"Don't spit," Robert told me as we walked down a clean, tree-sheltered street in Shenzhen, "people will think you're from the North."
After the Conference, a small group traveled to Hong Kong for a couple days while the Baoding team went to Macau, a city very near Shenzhen and Hong Kong which was returned to China about the same time Hong Kong was. Like, Hong Kong, Macau was owned by a European country for over a century, but Portugal had had a hand in Macau a lot longer than Britain had been a part Hong Kong. Despite now being a part of China, Macau remains an expensive city and is known for being the eastern version of Las Vegas, actually generating more revenue in its casinos than its western counterpart. We stayed in a hostel in a border city called Zhuhai, a typical southern coastal city; though, not nearly as nice as Shenzhen. For two days we stayed in individual bedrooms that were so small it felt like sleeping in lockers, but they were clean and the room felt cozy rather than cramped. The border between Zhuhai and Macau is the most-crossed border in the world and we added to the statistic for those two days. We ate massive burgers the first night and explored the Venetian casino, never sitting down at any tables because we couldn't find the right minimum bid. Our goal was Blackjack, which remains my only real experience with gambling, but the Venetian was too affluent for our wallets; so we decided to wait until the next day and try another casino. The next day we visited St. Paul's Cathedral and saw disturbing paintings of St. Augustine and Japanese martyrs. Later we almost bought "ObaMao" t-shirts. We ate Portuguese food for dinner and afterward Ryan almost got in a yelling match with a passing driver who nearly ran over Kerry in a cobblestone alleyway. We then returned to our goal: an affordable Blackjack table. It took a few casinos before we found our table and it was worth it... well, it was for me. Tim wasn't so lucky. The dealer got 4 blackjack hands in the first seven or eight hands. I'm not sure how I survived the onslaught, but I was about even after them; Tim wasn't. Eventually the crowded table emptied and it was only Tim, Ryan, and me. We gave Kerry and Amelia a few chips to play with and we were promptly joined by a bald elderly Chinese man who spoke fluent English. He rarely bet on his own hands, but would toss chips onto ours and we eventually called him "Master" because of his unsurpassed knowledge of the game. With his astute advice and a few strokes of luck, I doubled my money. I actually had to get Bethany to take my chips away from me after I doubled up so that I could get up from the table, which is always the hardest part. It was worth the trip; even Tim would tell you.
"Nobody cares about me," I said countless times. Melissa visited Tim. Dan visited Emily. Bethany's parents visited her. Me? No one missed me, I thought. Just when I thought for sure that I was forgotten; when I thought I was forsaken, forgone, forsworn, the Sceviours came. Greg and AJ cared. They braved the treacherous drive to New York; they sat snuggly and patiently on a 14 hour flight to South Korea for a "short" layover. Then when the word "delayed" donned the electronic departure board, they didn't snicker or mope! No, they strolled right up to the Korean Air desk and were promptly rewarded for their optimism with an offer for a free night in a four star hotel in Seoul. They turned to one another and with grim faces said, "Jon would have wanted us to," and they acquiesced, begrudgingly, "Alright," they said to the beautiful Korean desk attendants with the red scarves around their necks, "if we have to," and they took it for the team, for me. The next morning they boarded that last flight beleaguered with exhaustion from their unfortunate extended layover and they sat, once again. They endured the jet lag, the staring, the donkey burgers, all for me... 
For the final week of their stay we decided to travel. It might have been counter-intuitive, given how cold it already was in Baoding, but we traveled even further north to Harbin, a city near the northeastern tip of China, bordering Russia. Our intention was to see the famous Ice Festival, entire buildings and replicas chiseled out of ice and lit by florescent lighting. As it turned out, our favorite part was a surprise to most of us: the Tiger Park. We spent an entire morning in a van with barred windows driving around snow covered landscapes, dripping with bengal tigers. "This is like Jurassic Park," someone said joyfully as we drove into the park and the massive fenced gate closed electronically behind us, locking us in with the tigers. Most of us held each other even tighter after that comment. The tigers were massive and sometimes they would come up to the windows and sniff us. "AJ!! Keep your hands in this car!!" Bethany would scream at AJ as he grinned back. At the final section of the tour, we were presented with a verbal menu of animals to feed the tigers, alive. So, we purchased the pheasant because it was cheap. An armored jeep drove out to the middle of the park and, as the tigers were crawling all over it, someone tossed a live pheasant out of the sun roof. One of the tigers leaped and grabbed it and it was over. So, we decided to step up and buy the lamb. It was the most revolting and mesmerizing spectacles I've ever seen. For about thirty minutes several tigers held the lamb in their mouths (don't worry, the lamb died early), each of them holding it still but gently pulling in their own direction; they each wanted it for themselves. One of them tore a leg off and ran away with it. Eventually it was pandemonium and the lamb was in pieces. The three girls in our group at this point were looking away, their cheeks streaked with tears, as the guys remained engrossed. The whole time the driver kept stupidly driving into the gathering of tigers to break them up. At one point our van was stuck and he kept backing up and pulling forward to get out with no luck. We all trembled at the thought of being stuck in a park of feasting bengal tigers. Overall, it was incredible and it was definitely my favorite part of Harbin. Well, that and Cameron riding an electronic bull in a sketchy mall. 
Despite what you might think, I’m not that well-traveled. Even so, I’m confident that there is no place like China in the whole wide world. Here’s one reason. The other day I was waiting for my Great Gatsby quizzes to finish their copying in the copy store on campus and I ran into one of my old students named Alice, who’s incredibly short and whose English is more than a few rungs below ‘intermediate’. I didn’t remember that her name was Alice at the time; so I asked for her Chinese name: Zhang Yuan Yuan. She heard me speak Chinese with the copy store worker and was impressed. She told me I had “made a great progress.” I then told her that my Chinese was not that great and she should test my skills by asking me some questions in Chinese. She agreed with glee. Suddenly, the seemingly slow-witted little girl began to spit out sentences at light speed. I told her to slow down and answered her questions the best I could. As she was speaking I noticed that her pronunciation wasn’t like that of someone from our city, Baoding, which is located in the north of China, in the Hebei province. She sounded like someone from the south. So, I asked her where she was from. Jiangxi, she said, which is in the south. I was right.
“You speak southern Chinese,” I told her in broken Chinese, “People from Baoding say bu sher, but you say bu suh.” (bu shi = no, it’s not)
Just then I realized that the entire score of people in the copy store had been riveted with our Chinese conversation because they suddenly began clapping. They couldn’t believe that an American could hear the difference in Chinese dialects. I can’t imagine Americans or Canadians or Englishmen or Belgians celebrating for a foreigner like that (those are the only other places I’ve been). This isn’t the first time this has happened. About a month ago I struck up a Chinese conversation with a girl on the bus and even though I could have sworn the mass of bodies on the bus had been minding their own business, it wasn’t so. The girl told me she worked at McDonald’s and she eventually told me that I should come visit her there, an obvious flirtation. For some reason, at that moment I picked up my head and looked around. Everyone was facing me, each set of eyes were fixed on me and their mouths were gaping. What is he going to say?? they seemed to beg.
Another example. The same night after I left my conversation with Alice, I went to Hebei University to meet up with the other teachers on our team and we put on an English Night. It was a little lackluster, to be frank. Not only were we subdued to a smaller room with less students because of H1N1, but some of us teachers were a little tired and not quite in the mood to lead songs and games in front of 100 Chinese students (yes, that is less than normal). But despite ourselves, it was a success. The six of us, plus 2 other teachers who we have become close with, formed a panel on stage to discuss our families. Each of us tackled a question that we had chosen and prepared for before-hand. My question was, “What is the most difficult thing about your relationship with your family?” I chose this question because I wanted to talk about our family’s struggles through divorce, and how painful it has been. I wanted to stress the importance in mourning that loss (and how it took me nearly a decade to do so), and that when someone wrongs you, it’s an opportunity for forgiveness. My family’s story isn’t over, I told them, we are still growing. After we answered our prepared questions, we opened the floor for the students to ask questions. Two students wanted Amelia’s attention, but each went about their approach in different ways. During one of the students’ questions, I saw a girl a few seats away from me writing frantically on a small piece of paper. After a couple drafts which she discarded, she settled on one and then folded it several times, and asked the students in front of her to pass it to Amelia, who was standing next to me. I couldn’t help but peak: “You’ve made a great impression on me with your story and I want to make friends with you.” Amelia looked up at the girl and the student pecked her head down a little and waved a cute, embarrassed wave. Another student raised his hand to ask a question. It was a boy with dark skin and he bravely stood up and said he had three questions “for the beautiful girl standing next to Jon.” Summary: One, is she single? Two, would she date a Chinese boy? Three, would she consider anyone in this room? We all laughed and I covered my face with my hands like one of the embarrassed Chinese girls would. Amelia’s answers: Yes. Yes. No. “I’m a teacher and you are students!” she reminded them. Everyone laughed.
During my short talk on the panel, I got choked up and my voice broke a little. I didn’t think that would happen when I had prepared what I had to say, but that moment I felt close to the situation, despite the thousands of miles and days that separate me from its clutches. Personally, the distance of China has an estranging effect on my relationships at home. My heart has a hard time extending beyond my current surroundings. But that moment it did, and I hope for more moments like that, that will remind me what the Father is doing my heart and wants to do in the lives of those I love. As the great philosopher once said, “Distance means nothing to me. It only makes me want to see you longer.” And that was even before he wrote My Friends Over You.
My students hate me, I'm sure of it. My old students love me. They always tell me how much they miss my class. Of course, they do; I would miss my class too. Last year all we did was play games to get the Freshman to open their mouths. Now I teach Juniors, who are effectively Seniors because they graduate in three years. I taught them the word, "Senioritis" because they all have it. They don't want homework (who does?), especially not from the push-over foreign devil. After I assigned the first chapter of The Great Gatsby all I heard was complaints. It's too hard, they kept saying. It is hard. Sometimes it takes me until the fourth or fifth class of teaching a passage to really get what Fitzgerald is saying. The guy is so beyond me that I'm apprehensive to even claim that. But I wanted to challenge them. I wanted to be real teacher and I wanted them to learn something, instead of just play games. So after every reading assignment, I give a short, harmless quiz to make sure they've read it. The results, so far, have varied: some classes did fairly well, while others failed miserably. While one bad apple does seem to spoil the whole batch, I think dedication spurs others on just as effectively. Those classes that do the work and get it seem to be led by certain ardent students. One girl named Sunny read more than I asked the class to, including the last chapter because she wanted to see what happens (ala my sister, Faith).
I'm not sure what Robert Frost was talking about. The greater the wall the better, I always say. And it doesn't get any greater than The Great Wall itself. It was almost embarrassing telling people that I had lived near Beijing for 10 months and had still never been to the massive wall. But now the monkey is off my back and I'm a real man, according to Chinese culture. "不到长城非好汉" bu dao chang cheng fei hao han. “He who does not reach the Great Wall is not a true man.” My classes were all impressed when I spoke it to them, after I had unbuttoned my dress shirt to show the meaningful "I CLIMBED THE GREAT WALL" shirt I was donning underneath. The Great Wall is truly massive; it stretches nearly four thousand miles, and we only hiked on it for five hours. Some of our hike was devastatingly steep, like a ladder, but those inclines were mostly climbed the night of our arrival, either dimly lit by the setting sun or by our fluorescent headlamps. Our second day on the wall was generally easy, save for a few breaks in the Wall that we had to surmount. Oh, by the way, we slept on the Wall. That's right: on it. Our menu for the trip included: tuna sandwiches, homemade Chinese chex mix, Great Wall brand red wine, donuts (actually called 'donitas'), and a tiny Snickers bar (thanks, Kerry!).
That was the most eventful part of my National Day holiday, a weeklong break in classes to celebrate new China's 60th anniversary. There was an ornate parade and military exhibition on TV that I missed; I was wasting my time watching a Redskins game instead (Dan Snyder has made a cuckold me, of all of us). But I did see the replay. President Hu JinTao stood presidentially out of an open sunroof of a black car as it rolled past all of the formations of soldiers and workers and humungous missile launchers, shouting, "Hello, comrades! You work too hard!" The regiments shouted something back about it "being for the people" after Hu Jintao's exclamation.
Speaking of holidays, I've got another five day break in class coming up including this weekend. I'm off to Beijing this weekend to cheer Ryan on as he runs the Beijing Marathon; then it's back to school for a two day "Sports Day," during which I will cheer on more runners (I'm not ready for primetime yet).
As Tim chronicled on his blog, we got mopeds. We set out to buy full-blown motorcycles, but after learning the specifics of Chinese motor law, we down-graded and bought the next best thing. My bike will go 50 mph if I push it, which originally sounded like a con to me, but after driving in Chinese traffic for a month, it's definitely a plus. I'll just say that the traffic here is a little wilder than in the US and speed is the least of my concerns, another reason why you'll never see me riding without a helmet. The new experience of driving in China has taught me some new Chinese words, but just as in the states, I always have to learn the hard way; for example, the difference between the words, chi you and chai you: gasoline and diesel. Even after seeing my buddy, Cameron, make the mistake of filling his bike with diesel first-hand, I misunderstood the gasman at the gas station and successfully puttered out on my way home a week ago. It was in the exact spot Cameron's bike broke down. I admit, I let more than a few expletives fly behind my yellow-tinted face shield as I walked it home. Thankfully, I was only about a mile away from home. A couple days later one of my friends from Tim's school, Kevin, came over to help me fix my bike, syphoning out the diesel and adding some of his syphoned gas into my bike. It turned out to be a good excuse to hang with him. We found out that we have something in common: our futures our uncertain. He graduates this winter and will look for a job in the south. If this is my last year in China, I'll head back west to find a job, really far west.
Kevin's not the only student I might not see much of over this next year. My good friend Jack from last year is now in Beijing, toiling. Vince might go back to his hometown a couple hours to the north after this semester to find work. And who knows with Robert; we've already had a handful of goodbye dinners for him, but he always seems to come back to Baoding. The reality of my time here is unsettling; it truly is but a breath. And yet that breath is invigorating. Each moment is an opportunity to trust in the "future grace" of our Father. Thanks, John Piper!
But now for something completely different:
