Eric's Beijing Diary

Reading a brief essay by F. B. Meyer in Streams in the Desert, a gift from my friends at Blessed Hope: "When you are unsure which course to take, totally submit your own judgment to that of the Spirit of God, asking Him to shut every door except the right one. But meanwhile keep moving ahead and consider the absence of a direct indication from God to be the evidence of His will that you are on His path. And as you continue down the long road, you will find that He has gone before you, locking doors you otherwise would have been inclined to enter. Yet you can be sure that somewhere beyond the locked doors is one He has left unlocked. And when you open it and walk through, you will find yourself face to face with a turn in the river of opportunity--one that is broader and deeper than anything you ever dared to imagine, even in your wildest dreams. So set sail on it, because it flows to the open sea." This is very interesting to me, because it does parallel my own experience relative to coming to China. It's strange, but I am fifty years old, now, and I still know very little about how to find the will of God. But I can point to specific times in my life when I was absolutely sure what I was supposed to do. The fall of 2000 is one if them. That is when I made the decision to go to China. Exactly how I came to that decision is hard to pin down. And I can't tell you a specific date when the decision was made. But somehow, during that period, there was a point where I made a definite decision to give up my life in America and go to China. I know the decision followed a process. But it's very hard for me to describe that process. But somehow, after the fall of 2000, I never had the slightest question about what I was supposed to do. I did not have a job lined up in China. I had no idea just how I was supposed to go to China. But I knew that I knew that I knew that this was what I was supposed to do, and I never questioned that for the smallest fraction of a second. During the months that followed that decision, God spoke to me through Revelation 3 verse 8: "I have set before you an open door, and no man can shut it." God spoke to me very clearly that I should not waste time pounding down closed doors, but look for the one that was open. In the past, I have not always employed this approach. For example, when I determined that I wanted to work at the University where I taught before I came to China, I put together a resume, submitted it, and then kept pestering them until they gave me an interview. But when it came to my move to China, God seemed to be guiding me toward a very different approach. I moved very slowly, always trying not to pursue an option once it was clear that the door was not open. I tried several doors which I would have walked through if they had opened. But they didn't. This is why I was struck this morning by F.B. Meyer's words. Again, one must not build a doctrine of how to be led by God, based on ones own subjective experience, but I can say with absolute conviction that God does lead. He has led me. So where do I go from here? I don't know. I will just wait, and keep looking for the next open door. I know it's there, I just can't see it right now.

Labels: Leading, Summer 2004, Vision

Lijiang Grand Hotel. I like this place because it has a nice breakfast buffet. Really good bacon, eggs made to order, peaches, pears, apples, and Chinese mangos. Rice, bread, and Danish pastries. I know, food should not be the only reason for choosing a place to stay. There are other factors which ought to be considered, but right now I can't remember what they are. The train pulled into Panzhihua yesterday morning at 6 am. I took a cab to the bus station and bought a ticket to Lijiang. The country between Panzhihua and Lijiang is very mountainous. Doesn't look far on a map, but on the ground it's seven hours of switchbacks. I had books with me, but it's pretty hard to read when the bus is jostling back and forth. And the driver didn't waste any time, either. He was driving as fast as he could on the narrow mountain roads. Interesting...after I got to Lijiang last evening, I went to the travel office right near the hotel. I was asking about securing travel back to Chengdu. I found out that I could take the bus back to Panzhihua, but I would not be able to buy a ticket back to Chengdu until I got to the train station at Panzhihua. I thought this sounded a bit chancy, and to be honest, I was less than enthusiastic about taking the bus back over the mountains. Miraculously, a traveler from Chengdu happened to be in the office the same time I was, and she told me that the bus to Dali was only three hours, and from there I could take the train to Kunming. That struck me as a novel idea, although I had not originally planned to go to Dali. To put it simply, I like trains; I don't like busses. Now, I must admit, busses do give you a perspective that you don't get from the window of a train. Trains run the river beds. Busses weave back and forth up the mountain roads and look down on the river bed several thousand feet below from a narrow road with no shoulder or guard rail. And the bus is being driven by a driver who is moving just as fast as he can without rolling the bus over the cliff. As I said, I like trains; I don't like busses. Anyway, I thanked the young lady from Chengdu. I think I may change my original plans (plans??) a bit and go to Dali.

Labels: Summer 2004, Travel Yunnan

I'm in the dining car again--this time on the train from Chengdu to Kunming--except I'm not going to Kunming. I'm going to get off at Panzhihua (on the border between Sichuan and Yunnan) and take the bus over the mountains to Lijiang. I was talking with a photographer from Ireland this evening who is on his way to Burma. He was asking me about the people in the countryside. He was amazed by how hard the Chinese people work, even those who were very poor, and seem to have very little hope of improving their lot. He made the observation that people in the poorer parts of India seem to have given up. He said, "I'm not a religious man, but I think it's Hinduism." I agreed with him, but I said, "I think it is specifically the concept of reincarnation. The Bible says, 'It is appointed unto man once to die, and after this, the judgment.'" No matter how difficult our lot in life is, we can never just throw up our hands and conclude that this life is a wash. This really is something I have noticed about the Chinese people. Not having been here before 1949, I have no personal basis for comparison. But it does seem that China has been purged of the kind of religious thinking that allows one to "write off" this life because one has concluded that there is no chance of reaching a desirable level of life this time around. What will eventually replace this kind of thinking in the minds of the people is an open question.

Labels: Summer 2004

This evening I had dinner with a classmate of Leander from his university days in Chengdu. Anita picked me up and took me to a restaurant nearby. Sichuan Province is the home of the famed Sichuan Hotpot, and she wanted to treat me to the pride of the province. But I insisted on treating her, because she really was going out of her way to do this. She asked me what I wanted. I told her she was a lady, and if she picked something she liked, I would like it too. Many times when I go to eat with students, they ask me what I want. But I really don't know. I'm just not familiar with the names of all the dishes. And I usually get a better deal if I let them choose. That's one important problem with eating at a restaurant in China. You have to know how to order. Without the skill of someone who knows how to coordinate a meal, the experience is just not the same.

We feasted on fish heads, cow innards and bamboo. If you have never eaten (or helped to eat) a Sichuan hotpot, believe me, it is exhausting work. The food is very hot, in every sense of the word. They bring you a big pot sitting over a fire. In many cases, there is a hole in the middle of the table where the gas burner is located. Otherwise they will bring you a portable burner. Most of the time, the pot is divided between a spicy section and a non spicy section. Pepper is not spared. Before I had eaten for very long, the sweat was pouring down my face. Westerners tend to cringe a bit at the idea of eating fish heads, but the meat is actually quite tender. I decided to forego the eyeballs, though. I can have Jello anytime.

After dinner we went to the park and sat under one of the many gazebos by the river. Someone brought us two cups of tea and a thermos. I handed him 10 yuan. All the tea you can drink for 75 cents. Anita's father is a police officer. She struck me as being very well read, and her knowledge of history was impressive. She was very curious about Christianity. She wanted to know about Jesus, because her English teacher had been talking about Him. She said, "My English teacher asked me if I wanted Jesus to change my life, but I said, 'No,' because I don't know what I would want to change." Anita is a thinking person. She is very friendly and expressive. She kept apologizing for her English, but it was actually quite good, given that she is not an English major. When I told her of my desire to do something about the problem of primary education in the countryside, she was very sympathetic, because she grew up in the countryside of what is now the Chongqing political region (Chongqing was formerly part of Sichuan Province).

Labels: Chinese Cuisine, Summer 2004, Travel Sichuan

John Wesley Powell's conclusion to his journal is terse and unceremonious: "August 29.--We start very early this morning. The river still continues swift, but we have no serious difficulty, and at twelve o'clock emerge from the Grand Canyon of the Colorado."

Of course, I skipped some of the excitement, but the fact is that Powell's journey after the Howland party left him was largely anticlimactic. And once the mission is over, there is not much more that can be said about it. Powell is not writing for television. He is keeping an accurate journal, and he doesn't try to make it more than it is. Do the job, and report the results.

This morning, I departed the ship at Chongqing and took the bus here to Chengdu. I had hoped to spend a little time in Chongqing, because there is much history in that city. It was the capital for awhile when China, under Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek), was fighting the Japanese. But Chongqing doesn't have any youth hostels. So I would have had to stay in an expensive hotel. Chengdu is a transfer point for backpackers going to Yunnan and Tibet, so there are quite a number of youth hostels. I am here at the Dreams Travel International Youth Hostel. I chose this one because it is run by a travel agency, so I figured it would have the best travel desk. The dormitory is 15 yuan per night (about two dollars).

This evening, the hostel had organized a tour to the Asian Cup football game at the new Chengdu stadium. Saudi Arabia was playing Iraq. When we got to the game, I was interested to notice that the people of Chengdu overwhelmingly favored Iraq. The team leader from the hostel told me that it was because the people in this area tend to view Iraq as the underdog in their fight with the Americans. As we were watching the game, a man sitting near us with a pair of cymbals stood up and started leading a cheer:

Iraq xiong qi! This is a popular cheer in the Sichuan dialect which means roughly, "Be a man," or "Rise up!"

The crowd responded:

Iraq, xiong qi! Iraq, xiong qi!

The man who was leading the cheer became more and more animated. Before long, he was saying,

"Saddam, xiong qi!" "Saddam, xiong qi!"

The police came and stopped him immediately. He had crossed a line. That was a political statement. Cheering one's team during a football match is fine. But Saddam Hussein has nothing to do with football.

Labels: Summer 2004, Travel Sichuan

An ironic and tragic footnote to John Wesley Powell's journal:

"The three men succeeded in climbing out of the canyon, but were killed a day or so later by the Shivwits Indians."

I'm not sure whether Powell penned these words himself or they were added in later by the editors of the anthology, but they force consideration of an important question: Where did Captain Howland go wrong? What was his biggest mistake--his decision to leave the party and climb out of the canyon, or his original decision to join the party in the first place. I say it was neither. His biggest mistake was his failure to count the cost. He should have been more particular about taking stock of exactly what this mission would cost him, so that he could make his decision as intelligently as possible. Once he made the decision, he should have stuck with it. Captain Howland's decision to leave the mission was a blow to Powell. But Howland was not indispensable to the mission. The mission, it turned out, was indispensable to him. He literally could not live without it. Once he decided to be part of this mission, he should have stuck it out. But it is perhaps just as true that he should have made the original decision more carefully. He would no doubt have survived if he had stayed with the mission. But he would also have survived if he had never gone. As Solomon says, "where there is no vision, the people perish." Nothing is more frustrating than the feeling that you have lost your way, and no longer know where you are going. It is at times like this that poor decisions are often made in too big a hurry. Some time to pause and reflect can be very helpful. Perhaps a day or so spent talking everything out would have prevented this tragedy. I have often found that even a single day spent in prayer and fasting can sometimes bring a whole new perspective.

Last night we were treated to a cabaret show put on by members of the crew and some passengers who wanted to get into the act. A group of tourists from California gave a slightly unrehearsed rendition of YMCA.

This morning we left the ship for a few hours to tour the ghost city of Fengdu. Each group was assigned to a bus. There is a tour group from Malaysia, a group of teachers from Shenzhen, a man and his wife from Austria, and a group of Americans. And then there's me. I didn't join a tour group; I just booked passage on the boat. I guess you could say I am a group of one, which means that I am my own tour guide. The blind leading the blind.

This afternoon we were given a tour of the bridge. I'm not sure how the ship's officers felt about having a group of foreign tourists gawking at all their equipment, but they were very polite. One of the Americans panned with room with his video camera, talking to himself. Another stared at a list on the wall, and pretended to be reading it,

"1. Mr. Wong is always right."

The tour guide politely corrected him, "Mr. Zhang."

Captain Zhang has been sailing the river for twenty years. I am sure that for someone like him, the three gorges project is very welcome, because it will make the job of navigating up the river so much easier. Of course, they will still have the same sophisticated equipment to monitor the depth, and whatever debris may be lurking, but the process will be much less critical after 2009.

I'm sitting in the lounge on the third deck now, gazing out the window. Soft music is playing in the background as the river is drifting lazily by. For three days I have feasted on the incredible beauty of the Three Gorges. It's a very peaceful experience, and yet painful. Painful because the Three Gorges project is just one more reminder that in this life, nothing lasts forever. The dam is functional now, but its effects have barely begun to be felt. But by the time of its completion in 2009, the water level will reach 175 meters, and much of the unearthly beauty that I have seen over the past three days will be under water, visible only to the fish, who couldn't care less. As I contemplate the impending loss of so much natural beauty, I am reminded again of the wretched transitoryness of life.

I remember when I moved back to North Dakota in the early Eighties. I had occasion one afternoon to visit the quarter of land where my grandfather originally homesteaded when he came from Norway. While I was at it, I swung around and drove by the old Williams quarter, where Uncle Torvall and Auntie Serine lived when I was young. As I stood there staring at the hole in the ground where their basement had been before they ripped the house off its foundation and dragged it into town, I remember thinking, "Why does everything always have to change?" Somehow it all seemed so unnatural. In some ways, it would probably be better if I did not have the memory of that beautiful farmstead in my mind. Every time I saw that house after that, it just didn't seem natural. In my mind, it was supposed to be sitting proudly on the prairie, not shoe horned into a tight city neighborhood. Of course, my sentiments are not realistic. Times change. When I look at an old map of Oliver Township, showing the homeowners of first record, there is virtually a separate family on every quarter section. That would mean over a hundred families just in that one township. Now? Probably less than 20 families. Maybe less than ten. It's too long a story to tell here, but it has to do with the reality that nobody these days can support a family on a hundred and sixty acres, especially when half of it is left fallow. Times change. Things get different. All of us have an ingrained desire for some measure of "settledness." But ever and always we must remind ourselves that this world is not our final home. As I look around me in China now, I see cranes everywhere. Just one more reminder that in this life, things are always changing. Stuff wears out. People get old. Flowers in a vase soon drop their petals, even if you have them in water. But one of these days, I am going to a city where the roses never fade. A city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

Labels: Summer 2004, Three Gorges

It's hard to describe the scene last night as we docked at Badong just after the sun had slipped behind the mountains. Rich green vegetation along one side of the river. The city of Badong built into the hillside on the far bank. A large cable-stayed suspension bridge spanning the gorge. Pale blue mountain peaks waiting around the bend and a wispy, communion wafer moon pasted on a perfectly cloudless sky. Reading again from John Wesley Powell after Captain Howland had decided to leave the party. He first tried to persuade Powell to abandon the mission. Powell spent the entire night pacing back and forth, but decided he must go on: "The last thing before leaving, I write a letter to my wife, and give it to Howland. Sumner gives him his watch, directing that it be sent to his sister, should he not be heard from again. The records of the expedition have been kept in duplicate. One set of these is given to Howland, and now we are ready. For the last time, they entreat us not to go on, and tell us that it is madness to set out in this place; that we can never get safely through it; and further, that the river turns again to the south into the granite, and a few miles of such rapids and falls will exhaust our entire stock of rations, and then it will be too late to climb out. Some tears are shed; it is rather a solemn parting; each party thinks the other is taking the dangerous course." What can you say about those who do not share your vision? Perhaps they have a different destiny. Perhaps? Obviously. At first glance, we might be inclined to say that Captain Howland had lost his vision. But the truth is that he never really had a vision for this mission. He was living on borrowed vision. While the challenges appeared manageable, he was able to keep going. But when it really started to look dangerous, and there was not a clear picture of how things were going to turn out, he lost heart. Perhaps Powell himself was partly to blame. A big part of leadership is the ability to encourage those who have consented to follow you, not because of their vision, or their confidence in their own ability, but because of their confidence in you as a leader. Perhaps Powell had let his own doubts show a little too much. I don't know. It's hard to say. In the end, it doesn't matter, I suppose, because no vision or purpose or goal that is of any value can ever be reached unless and until you are ready to pursue it alone if need be. Captain Howland's decision to leave the party was significant. But Powell's decision to go on without him was far more significant, and history is much the better for it. We got off the ship this morning and headed up a tributary of the Yangtze. I really cannot do justice to the grandeur of this gorge, and the beautiful scenery along the tributary. One of the most interesting sights along this tributary was the presence of several hanging coffins high on the cliff above the water. These coffins are positioned on small platforms, or planks in small indentations in the cliff. It is mind boggling to contemplate how in the world they could have been placed there without the aid of a helicopter. The only thing I can figure is that they were lowered by ropes from above. One wonders how many people lost their lives trying to give another person a burial a little closer to heaven. I don't have a telephoto lens on my little pocket camera, so I didn't bother taking a picture. You will just have to take the cruise yourself and have a look. It's really weird. Nothing impressed me more than the futility of trying to improve a person's chances of going to heaven by taking such extraordinary risks. After moving up the tributary on a ferry, we boarded some sampans and were towed up a small stream by some Tujia trackers. There was a guide for each sampan. Fortunately, Katie, the guide who was assigned to my sampan, was a native of one of the communities along the bank. As we headed upstream, she pointed out the community where she was born, and the house she grew up in, and where her parents still live. We were pulled upstream for awhile, then turned around and shot the rapids down the stream, got back on the ferry, and headed down the tributary, past the hanging coffins and monkeys scampering along the bank, toward the mighty Yangtze, where our ship was waiting.

Labels: Summer 2004, Vision

Reading again from John Wesley Powell:

"We make ten miles and a half, and camp among the rocks, on the right. We have had rain, from time to time, all day, and have been thoroughly drenched and chilled; but between showers the sun shines with great power, and the mercury in our thermometer stands at 115 degrees, so that we have rapid changes from great extremes, which are very disagreeable. It is especially cold in the rain tonight. The little canvas we have is rotten and useless; the rubber ponchos, with which we started from Green River City, have all been lost; more than half the party is without hats, and not one of us has an entire suit of clothes, and we have not a blanket apiece. So we gather drift wood, and build a fire; but after supper the rain, coming down in torrents, extinguishes it, and we sit up all night, on the rocks, shivering, and are more exhausted by the night's discomfort than by the day's toil."

Ever had a day like that? Ever had a life like that? Life is a symphony--a balance between tension and rest. The problem, for many of us, is that we tend to regard the rest spots in our lives as "extra" space. All too soon, these rest spots get filled up with activity and commitments, our tension and rest balance becomes tension, tension, tension, and before we know it, the symphony of our lives has become a rock concert. So how do we deal with this? It's a simple matter of making choices. This morning, a group from the boat took a bus at 6:30 am and went to get a special top side view of the dam. They got back at 10 am, just in time for the ship to leave. The tour guide invited me to go along, but I turned down the opportunity. I'm too busy taking it easy. I'll do it some other time when I don't have so much relaxing to do.

The cruise ship I am on (Galaxy 1) is very much like a five story building floating down the river. Actually, it would be more accurate to say four story building, because the fifth deck is really a sun deck on the roof of the fourth deck. The first deck houses the lobby and crew's quarters, the dining hall is on the second deck and the lounge and recreation center is on the fourth deck. My cabin on the third deck is very much like a small hotel room with two single beds instead of two double beds. I have a private bath and shower. One wall is a huge bay window facing the water. Quite a bit better view than those old port holes on the Himalaya. Actually, the whole architecture is different, because this is a river boat, not an ocean going vessel. I mention the Himalaya, because that is the last time I was on a cruise. In those days, we didn't board a ship just to take four days looking at scenery. We used ships to go from Point A to Point B. But in many ways it was the same thing. I was seven years old then, standing on the deck looking quite a ways down at the dock in Vancouver, British Columbia. A lot of fanfare in those days. They walked around and gave us each some paper streamers, which we were to throw to someone on shore. I threw mine to some kid standing on the dock below. I have no idea who he was, but for a short time we shared a paper streamer. Slowly, the ship edged out of the harbor, and the paper streamers broke one by one.

Those days are gone now. The Himalaya was owned by the P&O line, which ferried passengers back and forth between the various countries of the British Commonwealth for 100 years. In those days, rich folks would get a cabin on the port side going out to India so that they could view the scenery going around the southern tip of Africa, and they would get a cabin on the starboard side coming back, for the same reason. Hence the acronym POSH (Port Out, Starboard Home). But when ocean travel was replaced by air travel as the primary means of moving passengers overseas, all those old ships were sold to the Princess Cruise lines. The Himalaya is probably scrap metal by now.

Today we negotiated the locks of the massive Three Gorges Dam. The dam is not fully operational yet, but it is functioning, and beginning to fill. This has got to be one of the most gargantuan civil engineering projects in history. Perhaps that's too strong--the pyramids of Egypt would certainly be more impressive. But this thing really is huge. You can't really get a grasp of it except, perhaps, from the air. It is to big to see in its entirety from any one location.

Labels: Infrastructure, Summer 2004, Three Gorges

I am sitting on the top deck of the Galaxy 1 watching the sun go down behind the mountains along the Yangtze River. I boarded the ship this afternoon, and we will pull out of here tomorrow morning. I'm reading now from a book I picked up at a used book store near the campus the other day. It's called Readings for Citizens at War. This book was published in the United States in 1943, during World War II. It is compendium of readings deemed appropriate for a people living in a country at war. That's the idea, anyway. I have no idea how they chose the selections, but the one that has my attention at the moment is John Wesley Powell's description of his exploration of the Colorado River in 1869. He was the first white man to navigate the river, and he began his journey without having any idea what lay ahead: "We have an unknown distance yet to run; an unknown river yet to explore. What falls there are, we know not; what rocks beset the channel, we know not; what walls rise over the river, we know not. "With some eagerness, and some anxiety, and some misgiving, we enter the canyon below..." I am struck by the boldness of his words as I sit here in the Yangtze. My trip will be up the river, not down, and I have a printed itinerary. But when I contemplate what I really want to accomplish in China, I can really relate to this guy. What is it? I mean my dream of being able to do something about the problem of education in rural China? Right now, it's just another day dream. When I look back over my life, I am forced to admit, that most of the things I have dreamed of doing have never come to anything. For example, I remember sitting in study hall when I was in Junior High dreaming of building a raft and sailing down the Mississppi. But I have also noticed that sometimes if you keep dreaming, your dreams really do come true, although perhaps not exactly the way your mind had originally framed them. I never sailed a raft down the Mississippi like Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, but I was a river boat pilot on the Mississippi for a couple hours one lazy Sunday afternoon. I won't talk about it now, because I don't want to get off on a tangent. Just these words of advice: Stay between the buoys, and when the Captain says "Bear to starboard," do it now! My point is that any enterprise that ever amounts to anything must begin with a dream, and the person who dreamed that dream most likely dreamed a whole host of others that never emerged from the mist of imagination to become reality.

Labels: Summer 2004

I'm sitting in the dining car on the train from Beijing to Yichang, reading a book I have been printing off chapter by chapter from the internet.  It's called, "History of the Moravian Church," by J.E. Hutton.  This book is old, but it's an excellent piece of work.  Bulu helped me "learn the ropes" at the train station.  That is, after my argument with the ATM this morning.  I stopped by the ATM in the main building to get some cash.  The machine eagerly swallowed my card, and even gave me a receipt, but absolutely refused to give me the money.   It just made some strange noises, then printed a statement on the screen that said, "This machine is out of order," and shut down.   I called Bulu and reported the situation to him.  The ATM must have heard me--miraculously, the stubborn machine suddenly came to life and spit out my card, but still flatly refused to give me my money.  Unwilling to accept the compromise, I went to the bank with Bulu and reported the crime.  They checked my account; sure enough, the amount had been deducted.   They got some information from me, and told me that the money would be back in my account in a week.  We'll see. I am going to take the train to Yichang, and then board the cruise ship to traverse the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River.  The cruise runs from Yichang to Chongqing, but there are no youth hostels in Chongqing, so I am going to take the bus to Chengdu, where there are so many youth hostels, it's hard to know which one to pick.  Sometime next week I'm going to work my way to Lijiang, where I was almost three years ago.  Not sure how I'm going to go there, though--the planes from Chengdu to Lijiang are very much in demand, so it's hard to get a ticket.  The train doesn't go to Lijiang, but I can take the train to Panzhihua in southern Sichuan and transfer to a bus.  A much longer ride, but also much cheaper than the plane.    

Labels: Summer 2004

Today Bulu and I went to the bank, because I had to do a cash transfer.  China is still very much a cash oriented society.  At first, I thought perhaps I could just figure it out myself, but when we were going through the process, and Bulu was filling out the form, he had to write the old, format Chinese character for each digit.  On one of the characters, he made a slight mistake, so the lady gave him a new form and had him do it over. 

Went to Milo's tonight with some friends from church.  I wanted to say goodbye, since I will be leaving for a few weeks.  And I also wanted to express my appreciation to the translators for the effort they put forward every Sunday.  I got into a conversation with Judy, one of the translators.  She and I both went to graduate school in Canada.  I asked her why she didn't stay.  She said,"Life in Canada was very peaceful...and very lonely."

 

Labels: Summer 2004

Just got back from a faculty retreat.  The Software College took us all to a small resort in the countryside northeast of Beijing.  We left yesterday at 10 am and got to the resort a couple hours later.  We sat down to a very delicious meal, and then had about an hour before our 2:30 meeting.  I took a nap because I figured the meeting would be long.  It was.  Four hours.  One of the professors who had studied in Belgium for four or five years and spoke pretty good English, gave Michael (my roommate) and I a running commentary.

Michael just joined the faculty of the Software College.  He was a software engineer with Boeing, until he quit working about five years ago.  Since that time, he has spent his days and months and years hiking and biking in various parts of the world.   He hiked the Appalachian Trail.  Last fall he completed a hike of the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada.  So he has walked across America from south to north twice.  And he bicycle toured around Japan fourteen times.  He is the only person I have ever met who told me that it is cheap to live in Japan.  He pitched his tent  with the homeless people in the middle of Tokyo.  Michael says he always liked staying with Japanese homeless people, because they swept the ground around their cardboard dwellings, and generally kept everything really neat.  But now he has decided to make use of his degree in computer science and teach Java and ASP.  

Last night, after our meeting, we had a big dinner and then went outside for a campfire complete with Karaoke.   Karaoke is wildly popular in China, but at a campfire?  Hmmm a very interesting twist.   Pretty much the same thing I saw in May when I went on Linda and Ida's camp out. 

This morning, we went hiking in the hills behind the resort.   It was a very foggy day, but the ravine we hiked was really pretty.   After our hike we got in the bus, and headed toward a well known Buddhist temple.   We stopped at a fish fry area where we stuck some poles in the water and brought up several fish.   For some reason I didn't have much luck.   I remember doing this once in Nojiri when I was a kid.  The incident sticks in my mind, because I broke a pole that time, and because the fried fish we caught was so delicious.  But in China, I have really been spoiled.  In China, eating fresh fish is not a rare luxury.  It is the norm.  I remember once when I was working in a fish processing plant in Alaska, and I bought some fresh halibut from the plant and took it home.  I will never forget how well that fish tasted.   Ever since that incident, I have never been able to be impressed with halibut in a restaurant, because it is always frozen.  I don't know why, but it just isn't the same.   But here in China, they don't give you fish that has been thawed out and warmed over.  The fish is always fresh.   They usually show you the fish before they kill it.

Anyway, enough about fried fish.   Oh, by the way, the seasoning they used on that fried fish was incredible.  Made me sneeze, but it was delicious.   I wish I could tell you what it was, but I have no idea.   If I always waited until I knew what something was before I ate it, I would be a hungry man in China. 

After lunch we visited a Buddhist temple.  As we entered the first temple area, there was a large Buddha, and some people were kneeling in front of it.   I was struck by their devotion and reverence, but even more so because of the ridiculous appearance of this Buddha.  He was sitting in a reclining position, holding his fat belly with a stupid grin on his face.  I can't picture myself praying to such a ridiculous looking figure without laughing.   I think these Buddha's must be viewed as a good luck charm or something.  Can't imagine anyone really takes them seriously.  As we were leaving the temple area, one of the computer science professors asked me if I believed in the objects of worship we had seen.  I said, "No.  I am a Christian.  I worship  God."  I then told her about the church I went to, and my belief that the church should be open to everyone.  One of the other professors then told me that Chinese people don't have any god, so they are looking for something to worship.  He then said he thought that God and Buddha were pretty much the same.  He's right about the first part, of course, but not about the second.   But it's interesting...China is positioning itself as a pluralistic society.  The government seems to be interested in providing for each religion, but also in making sure that no one religion becomes too dominant.  

Evangeline and I went to the office of the China Development Brief today.   I was going to go alone, because those guys all speak English, but it's a good thing I had Evangeline with me, because that place is really hard to find.    We started to take a taxi, but the taxi driver said he didn't know how to get there.   Fortunately, Evangeline knows the bus system pretty well.  The office was situated in a traditional Siheyuan, or courtyard dwelling buried in an old Beijing hutong.   

The guy we talked to was very helpful.  He gave me the basic rundown re:  putting together an NGO in China.  To start an NGO, you must first find a government sponsor.  This means that some kind of government agency that is involved in work similar to what you are going to be doing, must agree to provide oversight of your activities.  Once you have obtained this sponsorship, you can then go to the Ministry of Civil Affairs, or the local Civil Affairs Department, and register.    This process is a bit onerous, and some groups try to get around it by simply setting up their NGO as a business.   But another perfectly legitimate way to avoid the bureaucracy is to set up within the purview of another organization, such as a university.   This may be an option we will need to consider. 

After we got back, we went to dinner with a couple of ladies from Sweden who were studying at Beida.  Actually, one of them has completed her studies and is returning to Sweden, hence the dinner.    It struck me as kinda ironic that I should be sitting in a restaurant in Beijing eating a delicious Chinese meal, and talking with a couple of Swedes about the important questions of the day, like why people eat lutefisk.  The professor who was hosting the farewell took us to a tea house afterwards.  At the tea house, we were ushered into a private parlor area where we could sip tea and talk.  China's tea houses really are a nice way to visit with a group of people in a quiet, pleasant environment.  A very nice way to end the evening.   

I finally got another cleaning lady today. Lucky Bird called me last night. I said, "Lucky, you're lucky." My cleaning lady disappeared a month ago, and I needed someone to clean my apartment. So I hired Lucky. In China, someone who doesn't somehow manage to do well on the entrance exams and go to a good university, has a bit of an uphill battle to develop a trade or profession that can support at least a modest living. Lucky has some real challenges, but she does have one big advantage: She speaks pretty good English. So she is able to get work with foreigners once in awhile.

Lucky tried really hard, and she did a pretty good job. For some reason, she wanted to use my laundry detergent to wash the refrigerator, which was interesting. But my previous cleaning lady never even touched the refrigerator, so I wasn't going to complain. Lucky's problem, though, is that she just didn't know when to quit. My other lady charged me for two hours, and left after about an hour and fifteen minutes. But Lucky just couldn't bring herself to quite cleaning. After three hours, my apartment was so clean I couldn't stand it, and I finally had to tell her it was time to go home. I paid her for three hours, but she insisted on giving some of it back. Don't know if I am going to be able to help this young lady. A bit of a challenge, but we will see....Stay tuned.


This evening, Bulu and I went to Pizza and More to meet some other friends. We got caught in a rainstorm, which is probably why we were the only ones who showed up. Bulu wanted me to tell him something about my life in America, so I told him about the time I slept in the police station when I was hitchiking across the country. I had just graduated from highschool, and I was determined to go to "Explo 72," put on by Campus Crusade for Christ in Dallas, Texas. Mel drove me to the Market Street exit in Salem, Oregon, and I stuck out my thumb. The first day, I made it to Twin Falls, in south central Idaho. The second day, I managed to get to Cheyenne, Wyoming. One thousand miles in two days--I wasn't doing too badly. And I hadn't spent any money. The people who picked me up were generally friendly. There is one thing unique about hitchhiking: Nobody has to pick you up. Many people are afraid to pick up hitchhikers, and of course, this is undrestandable. But the ones who do are doing so because they either feel sorry for you, or because they are just very friendly, outgoing people. Whenever we stopped, they would usually buy me something to eat. Some rides lasted only a few miles. But some lasted a few hundred miles. But the third day, heading south through Colorado, I just couldn't seem to get a ride. It took me all day to get to Walsenburg--about 250 miles.

As I was standing there in Walsenburg with thumb out, I was becoming more and more frustrated. It was getting dark, and I knew that my chances for getting a ride after dark were pretty slim. Just then, a car pulled up, and a couple hitchhikers got out. With a dog. My hopes were dashed. Getting a ride after dark was hard enough. But three guys and a dog trying to get a ride after dark was pretty much out of the question. But these guys were Christians, who were heading to the same place I was, so it turned out that we struck up a conversation pretty quickly. Needless to say, we had no luck at all getting a ride. One of the guys spoted a patrol car parked nearby and decided to ask the officer if we could sleep in the police station. I thought he was nuts. Surprisingly, the officer said we could. I was more than a bit dubious about this arrangement, but my curiosity got the best of me, and I thought it might be nice to sleep inside for a night, instead of on the ground by the side of the road, as I had been doing. We walked two miles to the police station and rolled out our sleeping bags. Tired, it didn't take long for us to fall asleep. The next morning at 6 am, a rather loud, deep voice entered the room. I was wishing I could find a way to muzzle it, when I heard him ask the question:

"What are these guys doing here?"

The officer on duty told him.

"Get them out of here!"

It was the police chief. I wasn't tired anymore. We got up and headed out of town. When we got to the edge of town, the same guy who arranged our stay at the police station told me and the other guy to hide in the ditch. We took the dog with us, and ducked as low as we could. Pretty soon this guy in a new Oldsmobile pulls over. He had just graduated from the Air Force Academy, and was heading home. A new second lieutenant, with a new car, and he stops for a bum hitchhiker. Pretty nice guy. He really was a nice guy, but he didn't want a dog in his new car. I couldn't blame him, and his preference turned out good for me, because the other two guys told me to go with him, and they waited for another ride. This guy, who's name, coincidentally, was Eric, was from Austin, Texas. He took me all the way to Dallas and dropped me off in front of the convention center. Seven hundred miles.

Some days it doesn't go so well, and you don't seem to be accomplishing much, and then you get a break. That's the way life is.

Well, I had a crash today. I was coming from Wudaoko heading East along the North side of the campus, making my way to my office in the Shining Tower. This guy was going the wrong way in the bicycle lane and I could see that he was headed right for me. Nothing so unusual about that; it happens every day. And when I say "wrong way," I use the term very loosely. Who is to determine which way is "right" and which is "wrong?" Is a given direction "wrong" just because you are the only one who is going that direction? Well, he certainly didn't seem to think so. I tried to avoid him, but he seemed to be determined to hit me. I don't know....perhaps he was thinking the same thing ("Why is this idiot foreigner heading right at me?"). Still, I couldn't help wondering what self preservation skills he might be lacking. Generally, the knowledge that failing to alter one's course could lead to disaster tends to persuade even the most resolute. It's called "Mutually Assured Destruction." Anyway, for whatever reason, he was not persuaded. Full-speed, head-on collision. We both went flying. It's a dangerous world out there.

This morning on Dialogue Yang Rui was talking with Hong Huang, former publisher of Seventeen Magazine, China, about what young people in China consider "cool." Yang Rui said, "The concept of 'cool' comes from abroad...do you think Chinese young people have developed a correct understanding of 'cool?'"

Hong Huang mentioned a survey that they had taken. She made a couple of interesting points. She said that rebellion itself was not necessarily considered "cool." In other words, Chinese young people do not make rebellion a cause. She also said that Chinese young people tend to view their parents with a great deal of respect, even though they are careful to draw a distinction. This distinction is exemplified by a comment Yang Rui's son made to him: "Dad, you are not my best friend."

I am certainly not an expert, but I can make some observations based on the young people I have worked with over the past semester. First of all, this is the first generation of the "one child" family. So these kids have almost all grown up as the only child in their respective families. Much concern has been expressed about the eventual effects of China's one child policy. What will China be like when there are no aunts, no uncles and no cousins? But since this is the first generation, most of these young people have aunts and uncles and cousins, even though most of them do not have brothers or sisters. So they are getting the "best of both worlds" so to speak.

I should mention, perhaps, that the young people I have been working with are by no means a random sample of the population. Being a "top 15 university," Beihang does not admit any freshmen who score below the 98th percentile on the National College Entrance Exam. But I still believe that they are, at least to a reasonable extent, representative of what Chinese young people today are like, and how they view their world.

Several observations: First of all, the freshmen I have worked with are, as a whole, very casual dressers. Part of this may be economic. The fact that they are very bright and able to do well on exams does not mean that their families have lots of money. The news that one of their children has achieved a high score on the National Entrance Exam is certainly a blessing, but it can also present an enormous challenge to families that are not wealthy, especially if they come from a part of China where the kinds of tuition fees that are taken for granted in Beijing would be considered a sizeable amount of money.

But I don't think it's just economics. These kids just are not picky about wearing the latest fashions. They dress nice, but usually quite casually. Of course there are variations. Some kids seem to be wearing something new every time I see them. But they are the exception. Another thing I have noticed is in line with what Hong Huang said. Most of these young people really respect their parents:

"Have you ever had a disagreement with your parents?"

"Yes, but my parents explained to me why I was wrong."

Part of this comes, I'm sure, from the fact that the nineteen-year-olds I have worked with are, in most cases, the only child. But a certain amount of it comes, I think, from the fact (and this is the third observation) that a surprising number of these young people have been raised by their grandparents for a significant part of their youth. For some of them, it was primarily during the years before they entered school. But one young lady told me that she lived with her grandparents until she came to the University. Some of them saw their parents in the evening. Many of them just saw them on weekends. The young lady I mentioned said that she saw them during Spring Festival (Chinese New Year). There is a lot of discussion in China about the number of children who are being raised by their grandparents. While I think this arrangement is vastly superior to the tremendous proliferation of day care centers in the United States, it does leave one with some questions. One could easily imagine that, for some of these young people, the grandparents become the parents. And these "parents" are strongly motivated to give these children everything their hearts desire. Is this a good thing? What kind of China will come from this unique family constellation? Only time will tell.

Labels: Youth

Whew! I made it back before the elevator lady went home! I know, the exercise is good for me, but I'm tired tonight--just wasn't in the mood for climbing 14 stories. Tonight (Friday) I took Bulu to the English corner with me. Bulu just kinda moved from group to group. He can do that. He's Chinese. Somebody asked me why I came to China so I shared my dream of trying to start an NGO to deal with the problem of education in the countryside. I really believe that a volunteer organization could do a lot to help alleviate that problem, because I have talked to a lot of folks who are interested in doing some volunteer work, but they don't have vast sums of money, and they cannot afford to quit their jobs. But an organization which could facilitate short term volunteer projects could, I think, accomplish quite a bit.

After we left the English corner, Bulu and I went to Milo's for a coffee milkshake. Bulu was talking about Kilimanjaro. No idea why that particular corner of the world stuck in his mind, but he is really fascinated with Africa. But at the same time, he was talking about something that Cherry said last Sunday. Cherry is a young high school girl I met in a coffee shop who called me and asked if she could go to church with me. Bulu and I took her to church, and then we went to lunch. She said that she didn't have a childhood. This comment caught me off guard, because she showed all the signs of having had a very privileged childhood. Her English was excellent, and next year she is going to Germany for a one year exchange program. But she said that she was always so busy studying or taking piano lessons, that she had no time to play. To Bulu, this was the ultimate tragedy. Bulu talks often of hiking in the mountains, and using a vine to rappel down the side of a steep ravine. In Bulu's mind, this young girl led a very tragic existence.