Good ‘ole Jeff Foxworthy inspired me and got me to thinking that life as a foreigner in China can be every bit as “cultured” as his beloved redneck experiences.

So I submit to you my own list, from behind the Great Wall, in the land of Yao, Mao, and Tao.

You Might be a Foreign Teacher in China if…

• You witness a guy get on the bus wielding a cleaver, and nobody even blinks.
• You fume over ping pong beating out both the NHL and NBA playoffs for air-time on TV.
• You resist spending $3 to buy a bear-less Hello Kitty clock that reads ‘My bear looks smile-ish when he dresses up stylish’.
• You’ve witnessed any three of the following used publicly to clean out an ear: A key, a nail file, a chopstick, a screwdriver, a pinky finger, or a friend’s pinky finger.
• You’ve ever witnessed a beautiful woman belch a burp that ripples her lips like Barney’s on ‘The Simpsons’.
• You’ve observed that the right time to use a tissue is AFTER one blows his nose.
• You’ve ever entered a restaurant, concluded with your wife that it smells like a bedpan… and not ever considered leaving. It's your favourite restaurant, for crying out loud!
• You hesitate to whistle at a friend for fear that they’ll pee their pants (this one may need some cultural explaining).
• You sense that the volumes of voice used in a mobile phone and a megaphone are the same.
• You, the young and able-bodied mountain hiker, get lapped by a woman in high heels or a grandpa with a walking stick.
• You can feast on a meal completely made of vegetables that you’ve never seen before.
• You’ve ever thought of a hippo because of the visual or audio of a public yawn.

We teach alongside some fine folks from the southern U.S.  Darla lent us her ‘coffee table book’ for a bit recently: Jeff Foxworthy’s classic work “You Might be a Redneck if…”.  You may or may not be familiar with this material, but it’s always made me laugh.  If you’ve ever heard Jeff Foxworthy do his stand-up act, then you’ll likely be able to replay his drawl in your mind as you read the following…

  You Might be a Redneck if…

• Your bridal veil was made from a window screen.
• Your wedding music was played on a banjo.
• For laughs, you watch your wife’s delivery video backwards.
• You can identify your friends by the sounds of their mufflers.
• You blow your nose and check your oil using the same rag.
• You think a Volvo is part of a woman’s anatomy.
• Fewer than half the cars you own run.
• You didn’t put the pink plastic flamingos in your front yard as a joke.
• People drive from miles away to look at your grandma’s underpants hanging on the clothesline.
• You can pick objects up off the floor with your toes.
• You list “staring” among your hobbies.
• Your resumé includes your high scores on video games.
• You talk back to characters on a movie screen.
• You’ve ever cooked with WD-40.
• You get Odor-Eaters as a Christmas present.
• You’re naked on laundry day.
• You can eat a McDonald’s cheeseburger in one bite.
• Your pocketknife doubles as a toenail clipper and a cheese slicer.
• You’ve ever been to an ear, nose, and throat specialist to have a finger removed.
• You use bungee cords as suspenders.

Some imagine that the SPRT, in teaching them, must reveal the mysteries of the spiritual life first to their intellect, and afterward in their experience.  And GD's way is just the opposite of this.  What holds true of all spiritual truth is especially true of abiding in CHRST: We must live and experience truth in order to know it.  Life-fellowship with JC is the only school for the science of heavenly things.  'You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand' is a law of the kingdom.

 

Receive what you do not comprehend.  Submit to what you cannot understand, and accept and expect what appears to reason as a mystery.  Believe what looks impossible, and walk in a way you do not know--such are the first lessons in the school of GD.  'If you abide in My word, you will understand the truth': In these and other words of GD we are taught that there is a habit of mind and life that precedes the understanding of the truth.  True discipleship consists in first following, and then knowing the LRD. 

 

These principles are especially helpful in regard to the HS's teaching.  That teaching consissts in His guiding the spirutual life within us to that which GD has prepared for us, without our always knowing how.  On the strength of GD's promise, trusting in His faithfulness, the believer yields himself to the leading of the HS without insisting on having it made clear to the intellect first what He is to do, but consenting to let Him do His work in the soul, and afterward come to know what He has done.  Faith trusts the working of the unseen SPRT in the deep recesses of the inner life.

 

The HS is the SPRT of life in JC; it is His work, not only to breathe, but also to always foster and strengthen, and so perfect the new life within.  And in proportion as the believer yields himself in simple trust to the unseen but most certain law of the SPRT of life working within him, his faith will pass into knowledge.

 

Believe that as surely as you hve CHRST, you have His SPRT too.  Believe that He will do His work with power, if only you do not hinder Him.  Believe that He is working , even when you cannot recognize it.  Believe that He will work mightily if you ask this from the Father.  It is impossible to live the life of full abiding without being full of the HS; believe that the fullness of the SPRT is your daily privilege.

 

The HS was given for this one purpose: That the glorious redemption and life of CHRST might be given and communicated to us with divine power.  We have the HS to make the living CHRST, in all His saving power and complete victory over sin, ever present within us.  It is this that makes Him the Comforter; with Him we need never mourn an absent CHRST.

Any holiday travels within China bring with them some special experiences.  The choice to travel at peak times like these always feels the effect of the crowds.  Many good ‘ole Saskatchewan folks may just go nuts in the suffocating mass of people that hits during such times.  While this holiday was even a bit minor compared to earlier trips, there was still no escaping the two-hour wait for the cable car down from the peak of Tianzi Mountain.  If we’d had the legs or the time to climb back down, we’d have done it.  But it simply wasn’t an option, so to the line we went.  The ‘queue’ was a sea of shoving, where someone is always pushing your backpack or your body.  In such moments, the temptations to throw a Saskatchewan Gordie Howe elbow or to stubbornly hold your ground seem more like issues of survival than questions of morality.  One note for your future endeavours: Beware of the kindly-looking old ladies.  That innocent appearance in just a veneer for the most intense feistiness in the whole crowd!  Laugh if you will, but that little grandmother next to you will knock you out if you turn your head.  I’m telling you…keep your head up.

Or how about hiking mountains on successive days and then standing still for 9 hours the next day?  Sounds like foolishness?  It is.  And it’s your only choice when you get a ‘standing only ticket’ on a crowded train.  Standing in your home for 9 hours would be one thing.  Standing in a hot, humid, and noisy train car with a lot of other people standing immediately beside you and frequently passing vendor carts that are just big enough to squeeze everything else out of the aisles… well, that’s another kind of standing.  But it’s definitely a piece of the travel experience!  Yeah, I can’t think of better word than ‘experience’ to describe it.  I’ll leave that one to the imagination.

One other small pleasure… on our rest day, we taught the ‘kids’ how to play a popular Canadian card game.  It goes by many names; among the less vulgar ones, you might know it as President or Scum.  We titled it Beggar and proceeded to play countless rounds of it, always laughing and joking over who would be the next President, Vice-president, Manager, Worker, or Beggar.  Round after round, the newly-crowned President would cheer as he moved to the comfortable seat, the newly-dumped Beggar would whine, and Young would shout out, “I love my job!”  And on the game went, a simple pleasure for tired feet and bodies.

May Holiday is always that holiday time that’s ‘way down there near the end of the year’, so the shock of its coming and passing is always a real one.  And it’s all the more true now that we’ve decided to head back to Canada this summer.  We’re now entering the last 7 weeks of our China time.  No doubt it will fly and the crowds of Zhangjiajie will feel miles away before we know it.  But for now, we’re grateful for such special times in such special places with such special friends.

And that’s the word on May Holiday 2006.

There is little question that our holiday was made most special by the “friends time” it afforded us.  We’ve traveled with others before over here, but this trip seemed special.  It is possible to travel together and to simply enjoy the sights, tastes, and sounds together.  Perhaps Young said it best one night before falling asleep.  He described a feeling that it felt really natural and comfortable to share and visit about anything under the sun during our trip.  I felt the same.  And it was official: We were enjoying a good thing indeed! 

Such things don’t always happen unscripted, so we aimed to help them along.  Each day, someone was to share their “Thought of the Day”—a topic they’d been thinking about to get the rest of us thinking and chatting.  Topics ranged Suffering to Hope to having a Good Father.  But those were just the “official” talks; the ones that just sprung up were great too.  We spoke often of relationships and even of marriage.  This was very timely as two of our friends are in relationships that they’re a bit uncertain about; both need to Ask for wisdom and make some careful decisions for their futures, so it was great to get to share really freely about some of our lessons learned.  Another spoke of the inner progress he sensed over the past year.  Specifically, he spoke of a growing desire to share what he Knew with others, a feeling he didn’t really feel a year ago.  Sounds like growth to me too!  The other spoke of sick people.  Imagine the frustration of a skilled and able doctor who couldn’t help a patient because the patient refused to openly communicate or reveal his sickness.  She confessed and wondered aloud about her hesitation to lay herself out there on the examining table, aware that failure to do so hinders the work of the Doctor who can truly heal her life.  The thoughts expressed surprised me because I hadn’t known this young lady to think about such things.  It was yet another confirmation that Mighty things are happening in your midst even if you can’t see them.  Speak about them, look for them, join in the action when it’s revealed—this may be the most exciting thing in life.  It’s a shame that I’ve missed as much as I have.

So to Zhangjiajie, I say: Keep your mountains, those jagged and rocky fingers.  Beautiful?  No doubt about it.  But on this week, your natural beauty couldn’t keep pace with the simple joy that comes from connecting meaningfully with other Sons and Daughters.  Thanks for hosting us though!

Zhangjiajie is the name of a city and area; the area is filled with bizarre mountains. The land is lush and green, full of forests. Then out of the trees spring these narrow finger-shaped peaks that just go straight up out of nowhere. A handful of such things would be a sight, but this area stretches on as far as the eye can see at many points. The park itself (called Wulingyuan) is a huge area that requires buses to help travellers get around to the different highlights. Our ticket was good for two days—just enough time to climb and explore two mountains. Let the hiking begin! Attempting to describe the sights with words could prove to be futile. Suffice it to say that the place is pretty spectaular and very unique—and I say that having already seen a good number of uniquely spectacular places! Zhangjiajie is yet another on that list! In the spirit of saving my thousand words, I’ll suggest that you go Google it and view some images. Or you can wait for our shots to get posted later this week, if you car to see what our eyes saw. On describing the sights, that’s all I’ve got to say.

One bonus sight that we didn’t plan on was the monkey community along the mountain hikes. They were waiting to be found on both climbs, but the second day provided us with some close-up views. I’m talking about too close-up to be thinking about taking pictures! On that day, we hit the trail early and enjoyed the first hour minus the tour groups and crowds. The trail was almost all ours: Forests of quiet and beauty. It was likely our favourite part of the park experience. Then came the warning that monkeys were ahead: “Put away any food or drinks, and empty your hands.” The students grabbed a stick each... just in case. I laughed at them and then was quickly grateful for their stick-swinging as the monkeys approached. Apparently those monkeys also were not given spirits of timidity because they didn’t seem afraid at all... except for one. Shannon’s laugh of the day came when one monkey approached only to be met with a sudden stomp and shout from Young. The monkey stopped, dropped his mouth open, and put his hands up like we were going to arrest him. He looked so much like a startled person in his reaction that one just had to laugh! Hilarious creatures, those guys—I could watch them all day!

The trip to Zhangjiajie was one of our favourite trips in our time here, but most of it wasn’t really due to the park, the mountains, or even the monkeys. Then what was the deal? More on that in the next post... tomorrow!

For now, good night from Shiyan.

Time for May Holiday 2006 entries! In an attempt to avoid monstrous entries, I’ll attempt a few smaller entries to cover the highlights of what was a great trip. We travelled with friends Young, Cathy, and Shirley—all students from the Medical College who will graduate in June. It was a real treat to share these days with them seeing beautiful scenery, making special memories, and chatting about whatever our hearts desired.

I’d been surprised at the difficulty I had in finding info online about Zhangjiajie. I have a few travel sites that always prove fruitful. But not this time. The reason? This place is a treasure among Chinese travellers but relatively unknown among foreigners. A reason for that? It’s a tough place to travel without some great Chinese language skills or some help. Lacking the first, we were grateful for the second!

Another snag in visiting Zhangjiajie is that it’s on a bit of a minor run of track, so physically getting there is a bit of a hassle. We had to travel first to a city (Xiangfan) near Shiyan before switching to another train. A student from Xiangfan helped us out by having her mother buy our tickets; this allowed us the luxury of actually having seats during the busy holiday week. Upon meeting the ticket-bearing mother, we ate dinner together in a little restaurant. The men of the group, Young and I, positioned ourselves so we could watch CCTV 5 (China’s sports network) as we ate. What was on that was of such interest, you ask? NHL playoffs? Not a chance. NBA playoffs? Not that either. Soccer? Good guess, but no. This was the world ping pong championships! Yes, yes, I know that the hard-core people prefer “table tennis”. But it will always be ping pong to me! Anyway, Young and I watched the men’s singles and just happened to see the #1 ranked player (from China) play against the #2 player in the world (from Germany)… man, that is NOT the same game I used to play in the basement!

With tickets in hand, we set out for the picturesque area of Zhangjiajie...