shouwang Church wasn't really news. I still have mixed feelings about it, because I don't know that it should be the government's business to decide how big a church congregation can be. But the government does have a very definite policy on church registration, and Shouwang Church was not registered, and had no intention to do so. Small family churches are technically exempt from this requirement, but Shouwang Church was operating in a manner that demonstrated very publicly that they were not small, and did not intend to be small. They had a thousand "members." I use the term "members" loosely, because membership in house churches is quite informal. But it's actually quite informal in Three Self Churches too. Bottom line: What happened to Shouwang Church was to be expected, given the present state of things in China. But the government is going to discover that this problem is not going to go away. Christianity is growing exponentially in China. There will be other Shouwangs.

Mike's organization is involved with distributing Bibles, and building church buildings for family churches in the countryside. I was very interested to hear that he buys the Bibles from the place where they are published in Nanjing, and then distributes them in the countryside. I told him this is exactly the way things should be done. I have met and heard of people who were involved in "smuggling": Bibles into China. It always strikes me as completely absurd to smuggle Bibles into China from outside, when they can be purchased quite easily here. Mike told me that at any one time, the plant in Nanjing has a quarter of a million Bibles. They decide how many Bibles to print by replenishing that supply.

Oh, how quickly go the seasons! They say Beijing has a very short autumn, but I don't agree. Actually, it depends on what kind of summer you have and what kind of winter you have. If the summer fever breaks the first part of September, and the coming winter is reasonably mild, then the fall season at least seems like it drags on for almost four months. But easily three months. But if September is a hot month and winter comes a little early, then autumn can seem pretty short.

The real problem is that there are four seasons in a year, and only twelve months. So simple math tells you that the average length of a season is going to be three months. That's not very long. Goes pretty fast. Late fall seems a little depressing until you get used to it, and especially as you begin to appreciate the beauty of winter, which you could never have if autumn lasted forever. I guess this is why I like a four-season climate.

As you may know if you are familiar with China, one of the left over practices from the Maoist era is the assumption that public buildings in the northern part of China should be equipped with hot water radiators. So winter in Beijing is quite comfortable (inside). South China is very different. Cold outside and cold inside. In the far south, it is actually warmer outside than inside. But in Beijing, the inside temperature is usually quite pleasant. The only time of the year that is a little uncomfortable is the first part of November, because the tradition says that the heat doesn't need to come on until the middle of November, and sometimes the first part of the month can be a little chilly. But once the heat comes on, most places keep the boiler stoked with plenty of coal.

Just got back from Hainan Island, the "Hawaii" of China. One of those last minute faculty outings. I was skeptical about trying to do Hainan in a weekend, but it actually worked out quite well.

We flew down to Hainan on Friday evening. Maofu had reserved rooms at a place with a pretty nice breakfast buffet. I guess they have both a Chinese buffet and a western buffet. I didn't see the Chinese one, because, although I really do like Chinese food, I have never been a big fan of Chinese breakfast. The western buffet was an essential, because there are so many Russian tourists. You turn on the TV and see old Russian movies. And many signs are in both Chinese and Russian.

There are three major beaches in Sanya. Our hotel was right above Dadonghai, but Maofu had arranged for us to go to Yalong Bay, which was a good thing, because the swimming beach at Yalong Bay is really nice. I was surprised how warm the water was. I don't mean like a hot tub or something, but really nice.

In the afternoon, we took a boat to Wuzhizhou Island. My Lonely Planet Guide shows this island on the map of Hainan, but there's nothing written about it in the book. The tour of the island is guided--you can't just walk around. But it is really very pretty. Just toward the end of the walk,we came upon a large swimming pool fed by a spring or springs. It as completely unattended, and there was no fence or anything, so we took advantage of it and jumped in. Really refreshing water, and not cold at all.

Yesterday, we took a tour of the tropical rain forest. This place had a lot of tourists, but if you've never seen a tropical rain forest before, it is quite informative.

I am really not one for rushed vacations--I would never think to take a trip to Hainan for a weekend. But this trip went really well.

Got a call yesterday from a company in Hong Kong that does incorporation. It was in response to an inquiry I had sent them some time ago. They guy who called me said he had sent me two emails. I didn't get either of them, and he was thinking perhaps they ended up in my spam folder. I told him to send me another one, and, sure enough, I found it in the spam folder. Not sure why--It was not a group message. There could possibly be some problem with his company's ISP. But that's only a guess. Just when I think I have a handle on what causes an email to be regarded as spam, something like this comes along and throws me for a loop.

But it was a good thing he called me, because he told me that we could not get non-profit status in Hong Kong unless we could prove that the primary beneficiaries of our work were in Hong Kong. That will not be the case, because we will be bringing young people from Asia to work with children in Afghanistan, so our primary beneficiaries would be the children we would be teaching. Not sure what I am going to do about this, but I am thinking now about the possibility of just setting up an NGO in Afghanistan itself. Afghanistan's NGO law is pretty straightforward. I actually do like it, and it would probably be a good bit simpler than setting up in Hong Kong. The one major issue there, though, is that at least one person would have to be a resident of Afghanistan. I don't know any Afghan residents. I guess I just have to take a trip there first and see what I can discover.

Anne Marie and Tom were here for Jordan and Lily's wedding feast Saturday. It was a rushed trip, but we did get a chance to spend some time Thursday at Fragrant Hills. I don't usually go anywhere near the park during the day time, so even I was a bit taken aback by all the hubbub, but it was still nice, because the weather was good, and if you have never seen it before, then I guess it feels somewhat normal to be there with the tourist hordes.

The wedding banquet was at a really nice restaurant near Haidian Church. I have been around that area for years, now, but I don't recall being in that place. Anyway, it was a pretty good place for a group occasion.

Cherish came up to me today after class and said, "This tie is very beautiful. Can I take a picture of you?" I told her I bought it on the street for 20 kuai. For awhile there, I was buying ties quite often, because the street vendor never argued with me when I chose a tie and handed him 20 kuai. As a matter of fact, that's probably more then he gets from most local people. But his ties are pretty nice. Walk over to Hualian by the light rail station, and you can see the very same ties for several hundred kuai. I talked to a foreign teacher the other day who told me he paid 400 for a tie. I told him I paid 20. He said, "Yes, but if my tie has a problem, I get a new one." He may be right. But I don't need a warranty. I can buy a lot of 20 RMB ties for 400. Maybe not, though. The police have cleaned out a lot of those street vendors in Wudaokou. Now if I need a tie, I will have to go find a market somewhere.

Almost 2 am. I am in Hong Kong. You can't get a work visa for China in China (unless you buy it from a black market visa broker), you have to go out and come back in. I suppose every country has this rule, but fortunately, in the case of China, you don't need to go all the way back to your home country. The train ticket to Hong Kong or Shenzhen is not expensive. I chose to go to Shenzhen this time, because the train got in early Sunday morning, so it was easy for me to go to church. I was last here the end of July, to extend my visa by going out and coming back in just before it expired. A one year multiple-entry tourist visa gives you the right to enter China as many times as you like in a one year period as long as you don't stay more than 90 days on any one visit. Since I last entered China just before the expiration date, I automatically had another 90 days. When I got my current job, I thought I would have plenty of time to get my work visa before the 90 day stay had expired. But the government office in Beijing was way too slow about getting my paperwork ready, so I had didn't get that until the 10th. To minimize the number of class days I would have to miss, I waited until last Friday to leave so that I could be in the visa office first thing Monday morning. So I walked into Hong Kong from Shenzhen Sunday morning on Day 89 of a 90 day stay. Why does it always seem to come right down to the wire?

I decided to use a travel agency this time, partly because a Z visa is a little more complicated than a tourist visa, and because I really did need to have express service so I could get back to Beijing as soon as possible. I don't like paying a middle man to do stuff that I could just as easily do myself. But using a travel agency has the effect of putting you at the head of the line. I was in the visa office about 15 minutes turning in my application materials, and there was no line to stand in when I picked it up. Travel agencies are convenient, I will have to say that. But they don't do it for free. After I picked up my visa I was berating myself for paying someone else to stand in line for me, but when I got back to the youth hostel shuttle, another lady from the hostel who had decided to save money and do it herself told me that they were queuing way out into the street at the visa office.

So I sit here on Mt. Davis on a cool, quiet evening. Or I should say morning. But my mind is far from here. I had planned to be in Afghanistan right about now, but I decided to put it off, partly because I'm broke, and partly because I can't really afford it. Outside of my travel account, I was pretty bone dry. It's probably better this way, because in the initial stages of putting together an NGO, it isn't really appropriate for people to be supporting me when I'm not really doing that much. In fact, if there was a way to avoid being supported at all, I would strongly prefer it. I am not independently wealthy, so that may not be possible. But I am going to run it that way for as long as I can.

There is something else, and that is the visa situation. I have been living in China this past year on a tourist visa. A couple months ago, a guy from the US alerted me to the fact that China had revised their application process for the tourist visa. There's nothing really unfair about the new application, but it does seem that China doesn't want people to use a tourist visa to live in China. The actual fact is that they have never minded that, but they really seriously do mind people using a tourist visa to work in China. So they seem now to be addressing that problem by clamping down on people using tourist visas for anything other than scheduled, itinerant travel. But even before the change, tourist visas have always been problematic (especially for Americans) if you tried to get them outside of your home country. Usually the most you can get in Hong Kong is 30 days. That can be extended to 90 days, but that's it. I had a one year tourist visa. I have never heard of an American getting a visa like the one I had without going back to America.

Afghanistan is different. I went to the Afghan embassy in Beijing, and those guys were really friendly. They seem quite enthusiastic about giving visas to someone who is coming to help. So I could have gotten to Afghanistan, but I would have had trouble getting back. I don't even know if the Chinese consulate in Kabul would give me a visa at all. I tried to contact them, but they did not respond. So, I sit here in Hong Kong instead of in Afghanistan. I guess it just isn't time yet. God has his perfect time for everything, and it is always best to wait for it. Always.

I have written a number of book reviews for Amazon, and also for Powell's Books. For some reason, my review of Mao's Last Dancer has generated more comments than any other. I haven't written a review for some time, but I still get an email whenever someone comments on one of my reviews. Here is one I felt was worth sharing:

I feel that the reviewer is an honest man and tries to see "both sides", but unfortunately one cannot see the other side without experience it. I as a refuge from the communist country (former Czechoslovakia)remember how during the Nazi occupation we could not believe the Russian refugees from the USSR that Stalin is the same devil as Hitler. Several years later and lot of imprisoned, murdered people, we agreed. Maybe that is our human nature to learn so slowly. To simplify the problem: some people accept millions of executed people worth for the "social progress", others are inclined to accept Dostoevsky's ".. No revolution is worth of a tear of one child.."

Sincerely,

K.Kriz

I should say that, while my review was not without criticism, I did like the book, and gave it five stars. It is well worth reading. The comment of this reader makes me wonder if I would have seen the book differently if I had actually grown up in the China that Mao's last dancer came from. Perhaps. And Mr. Kriz seems to be referring to the issue of political repression. But there is also the issue of poverty. Many people in the China in which Mao's last dancer grew up were not inclined to be affected by political repression, because they were too desperately poor for it to matter. This, I think it the issue I was exploring. The Dancer rebelled against a system he disliked because it infringed upon his ability fully to experience the life of the privileged in America. But his exposure to that privileged American life was made possible only because he was among the privileged in China--a privilege granted to him by the very system against which he was rebelling. Would he have preferred the life of a poor man in America to his life of privilege in China?

This past week has been the October holiday. China has three "Golden Weeks." The first is in October, and coincides with the October revolution, when Mao stood on Tiananmen Gate and declared that China had "stood up." The second is the Chinese New Year, and the third is the May holiday. What this means is that the whole country goes on vacation at the same time. This makes for havoc on the trains. But in a way I do think it is a good thing. If it were not for these holidays, many working people would not get a holiday at all. I visited a sweater factory in South China some years ago, where the workers told me they had one day off a month.

Anyway, every day the hills are alive with the sound of people. It's not so bad, though, because most of them come on a bus, and there aren't any busses that get to the hills before six in the morning. More like 7 or 8 o'clock. So if I can get up to the East Gate before 6:30 or so, the park is still pretty pleasant and quiet. I start climbing right away, because even after people start coming, it takes them some time to work their way up to where I hang out. Most people have the idea that you're supposed to go to the top. I stay away from that place. I spend my time on the lateral trail about half way up the mountain.

I'm sure I have said this before, but you really can't beat a North China autumn. This is the nicest time of the year in Beijing. I notice it more than some, I suppose, because I particularly dislike Beijing summers. Everybody's different. When Jordan first came to China, he showed up in June. I was apologizing all over the place for the sultry weather, but he didn't seem to mind at all. I sure mind. I go to the Western mountains in the summer. So beautiful. But in the fall, there is no place I would rather be than right here in the Western hills.

Lots of talk about the passing of Steve Jobs. Certainly he was a key figure in the development of the IT revolution that took place in the seventies and eighties. In 1977, I took a course in "Basic Computer Coding." I was working off a Control Data 3300 at Oregon State University. I was not a student at OSU. I was a student at Oregon College of Education, twenty miles up the road. I sat in the computer room at an old military style teletype terminal. Processor time cost $25 for five minutes. But they gave you 5 minutes at the beginning of the class. I always figured out the logic of my program before I tried to run it, so as to minimize processor time. The teletype terminal had a punch tape dispenser that could print out your program on a punch tape. I rolled it up and put it in a Tupperware container. That was my data storage. Toward the end of that course, my professor told me that a company--I think it was Radio Shack, was coming out with a 4 K computer that could fit on a desktop. I was incredulous. Four thousand bytes of Random Access Memory in a desktop machine?? But it was true. The 4 K was followed shortly by the 16 K. Then the VIC 20. It was a small keyboard machine that you plugged into your TV. I was teaching in a country school in North Dakota when the school district purchased some Commodore Pet computers. Sixty-four thousand bytes, and a little cassette tape drive. Cool. I didn't have to type up the programs every time I ran a new one. Everybody was using BASIC in those days, but it was Apple that developed the Graphic User Interface with a mouse. It wasn't their innovation. Xerox engineers developed it at the Palo Alto research lab. Xerox paid big bucks for a research lab, but the powers that be did not appreciate what the engineers in that lab developed. Watch the movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley. Engineers from the Palo Alto research lab bring a mouse into the boardroom and demonstrate how it works. The executives each look at it quizzically and then pass it on. They rejected it as a useless toy. Big mistake.

Apple took the idea and developed it. Bill Gates saw what Apple had, and was determined to get it. So he formed an agreement with Apple, and copied the technology. There is a classic scene in the movie where Steve Jobs confronts Bill Gates for stealing the Windows technology. Gates said, "Xerox let the door open, and we just helped ourselves." The statement was technically true, but also disingenuous. Steve Jobs had not invented it, he had gotten it from Xerox, that's true. But Gates didn't get it from Xerox. He got it from Apple. This is a little bit of history that many people are not aware of. Microsoft would not be Microsoft without Steve Jobs.

During the early days of the microcomputer, I thought Apple was stupid for being so proprietary. Because they refused to license their platform, it became marginalized. But as time went on, I realized their wisdom. They had a very small corner, but what they had was all theirs. In those days, you either had a Mac, or an "IBM clone." I bought an IBM clone, as did most people. But IBM did not make a dime off my purchase. My computer was made by Hyundai. So IBM could boast that they had the most widely used platform, but what good did it do them? I made the mistake of judging Apple's approach based on market share. But the other night, I was listening to Rush Limbaugh on my old "home town" radio station from when I was in the trucking industry. He said, "Steve Jobs never cared about market share. He only cared about profit." That's the point. Market share and profit are not the same. And Apple's proprietary approach to hardware really paid off when they came up with the iPod and iPhone. They ruled the world. And created another revolution. Thursday night, Ahmed showed me his new Sony Ericsson phone running the Android system. Not an Apple product, but it was certainly inspired by the iPhone. Smart phones would not be smart phones without Steve Jobs.

Several years ago, a friend of mine told me about iTunes. I told her that I was not interested in buying an iPod. She told me the software, which comes on a CD with the iPod, could also be downloaded free. I decided to take a look. She had explained the podcasting feature to me, and I was curious. What I found changed my life. I had been going to a few websites and listening to or downloading news and information mp3 files. Now I go to each website once to subscribe, and after that, iTunes visits each website for me, checks for the latest program, and downloads it automaticallly.

I was not surprised to hear Rush Limbaugh praising Steve Jobs the other night. When I was a truck driver, I used to listen to Rush Limbaugh almost every day. He was a Mac fan, and mercilessly ridiculed anyone stupid enough to own a PC. The other night, he said that people asked him how he could like Steve Jobs when Jobs was known to be a liberal. He said, "I have always been a fan of greatness."

I have never owned an Apple computer. I am a server guy, and a technical trainer, so I have had to focus on the systems that most companies use. But all of us owe a debt of gratitude to Apple and Steve Jobs for the innovations that inspired the graphic user interfaces all of us now take for granted. Steve Jobs was not always an easy person to get along with. He was a perfectionist, and was once fired by his own company. But he set the standard for what a nice computer was supposed to look like, and every personal computer owner has benefited in some way from that standard.

I was sitting by the flagpole waiting before the afternoon speech contest today, when a student came running up to me. "You can't sit here. It's too hot! You need to sit in the shade... S-H-A-D-E! He grabbed my backpack and started heading for the library. He found a ledge for me to sit on that was in the shade, and started spreading a newspaper for me to sit on. Then he said, "I'm sorry. I have a meeting. I have to go," and he was gone. Nice kid.

Mr. Gao had asked me to be a judge for the afternoon speech contest today. It was interesting. I heard "I have a dream today" a lot. The question of the day was whether nuclear power was a blessing or a curse. Most students seem to have studied the issue quite a bit, but seemed hesitant to come to a clear position themselves on the issue. One kid wandered off into a diatribe on the Americans selling weapons to Taiwan. I took the liberty of reminding him that there was a difference between nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

The other judges were quite outspoken about the students' hesitation about taking a clear position on issues. I think it is a cultural thing, perhaps. I remember a few years ago, when I was in Shanghai for a conference of some kind, and I asked a couple students why Chinese young people were so hesitant to state their views. One of them quoted an old Chinese proverb to the effect that the person who sticks his neck out will get it cut off. Perhaps this is the reason for the classic stereotype that is part of an interesting "survey" a Kurdish friend of mine sent me once:

Last month, a world-wide survey was conducted by the UN. The only question asked was:

"Please give your honest opinion about solutions to the food shortage in the rest of the world."
The survey didn’t get any results because...:
1. In Africa they didn't know what “food" means.
2. In Eastern Europe they didn't know what “honest" means.
3. In Western Europe they didn't know what "shortage" means.
4. In China they didn't know what "opinion" means.
5. In the Middle East they didn't know what "solution" means.
6. In South America they didn't know what "please" means.
7. In USA they didn't know what “the rest of the world" means.

I was counting today. Today was my 34th first day of school. Actually, it's just about impossible to get an accurate count, because I tend to focus on the fall of the year, and I taught a couple year around schools where that pattern doesn't really fit. But if I think September then it's thirty-four. Thirty-five if you count kindergarten, although, for some reason, it doesn't stick in my mind. I don't know why, but I can remember everything about kindergarten except the first day.

I remember the first day of first grade like it was yesterday. Lewis and Clark School in Williston. And of course I could never, never forget my first day of second grade. Just arrived back in Japan, it was my first day at the boarding school. Auntie Esther came to me personally and told me not to worry about anything, and if I ever needed anything, to talk to her. I worried about everything and didn't talk to her about anything. Pathetic waste of kindness, but I was just too shy.

The first day of eighth grade was quite a shock, too. Fergus Falls, Minnesota. The Junior High school had just burned to the ground, and we were sharing the building with the high school. It was a blessing in disguise in some ways, because we didn't start school until noon, and got out about 6 pm.

I stayed out of school for a year after high school. I didn't want to go to college. Why fill my head with man's knowledge? But, in the end, I did. I had narrowed my selection of a major down to a final choice between Humanities and Social Sciences. I attended a session for the Humanities Department, and one for the Social Science Department. The Humanities guy had a mouth full of black teeth, and smoked heavily without an ash try, letting the ashes fall where they would. The social science guy was a noted geographer from California who had wanted to come to a small college so he could spend time writing or something. After those two sessions, I still couldn't make up my mind which major to choose, so I chose both of them. Did a double major in Humanities and Social Sciences with a Secondary Education endorsement.

The next first day of school that really sticks in my mind is my first day of teaching Palmer School in rural Williston. One school, one room, one teacher. Part of a fading era. I was the last person to teach that old school. It closed the next year.

Fast forward to 2011. A bunch of cheery freshmen just in from the countryside, and I am their first foreign teacher, although English is not their first foreign language. Many young people in China are essentially tri-lingual by the time they reach University. They speak a local village dialect, they have to start speaking Mandarin as soon as they enter school, and, of course, English. Some of them have also tried their hand at other foreign languages. I asked one class if anyone spoke Japanese. One young freshman yelled out the one Japanese expression in his repertoire: "Baka Yaro!"

Very pleasant outing today with the volunteers from the Haidian English Fellowship. We were at Beihai Park downtown. I haven't spent a lot of time at that park, and I was afraid that it was going to be swarming with people, but it was actually not too bad. We had lunch together, with everyone throwing what they had in the middle of a bit sheet spread out on the ground and all of us just helping ourselves. It was an interesting arrangement. Fortunately, Daniel had brought a couple Frisbees, and someone came up with a football, so we were busy looking like a bunch of Americans for awhile.

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Today is the Mid-Autumn Festival. It's listed as one of China's major holidays, but I don't know if that's really true, because it is pretty short, actually. So this isn't anything like Spring Festival. But it is a very old traditional Chinese holiday, so in that sense, I guess you'd have to say that it is relatively important. Not the kind of thing that sends the whole country back to their home towns, like Spring Festival, but significant in the sense that the whole country celebrates it.

I've noticed in recent years that the moon cakes are getting a little more varied. Had a couple today that were designed like French tea cakes. Really good. Some of the folks were planning to stay for the evening festivities, but I had sorta promised a house church that I would join their Monday evening English Corner.

Pretty persistent young lady. She contacted me last summer when I was in Guangzhou. I didn't recall meeting her, but I guess I must have given her my business card in church at some point, because she sent me an email letting me know that she had asked a friend of hers about possible openings for English teachers at his university. I didn't actually tell her I was looking for an English teaching job, because I wasn't. I have been focused on the mission to Afghanistan that I have been thinking about putting together.

So I didn't answer her email. She was not deterred. She gave me a call one morning while I was praying about God's purpose. Later she sent me a text message saying that a teacher at this university had passed away and it was very important for me to send her my resume.

I got an email from her a few days later saying that the campus would be closed until the end of August. So I put it out of my mind. Last week, I got a call from her friend telling me that he had arranged an interview for me. I have been hoping to go to Afghanistan this fall, so I have not been applying for positions here, but I decided that perhaps it wouldn't be right to blow off an interview staring me right in the face, especially since I have been out of work since January of 2010.

I got on pretty well with the folks at the University, and decided perhaps a teaching job for a year or so would give me some breathing space while I am trying to set up the NGO I have in mind. I am running into a couple snags re: Afghanistan. The first, and most obvious, is that the whole country, except for Kabul, is so very unstable. I try to be philosophical about it. I certainly don't have a death wish or anything, but I guess I figure that if something happened to me, I have already lived longer than James Fraser, who designed the alphabet for the Lisu tribesmen in Yunnan, or Samuel Pollard, who designed the alphabet for the Miao (which is still being used today).

But if I were to take some Chinese young people to Afghanistan and one of them got hurt, I would feel really bad. I know that there are no guarantees in life, but I really do need to try to develop a plan that ensures a reasonable measure of security.

The other issue is that I don't know a soul in Afghanistan. That doesn't really stop me, because you have to get acquainted somehow. I didn't know a soul when I came to Beijing, either. The difference is that when I came to Beijing, I had a job. Got of the plane and was taken to my apartment. I have never spent a night in a hotel in Beijing. That would not be the case if I went to Afghanistan without knowing anyone. The countryside of Afghanistan may be inexpensive, but you really can't travel alone as a westerner in the countryside of Afghanistan these days. You can do it in China. China is a relatively stable society. But Afghanistan is not. Even in Kabul, you can't just stay anywhere. You need to be conscious of security, and that costs money.

So, it seems that I have to hold off on going there for a few months or years. Waiting. So much of life is about waiting.

Started our Quran/Bible study again last night. My good friend just got back from Kuwait and sent me a text message saying he wanted to start our study again.

I was in the Arabian restaurant last spring with some friends from church, when one of the owners asked me if I could teach him about the Bible. I told him that I would teach him the Bible if he would teach me the Quran, so we are doing a comparative study of the Book of Genesis. Earlier this summer, he had to go back to Kuwait to tend to his family. He told me that he was also going to visit a mystic in Oman, who was going to teach him some things, including the deal where you draw a line in the sand, and when you step over it, you're in another place. When he left, he said, "If things work out, I may be coming back to visit you, but I won't need a ticket." So when I got his text message, I said, "Did you come back on an airplane, or did you find some other way?" He responded that he took a plane this time, because the other way is not going to be as easy to learn as what he had thought. I can imagine.

Studying with him is very helpful, because he has iQuran on his phone, so he can instantly find the Quran equivalent for the stories we are going through in Genesis. At any rate, we have a lot of interesting discussions. I bought an English language Quran one time, but I have never really studied it.

Really bad news. They paved the road going from the bus yard to my village. I live out in the western hills now, where Mao and the Red army were holed up before they took Beijing in the fall of '49. The whole area is now part of Fragrant Hills Park, and it is a national treasure. Mao's office and the place where he stayed is a little museum. The place where Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Zhu De (Mao's general), and Ren Bishi camped out is all boarded up now, but I have managed to get in there a few times just to see what it looks like. The East Gate of the park is about a fifteen minute walk from where I live. Before I moved out here, I used to visit Fragrant Hills Park about once a year. It was pretty, but a bit unpleasant because so crowded. It's different when you live here, because you can get there early. If I can be at the East Gate by 6 am, and climb right up to the trail half-way up the mountain, I can just about have the whole place to my self. Or I go there in the evening when it is starting to get dark. Everybody is leaving and it is quiet and peaceful.

Fortunately, although my village is close to the park (as is the bus terminal) it is not between the bus terminal and the park; it is off to the side. The result of this is that during the busy tourist season, tens of thousands of people pass within a few hundred yards of where I live, but no one ever ventures down the dusty road to my village. There would be no reason to; it doesn't go anywhere. So even though my village is not that far from the city (takes about 45 minutes to an hour on the bus to reach Wudaokou), it is actually quite remote. In some ways, I might as well be on the top of a mountain in Shanxi Province living in a Yaodong (earth cave). The young daughter of the folks who run the little produce market next door was just a toddler when I moved out here. Whenever she saw me, she would start laughing, and then cover her face and start screaming. She was so overwhelmed she couldn't decide which emotion to express. She literally didn't know how to respond to the strange apparition standing before her. Her mother worked with her quite a bit to help her get used to me, and now she is quite friendly and playful. But my point is that the remoteness of this village, in spite of the fact that it is not far from Beijing, and is, in fact, within the boundaries of the Haidian District, has resulted in my village remaining a quiet, Saturday morning kind of place, in spite of the frenzied growth in the more central areas of the city.

But that's all over now. This is China. Paved roads draw big black cars like a magnet does iron filings. Paved road. Better drive on it. You know how that goes. Once a few rich people in their big black cars get a chance to see the peaceful tranquility of this place, they will be bringing their friends. Pretty soon, the tour companies will catch on, and one after another they will be scheduling seven hour tours to South Hardship Village. In one sense, it's not as bad as I'm making it sound, because the first three hours and the last three hours will be spent shopping for trinkets at a souvenir shop somewhere, but even one hour in this village--well, you know, with 1.3 billion people, it adds up after awhile.

And as if that weren't enough, wait 'till it shows up on Google Earth. You know how that goes. Paved road. Must lead somewhere. Backpackers the world over will be fighting to come here and experience the quiet peacefulness of this remote village. And the growing numbers won't dissuade others, either. When you look at Google Earth, you're not seeing a picture of a village taken just yesterday. You're looking at a picture that was taken right after the road was paved, before all the people started to show up. So they will just keep coming. I can see it now. Before long, there will be a youth hostel on every corner, and bars all over the place. When I step out on my balcony and night and gaze at the southern sky, I won't see Orion. I'll see the bright lights of the revelry below me. And I won't hear crickets chirping. How could I, with the loud music coming from the bars blaring in my ear?

And rent will be sky high. I rented this little place for 700 RMB a month when I moved out here last year. It has already gone up since I have been here. My landlady let me know by telling me quietly, "If my husband is here, you must pay me 800, but I will give you 100 back later." It's simple now. No lease--I just pay my rent month by month. If I forget, the landlady doesn't get angry. She just makes me a plate of jiaozi. I think she's beginning to think I forget on purpose just to get the jiaozi. Not far from the truth, because her jiaozi is pretty good. But after the crowds get here, the place will probably be confiscated by some corrupt official and sold to the highest bidder. I better just go ahead and say goodbye to my neighbors now. I can't afford to live in a resort hotel for 10,000 RMB a night.

I've always known it was going to get bad. The subway is supposed to be out here by 2014. But somehow I had hoped to delay the urban sprawl as long as possible. Now there's no hope. Oh, China! I knew this was too good to be true.