Worth my time

China's Ministry of Education estimates that 30 percent of Chinese people living in China don't speak Mandarin, the official language. They speak other languages or dialects. And the lady above? She's definitely one of the 30 percent.

I met her in a park. I think she told me her life story. Poor lady was so desperate to talk to someone that she didn't seem to care that I didn't understand. (I told her I didn't understand, but she is hard of hearing and so maybe she didn't catch that part.) I just smiled and looked sympathetic when her tone seemed to call for it. I think it did her good.

I don't know her story, but I know she's created by God. That makes her worth my time.

The calendar rules!

Today is September 1st, so the kiddos started back to school today. Never mind that it is a Sunday; the calendar says September 1st, and that makes it final.

When I lived up north and was a recipient of the government-controlled steam heating (that cannot be controlled individually in your own home), it started on a certain date even if it was balmy, and it ended on a certain date, even if a blizzard was in progress.

In other bizarre calendar-related news, if you are a teacher at a Chinese university (which may start on a different date than public school for young ones), you can contact the university leadership in early August and ask them what day school will start in September, and they will tell you it hasn't been decided yet. Likewise, you can ask them in May what date that school will end for summer break, and they can't tell you that either.

For air travel, almost no one here books a flight more than two weeks in advance. If you ask them why, they'll tell you it's because so much could change between now and then. Often, the airlines can't even tell you the price that far in advance.

This used to all seem strange to me, but now I'm all used to it and everything. :-)