Eric's Beijing Diary

I'm listening now to the words of George Beverly Shea..."I'd rather have Jesus than silver or gold..." It's an mp3 file I downloaded from the internet some years ago. It was a poem his mother had found, and placed on the piano where he could see it as he was playing. Young George was moved by the words and put them to music.

I'd rather have Jesus. That says it all. We all want to have the "good things in life." But if it comes to choices, I'd rather have Jesus. We all want security. Freedom from fear, and the right to do as we please. All nice things, but if it really came down to a choice, I'd rather have Jesus.

Nobody wants to go hungry. We all want, of course, to experience some measure of stability. Friends, family, and a sense that our life has meaning. But even all these things do not satisfy the deepest hunger of my heart. I'd rather have Jesus.

Wealth? What can I do with it? Use it to line my coffin? I'd rather have Jesus. Fame? Fame only brings trouble. I'd rather have Jesus. It is not for me to chart the course of another man's life. Every day I am surrounded by people who have made other choices, or no choice at all. They can have want they want, I'd rather have Jesus.

I am a Christian. From a socioligical perspective, I suppose most would say that this is because I came from a Christian background, but I have known people who came from a Christian background but chose to follow a different path. So when it comes right down to it, I am a Christian because, in spite of all the other paths a person like me could chose to walk, I chose the way of the cross, because I'd rather have Jesus.

Life is short. If this life is all there is, then we better do what we can to get the most of it, because we may die tomorrow. But this life is not all there is. And when my time on this earth is over, and I have to surrender all the things of this life, it won't be any great loss, because I'd rather have Jesus.

Absalom raised a pillar to himself. A statue to commemorate himself because he had no heirs. He had no son to carry on his name. But if your life has no meaning, what's to carry on? And if your life does have meaning, then what to you want to be remembered for? For all your many accomplishments? Not me. I'd rather just be remembered simply as the man who'd rather have Jesus.

The Reading Cafe. Nat King Cole singing in the background. Dim ceiling light and an ultra-bright reading light. A cup of coffee for 10 yuan. Refill for 5 yuan. Several people sitting and reading or talking quietly. A couch and lamp in the corner. Bookcase on one end. It's in a little alcove behind the bookstore. Same building as the Lush, but I guess that doesn't mean anything, because I haven't told you about the Lush yet.

It's nice to find a place that has "Reading" in its name. Not that it's necessary. I have hauled my books into coffee shops and truckstop cafes all over the United States and Canada, and none of them were called, "Reading." Fact is, I can only remember three or four times in my life that I ever got kicked out of a restaurant or coffee shop for studying, and that's not bad for a bookaholic like me. One was a stuffy old French Canadian waiter in Southern Saskatchewan when I was in graduate school at the University of Regina. Another was a misplaced waitress in an offbeat truckstop in Iowa. She told me to go read in the drivers' lounge, which is like telling someone to take a nap on a waterslide. A couple other times. But I'm spending way too much time on the exceptions. The vast majority of waitresses have been very patient with my addiction, especially since I often showed up in the afternoon when the place wasn't too busy.

Still, it's kinda nice to find a place that openly appeals to bookworms like me. A place where I know that my reading will never be an issue. Where I don't have to look around to see if someone is standing there hoping I will leave so they can seat the next customer. And since tipping is not done in China, I don't have to do any mental calculations to figure out how much I should "pay" for having stayed so long. Even without places like this, I would never stop reading, it's just that...but enough of my rambling. I'll shut up and let you listen to Nat King Cole...."Let's fall in love...."

Hard to believe that it is already seven years ago that I moved to the East Valley. I actually left North Dakota right before Christmas in December of '96. I had been in the trucking industry for seven years when I decided to hang it up. Why? Because it was time. The cloud by day, and the fire by night; when it moves, you have to follow. Coming north out of Iowa, I slid into the Twin Cities on almost solid ice, and parked at the Mall of America next to a huge mountain of snow that had been cleared from the parking lot. I made my way up toward the terminal in Fargo, hoping to get my truck cleaned out and get out of town before the blizzard hit. I didn't make it. I got into town alright, and got the load off, but then the snow really started to come in. I was forced to spend the night in my tractor, parked at the terminal. Of course I was nice and warm, because I ran the engine up to 1000 rpms as usual, and kept the heat on. That old 430 Detroit put out plenty of heat, so I wasn't at all worried about that. It was the idea of being stranded when I still had to move out of my apartment in Williston, and I wanted to get down to Arizona for Christmas.

The next morning, I woke up, and made my way through the blizzard to the shop. The news wasn't good. There was no sign of a letup. All the freeways were barricaded. Five hundred dollar fine if you went around the barricade. And it would be fruitless, because you wouldn't get anywhere. Greg Miers, another driver was there, and fortunately he had a four-wheel-drive pickup. He also had an ice chest in his truck. All he had left in his ice chest was some beer and braunschweiger (He was a good German Lutheran). I'm going to save you a little trouble. If you're ever walking into a restaurant or coffee shop in the morning, and you're trying to decide between beer and braunschweiger, and just about anything else in the world, take my advice: Pick whatever else is on the menu.

It wasn't the most apetizing meal, but it was nourishment (well, at least the braunschweiger). Greg and I spent the next two days driving around Fargo, discussing theology and water towers, and going to the mall. We couldn't leave town. We could barely get into Olive Gardens for supper. The place was packed. Finally the storm let up, and I was able to leave. I drove to Bismarck, and then Bill and I drove to Williston and cleaned out my apartment. I will never forget the last night I spent in North Dakota. We had finished everything up, and I wanted to get going right away, but Bill was tired, and Terry had invited us to stay in Auntie Serina's basement for the night, so I decided to take him up on it. I was getting ready for bed, and probably quite preoccupied, when I almost ran into one of the load bearing posts in the little basement apartment. I stopped just in time. On the post was a plaque. I read it. I couldn't have missed it; it was two inches in front of my nose. It said, "Beware the barrennesss of a busy life." I didn't realize then how important those words would become. The last seven years have been probably the busiest of my life. When I came to the East Valley seven years ago, I was an unemployed truck driver, and I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. I wanted to return to my profession, but I really didn't want to go back to the public school system, so I decided to go into technical training. I went to one place after another applying to teach computers. Most of the places were companies that specialized in teaching office applications. My ignorance of the field was so profound that I did not realize that there was quite a significant pay differencial between teaching word processing to secretaries and teaching high end systems to engineers. I almost ended up in the wrong direction, but I was saved by my complete inability to get a job. I remember once I answered an ad for a AS400 trainer. I had not idea at that time what AS400 was, but I figured it had something to do with computers. They asked me about my experience. I admitted that I didn't have any, but I offered to learn it. My efforts seem comical to me now, but I really was dead serious. I knew that I could do the job; I just couldn't convince anyone else of that, partly because of my complete ignorance. Finally a friend of mine whom I had met at the Arizona Professional Employment Network told me that I needed to get some kind of certification. I didn't want to go to that trouble, but I finally resigned myself to it. I spent a number of months studying 15 hours a day, and took the tests for my Microsoft certification. That is what made the difference.

Now I have made another big change. Beijing, China. I am forty-nine years old. Well, Matteo Ricci was forty-nine when he arrived in Beijing in 1601, so I guess I am in good company. He was into technology too, but his thing was clocks. I cannot begin to guess where this will lead, but I am convinced that there is a reason I am supposed to be here, and that I am doing the right thing at the right time. Funny how the conviction that you are doing the right thing somehow actually creates the confidence that tends to bring success. When I moved to Arizona seven years ago, I was really in a cloud. I felt like Albert Einstein, who said, "How do I work? I grope." I was definitely groping. I was a "mite bewildered at times," as Daniel Boone once said when asked if he had ever been lost. But I was never discouraged. God is a
God of purpose. "I will work, and who shall let it?" (Is 43:13)

Well, my one-lock bicycle got a flat today. I took it to a bicycle shop right near my place. I was trying to tell them what was wrong, and not doing very well, when a passing student stopped to help translate. They said it would cost me 44 yuan, and told me to come back in an hour. When I got back, the price had gone up a little. Now it was 48 yuan. That's half as much as I paid for the whole bicycle in the first place. The lady kept saying "Bu hao shang." Not easy to fix. Was I going to argue about si kwai? No. That's less than fifty cents. Besides, they did do a good job, and gave me a new tire. They even fastened my loose chain guard. I didn't even ask them to do it. Fact is, i didn't want them to do it. I prefer to leave it loose, because it's a lot easier to put the chain back on when it comes off. Well, it's probably a good thing, because they tightened the chain. Runs like a clock, now. Fortunately they didn't try to shine it up or anything. That would have upset me.

I stopped by the office today. Isaac (another professor) was there. He told me that his bike had been stolen. I asked him if it was old. He said, "No, it was the cheapest new one I could find." I said, "Was it locked?" He said, "Yes, but it just had a normal lock." Hmmm... putting one lock on a two-lock bicycle. Big mistake. I told Isaac where he could get a one-lock bicycle. He was very glad for the information.

Traffic. Cars have the right of way in China, and don't you forget it. Crossing the street is fascinating; it reminds me of dodgeball. Actually, it's not a big problem for me, because I have never been suicidal. But there are some things which give me pause.. I don't know why they have crosswalks here...they don't seem to have much meaning. I'm sure they actually do mean something, I just haven't figured out what yet. The other day, I was walking with Piano, and we came to an intersection. Piano said, "OK, we should go now." I could see that the walk signal was very red, but "ours is not to reason why," as they say. After we had crossed the street I said, "Why did you decide that it was OK to cross when the light was red? Piano said, "Chinese believe their eyes." Seems like a good idea if you think about it.

I'm making it sound worse than it is. All the busy streets have bicycle lanes, so that's good. I must admit that I get a little frustrated with all the bicycles going the wrong direction, unless I am the one who is going the wrong direction, in which case I get a little frustrated with all the bicycles going the right direction, which is even more challenging. I guess it's all the same in the end. One thing that baffles me is the way some people prefer to walk in the bicycle lane. Great big sidewalk right beside them, but they prefer to walk in the street. Don't know why...I guess it makes them feel shorter. And it's really irritating when some impatient cab driver gets out of line and starts driving down the bicycle lane right toward you. Ocassionally I will square up with them to see if I can get them to chicken out, but they never look worried. But the very worst are the motorcycles. It's just not fair. And I'm talking about real motorcycles. I didn't even mention the motorized bicycles. They move along at a pretty good clip. And watch out for the busses. They usually don't drive in the bicycle lane, but when they decide to pull over and stop, you don't want to be there.

The other day I thought I felt a cold coming on, so I went to the store to buy some Vitamin C. I looked up the term in my English-Chinese dictionary, and found "weitaming" as the Chinese version of the word. Well, "weitaming" is obviously a phonetic. It is not a Chinese word, but a Chinese pronunciation of an English word. I can't remember now how many people I talked to at that store, but none of them seemed to have any idea what I was talking about. Finally, I went up to a lady and pointed to it in my dictionary. She said, "meiyou," to inform me that they did not sell vitamins in their supermarket.

One of the frustrations of using transliterations is that even though they are formed from words with which you are familiar, you do need to learn them as if they were completely new. You cannot just say, "I want Vitamin C!" That is, unless you are standing in a pharmacy staring the the druggist in the face(which is what I finally did). No, you really do need to learn how to correctly mispronounce the word if you want to be misunderstood. My first experience with this was when I went to America at the age of 13. I had to learn how to pronounce Japanese words the way Americans were used to hearing them, which sounded very strange to me. Most of the time, I coudn't quite bring myself to do it.

But in this situation, I was really trying my best to say "weitaming." I don't know...it was probably the tones..but, I couldn't manage to say it correctly. I mean incorrectly. Or perhaps I should say incorrectly correctly.

At our "Purpose Driven Life" Study last Saturday night, the leader asked what someone close to us would identify as the driving force in our lives. Well, the way he put that question provoked me a bit, 'cause I always thought you weren't supposed to live your life by what others think. But as I started thinking about it, I thought I better check it out. I asked Melissa to comment on the question. She wasn't sure what I was referring to, but she put in her two cents worth anyway. Here's Melissa:

The one thing that defines him? God. Through Him all other things that my dad loves are able to breathe and grow. He loves China and green tea, he thinks that knowing more than one language is a necessity. He believes in coffee shops and stacks of thick books. Money spent on educating oneself is money well spent.

He knows that people become mobile by the strength God provides, and the people He puts in our lives to encourage us.

My dad is fascinated by electricity and how things work. He has taken apart cars and vacuum cleaners and computers to further examine each individual part. Which, perhaps, is what makes him a teacher. He knows that he has a class of students in front of him, but he also has the curiosity to investigate each one and see precisely how all the pieces fit together.

Technology is his work but the advancement of evangelism is his forte. He wants to expand the knowledge of his students and provide a basis for the expansive study of a true and loving God.

He appreciates ethnic cuisine, but also has a soft spot for hometown American cookin'.

He has a beard. I'll leave that one alone.

He is somewhat clueless as to the art of keeping a house clean, preventing the "bachelors ring" in a toilet and the seemingly complex emotions of females. But he tries. AND, for what he lacks in comprehension, he makes up for in his understanding approach.

He loves music. He thinks that if one takes a liking to an instrument, one should practice and master it. He can play the harmonica and has embodied a feeling of worship so strong that beating his hand upon the dashboard of an old torino while singing at the tippy top of his lungs was the only way to express it. He reads the bible daily.

He appreciates the art of rhetoric and the healing power of humor. He is witty, comical, and interesting. Strong and obvious values, unwavering beliefs in certain things, and a pro at an eighteen wheeler. He is stubborn, lighthearted, and forthright.

But he knows, with absolute assurance, that he is none of these things without God.

And THAT, is my father, Eric Langager.

Labels: Melissa

This morning I met a young lady who is a student from Bulgaria. We were waiting for the bus. She is studying at the Beida medical school. Beida (Beijing University) is right down the road, but the medical school, the distinguised "Peking University Health Science Center" is right across the street from the Beihang main gate, where the BICF bus picks up. Students come from all over the world, spend a year of intensive language study, then plunge right into their medical studies. I met a guy from the States a few weeks ago who was doing the same thing. He is from Seatle, but he grew up in a Chinese family, so he already has the language thing figured out. He plans to go back to the States to establish a medical practice after he finishes here, though I imagine he will have some hoops to jump through when he gets back.

I heard an interesting program on China Radio International (FM 91.5 if you happen to be in town) this morning. They were doing a piece on religions of China. They started talking about Christianity and after describing how Chrisitianity was brought to China by missionaries in the early 19th Century, the hostess of the show said that Chrisitianity in China tended to follow the patterns of Chrisitianity in the West, except that Christianity in China was often more personal, because many Chinese Chrisitians prefer to meet in homes. They then interviewed a "house Christian," who told how she had become a Christian after hearing the gospel from her mother. There really does seem to be a greater acceptance of Christianity, and especially of "house church" Christians, as a legitimate part of the Chinese religious community. Anyway, I thought it was very well done.

This evening, I joined a study group for "The Purpose Driven Life" at a private home in River Gardens a residential development for the expat community. I have never been a big fan of pop Christian literature, and I was going to pass on this latest fad too, but my daughter gave me the book for Christmas, so I started reading it, and it really is pretty good. At least it can be said that the title of the book defines what ought to be the assumed posture for anyone who names the name of Christ. Lots of good food and fellowship.

10:10 PM 2/5/2004

Had an interesting talk with Adam this evening. I ran into him at the Lush. I had gone there to study, but they had scheduled a dance, so it was not condusive to study. So I gave up studying and spent some time talking with him and an American economics professor. Adam is from Sichuan Province in the western part of China. He has never been to the United States, but would like to go there to study. He noticed my interest in Chinese history, and particularly commented on a book I had by Lin Yutang. Lin Yutang is actually more of a philosopher than an historian. I told him that I thought Lin Yutang was a very talented writer, but that his western education had influenced his philosophy considerably. To be sure, he is Chinese, and he is widely regarded as the person who, more than anyone else, helped to explain Chinese thinking to the West. He was educated in the West, he spent many years in the West, and he writes in English for a Western audience. But, as I told Adam, my frustration with Lin Yutang is that his education was so western that he sometimes sounds like a run-of-the-mill American professor.

Both Adam and I agreed that "orthodox" thinking in China is essentially Confucian. During the cold war, many in the west came to believe that the key to understanding China (and other eastern countries) was to understand Marxism). But that was a mistake. Mao himself patterned himself after the Qin emperor, and all the rage and fury of the Cultural Revolution did not put as much as a dent in the pervasiveness of Confucian thinking. I expressed my frustration that in America, it is very easy to study the history of China for the last 200 years, but very, very hard to find books (in English) on the dynasties which proceded what we commonly know as "Modern China." Adam agreed, but he said that in many ways the history of Modern China is more important. Perhaps, but I still believe that understanding the history of transition from one dynasty to another throughout the thousands of years of Chinese history is critical to understanding how Modern China came to be what it is. From an historical perspective, the end of a dynasty is seen as a tragedy. The Qing dynasty is a good example of this. During the Qing dynasty, China was ruled by the Manchus. They were essentially foreigners, not Han Chinese. But there is really nothing unusual about that. The Han people have not historically conquered their foes by fighting them off, but by absorbing them. Beijing is actually a good place to study history, since Beijing has ruled China for six dynasties. The only city which exceeds this is Xian, which was the seat of power for twelve dyanasties. It's just really hard, with such a long history, to get a grasp on consistant patterns of history without doing a tremendous amount of reading. Part of this can be circumvented by reading the four classic novels. I have read "Outlaws of the Marsh" (actually about three-fourths of it--I got kinda bored after the vigilantes made up with the Emperor), and now I am reading "The Three Kingdoms." But in addition to this, I am reading a biography of Deng Xiaoping by his daughter. Adam noticed a quote I had underlined. Deng's daughter says,

"Happiness always contains some hardship;
within hardship there is always a little joy.
As long as you do your best to adjust to your
environment, life will provide you with compensation."

She is talking about the Cultural Revolution, when her father was placed under house arrest by Mao. Her book is a fasinating portrait of the one man who, perhaps more than any other, gives credibility to Adam's statement about the importance of modern history. Fortunately (both for him and for China), Deng was spared the fate of Liu Xiaoqi. Nevertheless, the man who would change the face of China--whose economic reforms would one day lift more than 250 million people out of poverty--was forced to live under very spartan conditions. He was confined to his home except in the morning, when he worked in a local factory as a fitter. It is an enlightening thing to watch how he handled his period of disfavor. Gives new meaning to what Solomon said twice in the Book of Proverbs, "before honour is humility."

Labels: Confucius, Deng Xiaoping, Dynasties, Qing Dynasty