Time is short

{See more than one update at the bottom of this post.}

He's never heard the Gospel, but his culture embraces Buddha, so it is not so surprising that his religious expression is played out by him hosting a Buddhist gathering in his home on weekends. He's well-mannered and polite, and if you knew him you would want him as a friend. He lives in another city, and I have no way to directly contact him, but he desperately needs our prayers. 

He's about my age, and he lost his only child -- a son -- to a drunk driver last year, sending he and his wife, understandably, into a pit of sorrow. But he got another blow a few days ago when he was diagnosed with a brain tumor (a recurrent tumor that he first tackled 15 years ago) and is scheduled for surgery early next week. I know everyone has to die some time of some thing, but if he dies now, he will die without Christ; that's a great tragedy, so I am praying that he will live, and that when he does live, he'll know that he was healed by the mighty power of God. I don't have an opportunity to share in person, but as far as I know I'm the only Christian that would know the family, and the Lord has laid this burden of prayer on my heart. I'm praying that God will work it out some other way so the whole family will have a chance to hear and believe. So I guess I am praying for a miracle, which just means I am asking God to do something that only He can do. Will you join me in praying for this guy we'll call Dan? Seriously? I would love it if at least five people would spend a minimum of five minutes a day for the next five days (starting now because time is short) praying like Elijah for this man and his extended family (his wife, his elderly parents, his brothers, his nieces and nephews, etc.). Send me an email or leave a comment if you will pray with me...I won't make it public. Really, in the whole wide world, we'd be the ONLY ones praying for them. 

Let the words of James 5 embolden you to pray with me:

13 Is anyone among you suffering? He should pray. Is anyone cheerful? He should sing praises. 14 Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they should pray over him after anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord. 15 The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will restore him to health; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. 16 Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The urgent request of a righteous person is very powerful in its effect. 17 Elijah was a man with a nature like ours; yet he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and for three years and six months it did not rain on the land. 18 Then he prayed again, and the sky gave rain and the land produced its fruit. (HCSB)

Update of June 8: Dan is in ICU, in a coma, and getting the best human care available. Prognosis is not good from a human point of view -- his tumor is large and not safely operable -- but I am pleased to announce that humans are not in control. Though five days have passed since I asked for people to pray for five days, your prayers for Dan are still very much appreciated. Please believe, and pray. (Hebrews 11:6 - "And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.")

Update of June 14: Dan came out of his coma after about 24 hours. PTL! Fluid was drained out of his brain cavity and that released pressure and made him more stable. The doctors' prognosis is not good whether Dan has surgery or not though. They think surgery could be very dangerous, expensive, and will end up with the same result as if he has no surgery. Nonetheless, surgery is scheduled for Monday. The family wants to do something proactive and not just let him go home in his current condition...not that he is in any condition to travel home anyway. Please keep praying and believing. There is no tumor that is bigger or more powerful than God.

Imagine

"Hey, while you're in the kitchen, can you get me a coffee refill?" -- Mimi, pretending to blend into the world of humans.

Domestic disturbance

Every evening when I take Mimi for her bedtime pitstop on the grass downstairs, we walk on the sidewalk past a building where there is often noise -- screaming in fact. A family lives on the second floor of a ten-floor building and consists of a man, a woman and a child. Other people may reside with them too, but of these three I am sure. They don't have curtains (or at least they are not closed most of the time), the windows are huge, and as is common in these parts, I can see clearly and directly into their apartment -- especially at night when their interior lights are on.

The woman of the house is the screamer. She yells at her husband as he sits at his computer and ignores her. She yells at her child, a son who appears to be about 10 or 11 years old. He ignores her just like her husband does, but she follows the child from room to room, screaming at the top of her lungs. No one in her house can do anything right, and she yells unceasingly. Every single day, even though I vary the time of the nighttime walk, she is yelling. There is no peace in that home. How can they stand it? I can't even stand it, and my exposure to it is small compared to those who live under the same roof as her.

A few months ago though, I noticed it stopped. I wondered what miraculous dramatic change could have possibly silenced the screeching complaints of that miserable mom.

But tonight, as I was walking by, I discovered she was at it again. 

Alas, it seems it never really stopped. 

The weather is really hot now, and everyone has their apartment windows and balcony sliding doors open to catch a breeze. During the winter, their windows were shut and I didn't hear the yelling.

Too bad. Because they really and truly do need a miracle over there.

Trip over

Some people dream of retirement so they can finally travel. I dream of retirement so I can finally not travel.

Happy this trip is over and I can get some rest. 

Miserable bus, lovely hotel room

I had a miserable bus ride yesterday.* A 3-hour trip took 5 hours. We were crammed in like sardines and I couldn't move my arms for all that time. It was filthy, hot and muddy. The windows were fogged up and I couldn't see the gorgeous countryside. I tried to block the entire wretched experience out of my mind even as it happened. It reminded me of the good old days of travel in the Middle Kingdom, and made me realize that some of those good old days were really not good at all. Some were very third-worldish. My mind had done me a favor by helping me forget, but I blew it by reminiscing via re-enactment. There was no other way to get where I was going though.

But today* is better. I'm in a coastal city now. I can see the Pacific Ocean from the window of my gorgeous, clean and spacious hotel room.

I ran next door to meet someone at Starbucks this morning in the pouring rain. When I got back at lunch time, it was still raining hard.

When I stay in a nice hotel, I am always torn between seeing the sights of the city or spending time in the hotel room to soak up a relaxing environment...to get my money's worth.

Today, God made the decision for me. The rain was too hard to go out. I put on my pajamas, got my Kindle, and read nearly 300 pages of a 550-page novel. Heavenly. I can't remember the last time I had time on my hands to relax like this.

I'll be back in my own place soon. After weeks on the road, I am ready for some clean outer clothes. The ones I have must be filled with enough germs, dirt and bacteria to infect a major city.

___
*When I say "today," I am talking about the day I wrote this, not the day I posted this.

Tales of a preschooler

When foreigners live in China to work or study, they are assigned a foreign affairs' officer to take care of their housing, work environment, legal documents, entertainment, travel, etc. When I was a university teacher, Mr. P was my foreign affairs officer. 

Once the college took us on an out-of-town trip. Mr. P decided he wanted his 4-year-old son to go on the trip with us. His son CC always got car sick, so we'd have to stop by the side of the road and let him throw up. Once he was throwing up beside a large drainage ditch. He threw up and then started crying. I felt so sorry for him. But then I found out he wasn't crying because he was sick, he was crying because he saw the ditch and wanted to stop the trip and go fishing. And his dad told him it would not be possible. We all died laughing when we found out the cause of the tears.

The university gave us furnished housing on campus -- all the Chinese teachers lived on campus too -- but my apartment was pretty bad, as was their own housing. Everything broke all the time. I had repairmen at my home almost every single day. They didn't do their jobs well, which means the repairs would have to be done over and over again. Mr. P spent a lot of time with the repairmen at my place. 

One day Mr. P was with the repairmen at my house. They'd been there for hours. Mr. P looked at his watch and realized he was supposed to pick up his son from kindergarten about 45 minutes earlier. But he couldn't leave the repairmen, so I told him I would go pick up his son from the kindergarten instead. I wasn't sure this would go over well with CC, who seemed to be afraid of the yellow-haired foreign woman (I was the only foreign woman in the county of 10 million people, so of course I would seem scary to a 4-year-old.) 

I showed up at the kindergarten. There were no cell phones in use at the time, so Mr. P had not called ahead. The boy was expecting his mom or dad to pick him up, not me. But when he saw me walk up, a huge smile spread across his face. He knew I had come to rescue him. He'd not been forgotten after all. (A teacher had stayed after school with him, don't you know she was thrilled?) From that time on, the little boy was not afraid of me, his foreign rescuer.

Alas, he was a preschooler at the time. Now's he's in his 20s. He doesn't remember any of it now. He is 6'3" tall, studying in America. That's him pictured above. I saw him in Bedrock a few days ago (he's home for summer vacation) and he laughed as we caught him up on the stories of his childhood.

I have been here a long time it seems. But time just flies. Seems like it was just yesterday.

Brain damage

Once upon a time, the skies of Bedrock were perpetually gray, choked with churning factory smoke, car exhaust fumes and general pollution. Stick a tissue in your nose at night, and it would come out black. About once a year, we'd see blue skies and call each other up. It was really, really, really bad, one of the most polluted spots on earth.

Coal was burned as cooking fuel at most restaurants, and I lived next to one. My apartment smelled like coal, and coal dust collected on my window sills. No telling what my lungs looked like.

One day I was in a university van with some Chinese teachers, and it was one of the most polluted days I'd ever seen. One of the young women teachers inhaled deeply at the exhaust fumes coming in the window, smiled and said, "Ah, I love that smell. It reminds me of my childhood."

I was stunned. Frozen. Shocked. Speechless.

And then when I was in Bedrock a few days ago, I passed by this coal kitchen on the side of the road. Bedrock is so modern now, so this is the only coal place I encountered. And there it was. The smell. Of coal. It took me back to all those special times in Bedrock in its backward years. My memories were clear. Special.

And then I realized that like that young teacher years ago, I too loved that smell. It reminds me of the good times. It is NOT a good smell. It is only a link to those sweet memories of years gone by.

Or, as I'm sure you would think, all that coal has given us brain damage. :-)

My favorite little village

On the outskirts of Bedrock is a little village where I've spent more time than any other village in this country. My dear friend XW lives there.

 Here she is coming to greet me. She broke into a run as she saw me approach.

Here's her husband. He took the day off work because I was coming to visit. Yeah, really. Very humbling.

Here is XW and another friend DY. DY is 77-years-old and speaks perfect English. She speaks it better than some people who are native English speakers. DY lives in the big city, but accompanied me to the village since we both know XW.

 This is inside XW's village home courtyard. They have steps that lead up to the flat roof.

We asked her not to make lunch for us, because she always goes to so much trouble. She had fruit, snacks and tea for us instead. (Actually, she had lunch for us too. She had it hidden in the refrigerator, hoping we would agree to stay. We did.)

 A cup of Chinese tea in a Chinese village home. Perfect.

Free music

While I was in Bedrock, I stayed in the center of town near a huge public square where people congregate day and night for various reasons. There is ballroom dancing, group exercise, and all sorts of stuff going on. It was really noisy. There was loud music from early in the morning until late at night. I heard ladies singing opera-style music. These guys set up their little band on the corner. They brought their own sound equipment. Here they are tuning their guitars, and eventually the guy seated will remove the cigarette from his mouth and start singing. They were awesome. It sounded like a professional recording. I wonder if this is how bands get discovered, by playing free gigs in public squares? It was fairly entertaining, I must say.

I used to live two blocks away from the square. It was not so noisy there.

A visit to the homeland

When I was in Bedrock, I wanted to retrace Mimi's roots. In March 2005, I found her for sale in a cardboard box by the side of the road, near where another seller also sets up shop on the sidewalk. They are still there selling dogs. So I went by there to reminisce. That was kind of a mistake. The dogs there are SO CUTE. If I had been traveling by car, I might have carried a couple of these home with me.

Specifically, I would have taken Mimi's little one-year-old cousin pictured above. I want this dog to have a good home! Look at that sweet face. I am a sucker for Pekingese. I don't think I could have another kind of dog. Which is a shame because they shed and eat expensive food. But this sweet face melts my heart every time I see it. Pekingese have such feeling and intellect. They are too smart for their own good, and seem to know when life is good or bad.

So, so adorable. A white Pekingese and a brown poodle. At least they have shade. Some of the dogs did not.

This happy little guy is full of fun. There was a crack in the "ceiling" of his cage, and he was trying to get my attention by looking through it. Haha, what a guy!

Shock

I'm back in Bedrock for a visit. But Bedrock isn't very bedrock-y anymore. If you saw this amazingly modern city today, you would think everything I ever told you about this place was an utter lie. I am in shock. I would say my jaw dropped to the floor, but it would be an understatement. It would be more accurate to say that my jaw has dropped past the floor into a deep cavern inside the earth.

I would try to explain, but words fail me. Before, on a scale of 1-10 in terms of modernity, it was a negative 200. Now, it is a positive 200. Seriously. I have never seen such swift and dramatic change anywhere else in the world in my life, and maybe there never has been. They built a whole entire new city (not pictured) across the river from where this is taken. One building is so big it has 40 elevators. There are exquisite parks and gardens that you wouldn't believe, and ... oh, why am I trying to explain. You couldn't possibly understand. Even if you ever lived here before (as a few of you have), you wouldn't believe it. I may sometimes exaggerate, but I am not doing so this time.

To the few of you who have been here, I will describe a few things of interest. Bedrock has a Subway (sandwich shop), multiple Watsons pharmacies, a bunch more Pizza Huts, H&M clothing store at a posh mall, Metro (French grocery store that sells everything...Old El Paso and everything you can get anywhere else in China), and more. If you lived here, you would never need to go to another city to buy anything. It's all here now.

There are a dozen bridges over the river, and a modern tunnel underneath it. The city has one of the largest TV tower/observation decks in the country. Everything is big, well-made, and attractive. Thousands of skyscrapers line the view in every direction. Wide tree-lined avenues are not crowded. (The photo above is the old part, not the new part, but it is awesome too.)

I need a nap, or maybe some aspirin. I really can't wrap my head around these changes. I lived here from 1996 - 2008. We barely had running water or electricity, much less a grocery store. Donkeys pulled carts down the roads. People made $75 a month or less. Only three buildings in town were over 4 stories high (due to earthquake concerns).

Sorry, I didn't mean to try to explain. I seriously can't process it though and it makes me feel weird. But overall it was lovely to be back, and my friends treated me like a queen. Gotta love that!

Off the wall

Off the wall ... literally. This is a photo of a eclectic wall inside a Beijing mall. I love the style and colors.

Forbidden City

It was home to emperors (and to Pekingese too, by the way, the preferred pet of royalty). I can't say I'd have wanted to live there. There's no heat, no air-conditioning, and the stone floors are hard on one's feet. We all live better than emperors once did.

The home of the last emperor has a photo of the first non-emperor hanging on the front door.

No political commentary from me, not on this blog anyway.

Green Beijing

I traveled to Beijing with two Americans who hadn't been there before. Both said it was nothing like they expected it to be. They anticipated chaotic traffic, crowded conditions, pollution and an overall third world experience. Oh contrare! Beijing is green, spacious, orderly and clean. It was a pleasant shock for them. One grew up in Thailand and thinks Bangkok's city planners could learn a lot from Beijing. Too bad Beijing gets such a bad rap in the press, the source of their misinformation. The city is actually quite a charming place (except for their famously obnoxious taxi drivers).

Beijing stained glass

I visited a church in Beijing. The stained-glass windows were just beautiful. This church, built in the 1800s, still exists in an alleyway not too far from Tiananmen Square. When I visited the church during the week, two young women were inside the sanctuary praying, one crying as she prayed. I don't think the women care that Bill Clinton visited this church before. They just care that Jesus shows up and hears their prayers.

Dog petting tour of Beijing

Dogs are awesome, and Beijing is full of wonderful, loving canines. I think I have petted every dog I've seen since I arrived. I let them sniff my hand before it reaches back to rub their ears and pat their heads. They love it. It softens the hearts of their owners too, and they talk to me when they see I'm friendly towards their dogs. I love all the dogs, but the one above won first prize in my heart. She's got a sweet face like Mimi does. They are both Pekingese.

 Love.

 Love.

Love. This Mimi lookalike wanted to take a nap, using my hand for its pillow. Pekingese are native to Peking/Beijing, so I'm in the Pekingese motherland right now.

Sweet.

 Pekingese cutie! (My dad thinks this dog looks like it belongs to Yoda or Jabba the Hut; he does not think it is too cute. Haha! Certainly not "Mimi-cute!")

Itchy cute.

Classy street style, Beijing

A man of culture on the streets of Beijing.

Or maybe not.

Let's give them something to talk about

Chinese person A: Nah, let's not get a foreigner or even a Chinese English major to translate our sign for us. It will probably cost too much. Besides, I've got a dictionary.

Chinese person B: Okay! Look up the word for short skirt.

Chinese person A: Got it! Tutu!

Chinese person B: Haha! This is easy. Only stupid people would pay for a translator.

Indeed. Why pay when this way is sooooooo much more fun!

(The green sign says, in Chinese translated into English: "Entry forbidden to those wearing shorts, skirts and other unsuitable clothing." Oddly, they didn't enforce it. Lots of male tourists were wearing knee-length shorts. In Chinese culture, wearing shorts in public is basically improper. Shorts are for fishermen and little boys, they say.)

Buddhists in Taiwan and Paris should go to this back alley in Beijing to get their garb. There was no indication as to where Buddhists from other countries might go for their garb ... or even if Buddhists from other countries are even expected to have garb. 

Honestly, it's not my problem.

Tiananmen again (hey, that rhymes!)

I was back at Tiananmen Square yesterday. Pictured above is Qian Men (literally "front gate" or "front door") at the far south end of Tiananmen Square.

This colorful (but sullen) little girl posed on the square. She paused from eating her fruit to do some diva pose that her mom (also present) probably taught her.

Hi. My name is Larry. This is my brother Daryl, and this is my other brother Daryl (who may or may not have forgotten to wear pants today).

The military is out in Beijing all the time. But Benjamin Netanyahu is in town today. So today, more.

I hope no one came to Beijing just to take a picture of the entrance to Forbidden City. The scaffolding is not very picturesque. That's a portrait of former Chairman Mao Zedong under the scaffolding.

A Tiananmen statue representing "the people" who helped build China. More photos coming soon!

The Square

I'm in Beijing once again. Just got here, and my friends who have never been here before wanted to make Tiananmen Square their first stop. More soon!

A cat named Rover

Suppose a foreigner moved to America, bought a cat, and named him Rover.

This foreigner named his cat Rover, because his parents back in his own country had two cats named Dover and Bover, and he wanted to continue to "Ver" family tradition of pet-naming. Besides, many people in America named their own cats with "Ver" names too. You know, like Lover and Hover. (Okay, my example seems to be falling apart about right now. Try to hang in there with me though, I'm not finished.)

And let's suppose that none of his American acquaintances had a sense of humor. They were overly serious and thought this foreigner was off his rocker. Because Rover is a dog's name, not a cat's name. Dumb foreigner.

Can you see where I am going with this?

In China, Mimi is a name for cats.

Well how was I supposed to know?!!!!!

I bought the little ball of fur from a box on the side of the road in 2005 and took her home. Within an hour she knew her name. My parents had two dogs, Beebee (RIP, beloved doggy) and Koko. And Chinese people gave their own dogs names with repeated syllables. I thought Mimi would be an easy name for Chinese people to pronounce, as it kind of sounds like the word for rice.

At that time Mimi was the size of a Coke can and hadn't had her shots. It would be two months before the little beauty knew that the great outdoors existed. I couldn't risk her getting parvo by letting her out. So we bonded over her name inside my apartment.

But soon enough, we made friends with the great outdoors. And that's when I found out from my neighbors that "Mimi" is what people call cats.

So I smoothed things over by telling everyone that Mimi is an English name, a woman's name. Most people were cool with that.

But TODAY, a woman in my apartment complex with absolutely no common sense, and certainly no sense of humor, suggested that I change my 8-year-old dog's name to a Chinese name! Is she crazy? Do you think my dog is going to be like a Chinese college student that has a Chinese name and an English name both?

No. Absolutely not. My dog is awesome. And her name is Mimi. Forever.

Sheesh.