Eric's Beijing Diary

Sitting here at the Reading Cafe. I stopped by "Sculpting in Time," but the ghouls and goblins scared me out. Actually, they're having a Halloween party tonight, and I didn't want to pay the cover charge. And I don't really want to be there if there's going to be a party. Too noisy. The Reading Cafe is much quieter. But the Reading Cafe doesn't have a high speed wireless connection for my laptop. I'm spoiled, I guess.

Elections. Man, I get a lot of questions these days! It's partly my fault. I got my mail-in ballot from Maricopa county the other day, and I brought it with me to the English corner. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) it got here a little late. I don't think I can get it back in time. I suppose I should have just gone down and voted at the embassy a month ago. Then again, I don't know.

My first presidential election was in 1956. But I don't remember it--I was two years old. Eisenhower and Nixon were running for the second time, and the campaign slogan was "Don't change the team in the middle of the stream." I don't know if Eisenhower was really that fond of Nixon, but perhaps I should not press that point. His grandson is married to Nixon's daughter.

I do remember 1960. I remember it well. Nixon was running against John F. Kennedy. I voted for Nixon. In my first grade classroom. A young girl sitting across the aisle from me was cheering quite loudly for Kennedy. I thought she must come from a very ungodly family. A journalist (can't remember which one) was driving across the country, listening to the Nixon Kennedy debate on his radio. When the debate was over he concluded that Nixon was easily the winner. Then he got to his destination and had a chance to watch a video replay of the debate. At the conclusion of the debate, he was convinced that Kennedy had won. Nixon was not comfortable with television.

The second election I remember was 1964. Goldwater was running against LBJ. I was definitely for Goldwater. I remember one time I was at the boarding school, and I made a comment about Goldwater. One of the missionaries said, "I guess your dad's a Goldwater man, huh?" I thought, "What does this have to do with my dad? Can't a man stand up for what's right without his motives being questioned?" But Goldwater didn't win. I am sure this is partly because there was a severe rift in the Republican party. Rockefeller and Goldwater were on opposite ends of the spectrum. But there was another issue. Vietnam was heating up, and Goldwater had said that "extremism in the defense of liberty was no vice." People were afraid that he would get the US into a war.

1968. I had been in the United States for a year after having come from Japan. Nixon was running against Humphrey. The race was actually pretty close, but I think Chicago really hurt Humphrey. There was a lot of unrest because of the war in those days, and the kids were rioting in the streets of Chicago during the convention. Mayor Daily ordered the police in and basically gave them carte blanche to do what they had to. The sight of cops beating up kids in the streets of Chicago was too much for the public to take. The kids got beat up and the Democrats got a black eye. I think it pretty much ruined their chances.

I graduated from South Salem High School in Salem, Oregon in June of 1972. A few days later, I packed my stuff in John's army dufflebag, had Mel take me out to the Market Street exit, and I stuck out my thumb. I was on my way to Dallas, Texas for "Explo 72," which was put on by Campus Crusade for Christ. That lasted for a week, but I was not ready to go back. I had set out to find God's purpose, and I had not discovered it yet. But I met some folks in Dallas who were with the Miami Baptist Association. They invited me to participate in an outreach they had planned for the Democratic convention in Miami Beach. I hitched a ride with some guys from New York, who took me as far as Tennessee, where Mary and Dennis were living, and I went from there to Miami Beach.

I will never forget the tension and uneasiness which pervaded the environment there. It was very different from Chicago four years earlier. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman, two of the Chicago seven, were delegates to the convention, and Mayor Daily was not allowed in the building. America was sick of war, and there was a great deal of disillusionment. Of course this disillusionment was expressed in different ways by different people. But, although I had a keen interest in the many social issues the Vietnam War generated, I didn't really believe that the issue was primarily political. I was convinced that America was doomed unless there was a spiritual revolution. For this reason, I tended not to identify as a "Democrat" or "Republican." Rather, I gravitated toward those who were intent on addressing the spiritual crisis--the street preachers: Sammy Tippit from God's Love in Action, Leo Humphrey, and of course, Holy Hubert from Berkeley. When I met Holy Hubert, he was sitting on a garbage dumpster. He asked me where he could get some ice cream. When I showed him, he bought me an ice cream sandwich. I had heard a Christian calling Abernathy (head of the SCLC) a "dirty Communist." I was concerned about this. Holy Hubert said, "Evil is not in a political system. Evil is in the human heart."

I think perhaps the most boring election in my memory was the election of 1976. Ford was running against Carter, and I just could not make up my mind who to vote for. Even when election day came, I was undecided. And I was genuinely undecided. By this I mean that I really did want to vote for one or the other of them. But I really could not make up my mind. I remember the day of the election, I walked to the Monmouth Public Library where I was supposed to cast my vote. I walked around the library several times, desperately trying to make up my mind. I finally went in and voted every office except the president. I left that part of the ballot blank. It was the only option I could live with.

In sharp contrast to the election of 1976, I would say that the election of 1980 presented the clearest contrast of any election in my memory. I really wanted one guy, and really did not want the other. I voted for Reagan. The Great Communicator. The night before the election, Reagan was finishing his campaign at a gathering in California somewhere, when a heckler loudly interrupted him, making it very hard for him to continue. Reagan stopped and let the guy rant a little, then he said, "Aw shut up!" The crowd laughed, the heckler was escorted out, and Reagan spent the next eight years in the White House. The election of 1984 was rather uneventful, because Reagan was so far ahead in the polls, but 1988 was a different matter. I voted for Bush, because I really didn't want Dukakis.

In 1992, Clinton was running against Bush. This was the second time I withheld my vote on the Presidential ticket. I didn't want to vote for Bill and Hillary (two for the price of one), but I was disgusted with Bush for raising taxes, and interestingly enough, for his failure to remove Saddam Hussein when he had such a unique opportunity to do so.

Dole took on Clinton in 1996. I was on the road then, and I suppose I could have voted, but I was very, very uninspired by the Dole/Kemp ticket. Maybe I am just picky, but I really felt that there was a shortage of moral imperative. Reagan took very clear positions on moral issues. That is why I respected him. Dole was unimpressive. I won't say any more about Clinton.

I voted for Bush in 2000, and it wasn't just because of Gore. But that did have something to do with it. Gore had an amoral approach to politics. The race in 2000 is often spoken of as a close race, but when you examine the county by county race, with about 3000 counties in the US, Bush won about 2500 of them. So much has happened since then. Many folks here in China have asked my opinion about the election. I usually tell them that I think Bush's economic policies are better for China, but that I believe he made a very serious mistake in Iraq which has hurt him in this campaign. Sometimes I find myself caught between misconceptions. People in China often ask questions like, "Why was Bush so mad at Iraq?" I try to explain to them that Bush wasn't really mad at Iraq, he was mad at Saddam Hussein, and he wanted to rescue the people of Iraq from a cruel dictator. But this explanation rings hollow now, when thousands of innocent civilians in Iraq have been caught in the crossfire. I am afraid this is one more election when I find myself wishing that I could vote for "None of the above."

I went to the coffee machine at the language school this morning and noticed some kind of sign taped to it. I couldn't read all the characters, but it seemed to be indicating that there was something wrong with it. There was another foreigner standing there, so I started talking to her about it. She stared at me blankly. Finally she said slowly, "I'm sorry, my English is not very good." Like everyone else in China, I tend to assume, without thinking, that every foreign looking person is American, or at least speaks English. Not so. I have to admit that it always surprises me when I meet people from Europe who don't speak English. The great majority of folks from the EU not only speak English, but speak very good English. I asked the lady where she was from. She said, "Italy." I said, "Well, my Italian isn't very good either."

Language. The idiots who tried to build that tower to heaven created quite a mess. In an international community like Beijing, one is reminded constantly. For one thing, there are the various dialects. People from the south who grew up speaking Cantonese have trouble understanding Mandarin. People from the North tell me Cantonese is impossible. And those are just the main dialects. When I was in Shanxi Province, Lucy told me there was a different dialect for each county. The folks who speak her native dialect sometimes have trouble understanding standard Mandarin. And Shanghainese sounds like a complete scribble to me. Much of this problem has been addressed by making Mandarin the official language of China. School children all learn Mandarin when they start school. At least that's how it's supposed to work. Kinda hard if your teacher doesn't really speak Mandarin, but it does seem to be working it's way down to the village level.

But beyond dialect, there is the issue of accent. When southerners say the Chinese words for "four" and "ten" I can't hear the difference. Northerners can, because the tone is different. Speaking of tones, that is really a stumble for foreigners. For Americans, the first part of the problem is that they just cannot bring themselves to believe that it makes that much difference. But it does, especially in a conversation with someone who doesn't speak English. Chinese English speakers have spent a lot of time with foreigners, so they are pretty adept at figuring out what you are saying. But folks who don't speak English really cannot understand you if you don't get the tones right.

Or it strikes them funny. Last semester, when I was teaching in Langfang, I was taking attendance or something and called out a student's name. This produced widespread laughter. I said, "What is so funny?" One of them sputtered through his all but uncontrollable fit, "You called him a wolf!" Good grief. One little tone. But it really does make a difference. And another thing. What is standard Mandarin? When I ask people, they tell me that Beijing is the standard. But that's not quite right, because natives of Beijing are known for their "R's" Everything ends with "R." Well, not everything, but lots of words that don't end that way if you are in another part of China. They actually have a character notation to indicate this in writing.

In general, I would say that North China sets the pattern for what is standard. Forget about getting a job at a Chinese language school if you are from South China. But having said that, I really don't know where perfectly "standard" Mandarin is spoken. I don't think anyone does.

And then there's English. It comes in several varieties, each with their own faithful. My friend who speaks American English refuses to listen to anything British. And my friend who speaks British English looks down her nose at me every time I say, "water." Neither of them have ever been outside of China. And the foreigners. They, of course, are also inclined to think of their own speech as the standard. Like the Australian business woman I was talking with at a banquet some time ago, "People tell me I have an accent, but I don't hear it. I meet these British people with this strange, weird accent, and they have the hide to tell me that I have an accent!"

This morning I visited the home of Soong Ching Ling (Song Qingling), which has been made into a museum. I took the subway to the Jishuitan station, which is pretty close to where the museum is located. For some reason, I was not able to find a taxi that would take me there. I'm not sure why that is. Perhaps the drivers don't want to go a place where they would not be able to get a fare...I'm not sure. Anyway, I finally hired a bicycle taxi to take me there. It turned out to be the perfect mode of transportation for navigating the windy hutongs which led to the old mansion. At first I thought perhaps I should have just ridden my own bicycle, but it's probably a good thing I didn't. I probably would have gotten lost. The Beijing hutongs are a maze, and you can really get pretty confused if you don't have the neighborhood memorized.

The home I visited is actually the home where Pu Yi (the Last Emperor) was born. It was provided for Madame Sun Yat Sen by Zhou En Lai, and she spent the last eighteen years of her life there. Fortunately, there is a very good bilingual photo-journalistic display that provides considerable insight into Soong Ching Ling's life. They even have a copy of the original register that Soong Ching Ling and her sisters signed at Wesleyan College for Women in Macon, Georgia. Ai Ling, here oldest sister, was eighteen. Soong Ching Ling herself was fifteen, and little Mey Ling (as she signed her name then), was ten years old.

Soong Ching Ling is still a bit of a mystery to me...I guess I have to do my homework. She was not really a Communist (although she was made a member of the Communist party on her deathbed), but she supported Mao in his conflict with the Guomingdang. She was disgusted with her sister for marrying Jiang Jie-shi (Chiang Kai-shek), whom she hated with a passion. After Chiang's attack on the Communists in Shanghai in 1927, she was a vocal critic of the Nationalists. But she lived in this mansion through all the years of the Cultural Revolution, and was strangely silent about the injustice going on around her.

Went to the Beijing Investor's Forum this evening at the John Bull Pub in the Chao Yang district. This event is sort of an outreach by some folks from BICF. There was a lecture by a guy who is putting together a company to buy non performing loans (bad debts) in China. The way it works is that they will buy bad loans for a very small cost, and then collect from the debtors at a fraction of what they originally owed. It's a very interesting idea, but right now they are looking for about six million US dollars. I think I may have to bow out this time. I'd have to break my piggy bank to come up with the kind of money they're talking about.

Ate lunch at the Korean dormitory in Wudaokou today. A bunch of Korean students renting rooms in a building have designated one apartment as a cafeteria, and hired a couple cooks to come in and make meals for them. Ten yuan for lunch. Not a bad meal for the price, although I don't think it beats Cafeteria Number Eight at Beihang.

There are lots of Koreans in Wudaokou. Korean students, Korean businessmen, and Korean restaurant workers at Korean restaurants. Korean beauticians, barbers, and shopkeepers. Of course, there are plenty of Chinese business people here too, as well as businessmen from other countries. The Lush is owned by a New Zealander, and there is a new Mexican restaurant opened about six months ago by an American. But as foreigners go, Koreans definitely predominate. Not sure how it got that way, but I am taking advantage of it. The language school I go to was started by a Korean businessman, and the cost is very reasonable, about $30 US for two weeks of training two hours a day.

Got an email from Melissa this morning. She sounded like she had a pretty bad cold:

Well, I got both of your bessages. I am so sorry that I bissed you. This weekend I went up to Eugene to hang out with Michela and Elise. I have been going nonstop it seebs for two weeks now. So I am very exhausted. But I will perservere. I wanted to let you know that I left my wallet in by bag so I have just had by card organizer in by purse. Anyway, so I keep forgetting to put by wallet back hence, there have been some charges on your card as it was the only forb of payment I have in by card organizer that is not libited to one particular store. Anyway, will you just pray that my schedule clears up along with by sinuses and I will try to be better about keeping appointbents, okay?

Love you
Melissa

Melissa's email reminded me of the nasty chest cold I had when I was in Kunming last summer. I think it must have been the damp room I stayed in for a few nights after I moved out of Jim's Guest House. Anyway, I had a hacking cough, a burning in my chest, and I was breathing with some difficulty. When I got to the youth hostel, I asked where I could get some herbal medicine. The guy who worked there took me to a drug store, and got me lined up with about a five day supply. One envelope for the "hot" and one for the "cold" (don't ask me what that means). One of each three times a day. Put them in a class of scalding hot water, and drink it as fast as you can. I was going to be on the train for two nights, so I thought perhaps the combination of the herbal medicine and lots of bed rest would heal me. The first night I was on the train, I forced myself to take the last dosage right before I went to bed. When I started drinking the brew, I was wearing a light jacket, because it was a bit chilly. By the time I finished, I was down to my T shirt, and sweating profusely. I went to bed, and slept like a baby. That was the end of my chest cold.

I have never been a fan of Chinese herbal medicine as a substitute for all Western treatments. There are some things for which Western medicine is a better solution. Most Chinese people feel this way too. Fascination with Eastern medicine in the West is matched by fascination with Western medicine in the East. In fact, when penicillin was first introduced in China, many people were giving it to their children like candy.

Having said this, there are some ailments for which Chinese herbal medicine is superior. I especially recommend traditional Chinese medicine for the treatment of colds, for which Western medicine has no cure anyway. Since there never has been a vaccine for the cold virus, the best that Western medicine can do is to treat the symptoms.

The point of Western medicine, especially antibiotics, is to kill something that is hurting your body. The centerpiece of Chinese Traditional medicine is the belief that if you are ill, there is something in your body that is out of balance. So the point is to restore that balance, so that your body can heal itself. If I have some kind of infection, I look for something to fight it. But for a cold, I definitely prefer the Chinese solution.

Labels: Melissa

China is not an English speaking country. Once you leave the big cities, you are in trouble if you cannot speak Mandarin. In fact, if you go to the countryside, it is hard enough to find someone who speaks Mandarin. Most of the children speak Mandarin now, because it is required in school. But the older people in the villages don't really speak it comfortably. And they definitely don't speak English.

But you don't have to go to the villages. I live on a university campus. My students speak English, albeit with varying levels of proficiency. But if I step outside the West Gate, I am confronted with a plethora of small, storefront restaurants, and businesses. And they don't speak English. I like to go to these restaurants, because the food is tremendous. But I can't there alone. Part of that is because at a Chinese restaurant, you don't order individual meals. You order a few dishes together, and share them as a group. If you go alone, the cost is significantly higher, and you have too much left over. But the real reason I can't just go to those restaurants any time I choose, is more basic. I can't read the menu. I don't have any idea what dishes are available, or what they are called. And the servers can't help me, because none of them can speak English.

When I first got to China, I met an American businessman who had a bunch of business cards from various businesses that he carried around with him. Whenever he wanted to go to one of those places, he just showed the business card for that establishment to the taxi driver. I don't want a bunch of cards like that. If I had them, I would burn them. If I am going to meet someone somewhere, and they start giving me directions, I always stop them. The directions don't help me, because I don't drive in this town. I always ask, "How do you say it in Chinese?" That's the only question that matters. Most of the cab drivers are home town boys. They know this city like the backs of their hands. So if I can manage to tell them where I want to go, they will get me there. But it's still very frustrating for me to get into a cab, and sit quietly all the way to my destination. I usually get a lot of education from cab drivers. Not here. They don't speak English.

In Beijing, the teaching of English is being moved downward. They are starting in the first grade now. Good idea, but it will take another generation for the results of that policy to be evident. Meanwhile, among the young university graduates, the world will continue, for some time, to be divided between the haves and the have nots. Those who have English proficiency, and the hiring preference which accompanies it, and those who do not, and have to take second place, or accept a position at a lower salary.

China is an English speaking country. I teach Information Systems. In English. I work every day with people who speak English. My students speak English. I go to a Chinese church, and listen to the service in English. My friends speak English. I get up in the morning and watch the news on CCTV. In English. I step out the door and get the newspaper. In English. I am involved with Bible studies. In English. I encounter people from many countries around the world. I speak to them in English. The speak to me in English. I have speakers for my computer. Every evening, I listen to the BBC. In English. I turn on the radio and listen to the local FM station. In English. I go to the bookstore and buy books. In English. Books from the Foreign Languages Press on history, philosophy, and literature, as well as the classic novels of Chinese antiquity. In English.

English is the international language of trade. But not only that. I read legal documents. Chinese law drafted by the People's Consultative Congress and published in the Beijing Review. In English. When I ride my bike around the city, I have a map. In English. English is not technically an official language in China, the way French is in Canada, but the same kinds of documents and papers which are translated into French in Canada are translated into English in China. Signs are in Chinese, of course, but also in English. The announcements on the subway are given in English. Chinese websites have an alternative version. In English. When people speak to me, they assume that I speak English, and address me accordingly. English is not always their native language, of course, but it is one of their languages. There are many English speaking people in Asia. In fact, there are more English speaking people in Asia than there are in the United States. Not more native English speakers, but more English speaking people. I am studying Chinese. But I am doing it because I want to, not because I have to. I am not conversational yet, but I am getting there. But again, I am doing this because I really want to. I don't have to. It is a moderate inconvenience to live in a city like Beijing and not be able to speak Mandarin. But it would be an unspeakable frustration to live in Beijing and not be able to speak English.

You're not going to believe this, but I had a terrible nightmare last night. I dreamed that I was having car trouble. This morning I woke up, and remembered, to my immense relief, that I have no car. No car, no car trouble. I got on my one-lock bike and rode to the coffee bar, and here I am pounding away on my laptop. I actually feel sorry for car owners in Beijing. Not that I don't like driving. I do, of course. I was a professional driver for seven years. I suppose I drove about 600,000 miles or so throughout the United States and Canada. I've been to the moon and back. But in China, a car is really a millstone around your neck. A professor friend likes to take me to a restaurant once in awhile in his Volkswagen. But I have noticed that he always goes to the same restaurant. Why? Because it is the only one near the university that has a parking lot. I usually go to eat with students. Students are on a budget. So they know where to get the best food for the lowest price. But you can't park a car there. It's just much more convenient to have a bicycle. I know this dynamic changes when you have a family. You can't really have a family outing on a bicycle, I guess, although here in China I have seen plenty of families traveling together on a motorcycle. But for a single person, it is so much easier to have a bicycle. The adjustment was amazingly easy for me. Once or twice I have come to a corner and found myself reaching for the turn signal--other than that, I really don't miss driving much. I also don't miss car payments, car trouble, changing tires, buying tires, sitting in gas lines, paying astronomical prices for fuel, going for days and days with virtually no exercise whatsoever, sitting in traffic, etc., etc.

As I left the orphanage this morning, the administrator took my hand and said, "God bless you," in English. It was the first English I had heard from her, and I appreciated her sincerity. We caught the village shuttle at 8am and rode to Taiyuan. Satellite was riding with us as far as Taiyuan, where she would catch another bus to her home town, and we would take the express bus to Beijing. When we got to Taiyuan, we started to say goodbye to Satellite. She covered her face with her hand and couldn't speak. Jean told her that we would walk with her to her bus. It turned out to be quite a walk, but I think it was the right thing to do. On the way, I was accosted by a beggar. I just grabbed whatever I had handy and gave it to him. I turned out to be three jiao, which was not enough for him. He started to complain. Jean turned to him, "If you're not satisfied, would you like to give it back?" I felt kinda bad for giving him so little, so I reached in my wallet and gave him one yuan. Jean did not like this. She said, "No, you shouldn't do that. He's not poor in spirit. If he was really poor, he would be satisfied with whatever you gave him." She's right, of course. I don't know. I never know what to do about beggars. I want to help people who are really desperate, but I don't want to be encouraging people who are just lazy. But I don't know if just handing him three jiao was a good thing to do. If a beggar is not really poor, then we should not give him less money, we should give him no money. Fraud is fraud. But if he really is destitute, then I think perhaps one yuan would not be inappropriate. It's a tough problem, because there really are some folks who have lost all sense of dignity because of prolonged poverty. It's very frustrating. But there again, I really believe that the best approach to use is to get involved with helping rural China at the village level.

After saying goodbye to Satellite, Jean and Claire and I caught a motorcycle taxi to our bus station, bought our tickets, and then went to a restaurant. Meat. I was really good to have meat. I have been living on vegetables for the past week. Not that I am complaining. The food we have been eating has been very, very good. I never knew there were so many ways to fix vegetables. Jean told me, "Eric, you eat anything." I said, "No, actually, I deliberately limit myself to food." She said foreigners sometimes have trouble with village food. But take it from me--if foreigners have trouble with the food I have been eating this past week, the problem is with the foreigners, not the food. Still, the pork and eggplant dish sure tasted good. I like vegetables, but I am definitely carnivorous.

This morning, we hiked to the top of the hill on the other side of the freeway from the orphanage. The trail leading up the mountain was a beautiful Via Dolorosa, with the traditional 14 stations of the cross. Walking that trail, I couldn't help thinking of the Man of Sorrows struggling with the cross as he walked toward the place of his death. Except that He wasn't walking a desert mountain trial between the juniper, and feeling the cool breeze from the valley below.

At the top of the hill, there is an archway. On the front side of the archway is written, in Chinese characters, "The Gate to Heaven." On the back side, "The Sinners Hope." The way through the archway leads to a church built in the style of traditional Chinese architecture.

We met the kind lady who is in charge of the guest house. She is talkative and very friendly. She is from a traditional Catholic family (Shanxi is a very Catholic province), but she really seems to be a sincere person who has a relationship with the Lord. Anyway, she told us how her family had been persecuted and their home destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. She had a crucifix in her hand, with several notches, which she said were created when the Red Guards tried to hack it to pieces. After our visit to the church, we headed down the mountain. I strayed off the trail a bit, because I was very curious about the old abandoned Franciscan monastery at the foot of the hill. With the coming of the Communist revolution, the Franciscans were kicked out of China. The monastery has now been reclaimed by the local diocese, but it is still being inhabited by local villagers. It is a near perfect replica of a Medieval monastery, complete with courtyard, garden, and tower. It looks like it was built a thousand years ago, but it probably dates from the Nineteenth Century, sometime between the American Civil War and the revolution of 1911.

This afternoon, Satellite's (one of the caretakers at the orphanage) brother came with a sack of millet. Satellite had asked him to ride the bus here to bring the millet as a gift for us. She does not have money. Her salary is less than $40 a month. But she is a very soft-hearted lady, and she wanted to give us something. I was impressed with the trouble she had gone to give us this token of her friendship. I have seen this kind of friendship over and over again from country people. I was walking on one of the roads near the orphanage today, and I came across a few boys playing ping pong by the side of the road. In front of the village store, there was an old, old pool table with the felt scraped off to expose the bare slate, and a row of bricks on edge down the middle of the table. They invited me to join them. I learned very quickly that these boys could play a pretty good game of table tennis. And I learned that a bunch of Chinese village kids know what to do with a pool table.

This morning, we took a dozen children from the orphanage and boarded a bus for the city of Taiyuan. We went to a very nice park with a lake. Most of the children were able to walk by themselves. A couple of them were in wheelchairs. There were lots of caretakers along, so I wasn't too worried--in fact, the children themselves stayed pretty close to their caretakers. I tried to take on of them to the bathroom, but he refused to leave the group. I did manage to get three of them to come with me on the Ferris Wheel.

This afternoon, I walked through the orphanage to see some of the children who were immobilized and couldn't go with us this morning. Although most of the children in this orphanage have some kind of handicap, the majority of them are ambulatory--very few are bedridden. The most troubling are the children with Cerebral Palsy and the ones with Spina Bifida. The ones with Spina Bifida have an horrific protrusion at the base of the spine. Some of the Cerebral Palsy kids can kinda get around, but some of them spend all their time in bed. Their legs are permanently frozen in a crossed position. I saw one of them lying flat on her back in a crib. She looked to be somewhere between 5-8 years old. I couldn't tell for sure. I touched her quiet face. She looked up at me. I will never forget her face. Lying on her back every minute of every day. Forgive me for sounding obvious, but that would be really boring.

In spite of all I have seen at this orphanage, the children seem to be well taken care of. The ones who were up and around were friendly and cheerful. I think the people here are kind to children. All of the children here were abandoned by their parents. Their parents are not dead. They are village people who just could not afford to deal with the overwhelming challenge of a handicapped child. The children are usually left at night. One of them, an autistic girl in her teens, had apparently resisted being left quite violently. They found her tied to a tree in the courtyard. It's easy to pontificate loosely about what is clearly a monumental problem. But from what I have seen, I believe that what is needed is to get involved with villages, so that people who are faced with these challenges can be given options. Many years ago, most of the children in this orphanage were girls who were abandoned because they were girls. When they grew up, they married and left. But today, most of the children are handicapped--some of them quite severely. Some of them are abandoned as infants, but for some of them, it is clear that their families have really tried to keep them as long as they could. It is hard for me to grasp what would make parents abandon their own flesh and blood, especially when their children are crying and saying they don't want to be left. I don't know...perhaps it is wishful thinking on my part, but I just have to believe that many of these children would not have been left if there parents could be told there was help for them.

The people in the villages are not starving. They work hard, but they do have a good life in many ways. But their agrarian lifestyle simply does not allow for a child who is completely unproductive, and shows no potential for becoming productive. To be sure, that is probably an oversimplification--in a sense, I am wasting my time talking about it, because nobody knows for sure. But I believe that if there are non-governmental organizations working at the village level, folks who find themselves in this kind of position would have resources available to them that would spare them from such a horrible decision.

This morning we left the village. There was a car in the village heading into town, so we hitched a ride. We rode the shuttle to Lishi, then caught the bus for Taiyuan, the capital city of Shanxi Province. The orphanage is about an hour outside of Taiyuan. As we approached Taiyuan, Claire noticed that the countryside looked familiar, so she got up and asked the driver if the orphanage was nearby. He said "no," so she sat down. But Claire was right. Suddenly she spotted the orphanage and asked the driver to pull over to the side of the freeway. Cool. We avoided the hassle of going all the way into Taiyuan, and then trying to find a local bus back out to the orphanage. We climbed over the guardrail, slid down the embankment, squeezed through a barbed wire fence, and hiked to the orphanage.

Jean had arranged for me to stay in the guest house. The accommodations here are very nice. Not luxury, but it felt really good to have a hot shower. That's one thing they don't have in the village. This village is not quite as poor as the one we left this morning. But it is certainly not wealthy. Same thing--vegetables and noodles. But it's good stuff. The children here are very friendly. Most of them have some kind of handicap. But they are cheerful and talkative. When we first arrived, we were served some apples and tea. I was cutting slices of an apple and giving them to a couple kids. When I got busy talking and didn't move fast enough, I was reminded very loudly:

Ye-ye hao!

We met a guy who is either a priest or a brother, and had been adopted himself. His parents are from Korea, but they live in Beijing. They have adopted 20 orphans over the years, including three they just recently adopted from the orphanage here. It takes a special kind of family to adopt handicapped children. I am afraid many of these children will be staying here for some time.

Today I was thinking about the scripture in Leviticus 19 that I read a few days ago:

"And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest. And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God." (verses 9 and 10)

I was thinking of this scripture because today is Juliana's birthday, and I was remembering when John and I were gleaning potatoes in Drew Burke's potato field the day after she was born. And I was thinking of this scripture because of the unique picture in front of me. Today, as we were walking around the village, and talking with the friendly villagers, I noticed several people carrying shoulder poles, with baskets of produce they had harvested by hand from their fields. Everything is done by hand. Everything. These people live on very steep mountainside. The mountainside is terraced into tiny fields. Bringing any kind of machinery to those fields is out of the question. The people in this village seem happy and easygoing. But they work hard. I picked up one of those shoulder poles and put it on my shoulder. It's doable, but it's not light work. And some of the folks carrying these shoulder poles are young women. I even saw a little girl with a seed sack tied to her back. Everybody works.

Lucy also showed us an old temple. She said that no one could go here at night except the village wizard. She said that she believes in the village wizard because everything he said has come true. One day the wizard contacted her and said he wanted to speak with her. When she got to his place, he was speaking in a very strange voice. He asked her if she was thinking of going to graduate school. She said that she was. The strange voice told her that if she went to graduate school, she would create a problem for her family. Because of this, Lucy is thinking about getting an additional Bachelor's degree instead.

The hospitality of these folks is really impressive. They usually eat two meals a day--the first at 11 am, and the second in the evening. But for us, they made a special breakfast. The people in this village cannot afford meat, but boy do they know how to make vegetables! And noodles. They don't eat rice. At least not very often. But they are very, very good at making unique vegetable dishes. Specially that pumpkin stew we had last night. I am very carnivorous. But I have no complaints about the food in this place.

Yesterday morning, we finally got off the bus after almost 13 hours. I was definitely ready to finish that ride. We stopped at a restaurant in Lishi and had lunch. Lucy then led us to the bus station where the village shuttle would take us to the foot of her mountain. The village shuttle is not a scheduled run. It takes off in the morning as soon as the bus is full, then makes the run and comes back to do the same thing again. When we got to the station, it was not there, and there was no way to know for sure when it would be back. So we tried a couple of taxis. But they had seen me, and they were asking ridiculous prices. I told Lucy that we should just wait for the shuttle. All this while, a crowd was gathering around us. I was a bit surprised by this, because Lishi is not a village. It is actually a pretty good sized city. But apparently these folks had never seen a foreigner, and they were having a look. Jean was a bit frustrated with this, and finally dispersed the crowd. It's a good thing, because we were causing a traffic problem. The whole thing was pretty innocent, but it was an accident waiting to happen. The shuttle finally appeared, and took us to the end of the line. We had planned to hike the rest of the way to her village, but Lucy got on the phone and rounded up her brother and some friends, and they came and got us on their motorcycles.

I really wish I had a picture of Lucy's childhood home here in the village. I don't, because I have been having all kinds of trouble with my camera. I bought a pair of batteries in a hurry just before I left, but they were dead in a few minutes. I bought another pair. Same problem. I repeated that process a couple more times before giving up. I don't know if the problem is my camera, or the batteries. When I get back to Beijing, I will get some good Duracell batteries, and see if that does the trick. In the mean time, no pictures. Disgusting. I don't feel too bad, because I will be back, but it's still frustrating, because a picture is worth a thousand words, and it would take many thousands of words to do this place justice.

Lucy's family lives in a cliffside earth cave called a yaodong. These caves resemble the cave homes in Yan'an, a few miles to the West in neighboring Shaanxi (not Shanxi) Province, where Mao and his cohorts were holed up after they had completed the Long March in their escape from the Goumingdang. In this case, they are brick-lined caves cut into the side of the mountain. The village is a series of terraces on the mountainside. Terraced fields, terraced dwelling places--the whole place is one big bunch of terraces. Hundreds of them. This is very dry country. It reminds me a little of the Badlands in Western North Dakota. But it's also a little bit like Eastern Oregon. And in other ways, quite different from both of those. It is very unique country. Lots and lots and lots of coal. Lucy says that if ten lights are on in China, nine of them are kept on by the coal in Shanxi Province.

In front of her home is a small courtyard. The toilet is in one corner. It's a slit in the ground--an angular concrete trough which leads down into a pit from which they can draw nightsoil for the fields. It doesn't have a door, but it does have a doorway. You just kinda peek around the corner and make sure nobody is using it. Tobacco leaves are hanging on the outside wall of the house, drying in the sun. The front of the house is a lattice work, which forms the framework for the windows, which are paper. Sorta like the paper doors in Japan. The outside courtyard is pounded earth, and the inside floor is concrete. Her home has three rooms. Three brick arches side by side. They do have electricity, but it's very expensive, so they must use it sparingly. The cooking is done with coal (not surprisingly). The flue for the stove leads through a carefully designed network of passage ways laid out beneath a platform, which is called a kang. The kang is made of brick, probably sunbaked, but I don't know for sure.

Last night I was very tired, because I hadn't gotten very much sleep. We went to bed a little early, but not before listening to Lucy's mother sing a song for us. She made it up as she went along--sorta like rap. It was a song about three people who came to her village to visit her. Lucy's mother is a very kind woman. Like most of the villagers here, she cannot read, and does not speak much Mandarin. She speaks the local dialect of this county. But she is a very creative woman. People in the village are impressed with her. They are also impressed with her daughter (Lucy), because she speaks the local dialect, Mandarin, and English, and she speaks all of them quite well.

Lying here in my bunk in the sleeper bus, scribbling in my notebook. What a night! Lucy had reserved four berths on the sleeper bus, but it turns out that the bus company had oversold the run. There were only two berths for the four of us. When we got to the bus station, there were a lot of angry people. They were arguing with the management, because they had reserved tickets, and now they were told that their spots had been taken. In a few cases, the management was able to placate people by providing lodging for the night. But the rest of them demanded a place on the bus. The management finally announced that they would take everyone. Claire asked if this arrangement was safe. She was told abruptly that if she was concerned about safety, she should stay home. We headed out to the bus, but not before being warned several times to keep our heads down so the police would not see how overloaded the bus was. Lucy had told me that two of us would have to sit while the other two slept. Lucy refused to take a berth, so I insisted that Claire and Jean take the sleeper berths. When I got on the bus, I realized that there were no seats at all. So sitting meant crouching in the aisle between the sleeper berths. This was a profoundly uncomfortable situation. I spent the next five hours sitting on the edge of one of the berths, leaning over and trying to get some sleep, desperately trying to find a position that would take some of the pressure off my aching back. I almost envied the few hardy souls who decided to brave the cold and sprawled out on blankets in the baggage compartment under the bus. We finally stopped for a bathroom break, and Jean and Claire got up and told Lucy and me to take the berths. It was an incredible relief to stretch out on my bunk and get some sleep. Somehow a sleeper bus doesn't seem so bad after what I went through last night. I think I could almost do this without complaining. And that would be handy, because if you're going to be involved in the countryside of China, you're going to be taking a sleeper bus sooner or later.