Going Home 我回家了！

May 21, 2011

Yesterday was my last day of work at the China Entrepreneur Club. Looking back on this experience, I can see how blessed I was to meet so many amazing people and do so many incredible things. It was both Claire and my last day, so I hope that Amy will be alright working by herself for a while. I am pretty sure they will hire a new intern for the summer, so she won’t have to be alone for too long. The people in my office all work very hard, and it is this work ethic that has left a deep impression on me. I am going to miss it a lot, but I know that I will be able to see them all again soon! Before I left, I took the postcards that I brought with me from Seattle and wrote each of my co-workers a little note. I wish there was more I could leave with them, but a postcard and a memory will have to suffice. The media team at Haidian Church had a little going-away party for me during Thursday night Bible study, so that was pretty fun! We ate a ton on food and, like always, had fun with the language barrier and laughing about all the mistakes I was making. My English Bible study is going to take me out to dinner on Tuesday night, so I am excited about that! It is beginning to actually feel real now. I am going home soon. Things are winding down.

Preparing to leave, I have been thinking a lot about the things that I miss about America and the things I will miss about China. So, here is my short list of top 10 things I miss about the US/China:

Top 10 Things I Miss About America

10. Western-style toilets and enclosed showers

9. Cheese

8. Driving my car/relatively safe traffic conditions

7. Facebook, Youtube, & other social networking sites

6. Walking down the street without having to worry about stepping in loogies/baby poop

5. Freedom of assembly

4. Real coffee

3. Fresh air

2. My friends and family, of course

…And the #1 thing I miss about America is…

1. Speaking English and having people understand what I am saying!

Top 10 Things I Will Miss About China

10. Riding the subway

9. Baozi 包子 every morning for breakfast

8. Eating with chopsticks

7. Having “tea breaks”

6. KTV Karaoke (卡拉OK)

5. less than $1 DVDs

4. Incredibly cheap everything

3. Bargaining

2. My host family, co-workers, and church friends

….And what is the #1 thing Sarah will miss about China?!?...

1. Speaking Chinese and having people actually understand most of what I am trying to say! J

Ok, so I will go home this next Wednesday, May 25^th so I need to start packing. And I have a 惜别会(farewell) Karaoke party today. Unfortunately, many of my co-workers have a long weekend meeting to go to, but I still think a rather sizeable number of people from elsewhere will be able to come! Until my next China Adventure…再见！

Chinese Word of the Day

盼望 Pan wang: “hope for” “long for” “look forward to”

Verse of the Day

John 3:17 “For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him”

Reflecting Upon Beijing

May 7, 2011

                 As I am entering my last few weeks of this trip to China, my “China Adventure” I want to reflect on some of the things that have impacted me during this time. First, my host family has been wonderful! I couldn’t have asked for a better family to live with than the Xu’s! In the four months that I have stayed with them, we never had any conflicts and they have gone out of their way to be more than accommodating. I am very thankful that they have provided for me so well: my food, room, toiletries, transportation, etc.  They would agree that I get along with them very well. Xu Mingyu was worried that cultural differences would inevitably lead to some conflicts, and he was prepared to handle them in a very frank way. None really arose though, so I think we were both surprised. I have discovered that the number one way to maintain peace in the face of cultural differences (or any differences for that matter) is a willingness to listen to the other person with an open-mind and open heart. I think we both just found each other’s points of view very fascinating. We all wanted to learn from each other. If you have this attitude, you will learn a lot and it is very easy to avoid conflict. In my experience “different” does not always equal “wrong.” Ask questions, have a dialogue, you may be surprised.

                Next, taking part in the different activities at Haidian Church has definitely been a highlight of my time in Beijing. The media team that I volunteer with (Abe, Meng, Wei, David, Lidan, Su Lei, Isabel, Rick, and others) has really been a lot of fun. Even if I am not working on the English blog or another project for the church on a given Sunday, they are still cool people to go eat lunch with and practice my Chinese. We have had some very insightful and thought-provoking English lessons recently. They learned the word “booger” and then impressed me with the sentence “Would you like some green tea or my boogers?” … One of their shirts said “FCUK” and they thought it had something to do with the United Kingdom. I promptly informed them this was not the meaning, and that maybe you shouldn’t wear such a shirt to church again. Yes, I have had such a great impact on the media team! They are just a great group of people that I feel honored to have met and hope to work with more in the future when I return to Beijing.

                And speaking of returning to Beijing, I have officially been accepted into Beijing Language and Culture University (北京语言大学) for a semester of intensive Chinese language study. So, if everything works out as planned, I will be coming back to Beijing from September of this year until mid January. I am a little worried about my current student loans. I hope that the banks will let me defer my loan payments while I am gone. And just so you know, my college fund is always open for donations. J Feel free sponsor my next China adventure. I will provide you excellent PR on this blog and sing you a Chinese song if you do! It would be such a great investment! I think that the total for tuition, dorm rates, and plane ticket is only around $6,000—pretty good compared to PLU. So what do you say???

                Anyways, last but not least, my co-workers at CEC have been a lot of fun to work with. Claire has been so patient in teaching me the ropes. She is a really hard worker and is very smart. Sometimes her English is better than mine. I will miss working with her. Even when she is really busy, she still has a relatively calm demeanor, which helps keep all of our stress levels down a lot. Celina has been really encouraging in reaffirming that I am doing a good job. Sometimes I feel like I am unqualified to be working at a place like CEC, but she has helped me realize that my work really has made a difference in the organization. My supervisor, Amy, is really good at what she does and she is well-liked in the office. I am really thankful that she gave me so much time off when my family visited. She has helped me become better professional writer. Before I came to CEC, I was very good at writing academically, but now I feel more confident in drafting professional invitation letters and emails. Overall it has been a really good experience interning at CEC. Some of my other colleagues (Zhu Wenting, Tammi, Xiao Chi, Jessica, Maggie, Helen, Kevin, Paul Zhang, Wu Laoshi, Jefferson) I have also gotten to know fairly well. I didn’t know many people outside of my department because we didn’t work very much with the other people, plus my language skills made small talk during tea break a little difficult. However, the Annual Summit brought us all together and they got to know me a lot better. And I must say, my Chinese improved a lot on that trip! Overall, CEC has been a good place for me to have my first “professional” job at. The vast majority of my co-workers are fairly young college graduates under 30. They work hard, but are also very easy-going. I wish my Chinese was better and I had more free time because this is a good group of people who I could really see myself becoming close friends with outside of the work setting.

Chinese Word of the Day

选项 Xuan Xiang: "Option"

Verse of the Day

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 “Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Annual Green Summit in Qingdao & Celebrating Easter

Again, I am sorry that I am a week behind on my blog... Enjoy!

April 24, 2011

                 Today is Easter and I just got back from Qingdao, so I have a lot to fill you in on! The big conference China Entrepreneur Club has been planning these past few weeks turned out pretty well. I hope all the participants thought so as well. Everyone at CEC has worked tirelessly, and so I am pretty exhausted myself. I think all the hard work paid off though.

                The 2011 Annual Summit of China Green Companies was held at the Shangri La Hotel in Qingdao, Shandong Province. It is an event which brings together some of the most elite scholars and business leaders in the world to present different viewpoints and ideas about how to solve some of the big problems China is facing in regards to being environmentally and socially responsible. This year’s theme was “Responsibility and Innovation in a Shifting World—Our Solution.” (See agenda here: http://www.daonong.com/green2011/news/2011yichengE.html) I got to meet people from The Nature Conservancy, the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), UN Global Compact, AmCham-China, China Greentech Initiative, the Go Green Initiative, and various other organizations who wanted to be pioneers of new business culture in their respective industries. I even got to meet Will Bowen who started the campaign for a "complaint-free world." Not surprisingly, he was a very encouraging person to meet.

                The first day we left the China South Train Station at 8:30 in the morning for a five hour trip to Qingdao. The ride wasn’t so bad. The seats on this train lay back way further than airplane seats, so that was nice. When we got to our hotel (北海宾馆), Claire and I dropped all our stuff off in the room and headed over to Shangri La for some last minute preparation. I printed out all the bios of the foreign guests with the hope of trying to keep them all straight when we welcomed them the next day. That went alright except for I mixed up the British Ambassador to China with a guy from PricewaterhouseCoopers. Oops. That was a little embarrassing, but oh well. Not a big deal.            The second day I got to go with some of the business leaders to tour some of Qingdao’s local enterprises. We saw a train factory called the CSR Qingdao Sifang Co., Ltd., as well as the Qingdao National High-tech Industrial Development Zone, and Jiaozhou Bay New Industrial Zone. I met a really nice lady named Jill Buck from California who is the founder of the Go Green Initiative. I think she’d be a great person to come speak at PLU sometime. I gave her the Chinese name Bai Yuli 白玉丽 which mean “beautiful white jade.” I was quite proud of myself! I am slowly becoming Chinese, haha! And something really funny happened during lunch that day. Everyone was toasting to each other when this Chinese lady, quite animatedly proposing a toast, accidentally spilled her glass of wine all over this French delegate. He played it off cool, but it got all over is hair, forehead, and left a huge stain on his shirt! It was so hilarious. Everyone was laughing so hard. I wish I had got it on video. It was a good day.

                I didn’t actually get to participate in much of the actual summit itself because I was busy running around doing random errands and assignments. The most interesting workshop I had the chance to participate in was a forum discussion with Alibaba founder, Jack Ma. The title of the panel was “A Lesson from Alibaba: Upholding Values in the Face of Conflict.” It appeared on the news a couple months ago that Alibaba’s CEO and some other senior management stepped down for a gold fraud that occurred with some of their traders on their website. This was very impressive because even though they did not directly instigate the fraud, they still felt that it was the most morally upright thing to do to take responsibility for their employees’ actions. If only the Wall Street bankers that threw America and the rest of the world into economic turmoil would do the same…A good quote from Jack Ma that I read in an article lately had him saying,

“For successful business leaders, if their goal is to be rich, they can become very rich. But then what's the point of having all that money? When you have 100 million U.S. dollars, I think that's more than enough for you and your children. Once your net worth exceeds a certain point, that's not your money anymore. It is society's money. It is the money society has given to you, and you should take responsibility to allocate the money in a good way.”

All in all, it was great to be a part of such a high profile event, though. I brought my stack of business cards and got rid of them all. This was a great networking opportunity. The last night of the summit we got to go to see an amazing violin performance by a world renowned artist named Lu Siqing. And Qingdao is known for its seafood, so that was quite a treat!

                Easter at Haidian Church was a lot of fun! I helped out with Sunday School with my friend and CEC colleague, Celina. It was pretty funny because when I first started working, she invited me to come to her church, unaware that we already went to the same church. It has taken this long for us to actually see each other on a Sunday! We handed out colored hard-boiled eggs in little baskets to people on the street and to those coming out of church. I was actually surprised that people were shouting through a bullhorn “Jesus is risen!” But, no one seemed to object or get into any trouble. The church has speakers that project the sermon into the street. And this is a legal Three-Self church, so it seems that China is more open in some respects that I thought. However, there have been some recent crackdowns on the largest home church in China known as the Shouwang Church (see the story here: http://www.christianpost.com/news/police-block-chinese-house-churchs-easter-worship-49967/). Apparently, unable to meet in their regular place, they planned to meet in a park. Police were there to meet them and arrested and blocked many from participating (and continuing to participate) in this illegal church. So, Christians still must be very careful. But anyways, after handing out eggs, I went to the media room and wrote a blog about the Easter service and then just hung out with the other volunteers for the rest of the day. It was very relaxing and fun after such a crazy business trip to Qingdao.

Chinese Word of the Day

Fu huo 复活： "resurrect, bring back to life"

Verse of the Day

Luke 12:47 "The servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows."

Chinese v. American Work Ethic

April 15, 2011

 

       This week at work has been very busy! Next week is the summit so we are all working very hard to get everything ready. Working hard in school has definitely helped me prepare for work life. Sometimes I wonder, however, what the differences are between Chinese work ethic and American work ethic. I have observed a few things that I think are probably more characteristic of the East than the West.

       My host sister, Jessi, for instance, spends 90% or her waking hours studying. She wakes up around 6:30 in the morning and does not finish school until around 5:00. Then there is choir, English class, piano lessons, and Math Olympiads on different nights of the week. She has more homework than most US high school students have. When I asked her what she does in her free time, her reply was "study." Free time. So, it seems as if their entire concept of free time is very different from that of many kids in the US. Jessi was amazed when I told her that school-aged kids in America start school around 8:40 and get out of class by 3:00. We seem very lazy compared to our Chinese peers. (See this link to get a better comparison of Chinese and American students:http://www.foundationsofphysicalscience.org/Comparison%20of%20Education%20in%20China%20and%20America.pdf)

       Competition is fierce. I have heard of people lining up just to get their young children into academically rigorous pre-schools! Seeing the lines outside some schools, you may think someone in there knows where to get the iPad 2! Many parents do whatever it takes to get their children ahead. High expectations lead to high pressure for the kids. Many Chinese kids never have sleepovers or participate in team sports. These were the highlights of my childhood. But I can tell that this hard-working attitude has carried over into the Chinese workplace.

       Preparing for the conference, I have learned that many of my colleagues have been working crazy hours to get everything ready. As the student intern who receives a $10/day stipend, I leave around 6:00. My co-worker Claire stayed in the office until 4:00 in the morning! My boss did not even go home last night! I came in this morning and she asked me if she looked really bad. I said "of course not, why?" and she replied that she had been working until around 5am and just slept in the office. This is crazy. Now I am not saying that I wouldn't do this on special occasions in my job in America if there was a huge event coming up, but they seem to take it to the next level. Particularly scrupulous attention to detail is made. And this late-night work is very much a collective occurrence. I would say that well over half of my colleagues are working these crazy hours. Coming from an individualistic culture, I very much value my personal time and weigh it equally with my time in the office. I have decided that unless it is absolutely necessary, I don't want to be the kind of person who brings their work home with them. In China, however, this is expected.

       In any case, I still feel as if there is a lot we can learn from each other. I think that the best work environment is a balance between the Chinese and American extreme.

Chinese Word of the Day

Feng hui 峰会："summit", "conference"

Verse of the Day

John 3:11-12 "Very truly I tell you, we speak of what we know, and we testify to what we have seen, but still you people do not accept our testimony. I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things?"

Family Visits Round 2! :D

April 9, 2011

This past week Austin, Crystal, and my dad came to visit me in China over their spring break. They got in late on Saturday night, so it was good that they were able to go straight to bed. Again, my host family, the Xu's, let them stay in the extra apartment, so that was a really awesome thing that they did for me.

Sunday morning we went to Haidian Church and listened to Pastor Bing preach. He is very passionate and has quite the sense of humor. After church we went to the Xu's and they took us all out for karaoke. KTV, as it is called, is really fun. We got a food allowance with the room that we bought, and we had a tough time using up all the money. We had SO much food, we were all so stuffed, but it just kept coming. I was glad when they let us get to-go boxes and take half of it home.

From Monday until Wednesday, we spent a lot of time just shopping and exploring different parts of Beijing. I took my family to Dashilar, Houhai, and my most favorite shopping place ever, Fuchengmen. I didn't really buy much since I am broke, but it was still fun to barter. I got a cute blue pair of shoes originally priced at 58元 for 15元！I was pretty impressed. I didn't even really want them that badly. Maybe that 's how I got them so cheap. I think the laoban, or saleslady, was a little bit upset. Wednesday night we met up with my friend, Yidan, who goes to PLU but was also home visiting Beijing on her spring break. We met her boyfriend and went out to "the best tasting spicy hotpot" (according to my dad) ever! It was quite delicious and we had a really good time. Now, the only words my dad knows in Chinese are 那个，那个，那个。。。不知道！Oh well…I suppose I can't ask too much!

Thursday we all went to the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, Temple of Heaven, and Summer Palace. This is like my fourth time going. I think I could be the tour guide by now. Our tour guide's name was Justin. The "flag" he carried around was this pig (which he and my dad agreed to name 'Porky') on a stick that dangled from a string. It was pretty funny. He was a fun tour guide. Friday we went to the Great Wall. We almost didn't make it there because we got to the train station a little too late. Luckily, there was a "taxi driver" waiting to take us. We bargained him down to 450元 round-trip and we were on our way! I think Austin and my dad really like the Wall. My dad almost wimped out, but I convinced him to keep going. Good thing too because we were almost at the end anyways. My dad got a Great Wall shirt and we got some awesome souvenir mugs. Crystal and I got a pretty sweet jumping picture that we had put on our mugs. It was great!

There were a few things about China that I think surprised my dad and brother: 1) spitting, 2) crowded subways, 3) driving, and 4) how much merchants jack up prices for foreigners. These are pretty typical of most foreigners who first come to China. Overall, though, I think they had a lot of fun. Austin liked practicing his Chinese. I hope they will come back one day!

Chinese Word of the Day

Wu fa 无法： "unable", "incapable

Verse of the Day

John 2:23-35 "Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person."

Week 2 of Mom's Trip to China

March 25, 2011

                So much has happened this last week I needed to divide it into several different entries. So on Saturday we had dinner with my host family. We ate a lot of good food. Then, my mom taught Jessi how to play Skipbo. Sunday the Xu’s took us to the Badaling 八达岭 section of the Great Wall. Even though this was my third time to visit the Great Wall, I haven’t climbed this section yet, so it was still exciting. There were some sections that were pretty steep, but I did pretty well. I was afraid that I’d be really sore in the morning, but I was actually okay the next day. I was surprised at how well mom did too! She kept up with all of us and even passed us at some points. It was definitely a good workout for her, but she enjoyed it a lot. The best part was when we got to the “Hero’s Peak” which was the climax of the climb. The downside about going to the Great Wall on Sunday was that it was so crowded! But it was still really fun nonetheless.

                For my mom’s second Monday in Beijing, we decided to go to the famous art district known as 798. Here’s a nice little factoid: according to Chinatouristmaps.com, “798 Arts Zone is also called Dashanzi Art District, which is the site of state-owned factories in 1950s including Factory 798, originally produced electronics. Attracted by the Bauhaus Style buildings and convenient transportation in this tranquil area, artists began to gather to re-make the factory spaces, gradually developing them into galleries, art centers, artists' studios, design companies, restaurants, and bars.” I came here before with my classmates, but there are so many interesting shops to go into that I still got to see a lot of new things. Most of the art there is either very abstract and New Agy or can be interpreted to have some type of political or cultural message. Unfortunately, many of the studios were closed on Monday. There was still plenty to do. We ended up in an Australian-owned coffee shop that had probably the best coffee I have tasted in China so far. I wish I could remember the exact name. If you ever go there, I would definitely give it a try.

                Tuesday mom and I set off to Shichahai什刹海. In this area, there are many small lakes with temples and high-class homes. This is where many celebrities and important government officials live. The area was really beautiful. In the summertime, you can take boats out on the lake. It looks like a lot of fun and a great way to spend a sunny day outside. I saw people who organized dancing and singing groups outside. Anyone could join. If I was more knowledgeable in Chinese music I would have loved to spend the day with these people. I guess another goal of mine will just have to be to learn more Chinese music. J Another great part of Shichahai is a lake called Houhai 后海. I remember going here once when I was in Beijing back in 2008, but I remember it quite differently. Houhai’s night life is really wild with dozens of bars, clubs, and karaoke establishments you can go to. This time around, it was during the day when there are less people and it is very quiet and serene. There are also a lot of rickshaw drivers who are eager to take you on a tour of the old Hutongs胡同 from the Ming and Qing Dynasty. Our rickshaw driver didn’t speak much English, but it was still very interesting to see these old buildings that are still standing after 500 years.

                After our trip to Shichahai, we headed over to Crissy’s house for Bible study again. My mom suggested that we go to where I work and take the bus from there so that I can find my way next time when I am by myself. This is because I will be going to Bible study straight from work. It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I am really good at taking the subway, but I have shied away from taking the bus because there are so many more buses and stops to figure out. Plus, it is not as fast. I am most worried about getting lost. Once I go a few more times and establish a routine to catch the bus and get off, I think it will be a lot easier. We’ll just have to wait and see…

                Wednesday we decided to travel to an ancient rural village about an hour and a half outside of Beijing. We took the subway to the end of line 1 (Pingguoyuan苹果园) and then hired a “taxi driver” to take us the rest of the way there. The name of the village was Cuandixia 爨底下 (Ya…try and write that first character. It has 30 strokes! Good luck!) This village was constructed mostly during the Ming and Qing dynasty, although I believe this area was settled even earlier than that. It is tucked away in the valley of mountains just northwest of Beijing. Many of the people’s homes have been turned into inns to host tourists who come to the town. It is a really pretty place to walk around. I’m thinking that this might be a fun summer weekend trip one day. After we got back into Beijing, my mom and I went to the restaurant across the street from the apartment and had roast duck. The restaurant was a very nice-looking building that was below ground, made from a redesigned bomb shelter. The duck was really good, but a little greasy for my mom. We had a lot leftover, so I brought some back to the Xu’s to make soup with.

                Thursday was a very relaxed day. I introduced my mom to my friend from church named Zhang Lidan (English name Liz). We went out to lunch in Wudaokou. I think Liz really liked my mom. Later that night, we met up with Zhang Ying and Jessi and went out to Western food. That was the last night before my mom had to leave to go back to Seattle. It was a really good night.

                One time this week when it was rush-hour, I squeezed my way onto a subway train not realizing that there wasn’t going to be enough room for my mom. Before I knew it, I was listening to the warning beep coming from the closing doors. I am sure that my mom felt a moment of terror. I called her right away and told her to just go one stop and that I would be waiting for her there. It turned out not to be that big of a deal, but I can imagine how scary it would be to get lost in such a big city and not know how to find your way back. During the downtime of my mom’s visit, we watched Prison Break (finished Season 2!) and watched other DVDs that we bought from Fuchengmen. It was funny to see if the quality of the movies was any good. It is always hit or miss, but they are so cheap that it doesn’t really matter.

                Overall, I think my mom really enjoyed her time in Beijing. This was probably the first time since I was four years old that I spent 2 weeks straight with my mom without ever leaving her. I would feel bad leaving my mom alone in China since she doesn’t speak any Chinese and doesn’t know that subway system that well. We went everywhere together. It was really great mother-daughter time. I don’t get much one-on-one time with my parents because of my twin sister, so it was really good to spend this much quality time with my mom.

Chinese Word of the Day

Cuan 爨: to cook (traditional)

Verse of the Day

2 Thessalonians 3:5 "May the Lord direct your hearts into God’s love and Christ’s perseverance."

Fwd: Stereotypical Tourists...

March 21, 2011

                Wednesday was a long day for us. We were able to join a tour group going to the Forbidden City 故宫, Tian’anmen Square 天安门, Temple of Heaven 天坛, and the Summer Palace 颐和园, respectively. It started out a little cold, but warmed up as the day went on. There was a Malaysian couple on the tour in their late 30s early 40s, and a young guy from Singapore with his girlfriend who also joined us. Our tour guide was really nice. Her name was Aili爱丽. Her English was pretty good and she was very knowledgeable of Chinese history. In between Tian’anmen and lunch, we stopped by a TCM hospital. A doctor gave us all a free consultation. I am fine except for a little cough that I’ve developed. The doctor told my mom that she not only has bad joints (of course she knew that already), but that she also has stagnation of the blood and some trouble with her kidney function. Maybe she should get that checked when she gets back to the States. Aili told us a story about one man from her tour group who was already diagnosed with terminal liver cancer and the TCM doctor could determine this only from checking his pulse, tongue, complexion, and asking him a few questions about his medical history. Chinese medicine is truly amazing. I don’t understand exactly how it works, even after studying it a little bit through my J-Term class, but those doctors definitely have something there. 2,000+ years of history can’t be nothing. It was a little annoying at the hospital because even though the consultation was free, it was really a scam to try to get us to purchase the medicine to go along with our “diagnosis.” Not saying that we wouldn’t benefit from it, but they didn’t need to pressure us as much as they did. They made the Malaysian woman in our group very uncomfortable.

                Between the Temple of Heaven and the Summer Palace we went to a pearl factory. Since I have been there before, I guessed the average number of pearls in an oyster and got to keep a couple small pearls. Yay me! Mom bought several pieces of jewelry, including a necklace for me and Crystal. It was a pretty cool place. I hate being poor. But I am rich in other ways! J 颐和园 is probably one of my favorite places in Beijing. I like to go and watch people play cards, sing Peking Opera, play games, and play musical instruments. An old man even let me try to play his erhu, a traditional two-stringed instrument. Even though I was horribly pathetic at it (and I have the video to prove it!), it was still really fun to interact with the local people. Tuesday was really fun and it was packed full of sight-seeing!

                The next day we didn’t do very much. I was a little sore from walking so much, so it was nice to just kind of lay around the apartment. We went across the street and ate some traditional Beijing cuisine. I tried to order some extra tofu wraps to put with the sliced pork 京酱肉丝, and the waiter brought out a whole new dish of it! My lack of Chinese combined the waiter’s impeding lisp made communication quite difficult. Oh well…I learned from it. From this day on, I will never forget the word doupi 豆皮 （tofu wrap）for as long as I live. Thursday night Mom and I went out to dinner with a couple named Larry and Cinia from church. Since we were both so busy on Sunday, I didn’t get a chance to introduce them to Mom. It was a really great time. They are both such genuine caring people. I am really glad to know them. I hope that we can spend more time together.

                Friday Mom and I decided to go to the Beijing Zoo and the Legend of Kungfu show. The zoo had a lot more animals than I was expecting. According to the zoo’s history, by the end of WWII and the Japanese invasion, most of the animals had been so neglected that all that was left were twelve monkeys, two parrots, and a blind emu. There are a lot more animals now. It was very entertaining. I especially liked the elephants and the lions. I never heard a lion roar in real life before, so that was cool. It was a little sad that the animals didn’t have much space to roam around. The Beijing Zoo is not like zoos in the U.S. that try to mimic animal’s natural habitats. Many of them are just in small, square exhibits with very little rock or foliage. I can imagine how boring it must get. They just pace around in their cages to the point of insanity. I hope that part of China’s 12^th Five-Year Plan is dedicated to improving parts of this zoo and others around the country. I was impressed, however, by how many different animals the Beijing Zoo has. It has come a long way since 1949.

Chinese Word of the Day

Dongwu yuan 动物园: "Zoo"

Verse of the Day

Psalm 62:7 “My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.”