Merry Christmas!

I hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year holiday. I'm having down time in Bamboo Forest this holiday season. It's too cold to go out to do much, so I'm reading books, watching TV shows and movies, and on the days that are not holidays, I am working from home...from my sofa to be exact. (I have an office room here in the apartment, but it is too cold in that room.) Thanks to all of you who wrote recently. I hope to get back to you sometime soon. Take care!

Birthdays

This is the week to celebrate some birthdays. Thursday we celebrate the birth of Jesus, and today (the 22nd) we celebrate the birth of my mom. Happy Birthday Madre!

A New Take on the Gong

Update on Ms. Shoe

I wanted to give you an update on Ms. Shoe, the poor widow I talked about four posts down from here. Since I am not in Bedrock anymore, I can't go see her and help her directly. But I asked a dear Chinese friend in her 70's who speaks English (as well as you do) if she would help, and she agreed. I gave this friend Ms. Shoe's address, and the older friend set off in search of her on Friday. My older Chinese friend said, "It was a very tiring search, and I can only describe it like the slums in Oliver Twist. It is amazing and cruel to see still quite a few people living in terrible conditions." Thanks to some of you who have given money to help Ms. Shoe. I think she needs your prayers too. Her situation is really quite grim. How do you stay positive and raise a daughter when the very best you can do is still quite horrible? Seriously, could you put Ms. Shoe on your prayer list, or stop right now and pray for her and her two daughters (one away, one at home) to find hope in their desperate situation? Thanks.

Love Me, Love My Dog

Can't help myself....

I have a windowsill in my bedroom where Mimi can get an extra dose of Vitamin D provided by the sun.

I bought Mimi a stuffed panda in Chengdu. She alternately loves it, uses it for a pillow, and kills it by thrashing it with her teeth.

She loves macaroni and cheese (this batch has ground beef mixed in it). On a paper plate, she can carry it with her from room to room, and even take it to bed with her. Unfortunately for me, her bed is my bed, so yes, I regret to inform you that sometimes I sleep on a bed with macaroni and cheese. Maybe this is not cool, but I promise you my life is never dull. Maybe I need to give her a heavier plate.

Some American friends dropped by to visit Mimi and me one day, so Mimi got a bath and had to wear clothes that day.

Mimi rules, still. Don't tell the Dog Whisperer.

Chengdu

I went to Chengdu, China recently. I was surprised! It's a great city.

This was taken at the Sichuan Opera. It was quite entertaining! Pretty chilly in that room too. It was cold the whole time I was in Chengdu, although it is not generally known for being a cold place.

This is "Ancient Street." It was built in 2005. (Huh?) Anyway, it was so quaint, and the fact that there was a Starbucks on this street didn't bother me at all.

This is no mannequin...that's a real guy all dressed up to look scary, like in the Chinese movies.

Lots of artists and artisans set up shop on Ancient Street.

Sichuan snacks. I don't know if the food smells bad, or the girls are just trying to keep the food clean by not coughing on it. Apparently the girls can't breathe with those masks on, which is why none of their noses are actually covered.

Still in Chengdu...there are quite a few lovely restaurants like this one called Grandma's Kitchen. There's a Tex-Mex restaurant down the road that looks similar.

This seven year-old girl must have thought I looked lonely dining by myself in Chengdu, because she sat across from me the entire time I was eating dinner at Grandma's Kitchen. Her parents were upstairs, and this girl had finished her meal, and so she just hung out and we talked in Chinese for more than half an hour. This girl, like everyone I asked in Chengdu, told me exactly where she was when the devastating earthquake hit outside Chengdu in May. She was in her second grade English class in a first floor classroom. None of the kids knew what was happening until their teacher told them it was an earthquake. The kids all scurried out of the room to safety outdoors. Chengdu city didn't really suffer damage or injuries to my knowledge. The outer poor villages and towns were the ones where all the devastation poured down.

Chengdu is a really fun, modern city. Overlook the smog, and I think it is one of the most fun cities I have been in. Everyone dresses fashionably. Tibetans in native dress (red and orange robes) roam the city--too bad I didn't get any photos of that. There's electricity in the air, and yet it is laid back. If you ever get a chance to go, I give it two thumbs up.

Shanghai

Here are some photos I took in Shanghai not long ago. The skyscraper photo doesn't do justice to the skyline. There are thousands of more like it in the city of 22 million people. Notice all the Christmas decorations in this Communist country. Definitely no nativity scenes in sight, yet it is still a bit amazing to see anything at all like this!

What Do You Do?

Let me introduce you to my lovely friend from Bedrock whom I will call Ms. Shoe. Photogenic, I'm not sure, but her inner beauty shines forth like a bright light.

Ms. Shoe was a gardener/maintenance worker/trash collector at my apartment complex in Bedrock. I felt sorry because Ms. Shoe's husband left her to raise two daughters on her own. Ms. Shoe only makes the equivalent of $70 a month. One day I asked her if her husband was able to help support the daughters financially. That's when I found out that Ms. Shoe's husband didn't leave the family, he left this earth four years ago in a tragic fall from the high-rise hospital a block from where I lived; he was a construction worker. My heart sank at this news.

Ms. Shoe has a daughter in college. This daughter's tuition is paid for by bank loans plus about 20% of Ms. Shoe's monthly income. It will take her daughter a lifetime to repay those student loans. Ms. Shoe has to send this daughter even more money for food and dorm costs.

Ms. Shoe has a daughter in sixth grade. Ms. Shoe and this daughter live in a one-room rental that costs another 20% of their monthly income. There is no bathroom, no place to take a shower, and no kitchen. It is just four walls with one dim light bulb hanging from the ceiling. They were sharing a single bed, either scrunched up together or sleeping in shifts. I gave her my extra bed (a comfy cot, really). Tears poured from her eyes at this cheap gift of mine; finally they would each have their own bed. Their room has no heating in winter, and no air-conditioner for summer. Even if they had a fan or heater, they could not afford to pay the electric bill. Ms. Shoe has an old cell phone, but cannot afford to add money to it to make it work (in this country people pre-pay for phone service). Her daughter in college in another town has no way to contact mom in case of emergency. The 6th grade daughter eats one bread roll for lunch every day. They never eat meat.

I told another Chinese friend about Ms. Shoe, and that Chinese friend said "she will never make it."

Ms. Shoe's parents are elderly and unemployed. Her in-laws broke contact with them when Ms. Shoe's husband died; the in-laws have no use for granddaughters--they are, in the opinion of the fraternal grandparents, useless girls. Ms. Shoe's financial contributions to her family are the only resource. Imagine her stress, trying to survive.

Ms. Shoe is your sister in Christ. Your sister is the face of poverty.

Ms. Shoe doesn't have a mean bone in her body. She never asks for a single thing. She wasn't trying to criticize me, but just spoke the truth--tears streamed down her face as she told me that my dog had a better life than her daughters.

What do you do about poverty? I'm not sure, but I know you don't just sit back and do nothing.

Matthew 25:40 (NIV) tells us the words of Jesus: "The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

Church

I visited this local church today. It is one of the most beautiful church buildings I have ever seen in my life, anywhere. The chandeliers are just mesmerizing. So many things are different about this church than the ones in Bedrock. This one is extremely clean, has pews instead of theater seats, is spotlessly clean, has young people who attend, has middle-class attendees (instead of only poor farmers) who dress very well, and the preacher speaks the national language instead of a dialect. You have to arrive 30 minutes early to get a seat downstairs. If you sit upstairs you can't see anything going on, but there are closed-circuit TV's that show what's going on. This church is one of those registered with the government. Anyway, I just thought you'd like to see what it looks like.

Autumn in Bamboo Forest

Autumn in Bamboo Forest is really pretty. In Bedrock we had dry autumns, and the leaves just died and fell off the trees. Here in Bamboo Forest it has been a very wet autumn, and so the changing colors have been really pretty to view. I didn't get many good photos, but I'll put up some photos of BF since I arrived.

I'm getting more visitors in Bamboo Forest than I ever did before. I already had one friend spend two nights here, and a married couple is coming to visit next week. A friend passed through town in October and I caught up with him for coffee. Bamboo Forest is a tourist town, and near a big city, so it is not nearly as isolated as Bedrock was. (I'm not slamming Bedrock...I love that place too...I'm just enjoying different things in life now.)

It is Thanksgiving Eve. I just made a pie. Happy Thanksgiving!