Eric's Beijing Diary

Incredibly beautiful day today. Kinda bad, though, because I completely forgot to bring change for the beggars. It wasn't intentional, of course, but I still felt like a jerk. It would be easier, I suppose, if I were Chinese, but if you look like a foreigner, the beggars can be pretty persistent. Some foreigners deal with this by just not giving any money. Like the time I was mobbed by beggars down by the Friendship Store. The foreigners who were with me were left alone. That's one way of dealing with the problem, but I am not quite satisfied with that approach, because even though I don't like begging, I do want to address the needs of folks who are genuinely poor, and don't have anywhere else to turn.

I shouldn't say too much about this, because the truth is, I don't really know the answer. I'm just trying to understand the problem. China is a country which is going through a lot of changes. And the increase in prosperity has also increased the spread between the rich and the poor. Poverty programs which are based on some utopian notion of ending poverty for all time are doomed to failure, because Jesus said, "The poor you have always with you." And a cursory reading of Proverbs teaches us that poverty is as much a state of mind as a state of being. Still, it is incumbent on the Christian community to carry on its shoulders the burden of this problem, and while we are developing solutions to the problem, we must do what we can to meet the practical needs of folks who are having a tough time.

Help me the slow of heart to move
By some clear, winning word of love;
Teach me the wayward feet to stay,
And guide them in the homeward way.

Langfang. You're not going to believe this. The egg was fried. Cold and hard, but it was fried. I could swear they have been reading my web log, but that's not possible, because Blogspot is blocked in China.

This week I have been talking with the freshmen in Langfang about the plight of beggars. Last week I told them about my experience with the girl who was selling flowers on the street. I asked them what they thought about it. In particular, I asked them if they thought she was working for herself, or controlled by someone else. Most of them felt that she was working for an unscrupulous man who uses children to make money. One guy told about how, in the countryside, many people do not want a little girl, so if they have a girl, they sell her, and wait to have a boy. I was a bit skeptical about this statement. Not the first part of it, but the idea that parents would actually sell their children.

I should interject that these young people, although not all from wealthy backgrounds by any means, are indeed privileged, in that they are given the opportunity to get a very good education. So perhaps it should not be surprising that most of them seemed to feel that beggars are not as poor as they appear to be. One of them even described a scenario where beggars were living very well in the suburbs, and then dressing like they were very poor, and taking a taxi into town to put on their act.

I was a bit provoked by their response, so I did a little research. This week I shared an article with them which contained several interviews with beggars. The interviews were conducted by the Beijing News in response to word that the City of Beijing had decided to remove all beggars from the subway stations. I asked the students to discuss this article and give me their thoughts. One young man said he felt that the beggars should be removed, because otherwise foreigners who come here will think China is a poor country. But most young people seem to feel that there is a difference between performers, who play an instrument and put a can in front of them, and beggars who get in your face and ask for money. I tend to agree. But I also pointed out to them that regardless of the different categories we may place them in, none of them seemed to be making a big living from it, and none of them were working for anyone else. They all seemed to be begging to alleviate their own poverty. I wish the Beijing News would interview some of the beggars over by the Friendship Store in the Embassy area. I would be very interested to see the results of that study.

Last night I had dinner with Linda and Ida. As we were walking to the restaurant for a dinner of boiling fish, we heard a big bang coming from the street. We looked up and saw a boy who looked to be about 12 years old lying on the pavement in the middle of traffic. He tried to get up, but fell back down again. He had obviously been hit by a car.

It was at least partly his fault, because he was crossing, on his bicycle, in the middle of the block instead of going to the corner and using the crosswalk. And traffic was pretty heavy. The scene was upsetting, and I didn't want to leave until I was sure he was alright, but then I saw a cop with a radio, and he was kneeling down and talking to the boy, so it seemed like the situation was being taken care of.

It brought back memories. I was about the same age when I was hit by a car. It was in the city of Akita, in northern Japan. I was riding my bike, pretty much like this kid, when a hit-and-run driver hit me and took off. In my case, although I was bruised, I was able to get up and walk my bike home. As I was going through the alley, a couple of truck drivers caught up with me, and told me that they had written down the license number of the woman who hit me. Perhaps we should have pursued the matter, because leaving the scene like that is certainly a crime, but we decided not to. I say "we," but in fact, I really had no interest in the matter. Never for the smallest fraction of a second did I believe that she had deliberately knocked me over, and I was OK, so I didn't see much point in making an issue of it.

Of course, even though I was alright, a crime had been committed, because what she did was clearly wrong. She knew that she had hit someone, and she should have stopped. But beyond the legal matter, I have thought, since then, of what she must have gone through. Me? I went home and sat in the ofuro to sooth my bruised bones. But I cannot imagine what kind of evening she must have had. Knowing she had run down a kid, and not knowing if he was alright or not. Never being quite sure if she had been discovered, or if someone had reported her to the police. Her heart skipping a beat every time there was a knock on the door. At the time, I really didn't give much thought to what she was going through, but when I look back on it now, I really wish I could have told her that I was OK. How much agony she would have spared herself if she had just stopped to "face the music!"

It's late Monday night now...actually early Tuesday morning. Yesterday, I mean Sunday, I went to Haidian Jiaotang. It was kinda crowded, because there was a group of students from Wheaton College traveling through.

After church, I rode my one-lock bike to Wudaoko for breakfast. Lucky Bird (the waitress) asked me about my Bible:

"Do you read the Bible every day?"
"Yes, I do."
"But don't you ever finish? Is it too hard?"

That's actually a pretty good question. I searched for a way to explain why it takes me so long to finish. It usually takes me about three years to read through the Bible. That's because I do a fair amount of repetition. Every day I read a chapter from Psalms, a chapter from Proverbs, and a couple pages from another book. And I don't use a bookmark for Psalms or Proverbs. I go to the last chapter that I can remember having read, and read the one following. Needless to say, this makes for a lot of repetition, not to mention the fact that I read through Psalms and Proverbs several times before I am finished reading the other books.

When Lucky Bird came by my table again, I asked her if she was familiar with Li Bai (the Tang Dynasty poet). Of course she said that she was. I told her that Li Bai's poetry was widely respected because he was a master at packing a great deal of meaning into to the few short lines of a simple poem, like this one:

A SONG OF AN AUTUMN MIDNIGHT

by Li Bai

A slip of the moon hangs over the capital;
Ten thousand washing-mallets are pounding;
And the autumn wind is blowing my heart
For ever and ever toward the Jade Pass....
Oh, when will the Tartar troops be conquered,
And my husband come back from the long campaign!

I told her that the Bible is a very, very condensed book and that it cannot be read in a hurry if one really wants to understand it. She said, "Yes, I understand! I really want to read it sometime!"

"Lord, whence are those blood drops all the way
That mark out the mountain's track?"

"They were shed for one who had gone astray
Ere the shepherd could bring him back."

"Lord, whence are thy hands so rent and torn?"
"They are pierced tonight by many a thorn."

Oh, where does it end! And why does everyone want me to be a doctor? This time some advertising outfit wants me to do a voice over. It's a promo for some kind of hemorrhoid treatment. I said no. One must draw the line somewhere. I really don't have time for this. They showed me the segment they wanted me to read, but I'm not going to repeat it here. Nothing wrong with it, really, but it's not uplifting. And the whole thing was clearly a no-win situation. Somehow, no matter how well I did, I would still feel that my show business career had hit bottom. I could go on and on about how show business is not my thing, but the bottom line is, I'm really swamped right now, and I just can't afford to get any more behind in my work.

In other news, I got a haircut today. I haven't gotten around to doing that since I came to China, and I was getting a little shaggy. I guess I just wasn't sure how to go about finding a barber. I looked for one in church, but they don't do that here. I had mentioned something about it a month ago, but Lily told me that my hair looked just fine, and I shouldn't think about cutting it. This time I didn't ask permission. I finally called Leander and asked him to recommend a place. Ten yuan for a shampoo, haircut, and another shampoo. Not bad.

I'm sitting here in my hotel room in Langfang. I've just been listening to an mp3 file I downloaded from Sermonaudio.com. It's the end of a two part series by Leonard Ravenhill on John the Baptist. He said the altar is only there for one reason, and that is sacrifice. It is a place of death, and if you are not prepared to die, then don't go there. Watchman Nee used to say that nothing we have is of any use to God until it has been to the cross. The divine principle of life out of death is perhaps one the the hardest for us to grasp, not because it is so complicated, but because when it comes right down to it, we don't want to die.

Breakfast this morning was buffet style. No raw eggs. The Brit from Lanzhou, whom I met here a few weeks ago, mentioned something that went by me at the time, but which I now think may have some merit. He said that the breakfast I am getting in Langfang may be their idea of what a Western breakfast is supposed to look like: an open-faced egg on a plate, some bread, a jar of jam... But in America, the open-faced egg is fried, not raw. Nothing against raw eggs, you understand. I remember when I was a kid in the mountains of central Japan, eating something we called "natsusoba," which involved dipping noodles in a mixture of raw eggs and soy sauce. I think it was a regional specialty or something, because I have Japanese friends who have no idea what I am talking about when I tell them about it. But it was the going thing in Kashiwabara. Anyway, as I said, I have nothing against raw eggs. But eating a raw egg all by itself seems so meaningless. I remember years ago, in my younger days, when Jeanne paid me twenty-five cents apiece to eat four of them. My price has gone up.

Beggars. Lots of them. I have not quite figured out how to deal with this. Of course, there are beggars in the United States, too. I have met plenty of them at truckstops. My problem here in China is that there seems, sometimes, to be a subtile (or not so subtile) connection with the criminal element. One Sunday afternoon, I went to have lunch at Grandma's Kitchen, over by the Friendship Store. A beggar came up to me, and I have him one yuan or something. Suddenly, ten beggars came out of nowhere and demanded their share. This was too much of a good thing. From that point, I have made it a point never to give to beggars by the Friendship store. Beggars have been known to organize and work in teams, and then divide the loot.

The Bible says, "He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack: but he that hideth his eyes shall have many a curse." and also, "He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the LORD." And God pays very high interest. But sometimes the beggar is a tool of unscrupulous men who are using them for their own purposes, and are not poor at all.

I was coming out of the coffee bar after a late night of studying. It was after midnight. As I walked over to my bicycle, a little girl, perhaps about ten years old, came running up to me, with a bunch of roses in her hand. Well, I didn't really need a rose, and all the other ones I purchased just sat on my dining room table until they were very faded. But I knew I wasn't going to get out of this, so I asked her how much they were. She said, "Wu kuai." I thought perhaps I could get a little better bargain, so I told her that was too much. She looked like she was concentrating very hard. Her mind was racing. I could tell this kid was going to drive a hard bargain.

I took out my wallet and said something about three yuan. She stood on her tiptoes and peered into my wallet. "I think you must have five yuan," she said. I'm translating, of course. This kid obviously didn't speak a word of English. Suddenly she became very excited. "I see a ten! You can give me a ten, and I will give you five," she said triumphantly, as if she had just solved the world's greatest problem. Hmmmm... why didn't I think of that?

Well, I knew I was had, so I paid up. What else could I do? The happy little girl took my money and ran away. My eyes followed her as she ran a short distance, and then sat down on a step to count her money. Almost one o'clock in the morning. I wonder what time that kid goes to bed.

It was raining cats and dogs this morning. I make it a practice never to complain about the rain in Beijing, because this is a relatively dry climate, so we don't have to deal with this very often (at least not so far). Besides, the payoff is worth it. The air is always so fresh and clean after a rain.

One of the translators managed to round up an English language version of the hymn book for me this morning. Cool. The lengths to which the folks at Haidian Jiaotang have gone to accomodate English speaking people is sincerely appreciated.

A young woman was preaching this morning. She was preaching on the name of God--part of a series on the Ten Commandments. She told how in her home town, there was a man who had a habit of approaching young women and telling them that God had given him a dream that she was supposed to be his daughter-in-law. She didn't say if she was one of those young women.

O the precious Name of Jesus!
How it thrills our souls with joy,
When His loving arms receive us,
And His songs our tongues employ!

Precious Name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of Heav’n.
Precious Name, O how sweet!
Hope of earth and joy of Heav’n.

Went to a Bible study this evening. Potluck afterwards. Fred had picked up a cake at the Kapinski Hotel. Chocolate fudge cake. Man! Dark chocolate with a deep, rich penetrating flavor. Pervasive. Reverberating in undulating waves of pure taste sensation. Persistant. Terminal. Death by chocolate.

This week in Langfang, I was sharing a story with the students about a young man who recently graduated from medical school, and turned down a research position in Shenzen so that he could join a volunteer program in Inner Mongolia sponsored by the Communist Youth League.

I asked the students how China would change if every one who graduated from University decided to volunteer for a year. Several of them said, "Maybe we would be more powerful than America!" I have shared several times, with several groups of students, my interest in setting up an NGO to do development work in rural China. The response to my idea is always positive. Students always tell me it's a good idea. But their own ambitions seldom include going to the countryside. Their dreams are always about establishing a comfortable home in the big city. I have had the same conversation with many of these freshmen. I ask them which province they are from, and the name of their home town. These kids come from all over China, so their answers to the first questions are not predictable. But after that, it is pretty much the same thing:

"Do you like your home town?"
"Yes, I love it very much."
"Will you go back there when you graduate?"
"No."
"Where will you go?"
"Beijing or Shanghai."

I pressed the idea of volunteering:

"If volunteering is such a good idea, why don't most university graduates do it?"
"Because we're too selfish."

A couple of weeks ago I was sharing another story, this time of a school teacher who went to the coutryside as a fifteen-year-old girl. I was interested in this story because of my own experience teaching in a country school in North Dakota, and in Yunnan Province during the fall of 2001. My teaching experience in the countryside in China was only for a week, but even that was long enough to bring home the reality of how remote some communities are, and the sacrifice one would have to make to do something like this.

"What would you have to give up if you went to the countryside to be a teacher?"
"Everything."

In that tiny village in Yunnan Province, we asked the school principal what was his greatest challenge as a school administrator. He said the most difficult thing was keeping teachers. They would come for awhile, but as soon as they found a job in the city, they would be gone. The government is trying to encourage development in Western China. Part of this push for development is an attempt by the government to make business investment in western China more attractive. But there will always be a need for a crew of volunteers who are willing to give up some of the conveniences they have taken for granted, at least for a brief period of time. Western China represents an extraordinary opportunity for charitable organizations that are interested in doing development work in an area where there such extraordinary need.

I got a refund on my library card today. I had paid a 500RMB deposit for a library card, but one of the office staff said that because I was "the foreign people," I would not be allowed to get a regular library card. I would be issued a special card that would allow me to look at books in the library, but not check them out.

"Why can't I check out books?"
"Because you're the foreign people!"

Yes. The foreign people. Shifty. Unreliable. Not to be trusted. Actually, what probably happened is that some irresponsible English teacher took off for the States with a handful of books. I ran into the same problem when Bulu took me to the National Library of China. In that case, I turned down the card, because the National Library is quite far from here. But the campus library is right in the middle of everything. I usually pedal by it at least twice a day. So perhaps it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for me to sit there and read whatever books they may have. Which is another thing. Beihang is a very, very Chinese University. It does not have the same international focus as many of the universities in this area. So I am not optimistic.

I have obviously been spoiled. Funny how habits change over the years. When I was an undergraduate, it was nothing for me to sit for ten hours in the college library. When I was in graduate school, I started going to coffee shops in the Regina area. I particularly remember an A&W restaurant where I could get bacon and eggs and coffee for two dollars. But even at the University of Regina, I spent many hours in the library. Not any more. I haven't read in a library for many years. I go there to get books; to browse. But not to read. To read, I go to coffee bars. And I'm picky. The coffee bar needs to have an outlet for me to plug in my laptop. And there better be plenty of reading lamps. I don't like to be stuck with whatever light the room has to offer. And the coffee has to be good. And really hot. And the music should not be too loud. But not too quiet, either. Funny how a luxury becomes a convenience, and then a matter of life and death. In Arizona, it was Coffee Plantation, Starbucks, the old Goldbar on McClintock and Southern, IHOP, or the new Borders on Mill. I knew which table to sit at in each of those places, in order to plug in my laptop. Here, there are a group of coffee bars in Wudaoko which cater to the same type of student clientelle. Here in the northwest corner of Beijing, there are more students in one area than in any other area in the history of the human race. Probably half a million.

David said, "I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD." That was always my favorite verse when I was a kid. I learned it in Kindergarten or first grade--can't remember.

This morning, when I went to Haidian Jiaotang, I discovered that the transmitter used for doing the English translation was not functioning properly. So, no English translation. It reminded me of another time and another place... It was about twenty years ago, and I was going to graduate school in Canada. It was a summer-only program, because I was a school teacher in North Dakota at the time. I was a student at the University of Regina in southern Saskatchewan. My home in North Dakota was about 200 miles from Regina, so I often went home on weekends, but on the weekends that I stayed in Regina, I usually attended the Regina Chinese Alliance Church. The Chinese pastor preached in Chinese, and a local physician in the congregation translated into English. It was a good arrangement, and I liked going there, because this guy was actually a pretty good preacher. But one Sunday, after I had not been there for awhile, I went to the service, and discovered that the preacher was preaching in Cantonese, and the interpreter was translating into Mandarin. Or the other way around. I would not have known the difference at that time. It was one of those times when one feels like saying, "Give me a break!" But of course, it was not their fault. They had switched the English service to another time period. I had no way of knowing that, because I had not been there for awhile. Perhaps it was at the beginning of the summer or something--can't remember. But it was a good lesson in what is really important, and what church is really about.

You know, I think sometimes it can be a good thing to have one of the four elements of church life removed, so that you can see how you are doing with the other three. I am speaking, of course, of the text in Acts which states that the Christians continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers. Preaching and teaching, fellowship with other believers, breaking of bread (both in the Lord's supper, and in eating together), and corporate prayer. Sometimes so much emphasis is placed on the sermon, that one or more of the other areas tends to suffer. But when that segment is removed, one has a chance to be reminded why David said, "I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord."

What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.

Yesterday when I got up, the words to an old hymn were running through my mind:

Frail children of dust, and feeble as frail,
In Thee do we trust, nor find Thee to fail...

Or I could put it another way:

Little ones to him belong
They are week but he is strong.

I had been wondering what to do for the May holiday. I had pretty much decided to take the train up to Dalian, because I have always wanted to see that city. In fact, I went to the travel bureau on Sunday to buy a ticket, but the office was closed. That evening I met a couple students from Renda who had organized an outing to Yunmeng Mountain. Linda is majoring in International Trade, and Ida is an English major. Linda came over to my table at the coffee bar, and handed me a homemade flyer she and Ida had put together. I looked it over, and I was so impressed with how they had organized this thing, that I decided to cancel my trip to Dalian and go with them. Their price for the two day trip was 280RMB (about $35US). Linda asked me if this price was too high, and she looked like she was going to offer a discount, but I stopped her. This thing was obviously very well planned, and if there was any money in it for them at the end, it wasn't going to be very much. I didn't want to narrow their profit margin any more than it was. I told her that I thought the price was fair, and that I was very interested.

We met at the QQ Coffee Bar yesterday morning at 7:30. They had come up with this plan a little late, so they didn't get as many takers has they had hoped, but there were a dozen people waiting to take the trip. Some Chinese young people, and a few Japanese students from BLCU. The Japanese students had obviously made the choice to learn Chinese rather than English, so they were not conversational in English at all, but their Mandarin was actually quite good.

Ida and Linda had chartered a bus for the trip to the mountains. Somehow I ended up riding with a guy who was taking his own car, and we had a very hard time keeping up with the bus. This was not a comfortable situation, but the driver of the car did manage to teach me a couple of sentences:

Tamen zai women de qianmian.
Women zai tamen de houmian.

He said them both several times. I got lots of practice. We stopped after awhile, and I got on the bus. Once we had started again it didn't take me long to see why we had had a tough time keeping up with this guy. Red light? Look both ways and go for it, hand on the horn. Slow traffic? Hit the shoulder and floor it. Pedal to the metal. When all else fails, ride the yellow line and weave back and forth. Flip on the siren and flashing lights and become an emergency vehicle until the moment passes. Let oncoming traffic know we mean business. They can get out of the way, because we're bigger, and we're not slowing down! I questioned his sanity, but I had to admire his skill.

After a short time (which should have been much longer), we got to the farm house where we were going to be staying. We put our stuff in our rooms, and headed for the mountain, where we met our guide. This weathered mountaineer looked like a veteran from the Long March. He had obviously spent a lot of time in these mountains.

The trail we were on was very steep, but heavily wooded. We climbed to the top of the ridge, then headed down into a deep ravine beside a cool mountain stream. It was very pretty, but a little too accessible to be isolated. This place is pretty close to Beijing, and pretty easy to get to. I was looking forward to the next day, when we would take the summit trail to the top.

We returned to the farmhouse for a big dinner. Chicken, fish, and a big juicy leg of lamb. It was a real feast. After supper, we went outside by the campfire. Linda had arranged for an outdoor karaoke, so the young people did that for awhile, and then it was time for introductions. Each person took the microphone and did a brief introduction, then the rest of us could ask questions. My question to everyone was the same, "What is your goal in life?" Linda's goal was to become an entrapranuer. Several of them said they wanted to make lots of money, or marry a beautiful woman.

After the introductions, we played a game Linda had come up with called, "The Killer and the Judge." Linda was the judge. She explained the game to us, "Everyone will be an ordinary person except one person who will be the killer. Then we all need to close our eyes. The killer will kill someone, but nobody can see this. Then we will all open our eyes, and I will tell the dead person that he is killed. Then we have to guess who the killer is." We played that game until a couple people had been murdered, and then gave it up. I really wanted to go for a walk and look at the stars, so Linda and Ida and a couple other young people joined me, and we headed down the road. This was really my first time away from the city since I came in January, and it was really nice to walk under the stars. I found the Big Dipper and showed everyone the North Star. There was a full moon, and I taught Ida a song I used to sing with my children:

I see the moon, and the moon sees me,
And the moon sees somebody I want to see....

Ida really liked that song. She sang it over and over. She said, "I really like that song, because I miss my mother in Harbin." I asked her about her father, and she told me that he had died when she was young. Ida is a deep person, and speaks with a serenity that displays a quiet maturity quite beyond her years.

We finally got back about midnight. Breakfast was scheduled for 7 am, so we hit the sack. I slept, with one other guy, on an old kang. A kang is not a soft bed, but it was comfortable, and the country night was quiet, except for one stupid rooster, who couldn't seem to figure out that it was nighttime.

This morning, I was sitting in the courtyard reading my Bible. Ida, being a literature major, was interested in what I was reading. She was very interested in the influence of the Scriptures on the literature of the English speaking people, such as "original sin" in Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter, one of her favorites. Chinese students seem to be very aware of the Bible and its relation to literature, but not as well acquainted with the Bible itself. But perhaps I could say the same about American students. I certainly found it to be true of American professors when I was a student myself.

Our breakfast was fit for the day. Farm-fresh eggs, a delicious type of pita bread and some wheat porridge. Top it off with a few of those weird fermented vegetables, and we were ready to go.

We left for the mountain, and met our guide again. This time we were going to the summit, so there were a lot less people than yesterday, especially once we gained a little altitude. Still a few hikers and backpackers along the way, but no women in high heels this time. It was a beautiful day, and the mountain trail was really scenic. Lots of different vegetation. Quiet, with a soft breeze blowing through the trees, and nothing to break the serenity, except an occasional cell phone.

After a short time, we came to a site where there was a 300 year-old tree. Ida told me the story. Apparently, this had traditionally been a place where people came to pray for their children and ask the tree to protect them. I could see a box where people put money. Linda said, "This is a prayer tree. You can pray here." I don't believe in praying to trees, so I started to go, but Linda stopped me, "Don't miss this opportunity!" I could tell she really wanted me to pray, so I turned away from the tree and lifted my eyes toward heaven. I thanked God for the beautiful day, and asked Him to keep us safe for the rest of the trip. And Linda prayed with me.

We came to a cave by the side of the trail, and the guide pointed it out. I was curious, so I climbed up the side of the hill to the cave, and noticed the opening at the far end. Linda climbed up inside the cave to tell me the story. "Our Communist party was hiding from the Japanese, and there was a traitor who told where they were, so 32 soldiers were killed here." I crawled through the cave to the other end. The guide had graciously come up the other side to guide us back down to the trail.

It really was a nice hike, and everyone seemed to be in good spirits, except for one of the Japanese girls who looked to be close to tears. The ever-vivacious Linda took her hand and encouraged her all the way up the mountain. When we got close to the final ascent to the summit, the girl finally gave out and decided to wait there for us. The final ascent seems to be that way on most mountains. Right near the summit, the trail gets very steep, and those who are not into hiking usually opt out at that point.

We had a bit of a schedule crunch on the way down, because of the way they had scheduled the bus, so we were running much of the way. Jump from one rock to another, watch your feet. When there are people in the way, jump across the rocks on the side...a bit of a rush, but it was a good workout for an old jackrabbit.

The grand finale was the cable ride. When we started to get near the opening of the canyon where the original trail started, there was a platform from which a set of cables was strung to the other side of the canyon. It ran from a high point on one side of the canyon, to another platform at a low point on the other side of the canyon. Ida was buying tickets for whoever wanted to go. I was much too sensible to try something like this, but I couldn't help being curious. I thought I might try it if I could be sure that we would be strapped in, so I had Ida check. I found out that there was a harness. There had to be, because there was absolutely nothing else. No cable car. No chair. No platform. Just a harness hanging from a hook fastened to a pulley, which ran along a cable system suspended over the canyon. The cable was angled downward in such a way that the person hanging in the harness would pick up speed very quickly. When you got to the platform on the other side, there was a guy holding a rope connected to a pulley on the same line, who would hold the rope and let it slide through his fingers slowly to break your speed. At the far end of the platform there was a wall of very thick cussions, in case he didn't do a good enough job of slowing you down.

If you want to do this one, you will have to come to China. I can't imagine this would be legal in the United States--insurance companies would have a fit. Don't even think of letting your kids do this. You will have a heart attack if they don't.

My questions about the harness being satisfied, I had no more excuse to refuse the opportunity, so I lined up behind the other adreneline junkies with the resignation of a condemned man going to the gallows. As they were putting the harness on me and snapping the hook to my harness, I remember thinking, "It just doesn't seem like I am suposed to die today." They spent several minutes putting a helmet on my head (to break my fall?). After promising God a thousand times that I would never do anything so crazy again in my life if He would just let me live through this, I let them throw me off the platform. Well, things happened fast after that. There is no brake in that system, so I was going pretty fast before long. It is hard to describe the feeling. Somehow, there is a morbid serenity in having committed yourself to a course from which there is no return.

The scenery was awsome, but I wasn't really doing this for the scenery, and I was concentrating all my energy on holding on for dear life. The harness looked like it would hold me, but the way it was designed, you really did need to hold on in order to be kept upright. The ground was a long, long, long ways down. It was a little like looking from an airplane, but a lot scarier. Looking back on it, I am not really sure what made me do it. It certainly wasn't what I would call fun. And it isn't even a particularly pleasant memory; I get sweaty palms every time I think about it. I really don't like heights. Some say it is the adreneline rush, but I'm an old man, now, and I can do without the kick. When I look back on it, I really think it is the matter of perspective. If nothing else, it really is an incredible experience, and does give one a new appreciation for terra firma. The firmer, the less terror. Life's problems just seem so much smaller when you have a renewed opportunity to see how precious life is. Fortunately, I was moving too fast for it to be a long ride. It couldn't have lasted more than a few minutes. I don't know for sure, because I wasn't in the mood for looking at my watch.

I finally reached the platform on the other side, and the guy holding the rope was waiting. The cable comes in about 10 feet above the platform, and I was really flying, but he managed to slow me down quite a bit. When I body-slammed the cushions on the far wall, I couldn't quite understand what they were telling me to do, but I was so happy to be alive that I let them put my feet werever they wanted. I finally realized that they were trying to get me to stand on a step so that they could unsnap the hook and I could step down to the platform. I stepped down to the platform and took off my harness, then looked up to see Linda flying across the canyon. She was in her element. Ida, the sane one of the two, chose the steps.

Well, our dinner back at the farmhouse tasted pretty good after all that. Lots of fried fish, rice and my favorite vegetable, qiezi (eggplant). After lunch, the bus was ready, so we loaded up and headed for town. We had gone a short distance, when it became obvious that there was some kind of problem. The driver's partner was having a very strong discussion with Linda and Ida. I asked Linda what was going on. She said they were trying to increase their rate, and that they wanted all the money before they went any further. I told her that she should hold them to the amount that they had agreed to. The driver was driving very slowly, and the assistant was threatening to kick us all off the bus, but Linda said they really couldn't do that, because then they would not get any money at all. Well, she was right, but they didn't give up. They started threatening to beat up the two girls. I said, "Linda, don't give in to them. These guys are crooks." I was tempted to go after them myself, but I thought better of it. ("He that passeth by, and meddleth with strife belonging not to him, is like one that taketh a dog by the ears.") The whole conflict really centered around three things:

1. They wanted more money.
2. They demanded all the money right now.
3. They demanded that Linda tear up the original agreement she had made with them.

Linda finally agreed to give them an additional 50RMB. They decided to accept that. If they hadn't, the conflict would soon have involved the rest of us, and I'm sure they didn't want that. Well, the moment was over. The driver flipped on the siren, and we set sail. Linda was pretty disgusted with them, but she took it in stride. I said, "Linda, I don't think they are Christians. She laughed, "Probably not."

Back at the coffee shop, we all sat around a table, because Linda wanted us to all say goodbye to each other. So we went around the circle and each person gave a little goodbye speech. Then the young people decided to watch a movie together. I really wanted a hot shower, and I just wasn't in the mood for Jurassic Park III, so I thanked them and took my leave. I think Ida and Linda have the beginnings of a good business, and I told them so. Not sure if they will pursue it, because Linda is applying for a study program in Germany, and Ida, as I mentioned, is an English major. But they certainly did an excellent job. Their first tour was an unqualified success, and everyone on the tour said they would like to do another one.

Characters. Oh, what a chore! I told one of my tutors I didn't want to do characters, "Why do I need to write characters?!" She looked at me narrowly, "Do you want to learn Chinese?" Well I told her that I was trying to focus on conversation and I wanted to learn to read; I wasn't that concerned about writing. But my other tutor was relentless. She told me to take it easy and not get discouraged. I don't think I'm going to be able to avoid this. I'm really don't anticipate a need to write Chinese right now, but reading is very important. Seeing a sign or something and not being able to decode it is very frustrating to me. To the extent that writing characters assists with character recognition, it is important, even if reading is your only objective.

I feel like I'm back in the second grade, sitting in that little school room in Tohoku Lutheran Academy in northern Japan. Muto-sensei, my Japanese teacher, is having me copy the characters she has written at the top of the page. The little notebook with the squares. Down the page. Then start at the top of the next column. Finally get to the end of the page. Turn the page and start over. Endless. Boring. One more page, and then I'll be done, and I can go out and play. It's a little different now. I am working from a website that gives the stroke order. And I'm listening to the audio stream of Newshour from the BBC. But it's the same endless routine. Language is work. But learning characters is not hard. It is actually the easiest part of learning Chinese. It is very slow. Time consuming. But time consuming and hard are not the same thing. Tones? Now that's hard. But characters? Easy. Very, very easy. You just have to force yourself to do it. Over and over and over and over again.

Went to Haidian Jiaotang this morning. One of the translators told me that there is an English language version of the hymnbook. I am definitely going to try to get my hands on a copy.

Meanwhile, I am slowly getting better at dealing with the translation. There are a couple of problems that must be overcome. In the first place, the translators are working backwards. What I mean by that, is that, if you are translating English for a Mandarin speaking audience, you will want to use a translator who understands English very well, but is a native speaker of the same language as his or her audience (i.e. Mandarin). By the same token, if you are translating Mandarin for an English speaking audience, you will want to use a translator who understands Mandarin well, but is a native speaker of English. But at Haidian Jiaotang, they are forced to work "against the tide" so to speak. They are using native speakers of Mandarin to translate for English speaking foreigners. This is very, very difficult.

Considering how unnatural it must be for them, I am impressed by how well they do. But there is one more issue. The translation at Haidian Jiaotang is simultaneous translation. In other words, the translator does not stand up in front and translate sentence by sentence, beside a speaker who is allowing time after every statement. The translators at Haidian Jiaotang are in a remote location listening to the service on a speaker or headphone, and then speaking the translation simultaneously into an FM transmitter that sends the signal to tiny FM receivers we are each handed as we walk in the door. This is, of course, very convenient for Pastor Wu, because he does not need to stop after every statement, so the service is not disrupted in any way. But it presents an enormous challenge for the translators, because they have to try to provide an adequate summary of what is being said, without any extra time allocated. These young people are not professional United Nations class translators. They are just students or professionals from the community who are volunteering their services. Once again, I am very, very impressed by how well they deal with the challenges presented them by this arrangement.

The trusting heart to Jesus clings,
Nor any ill forebodes,
But at the cross of Calv’ry, sings,
Praise God for lifted loads!

Singing I go along life’s road,
Praising the Lord, praising the Lord,
Singing I go along life’s road,
For Jesus has lifted my load.

My cleaning lady came to day. It is always a challenge communicating with her, because she really does not speak any English. Not even "Hello." I was studying as she was cleaning, and I was playing some music files on my computer that came from a Chinese CD called "Heavenly Father" that Mei-chi had given me. My cleaning lady came into the room and asked me if I understood what I was listening to. I said, "A little." She said, "Do you believe? I said, "Yes." She said, "I also believe."

It's at times like this that I really wish I could speak the People's Language. In one sense, my position is advantageous, because I have the luxury of being able to study Mandarin because I want to, not because I have to. It is not required for my job. But my situation is frustrating in another sense, because I don't have the time I would like to have to put into language study. I have so many other things to do, not to mention the fact that I need constantly to be studying the technology that I am teaching and the new technology that I am going to be teaching. Some of the stuff I will teach two years from now is technology that I don't even know yet, and some of the stuff that I am spending many hours studying now will be obsolete in the not too distant future. This is the constant frustration of a technical trainer. The advantage, of course, is that if you do take the time to remain current with the technology, you will be very competitive, because very few other people are doing that. But it means that my progress in the area of language study is painfully slow.

There is another issue. I have always worked with tutors. Next fall, I will probably need to give that up, and start taking a Mandarin class. The advantage of working with a tutor is that your pronunciation tends to be more accurate, because the tutor only has one person to pick on. But there is very little interaction, so it takes much, much longer to become conversational. The ability to pronounce words is of limited value if you can't use them, so at some point you need to strike a balance. Fortunately, I live in Beijing, where English is in many ways as important as Mandarin. When I contemplate the frustration I feel with not being able to speak Mandarin, and then think of my Chinese colleagues who cannot speak English, I certainly would not trade places with them. It would be very, very frustrating indeed to be a professor on a University campus in Beijing and not be able to speak English.