A Summer in Yangshuo

August, 2015

As the Chinese saying goes, “Guilin’s scenery is the most beautiful under heaven. Yangshuo’s scenery is the most beautiful in Guilin.” Nestled in the hub of the lush green hills, where the Lijiang and Yulong rivers intersect, Yangshuo provides the backdrop for one of China’s favorite vacation adventure destinations. Not only Chinese nationals, but foreigners from around the world leave their stuffy office jobs and pressure filled lives to spend the summer here learning Chinese, teaching English, climbing the rocky faces of the magnificent limestone mountains, and biking the countryside roads along the landscaped rice terraces.

Its scenic appeal makes it not an easy place to get to, and in fact, it was considered too remote by mail services in Shanghai to guarantee safe delivery of valuable packages. I know this because I realized on my second day that I had forgotten my laptop computer at a hotel in Shanghai. Thankfully it was a reputable enough American hotel chain for me to feel at ease letting them hold it until I came back in a month.

What was the personal draw? Why did I want to spend time in the back country of a developing nation where I knew I would be essentially roughing it, and even at times, hating life? I suppose there is a part in me that always wanted to say that I lived in a remote village in China for a month. It is a fantastic idea…

It was midnight in the sweltering summer of August, 2015 when I arrived at in the small town of Yangshuo after taking a 2.5 hour plane ride from Shanghai and a 90 minute drive from the main city center of Guilin. I discovered that my room was on the 6th floor in a local motel, which had, of course, no elevator. My jet lag after the long flight across the Pacific Ocean only magnified my exhaustion during those hours of the evening, and as I huffed and puffed lugging my three bags up six flights, I nervously anticipated seeing what kind of conditions my ten dollar a night room would be in. I appreciated the fact that my Chinese teacher had gone through great lengths to bargain with the owner of this hotel to arrange this kind of rate, in a supposedly descent room in a beautiful area. I imagined similar conditions to my stay in Xishuangbanna in Southern China a few years ago where I barely survived a week with my extremely limited language skills, cold showers, a lumpy hard bed, no air conditioner during the humid summer months, and with the constant irritation of mosquitoes buzzing in my ear. Although those conditions were unbearable at the time, the recollection in my rather short memory always draws me back to that rich time of growth and discovery.

I was pleasantly surprised that this time the bed was hard but not lumpy, there was a good working air conditioner, and once I pulled the curtains to glance out the window I uncovered a stunning view of the rounded hat-shaped mountains unique only to this region on China. Too tired to think about unpacking, I settled in for the night and did my best to feel comfortable on the wooden platform bed. I’ve experienced harder. I only then realized I did not have the water bottle that my thoughtful driver gave to me, and there was no clean cup in my room to drink the hot water I just boiled from the otherwise undrinkable faucet. Oh well, I would just have to put off my thirst until the late morning when this sleepy town wakes up.

In the morning, knowing my Chinese teacher was too busy to meet me yet, I ventured off by myself to get the lay of the land. Happy that my Chinese was now adequate enough to order myself some food and pick up basic necessities, I prayed I could find some measure of peace and comfort in what I now realized was a musty dingy room at the edge of what they call the “pink light district.”

While wandering around that morning I came across a sign outside a building that asked for native English-speaking volunteers. I went in to inquire and was greeted warmly by some young Chinese workers. I spent time asking questions and touring their facilities. Upon being led by a new worker, a recent college graduate named Didi, up to the second floor to see the classrooms, I felt a sensation of rain pouring over the top of my head and down my back, a sensation which I have come to know as the presence of the Holy Spirit falling and giving me an indication I ought to come back in the future. I remembered how I had just a few days before, also felt a heavy rain of the Holy Spirit fall on me as I waited at the Guilin airport baggage claim area, a most unlikely place. Whenever this sensation occurs it brings a sense of direction, and gives me great comfort and a knowing that God is purposefully moving.

Didi continued to show me around and in the end she and her supervisor exchanged information with me.

I rushed back for my first live meeting with Becky my online Chinese teacher for the past 4 months. Standing stoutly before me with a dark rounded face and long straight black hair, wearing a short royal blue chiffon dress, she extended her hand to me with a formal handshake. There was something very secure and down to earth about her and I liked her right away.

We had our first lesson in my small hotel room and then she said she had cleared her whole day in order to take me around town. One thing was for sure, I was not in Shanghai any more. The streets, though paved and developed for the westerners who passed through, also contained many potholes and patches of dirt making it important to constantly watch where one is stepping. There is an abundance of steep and uneven stairways, and as we traversed the back alleys I marveled at the relative ease and sure-footedness my teacher used to navigate the difficult landscape in her high heels. Becky is an entrepreneur who loves people, who loves teaching, and who loves showing people around. Relatively uninspired by China’s rat race to climb the economic chain to a better life, I enjoyed her hospitality and generosity with her time.

I came back to my dinky hotel room and collapsed on my hard bed, glad that Becky helped me pull out a thick mattress pad which helped make the bed a little softer. Tomorrow I would have to do something about this living space.

The next morning after assessing the needs of my room, I went to the local grocery store and came home with some cleaning supplies, then took a deep breath, put on some rubber gloves, and went to work. The first visual object facing the entrance of the room was a western style toilet with a sticker of a red cartoon bear on the lid. Inside the washroom, three feet above the lid and slightly to the side of the toilet, out of an oversized hole in the wall jutted a shower head which when turned on, sprinkled water on to the toilet seat, into the bowl, and across the walls, before it found its correct path to the drain in the middle of the bathroom floor. Across the shower, covering the full length glass window that led to the bed room, was a stained, somewhat moldy light brown cloth curtain. Against the wall, on the other side of the shower head, above the white porcelain pedestal style sink was a cheap aluminum tray, dirtied by previous tenants’ toothpaste marks. In the sink, a round metal stopper that swiveled on its two axis points over the hole at the bottom of the basin, could be pushed open and closed with the tap of one’s pinky or by using a disposable wooden chopstick. After using the sink several times and seeing how the dirty water seeped through the base and on to the bathroom floor toward the one and only drain, I decided to use the shower faucet instead of the sink for most of my water needs.

I went to work with my detergents and brushes, stopping short of actually touching the curtain which I deemed inconsolable, I attempted to tighten the toilet seat that hung on with one hinge, making it impossible to fully sit on it without slipping to the right or left. It did not tighten. I would have to spend the month carefully balancing on it.

After attacking the bathroom, I looked at the rest of the room in the sunlight of day. A thick layer of black and yellow dust lay caked over the tops of the dresser drawers, the TV stand, and the night stand. I had a strong feeling the thick cotton pad on which I slept the night before, also contained the same heavy mucky dust. Now realizing I was in over my head, I settled for temporarily heaping two seemingly cleaner blankets and a newly purchased bed sheet over it, and by not thinking about it.

I was glad for a phone call from Becky inviting me on an excursion to the “downtown” area. As we proceeded to walk out of the more laid back pink light district and into the central part of the town, the one main street became notably jammed with traffic. As soon as we passed the central park, the air thickened with sounds from loud thumping speakers, blaring Chinese pop songs at the traffic turnaround located at a corner of the “city center,” turning the suddenly densely crowded street lined with hundreds of storefronts, bars, and restaurants into more of a “party center.” The alleys behind the main streets were filled with thousands of residences, coffee shops, motels, hostels, and outdoor adventure clubs.

After a few of hours of sensory overload, I proposed to Becky that we could turn in for the evening. On our way through an alley, loud barking and howls shattered the air from a dimly lit building with windows at street level revealing a very dark basement.

“They keep dogs in those conditions?” I asked in horror.

Becky grimaced. “That’s an open market.”

“What do you mean?”

Then I felt the blood drain from my face. The reason I avoided this region over my previous eight trips had been this one frightening aspect, very much hearsay until confirmed at this one moment. As the rumor goes, “anything with legs that is not a table, is fair game for dinner in the southern part of China.”

“Foreigners don’t like to know this, and I hate it too, but this is China.”

I established an initial daily rhythm of carrying a twenty-yuan bill and two one-yuan coins in my pocket before hopping down the 6 flights of stairs for my morning run. I bought and drank one bottle of water with one coin, and then bought and drank another bottle of water, two miles later with my other coin. On the way back, I would stop to pick up some steamed buns, rice balls, fruit, and a 2-liter bottle of water for breakfast before making my first six-story climb for the day. Drenched with sweat, I would peel my clothes off, put it in a wash pan, dump a handful of laundry detergent, hand-wash my clothes and hang them on the bar above the toilet. After taking my shower, I would squeeze my clothes out more fully and hang them on hangers off of a rusty coat rack on my balcony. I would use my super mop to sop up all the water from the bathroom floor, then mop the entire bedroom floor with soapy water. My next trek down the six stories would be made with my backpack and study books, and I would stay out for the rest of the day. If I planned carefully this would be the only other time in a day that I would have to make the climb back up to the sixth floor.

Aside from my morning ritual, each day was filled with new experiences. I was glad to start off by meeting a handful of Becky’s friends, many of whom were Chinese teachers and tour guides like her. Hanging out with them would initially provide me with many opportunities for conversation and adventure.

Becky, having a desire to teach students Chinese using topics they are most interested in learning, interviewed me carefully. She skillfully probed me in order to discover my learning style, likes, and dislikes.

Since Becky came from such an unusual background, I thought it would be fun to learn about the local culture and practices, and thus emerged the opportunity to understand an insider view of the controversial, ever-so brutal topic of China’s one-child policy. This policy, conceived in the 1970’s during a period when China’s population first threatened to exceed one billion, was formally instituted by the Beijing central government in 1980 in hopes of yanking the nation out of impending poverty. Because of the lack of uniform implementation laws, overzealous local government officials greedy for power and for their share of the monetary rewards often imposed their own radical methods of forced sterilizations and abortions in rural areas.

Horrified and somewhat dizzied from this knowledge about some of the birth control and abortion methods contrived during that time, I realized this was all that I needed to know at this time. I would take in more information someday when I was ready for it.

Becky relented. “How about you accompany me on a bike ride to the country side?”

I was especially glad for a change of pace, as we rode our bicycles for hours across rice fields against the backdrop of the funny looking cat-in-the-hat shaped hills.

Stopping at a local farming village to buy some bags of sticky rice for a few cents, I had a chance to re-live one of my most wonderfully memorable, initially awful, previous summer highlights spent in another part of this vast land I have come to love: sitting under an open tent, on a child-size plastic chair drinking a hot bowl of soup and tea in sweltering weather, with electric fans blowing beads of sweat down my face. Ahh, this is China.

I had not heard from the English school all weekend, and began to wonder if they would really want my volunteer help. I contacted Didi, the young college graduate I felt the Holy Spirit highlighting to ask what was up.

“What can we do for Wednesday night’s two-hour activity?” she asked me frantically, without skipping a beat.

It was Monday, and the three other volunteers from Denmark were apparently leaving her the next day, and as if she had no idea this was coming, went into a panic.

“We could have a game night with Charades and Pictionary!” I suggested.

“Pictionary?” she asked, “What is that?”

I have always been the first to tire of these games and turn in for some introverted time as my friends continue socializing through the night. I laughed to myself, thinking of how unlikely a candidate I was to suggest this, and now to be asked to host it.

She invited me to join the other students and teachers in the cafeteria where a Chinese young man said he was so shocked that I could speak English so well when I introduced myself to the group. In this town with so many foreign western faces it seems my Asian skin and brown hair has blended in rather well with the local population, to the point they are shocked to hear foreign words come out of my mouth. Now feeling like a treasured commodity, I peeled away my thin layer of humility and allowed myself to linger until everyone else was gone before urging him to get his rest time too.

By the end of the night, Didi gave me the task of sharing about my life, my customs, and basically anything I want with their group of 40. On Wednesday night I was to serve as “game night host” to the same group of 35 students and 5 teachers. This was a most unlikely opportunity in a strange town, and I was more than happy to do it.

If the shoe fits…

After receiving an overwhelming barrage of game suggestions from friends back home in California, I confidently pulled off game night. I also had my chance to share about Los Angeles, Hollywood, the Lakers, my church, and my pet cockatiels.

My days were filled with activities involving meeting new friends and enjoying the outdoor life of biking on the back roads, hiking along the Lijiang River, and running along the rice patty fields.

Two nights ago when I came home and sat at my desk, I smelled a foul odor. Knowing I had just scrubbed the floors and furniture, I feared the worst, and dreaded the process of looking a layer deeper behind the walls and in the hidden cracks and crevices of my room to find where the stench was actually coming from. Too tired after the long seven hour hike I took with Becky and her friends, I decided I could live with this foul smell for the night since it seemed only located in a small area far from my bed. I undressed only to find the foul smell got stronger as I bent down.

“My shoes!” I realized in both horror and relief.

If you have been to China, you know that anything and everything goes in a Chinese public bathroom, with floors made continually slippery and wet by people “missing” the hole in the ground while attempting to avoid other people’s messes, and then shaking their hands off after putting them briefly under running water, an action that supposedly counts as “washing.” I am both sorry and glad to say my standards of cleanliness have all been surrendered, and I pray nightly as I go to bed that the aroma of the Spirit of God would cast out the odors that surround me.

Anyway, after hiking for so many hours, I figured the cleaner newer dirt I walked on would somehow replace the older “dirt” it picked up earlier in the bathrooms. Then I remembered that I had used three public bathrooms over the last two days and it had thunder-stormed twice, leaving my shoes and socks damp, but since the ninety degree weather quickly dried up the moisture, I had forgotten just how filthy it was.

All this to say, today I decided to buy a pair of rubber croc-like shoes (knock offs, of course). I also made a quick decision to rent a bike for $1.75 a day. Biking with Becky the other day gave me the confidence that although biking and driving is just as chaotic as in the other cities in China I have been in, at least people drive slowly here and the town is small.

I biked toward the downtown area where there are literally thousands of storefronts, each about 15 feet wide, packed together side by side. I remembered I had seen a row of shoe stores somewhere and so meandered in that area on my new rented bicycle. I decided to go into the third store I saw, seeing exactly the type of shoe I was imagining getting. I made a beeline to the shoe and asked if I could try it. It was a perfect fit and color and in fact, I didn’t need to try on any others. The shopkeeper was very nice and asked where I was from. When opened my mouth using my foreign accent, he immediately identified me as an American started speaking pretty good English to me, better than most people in this town. He said he had been to Los Angeles, and had visited a fellowship group there.

“Which one?” I asked, “because I am also a ‘fellowshipper!’”

He told me there are many Christians in this city of Yangshuo, but they were not allowed to be very visible as a group. I excitedly expressed interest in attending his fellowship, but would have to wait until their Sunday evening to know where they were gathering since it is not “above ground,” so to speak. That there was an immediate spiritual connection and sense of trust between John and me, is not an everyday occurrence, and I marveled at how I was led to meet him.

God is good!

I grew used to Didi’s hesitancy, often gazing past my eyes while speaking and nervously playing with her hands, as if thinking of many things at once but only verbalizing the very simplest of thoughts. Her long, light brown hair pulled back in a pony tail and her fair skin and light brown eyes accentuated her youth and naiveté, though I am sure her life has not been all that easy. Being quite anxious about tonight’s game night, she asked if we could meet so she could understand the instructions in order to give it in English to the group. It was way too easy to amaze her by quickly re-typing the game instructions for her on the spot, an action that took her all day yesterday and several hours today.

She disclosed the source of some insecurity, saying that as a child she had experienced some hearing and sight loss on her right side. Taking some license with this invitation into her private life, I asked if I could pray for her. She said this was the first time someone did this. She did not quite know what to do but I told her to relax and speak to God as if he was a person in this room. I prayed that she could get to know God as we prayed for her sight and hearing to be restored.

I discovered this was her first job, and that her experienced colleague left the whole program to her today and moved on to another job. She was in over her head.

Saturday, 8/15/2015

The Flood －有水吗？

Yesterday when I finished using the restroom in an office, I noticed a big puddle on the floor that had not been there an hour ago. I called the owner and struggled in my memory to find the word for “leak,” “puddle,” or “flood.” “Your floor…” I stuttered, “um, um…” “有水吗”？she asked in a knowing way, literally meaning, “has water?” (有 = have, 水 = water, 吗 = question ending). “Yes!” I said, knowing there was a more complex way of saying this, but glad she was aware of the situation, and somewhat miffed that she had not done anything about it.

The next day as I was writing a letter to my friends in the US, I noticed a puddle of water on my hotel room floor that was increasing in size at an enormous speed. With the flash flood that started only moments ago, the roof of my building which only partially covers my boat-like balcony produced a waterfall that filled it within a few minutes. With water seeped quickly under my door I grabbed a towel and stuffed it in the gap for temporary measures. I then grabbed everything off the floor and put them on the cabinet and chair, just in time to see the water quickly spread across the entire floor. I then ran down 2 flights of stairs to let the cleaning ladies know what happened. Un-phased, they empathized, but practically ignored my call for help. I traversed down 4 more floors to call the manager. “My floor!, I said, “um, um…” “有水吗”？ he said knowingly. “Yes!”

Much more willing to help, he flew up the 6 flights of stairs with me to find my floor covered with about an inch deep of flood water. Grabbing a tin can dustpan, he shoveled the brownish water over the balcony 6 flights dow

I was glad I had bought a super mop for five bucks last week which was better than any mop the hotel had, and I helped him sop up the water little by little. “At least your floor is clean now,” he said laughing. I was hoping he knew there were holes in his reasoning but feared he was probably serious.

Anyway, back to my original story. I had previously called Yangshuo a “small remote town.” I must explain, there are still 300,000 people spread out over a space of 1425 square kilometers. (The city of Pasadena has 139,700 people who live in a space of 60 square kilometers.)

All this to say, it was very unlikely to find John, the shoe store owner whose shop was a good 15 minute bike ride away from my hotel, call me as I walked out of my favorite breakfast joint just down the street from where I am staying. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “I live here!” he said with his one year old daughter in his arms, pointing to an apartment just above the restaurant. We chatted a bit and he reminded me that in small towns like this, we cannot talk freely about Jesus and church related gatherings, because unlike Shanghai or Beijing, these local governments, far removed from China’s center make decisions autocratically if they feel threatened. Thus the group of believers I will visit tomorrow night has sometimes had to change their meeting times, using codes when they text each other.

Didi texted me later on, very tired after her first week of working by herself in this position.

“Are you able to lecture?” she asked.

“Sure, I said, about what?”

“Whatever you want to talk about, but it should be for about 1 hour, and it’s for Monday.”

She went on to apologize that because I am the only volunteer right now, she has to ask me to do everything. How stunned I am that I am a captive audience of 40 and a free range of topics to speak about.

I took my unlikely meeting with John as a warning from Father God, to “be careful” as I speak to this group. With the Holy Spirit’s leading, I devised a lecture that spoke of “love” and “relationships,” in order to somehow get at the Gospel message.

The 2nd Commandment

John’s Sunday late night church gathering was uplifting. The singing was distractingly unpolished and the teaching was a little tiring to sit through, but it was nevertheless great to be with family. I was rather surprised that I could track with the message with much more detail than before, giving me confidence that my Chinese is in fact improving quickly here.

I had just cleaned my room this morning and finally felt like certain areas of my room were consolable, however when I came home after the meeting and tried to fall asleep I closed my eyes and found 4 ugly looking spiritual critters in my room. Knowing I do not have a vivid imagination, I deduced that what I saw in my mind’s eye were indeed spiritual creatures. How did they get there? They were very repulsive. Did I bring them in from the meeting? Did they come to harass me? I got out of bed, took authority over the room in Jesus’ Name, and cast them out one by one until the room felt serene again.

The next afternoon I hit a low. My sleepless nights have turned into low energy days, and the hot, muggy weather is causing me to feel too tired to run. My room, though daily swept and mopped during my morning routine still carries many odors, and I am still unwilling to touch many parts of it with my bare hands.

Being unwilling to over-prepare for my lecture tonight, I dedicated my afternoon to rest, which really amounted to a few hours of tossing and turning, dozing, then waking, then dozing again.

Didi called inviting me to join them for dinner with the students. My spirits surged to a high, since these times spent with Chinese students always energize me. The cafeteria style dinner segued into the large group meeting. I opened up my lecture by saying, “…a great man once said that the ‘second most important rule’ is to ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’”

I used the game some of my hometown friends suggested called, “Do You Love Your Neighbor?” It was a great game for helping them to listen and respond in English. Everyone in the room agreed that loving your neighbor as yourself was very weighty in importance. We talked about ways we struggle with this and ways we can love each other better. . . . and then. . . something amazing happened that opened up the atmosphere. It was a sudden shift in attitudes, in interest level, in engagement level. It suddenly became a much warmer environment.

“Who has ever heard of this saying, ‘love your neighbor’ before today?” I asked. No one raised their hands.

“Really? No one? A really great person said this. Who can guess who the great person is?” I asked again.

“Confucius?” someone said…

“Is it someone from China? We don’t know anybody outside of China,” someone else joked.

No one could guess.

“Have you heard of Jesus?” I said.

“Ooooh!” they said. All of them had seemingly heard of Jesus but no one knew much about him.

“This is the second greatest rule. Who knows the greatest rule?” I asked. “See me later if you want to know what it is.”

I indeed got a few people book dates with me out of this interaction.

Didi was delighted with how the meeting went and I had another opportunity to pray for and affirmed her for her diligent work in coordinating the meeting. She received my prayers with gratitude.

Oral English School

I have a sense that you are the type of person who is able to cut through things to see the very core issue of something. That you have a sense of being able to say “no, [this is not confusion,] this is the root, right here. If we address this everything will take care of itself.” . . .God just simply takes you into places almost unnoticed, but you see what the core is, you know. . . to say, “this needs to be dealt with,” and then you’re out [of there], and things have been settled, . . . and He can send you into places to take care of things. (prophecy given to Carolyn at Bethel Church, Redding CA in October, 2011)

I began to witness increasing tensions with students complaining about Didi. A student actually confronted her in front of me and made her cry. I stood up for Didi and told the vocal student, a young man with a family, that he needed to apologize to her. He refused. I told the group of students in front of me they could not blame her when the system was not working. I asked who the school boss was, and impetuously made an appointment with her to talk the next today.

My attitude was very much in an offensive posture when I made the appointment with her at the reception desk, knowing that as a foreign volunteer I had little to lose, but when it came down to it, I did not actually know what I was going to say. The next morning, after talking with Davee, a friend back in the US, I changed my tone. Despite reports from Chinese local students and friends that this school had a bad reputation for depending too much on volunteers and not paying their teachers well, I went to the owner praising her school and asking a lot of questions. The result was that she opened up to me, saying she knew I did good work, and asked if I would be willing to supervise Didi, actually volunteering to pay me for this.

“Please don’t pay me,” I said, “I will work with her and see how it goes.”

She and the school principle asked me if I was willing to start work immediately. Since I had the afternoon free, I went straight up to Didi’s office, letting her know I was given permission to help her.

Didi was fretting over the next task of dividing people into groups. I urged her to let go of that seemingly mountainous assignment, and after a few nudges, she relented.

I spent the time with Didi coaching her on all elements of her work and life and unpacking the root of why she has such problems with accomplishing simple tasks. We spent a significant time separating heart issues from head issues and work issues from family issues. She complained that she her head hurt when she tried to work. After asking her about her belief system, she was willing to say, “God, I don’t believe in you right now, but I am willing if you will show me who you are. Please help me.”

Later that afternoon, the owner, the principle, and the teacher in charge of human resources all opened up and extended themselves to me and thanking me for helping their school and even asking me for advice.

At the end of the day, after a successful “English Corner” evening event, Didi bought me a snack with her very limited funds and told me something to the effect of saying I was her god. Grieved that she had drawn that conclusion but glad that she was honest, I told her rather strongly, “do not put anyone in the place of God. No one is like Him!”

I knew she, like all of us at one time or another, is afraid of loneliness. All I could do was to introduce her to the only One who can fill that loneliness.

Over the following few days I realized Didi was really not capable of doing the job the school had hired her for. It was hard for me to see them let her go, though I know it was the best thing for the company. Didi and I are still in touch, and I am praying for the day she turns to the Lord.

Didi texted me later on, very tired after her first week of working by herself in this position.

“Are you able to lecture?” she asked.

“Sure, I said, about what?”

“Whatever you want to talk about, but it should be for about 1 hour, and it’s for Monday.”

The 2nd Commandment

Being unwilling to over-prepare for my lecture tonight, I dedicated my afternoon to rest, which really amounted to a few hours of tossing and turning, dozing, then waking, then dozing again.

“Who has ever heard of this saying, ‘love your neighbor’ before today?” I asked. No one raised their hands.

“Really? No one? A really great person said this. Who can guess who the great person is?” I asked again.

“Confucius?” someone said…

“Is it someone from China? We don’t know anybody outside of China,” someone else joked.

No one could guess.

“Have you heard of Jesus?” I said.

“Ooooh!” they said. All of them had seemingly heard of Jesus but no one knew much about him.

“This is the second greatest rule. Who knows the greatest rule?” I asked. “See me later if you want to know what it is.”

I indeed got a few people book dates with me out of this interaction.

Didi was delighted with how the meeting went and I had another opportunity to pray for and affirmed her for her diligent work in coordinating the meeting. She received my prayers with gratitude.

Oral English School

“Please don’t pay me,” I said, “I will work with her and see how it goes.”

Didi was fretting over the next task of dividing people into groups. I urged her to let go of that seemingly mountainous assignment, and after a few nudges, she relented.

I knew she, like all of us at one time or another, is afraid of loneliness. All I could do was to introduce her to the only One who can fill that loneliness.

This is one of the few crossings over the Yu Long River is on a path that, during high water seasons becomes a small waterfall. A farmer leads his ox back home after a day of plowing the rice patties.

I was fortunate to catch this man in motion while getting lost on my bicycle. This is one of the picturesque scenes that give Guilin its fame.

Thursday, August 27, 2015

My last week in Yangshuo arrived with some gratitude and amazement that I had lasted this long. I had not only lasted, but I rather enjoyed myself. But still, life in Yangshuo is not easy, and I was not sure I would be back any time soon, if I could help it, so I did want to wrap up my time here in a way that I could look back fondly upon it.

Two English students have become particularly dear to me. Vincent, a physically fit young man with a crew cut left behind his wife and child for a few months in order to concentrate on developing his English to further his engineering career. Considering himself an “uncle” since he seemed a few years older than most of the students, he presented himself to me as someone who is very discerning with his time and very polite and respectful, and shyly asked if I knew anyone who could practice English conversation with him. I liberally interpreted this as his way of asking me whether I was willing to hang out with him, while giving me a way out, in case I did not want to. I welcomed his friendship.

Cherry, a recent college graduate, resigned from her job in order to pursue her dream of learning English. Standing about 5 feet tall with a petit figure and a fair complexion, she sheepishly asserted that she needs to grow up because she is very immature, giving others a false but endearing impression that she is more naïve than she really is. Not surprisingly, Vincent and Cherry hit it off and became a welcomed part of my daily life.

When they asked about getting together to practice English, I told them I unfortunately could not meet them on Sunday night because I was going to church, but told them they were welcome to come with me. Vincent jumped in and said on behalf of both of them that they wanted to go with me. I arranged rides for us and explained what church was like, and why I go. It was completely foreign to them.

The church has been meeting on the sixth floor of a commercial building, two floors above a dance club fully equipped with disco strobe lights and blaring techno music. It is my guess that few people make it past that floor, since the fifth floor seem extremely barren. By the time one reaches the sixth floor, one gets the feeling of otherworldliness as the loud ground-thumping beat diminishes into silence. There is no sign marking the room or designating that there is a church in the building. Once entering the solid doors, a cross can be seen hanging behind a small dais in the front of the room. An electric keyboard is off to one side, and a small sound board is off to the other side. The 40 or so people who meet there bring in their supplies: bibles, song books, toys for the children, and fruit and candy for refreshments after the meeting.

Cherry who at first seemed hesitant, especially when I told her it was not a public event, came along anyway. The keyboardist struggled to play the right chords while trying to sing and lead, while the congregation belted out the words in the way they thought the songs should go. The speaker presented a detailed outline of “should’s,” and pulled up various scriptures to prove her point that we simply ought to try harder to live the Christian life. As the meeting progressed, I grew increasingly anxious noting that Cherry who started off ever so properly sitting next to me with her back straight and eyes glued forward gradually sank into the back of her chair yawning. We were all glad when the speaker finally stopped and when we concluded with one last song.

Apologetic to both of my friends, I picked up some bibles for them and gave them as gifts.

“Never mind apologizing!” Vincent said cheerfully, “The most important thing is that we had a new experience and we learned about God.”

Cherry asked if I am going to show them how to read it.

“Of course!” I said, thought added that it is difficult to understand at first, but the main thing I wanted them to know was that God loved her.

______

Before dropping Vincent, Cherry and me off at my hotel, Rachel, one of the church core team members who was one of the original converts 17 years ago, invited me to her vineyard in the outskirts of town. The 20 minute five-mile drive to her place at Moon Hill, was considered relatively far to John and others who lived near the center of the city. Nevertheless, John took the next morning off to drive me to visit them for a time of fellowship.

Moon Hill, an area named after a mountain with a natural half moon shaped hole pierced through it, attracts rock climbers, hikers, and bicyclers from all over the Guilin area. During the warmer seasons, Rachel and her husband James live in a stand up tent on the farm at the base of the mountain. The drive gave me a chance to learn more about John and his relationship with Rachel and the orphans they care for.

John and Rachel have had a close friendship that has spanned over the seventeen years they served together as Christians. In 1998 while John was serving as a tour guide, a Singapore minister on John’s tour shared who Jesus with him. They then introduced Christ to Rachel, James, and a few others of John’s friends. This group who accepted Jesus as their Savior and Lord began meeting regularly, visiting family members of their friends and sharing the Good News, who over the years, became the 40 or so I had met the night before.

During the church’s early years, the Singapore minister sent several teams to build them up, encouraging them to adopt an orphanage as their ministry. They were sufficiently built up but with the collapse of the global economy in 2008, the Singapore group was forced to withdraw from Yangshuo leaving John and his friends the duties of preaching, visitations, and caring for the orphans on their own. John gave thanks to God for bringing other foreign Christians through Yangshuo, who after stumbling upon John much like I did, funded the high school and college education for numerous orphans, a goal which they maintain today in hopes of giving orphans a fighting chance to succeed.

Moved by his story, I asked my home church in Los Angeles if they wanted to give a small donation to John’s work with the orphans. I rejoiced with their immediate affirmative reply.

Turning on to a dirt road, John park his car, rolled up his long pants and got out.

“Follow me,” he said, as he nimbly balanced on a narrow stretch of land separating two marshy fields. I followed his footsteps carefully to the end of the path, then relieved to see a wide patch of caked mud, I jumped down, finding out the mud was not caked at all, but in fact quite sludgy. Both feet now absorbed under the muck, I wobbled back and forth, attempting to keep from landing on all fours, to no avail. In a few seconds, not four, but five body parts were doused in mud.

“I told you to follow me,” said John looking back at me in wonderment.

I washed up in an irrigation stream and we followed another narrow walkway to finally locate Rachel under a canopy, rinsing and preparing grapes to sell on the side of the roadway. She offered me a bowl filled with big, round, purple fruit. I popped one in my mouth and enjoyed the sweet juice that quenched my thirst. We spent time sitting in a kiosk on the roadside, selling a bag of grapes for $1.75 each. It was a typical humid sunny summer day and Rachel periodically shouted out, “fresh grapes!” to bikers and pedestrians who strolled past on their way to the many tourist sites in the area. I estimated a total of 3 bags sold during the hour we were there.

After a while, a truck drove up, and the customer said he wanted to buy 10 boxes, but wanted to see and taste some first. This was a big fish! Rachel’s husband James and their nephew got busy entertaining the truck driver and his companion. Before leaving, I decided to buy a couple of bags as well. Rachel said I didn’t have to, but thanked me anyway. I didn’t want to presume that it was considered a very much of a big sale, but I hoped it was at least some encouragement to them.

During my last few days in Yangshuo I tried to make the most of my time with people and enjoying the breathtaking landscape, but secretly in my heart I began to look anticipatingly toward the gift my parents had given me: a one-night stay in the Guilin Sheraton Hotel. Although this is a moderately comfortable and reputable hotel chain in the US, to the Yangshuo folk it is a symbol of luxury.

“You’re staying at the Sheraton Guilin?!! That’s the landmark the tour guides use. We always stay in the hotel close by but point out the Sheraton when we go past,” said Becky’s friend Julie.

When I mentioned my hotel to a few other Chinese people in Yangshuo I got the same reaction. I found myself apologizing for having enough money to stay there. “No,” I objected, “it’s a gift from my parents! And they have some kind of membership so the hotel is not expensive at all!”

As I took my last run along the river on the eve of “Zhong Yuan Jie” or the Festival of the Dead, fire crackers crackled around me on the candle-lit roadway, a widespread practice used to scare the dead spirits away. Disappointed at the gross distraction from what I hoped would be a peaceful goodbye to the land during the beautiful twilight hours, I lengthened my gait, hoping my pace would somehow allow me to avoid any stray sparks from hitting me while taking lighter breaths to prevent myself from heavy smoke inhalation.

My teacher Becky said that Yangshuo is a land without history. I have heard this said by residents regarding other cities in China, and cannot seem to understand their thinking when they say this.

Of course everywhere on this earth has a history, and especially in China where records of civilization go back five thousand years. Do they mean there are no historic records for a particular place? Or has no one bothered to keep records? Psychologists say that when someone doesn’t remember their past, what it really means is they don’t want to remember their past. Is there a buried secret somewhere here?

During my first history lesson from Becky, she told me within the first three minutes, that Yangshuo was first mentioned in China’s history during the period of the first unified dynasty in 221BC under Emperor Qin Shi Huang, as the place he sent people he didn’t like. She then went on to talk about the history of the rest of China.

“Wait a minute,” I said, “I already know that about China, what about the history of Yangshuo?”

“People in Yangshuo don’t care about history,” she told me, “they care about scenery. If you are interested in history you should go to Yunnan Province.”

“That’s not quite the point,” I mumbled, rolling my eyes. “I know I can go anywhere for history, but I want to know Yangshuo’s history.”

It is of particular interest to me that Becky, a native to this area and all of her well educated contacts also seemed to have a lack of interest toward knowing their own history. When I asked several natives for clues about the history of the land, not only did they say they didn’t know the history of Yangshuo, but in fact could not even think of anyone in Yangshuo who knew about its history.

As I wrap up my time in Yangshuo, I leave with a level of dissatisfaction. Having now spent some time on this land, I have been struck by how the natural beauty of its mountains, rivers, and rice fields, contrast sharply with its polluted water, dirty streets, and bad odors. Its scenery continues to appeal to its international travelers despite its small size, yet it contains some of the poorest living conditions for its inhabitants, among whom are the elderly and orphaned.

On my last day, another big thunderstorm caused Vincent and Cherry who had originally planned to come with me to the main city of Guilin to now cancelled their trip, adding to my disappointment and unsettled feelings.

Wrapping up

Like most of my Chinese friends, at the time of our first meeting, Vincent and Cherry were unable to accept the thought that there is a God who loves them.

Becky my Chinese teacher likewise never showed interest in talking about God.

Unsure of my effect on people’s lives this time around, I chalked this trip up to planting seeds, carrying God’s presence, and feeding my insatiable appetite to learn Chinese, which has improved quite a bit. As the bus pulled out of the Yangshuo station I was showered by the tactical feeling over my head, that I have identified as God’s way of showing his love for me. In a fortuitous string of events I arrived just in time for the buses’ hourly departure. Having not been aware that it left only hourly and not knowing which part of the hour it left, I asked the taxi to pick me up from my hotel at 8:30 to take me to the bus station. I had asked Victor and Cherry to come to my hotel at 7:45 to say goodbye, and had just so happened at 8:10 to ask them to help me to bring my bags down, at which point the taxi driver arrived early, helped us take pictures of each other and took me to the bus stop, now to stand in the rain to buy my ticket. When I got to the front of the line the ticket man said the bus was leaving right now. I turned around just in time to be the last one to catch it, saving me a one-hour wait in the rain for the next bus.

Once on the bus, I happened upon an old recording on my iPod of some prophetic words spoken to me at a conference at Bethel Church conference in 2011. I recalled how I had gone to that conference alone, in spite of perceiving a lacking funds in my bank account, especially in light of an upcoming more expensive trip to Vancouver the following week. An inner nudge that told me this was worth the sacrifice. I remember the prophecy I received from three young prophets was encouraging, but unlike anything I had experienced up until that point, so had not sufficiently landed on my spirit.

I had not listened to this recording since then, and was quite surprised to find it was even on my iPod. The recording which was about ten minutes long, recounted my role in many recent trips to China and giving me a framework to understanding what God had done.

I looked at the date of the prophecy again, realizing this word was given before I ever had the thought or desire of learning Chinese seriously or of going anywhere outside of the US,

She continued,

I have a sense in this capacity, that God is going to,. . . take you to a lot of different places, and I don’t know if that means traveling geographically, or whether that means realms, but I think he’s going to take you to a lot of different places to do what you do,. . . it’s not just going to be in one area, but it is going to be mobile, [I don’t know] whether that’s different spheres of influence or whether it’s around the world, but that he’s going to take you into very many places, With the gifting that you have, but it’s not going to be a very difficult thing for you, but it’s going to be a very joyful thing and you will find a lot of joy and personal satisfaction as He does this. . . .

I don’t understand, other than when she said “hope,” and as you’ve been sitting here, I keep getting the name of “one nation, one nation,” . . . (prophecy given to Carolyn at Bethel Church, Redding CA in October, 2011)

With great relief after the 90 minute bus ride and trekking through mud puddles while towing 2 suitcases, then finding a cab driver all too happy to find a foreigner, I finally arrived at the lovely well anticipated 桂林喜来登酒店 (Guilin Sheraton Hotel).

After unpacking I immediately made my first run-walk around the city, getting my bearings on my newly assigned territory. I found on a side street, an 80 cent meal consisting of a large bowl of rice noodles, vegetables and egg, (much cheaper than the $1.40 meals I have been eating in Yangshuo consisting of the same ingredients), and settled myself into a clean hot shower, then a bath, then another shower, then another bath, until I was satisfied that the month’s worth of caked dirt on my body was gone.

The next day I was greeted into my Chinese sister’s home in Shanghai. After giving me a hug, she asked if I wanted to take a shower. “No, I’m ok, I already to 3 baths and 3 showers,” I said. “Let me rephrase that,” she said, “can you please take another shower?”

Rose had read my journals and had cringed at the stories of filth and grime. Now grateful to be in her spotless home I relented. “It was a great experience, but I would not be going back,” I told her. “It’s good to be in civilization again.”

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