Eric's Beijing Diary

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.

Click picture for larger image.
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.