Eric's Beijing Diary

I went to the acrobatic performance today presented by the Office of Foreign Experts Affairs. I have only seen a Chinese acrobatic performance twice in my life--once in Beijing about six months ago, and the other time many years ago when I took the girls to a perfomance by some traveling Chinese acrobats at the Williston High School in Williston, North Dakota. The agility and incredible sense of balance these acrobats possess is really something to see.

Christmas. People here ask me how I spent the Christmas holiday. There is no holiday. But in China, there is a widespread recognition that Christmas is "one of the most important festivals in the Western world." So Christmas has somehow become "part of the landscape" here in China, as it has in every other country in the world, except, perhaps, for the world of Islam. Part of this is because Christmas is so universal throughout the western world, unlike Thanksgiving, which is uniquely American. But the other reason is that Christmas is about giving. It is about peace on earth. It is about a baby in a manger. It is about poor shepherds visited by choirs of angels. It's about light and hope coming to a dark world. Let's face it--there just is no other story like it.

Saturday, Christmas Day, I went to a Christmas party at a home fellowship in Beijing. One guy was talking with me and made the observation that I had obviously eaten well. I quickly agreed. Then he patted his own stomach, and said, "Well, I guess we are all sons of David." The standard Mandarin transliteration for David is Dawei. "Da" means large, and "wei" means guard. But "wei" also means stomach, even though it's a different character. Anyway, it's hard to explain--you had to be there.

Yesterday, I had a Christmas party at my place with some friends. Glen volunteered to do the cooking, because he had worked as a chef while he was in Scotland. I went with him to the Wudaokou Market to pick up some stuff. He came up with a delicious chicken curry dish. We sang some Christmas carols, and I shared a little from the second chapter of Matthew. It's interesting..if you are a believer, Christmas is somehow the same no matter where you are. And if you are not a believer, and Christmas really doesn't mean anything to you, then it really doesn't matter where you are either.

Brian sent me an email and asked if he could go with me to the Christmas program. We met at the North Gate, at 5 and biked to the church. We were there by 5:30, and they were already putting people into the overflow for the 6pm service. They let me go up to the third floor, since the foreigners need to get audio equipment up there. The fact is that I have my own receiver now, but I did want to get a hymn book. So Brian and I were allowed up.

On the way, Brian had told me that he didn't have a very good singing voice. He told me that when he was in a Christmas program once, there was a dog sleeping nearby, and when he started singing, the dog got up and left. Somehow, with Christmas, it doesn't matter. The service we went to featured the children's choir in a special Christmas musical. It was really heartwarming.

Afterwards, Brian wanted me to go and get something to eat. His bicycle had been stolen while we were in church, so I rode my bike and he took a bus. Fortunately, I had chained my bike to a pole so it was harder to steal. We went to one of the many "all you can order" restaurants that are springing up around Beijing. They usually charge about 40RMB for a meal. That's about 5 dollars. They usually serve several kinds of pizza, spaghetti, tossed salad, chicken, and other assorted items. We had to wait in line for an hour, which is very unusual, but Christmas is Christmas.

It's kinda tricky riding a bike in the snow, but there are advantages. It's certainly easier on your tires, because the snow is soft, and there isn't as much friction. It's easier on your brakes because brakes are pretty much useless in the snow, so there is not point in applying them. And the traffic is better. Not as many cars, and the bike lane is empty except for the few hardy souls who are dumb enough to ride their bikes in the snow. Actually, it's not as bad as it sounds. I hit a patch of ice the other night, and that was not nice. But as long as the snow is packed, you have pretty good traction, more or less.

But it definitely takes me back. I can't help thinking of all those years in the trucking industry, when I was driving an 80,000 pound truck in the snow. For a truck driver, there are only two seasons--winter and road construction, and of the two, winter is definitely the most precarious. Especially for me, since I ran the northern tier. I worked out of Fargo, North Dakota. Part of the time, I pulled a flatbed. Then I was all over the country. But when I was driving for a refrigerated van line, I did a lot of runs across the northern part of the United States. We used to load imitation sea food from Japan at the docks in Seattle. We would take it to the kosher meat shops in Brooklyn or Queens, where the rabbi would be standing outside the deli shop, ready to check it to make sure it was kosher. It was a pretty consistent run, most of the time. For a while there, I could pretty much count on having blueberry pancakes at the truckstop in Missoula every two weeks. West of Missoula, the first pass is Lookout. After that, in Idaho, is Fourth of July. If you made it over Lookout, Fourth of July usually wasn't too bad. Coming the other way, the first pass out of Seattle was Snoqualmie. Snoqualmie is a very pretty pass, and very long. Most of the time it was not too bad, but if you happened to hit a weather system that was right for snow, it would dump mountains of snow on that pass. A standard tractor-trailer rig has eighteen wheels. Two on the steering axle, of course, then a set of doubles on each side of two tractor axles. Same thing again on the trailer. The maximum weight distribution was 34,000 pounds on each set of double axles, and 12,000 pounds on the steering axle. Generally, if I had a full load, and there was plenty of weight on my drive axles, I could go over "barefoot" without too much trouble. As a matter of fact, in all my years on the road, I only chained up once, and that was because there was a cop waving everyone over to the side of the road as I was coming up out of California going over the Siskiyous.

Anyway, as I was saying, as long as I wasn't empty, I could usually make it over barefoot if I kept moving. But if something made me stop, then I was finished. One time, I was coming up over Snoqualmie out of Seattle, and the snow was pretty heavy. But I was fully loaded, and I thought I would be alright as long as I didn't have to stop. Just before I got to the summit, don't you suppose there was a guy pulling a set of doubles who had spun out, and was chaining up. Those guys don't want to chain up anymore than anyone else, but the problem is that they just don't have the traction of a twin-screw. Those double trailer outfits are usually pulled by a tractor with only one axle. This is because they are usually light-weight, high-volume loads, which, of course, makes it even worse. Well, fortunately, I made it around him OK without having to stop, and managed to get over the mountain. Compared to that, riding a bike in the snow is small potatoes.

Well, it has started. I think it must be the red cap. I got it when I was working for a trucking company in Fargo. I put it on today because I have had a cold.

"Santa Clause, we want our presents!" I said, "You need to be patient, and wait for Christmas. And I hope your chimney is big enough for my da duzi!. One of them said, "OK, we'll leave some milk and cookies for you!" Hmmm...wonder where she heard that one.

I don't usually hear that. People in China usually tell me that I look like Marx. Especially the young people at the English corner, "Hi Marx!"

The coffee bar has an unusual arrangement. It is situated on the second and third floors. But they never bring your bill to you. You go to the cash register and they charge you there for what you ordered. If you are on the third floor, the staff on the third floor have walkie-talkies which they use to tell the cashier what you ordered when you leave. The other day, the fuyuan who works the cash register on the second floor told me what they said to her, "Marx is on his way down, and he had black coffee and a chocolate muffin."

So there you have it, folks. I am living proof that Santa Clause is just Marx with a red cap.

Beautiful sunny day today. One of the nicest things about living in Beijing is the climate. The weather is nice most of the time. And Beijing has a very dry climate. It is cold in the winter, but not cold like North Dakota or Minnesota. And since Beijing is in North China, the buildings are heated. There's a rule in China--buildings north of the Yangtze are heated. Buildings south of the Yangtze are not. In North China, winters are cold and dry. In South China, the winters are not as cold, but the weather is damp. And the buildings do not have hot water radiators. Right now I am sitting inside. If you consider the inside climate (which is what matters) the climate in Beijing is warm and dry, while the climate in South China is cold and damp.

Broke the zipper on my jacket the other day and caught a cold. I was going to buy a new coat, but Claire brought one today that her brother used to have. She said he doesn't wear it anymore. I think it's going to work. The main thing in Beijing is to have plenty of layers on when you go outside, and to be able to remove them, as needed, when you enter a warmer place.

Went to church this morning. Some 70 people were baptized. This church is interesting. The practice adult baptism by sprinkling. I have never seen this practice before. The do not baptize infants. At least, I have never seen an infant baptized. Interesting, though, one of the ladies who was lined up to be baptized had been baptized as a baby. The pastor mentioned this, so he didn't actually baptize her.

Next week is Christmas. Lots of services on Christmas Eve. And some more stuff on Christmas Day. I was going to have a Christmas party on Christmas Day, but we will probably put it off until Sunday, 'cause the translators will all be busy providing English translation for all the services.

There's a song in the air! There's a star in the sky!
There’s a mother's deep prayer and a baby's low cry!
And the star rains its fire while the beautiful sing,
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King!

There's a tumult of joy o'er the wonderful birth,
For the virgin’s sweet Boy is the Lord of the earth.
Ay! the star rains its fire while the beautiful sing,
For the manger of Bethlehem cradles a King!

In the light of that star lie the ages impearled;
And that song from afar has swept over the world.
Every hearth is aflame, and the beautiful sing
In the homes of the nations that Jesus is King!

We rejoice in the light, and we echo the song
That comes down through the night from the heavenly throng.
Ay! we shout to the lovely evangel they bring,
And we greet in His cradle our Savior and King!

Sitting here listening to BBN. The choir is singing the old Moravian hymn, Angels From the Realms of Glory. Christmas in a country which does not come from a Christian tradition is quite a different experience. Actually, it's different in some ways, and very similar in others. The part that's different, is that in America, Christmas is a much bigger holiday, so there is an assumption that people will not be required to work on Christmas. When I was in the trucking industry, my company would actually fly drivers home for Christmas if it was not able to get them a load going back to Fargo. That never happened to me, but I did usually take at least a week off during that time.

During the years that I was a country school teacher, the whole school schedule was built around the Christmas holiday. This cultural structure, of course, facilitates the practice of Christmas for those who believe, while not imposing Christmas on those who don't, but are not likely to complain about having another break from work.

That part is different in China. There is no holiday for Christmas. As a foreigner, I am entitled to take Christmas off, but that can be an empty liberty, especially for a single person, if everyone else you know has to work. This is especially true for me, because the church community I am part of is a Chinese church. Most of the Christians I fellowship with are local.

But there is another part that is very similar. Christmas is a commercial time in China. Lots of shopping. I don't think it would quite compare with the US, because the concept of giving Christmas presents is not universal. I rather suspect that it is a little more like Japan, where Christmas is sort of a second Valentine's Day. Nevertheless, there is a pretty pervasive commercialization of Christmas here in China as in America. Stores put up Christmas lights, and there is a big Christmas tree at the coffee bar. Commercialism is commercialism. There is very little that is Christian about it, so it looks pretty much the same everywhere.

I have the CNN News Ticker on my desktop. Most of the time it just sits there and does nothing. But when I am connected to the Internet, it goes into action. I am used to it by now, so I ignore it most of the time, but the other day a headline came floating across the ticker that caught my attention:

"Nanny problem costs Bush nominee" It turns out the nominee for Homeland Security has withdrawn his name because of a problem in his past. His crime? He hired a nanny who was an immigrant. An immigrant with "questionable legal status," which probably means that she was a working woman who didn't have lots of money or advanced degrees that would make her desirable to a country that is becoming increasingly selfish and pig-headed about sharing it's wealth with underprivileged people who are decent hard working folks and ask for nothing more than a chance to get ahead.

America has changed. When I was a child, it would have been inconceivable to contemplate a situation where someone would be disqualified from public service because he showed too much kindness to an immigrant. America does not have a bright future.

Interestingly enough, China, which has not historically been an immigrant nation, is now implementing permanent residence. There are plenty of people in China, so this country will probably not be a "new world" for millions of dispossessed from other parts of the globe, as America was in the past. But it is interesting to see how much the global dynamic can change. If China is willing to open her doors to sincere people who just want to work hard, then China will inherit the blessing that America has so carelessly cast aside.

Went to Haidian Jiaotang today, as usual. The folks at the church are beginning to discourage giving to beggars, because it has caused more and more of them to congregate. Some of them, of course, really are poor people. But others are con artists preying on soft-hearted people. I suppose the problem is made worse by the presence of a few foreigners. There aren't a lot of foreigners who go to the Chinese church, because most of the foreigners go to the international church. But the Haidian church provides English translation for foreigners, and this has managed to encourage a few folks like me, who wouldn't get nearly as much out of it otherwise.

Anyway, the church is discouraging giving to beggars, and I don't blame them. It really is getting out of hand. And it isn't fair to the many Chinese Church goers who aren't exactly wealthy themselves. But I don't want to leave out those who might be genuinely needy, so I stopped at a pastry shop on my way to church, and bought some cookies to hand out to the beggars. It isn't exactly what they are looking for, but I have not had anyone turn me down.

You know, it really is hard to get a handle on what to do about this problem. Since I read that article in the Wall Street Journal, I have been really turned off to beggars. But some of them really are poor. No. They are all poor, of course. But it isn't really good if beggars come back to the village in the countryside loaded down with money from the big city, and then all their fellow villagers decide to give up farming and go begging themselves. This is what has begun to happen in some places. There is a lot of money flowing into China right now. And the bulk of it is going to the major cities. This means that the disparity between rich and poor is even greater than it has been in the past, and it has always been there, even throughout the most idealistic days of the Communist revolution in China.

So how do we really understand the problem of poverty in China, and what should Christians be doing about it? I believe that the key lies, as I have said before, with active involvement in the poor villages of China. But in the end, it is only the Lord who can bring understanding. And there are some things we will probably never fully understand in this life.

Not now but in the coming years,
It may be in the better land,
We'll read the meaning of our tears,
And there, sometime, we'll understand.

We'll catch the broken threads again,
And finish what we here began;
Heav'n will the mysteries explain,
And then, ah then, we'll understand.

Then trust in God thro' all thy days;
Fear not, for He doth hold thy hand;
Tho' dark the way, still sing and praise;
Sometime, sometime, we'll understand.

Thursday evening, I attended a lecture by Joe Peterson, Microsoft Vice-President. He was talking about the next version of Windows, code named, "Longhorn." I was interested to media-oriented nature of this new system. Interested, because I had just been pondering how my own use of the Internet has really shifted over the past few years, from searching for documents, to a much more comprehensive communication tool. Earlier in the day I was thinking about all this as I was sitting in a coffee bar in Wudaokou doing some database work on my laptop. I was connected to the high speed wireless LAN, and listening to the BBC via Windows Media Player. As I was working, a pop-up emerged, telling me that Melissa was online. I chatted with her for a few minutes, even though the time change meant that Thursday afternoon was pretty late Wednesday night where she was.

Tonight, as I write this, I am listening to a talk show from Jerusalem. The live data stream has a about a three minute delay, but that is pretty insignificant, if you consider the distance, and essentially a non-issue. My point is that the Internet has revolutionized the way people interact and communicate, and I believe the change is irreversible. Part of the change, of course, is good. But the Internet is also very, very hard to control. Is that always a good thing? I am not so sure.

This evening, I took one of my classes to dinner at a restaurant outside the West Gate. Donkey meat, boiling fish, bamboo sprouts, candied lotus root, and several other favorite Hunan delicacies. That's one thing unique about Beijing. There are restaurants committed to all of the major cuisines of China. You can get pretty much any kind of Chinese food in this city.

Rode my too new two-lock bike to Wudaokou this evening, and took the light rail to the Xizhimen station. Then I caught the subway on the number two line (outside loop for Beijing Metro) and rode that to the exchange at Fuxingmen. A couple more stops, and I got off at Tiananmen West. I took the "B" exit out of the subway station, and headed east, just like the lady told me to. I walked past the Great Hall of the People toward the Square on the right. Just before Tiananmen Gate, I turned left and entered the Forbidden City. There are several gates into the city, which, by the way, is no longer forbidden. But it is not quite "open" either. That is, you can't just wander around. The Forbidden City is the equivalent of a national monument in China. Perhaps it would not be that impressive if you had no interest in history whatsoever. But if you have any historical interest, it is definitely a "must see." But tonight I was not interested in looking at the palace. I was going to the Forbidden City Music Hall. Judie had set aside a ticket for me. They were going fast.

The concert was a performance by the International Festival Chorus, and sponsored by the Royal Norwegian Embassy. The guest conductor, Anne Overby, is with the Bergen Opera. The choral group, made up of expats from around the world, proceeded through twenty-eight pieces, and when they came to the chorus that brought the king of England to his feet the first time it was performed in London, The whole crowd in Beijing stood too. It's ironic. Beijing, China is the best place in the world to see and hear Handel's Messiah.

Robert saw my new bicycle this evening, "You're renting, my friend, renting." I'm afraid he's right. I had the same thought. This bicycle cost me 320 RMB. That's a little less than $40 US. That's not bad, but I don't want to pay that much every month. If I can manage to hold on to this thing for three months, then my monthly
lease payment is about 100 RMB. Maybe I can deal with that. Robert saw the lock on the front of my bicycle and told me a thief could cut through it in two minutes. I showed him my other heavy duty lock. "Well, that one would take five minutes." Hmmm..I have a two-minute lock and a five-minute lock. That gives me seven minutes. Once a thief decides that it is worth taking, that is not a very long period of time to gamble with. Actually, I did get a nasty scratch on my bike today, which is good, but not good enough. This thing just looks way too new.

Last night, after my bike was stolen, I called Eric Wu to see if he could suggest a good place to buy a used bike. He suggested the West Gate of Qinghua University. I met him at the KFC in Wudaokou right after my Chinese class. Low and behold, he had Leander and another graduate student with him. Both of them had just had their bikes stolen, too, so they were in need of new wheels. We went to a local restaurant, feasted on incredibly delicious pork ribs, sipped chrysanthemum tea, practiced saying "chrysanthemum," and talked about our problem.

They told me that the bike shops we were going to may not have a good used large-frame bike, but that I could order one.

"What do you mean, 'order one?'"

"Well, you tell them what you want, and they will find one for you?"

"What do you mean, 'find one'?"

"They will find one for you."

"You mean they will steal one."

"Now you understand."

I really couldn't blame them for their cynicism. This is the problem with crimes like petty thievery: people get so used to it, that they begin to take it for granted as being "just a part of life." But their cynicism not withstanding, the police do raid bicycle shops that are knowingly selling stolen bicycles. There is an attempt to deal with the problem. But it is a very difficult problem, because there are so many thousands of bicycles, and they are so easy to steal.

"It's harder to find the large kind of bicycle that you like."

"Why?"

"Because nobody wants to steal them. There's no market."

Well, they were at least partly right. That was one thing I had going for me. Well, that, and the fact that my bicycle was obviously very old. In fact, the guy who stole it either didn't check it out very well, or didn't check it out at all. He is going to have a hard time making any money on it. Of course, that doesn't help me any. The point is that no matter how old your bicycle is, you never have an absolute guarantee that bicycle thieves (especially professional ones) will not see at least some value in it. Sooner or later, it's going to be stolen.

But the difficulty in finding a good used bicycle was not the only thing that troubled me. If I buy a bike from a shop that deals in stolen merchandise, then I am becoming a part of the problem. A bicycle is stolen, sold to a shop, where it is soon purchased by someone like me, who just had his bicycle stolen. The more I thought about this, the more it bothered me. When I got to the bicycle shop, the students' concerns were confirmed. They did not have a used bike like the one I had lost. But they said they could order one for me. I went to a neighboring bike shop and bought a new bike. I expressed my concern about such a new bicycle being stolen. The shop owner shared my concern, and suggested that I could buy a can of spray paint, and make it "look" older. Hmm... why didn't I think of that?

After buying my bicycle, I went back to the other shop. The shop owner saw the free lock I had been given, and told me it was worthless. I asked him why. He grabbed a key at random and opened it. It turns out that the free locks they hand out can all be opened by the same key. Kinda handy in a way, because if you lose your key, you can just borrow one from a friend. But the problem is...forget it. If I have to tell you what the problem is, you're probably not where you need to be to be able to handle this concept. Anyway, it was a very effective sales pitch. He sold me a heavy duty titanium steel lock.

Well, it finally happened. My one-lock bicycle was stolen. No, really. I'm serious. I had parked it outside the East Gate under the steps of the pedestrian bridge. I have parked it there several times, but it is a vulnerable spot, because there is no bicycle guard there, and several bikes have disappeared. Not only that, but there was a guy sitting there watching me as I left my bike. Not that that means anything, but I am suspicious.

Actually, I should be happy it lasted so long. I have had it since January. And it was due for some major repair. Most of the time, when I had it fixed, it was something small. But this time, there was something wrong with the crank. It was making a strange sound and skipping a bit every time I peddled. And sometimes it was hard to peddle. Almost like someone threw some sand in the crank. Maybe it just needed oil. Or maybe the bearings were shot. Anyway, I was planning to get it fixed, and I would gladly have paid anything up to the value of the bike, because it looked really ugly, and that was handy.

It isn't really the cost, it's the nuisance of having to worry about getting another bike. I paid a little less than 100RMB for it. What's 100 RMB? The exchange rate is about 8.2, so it comes to a little over twelve dollars. One hundred renminbi is what I gave my first tutor in China for two hours of tutoring on a Saturday. It's the figure quoted me by a black market taxi driver in Shanghai for going to the Bund. It's two thirds the cost of lunch at the restaurant in the tower. Believe it or not, I paid 150 RMB for lunch in the revolving restaurant at 263 meters. One hundred RMB is the cost of a Turkey dinner at the John Bull Pub. It's about what you would pay to take a cab from the airport to the center of Beijing. And last, but not least, 100 RMB is the maximum daily payment allowed for hospitalization on my health insurance policy.