21 + 1 + 3 (by Mark)

21: (Chinese: er shi yi) Today marks twenty one days for Cheryl and me and our new life in Beijing, the north capital of China. It is a national holiday through Saturday, so we have no language school on Friday. We have enjoyed our teachers, Liu Linyun and Tong Ting Ting for sure, but we’ll take a day off with gladness! We desire to treat Thursdays as a kind of Sabbath, as it is the only day with nothing scheduled. Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays are language school days. Tuesdays are home school chemistry for Cheryl and small group and hour and fifteen minutes south of our apartment. Saturday is final prep day for the sermon and worship service, and Sunday is the best day of all! So that leaves Thursday as a day for rest, re-charging, reading, walking, praying, and meditating in a special way. We had plans today to walk to the Olympic Park just to the west of our apartment complex, but the AQI (Air Quality Index) is poor today. We may just stay inside.

1: (Chinese: yi) Yesterday we had a Chinese person initiate a conversation with us in English on the subway. That makes one in three weeks. We have initiated many with our fellow Beijing citizens in the last three weeks, but this is the first initiated by a Chinese. A young lady engaged us in a spirited conversation for about a minute before we came to our stop at Beiyuanlu Bei. We figured out that she has Canadian (i.e. Vancouver) cousins or brothers she had a chance to visit in the last couple of years. The cool thing was that we were able to use some of the first 24 hours of Mandarin lessons to speak more than just English to her. Hopefully we can initiate some conversations in the future in Mandarin. A bonus from yesterday: a lady named “Jun” came up to us just as were about to enter our apartment building. She lives in the unit next to us (i.e. 26A vs 26B). She was given our name and contact information by some nearby M’s with the charge to help us any way possible. “The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases…” (Lam. 3:23).

3: (Chinese: san) This morning we were surprised by the ring of our door bell. Our neighbors in 3301 came by with a gift of moon cakes, a traditional Chinese gift during this time of year. A smiling mother with a 15-month old girl handed us a box of moon cakes. The husband was in the background in the door to their apartment, maybe 25 feet away. We had seen them once before for a brief moment as we were coming out of the elevator and they were going in. We prevailed on them to come in and join us for some tea. The husband hurried into their apartment and delivered a beautiful tin of green tea. An hour and a half later they left. Let me tell you about them, as they are our first Chinese guests in our apartment.

The wife is Xu Di or Di Di, as she assured us it was okay to call her. Their little girl, born just one day before my June 21 birthday, is Xi Xi or Li Xi Mo (taking her father’s last name). The husband and father is Li He (pronounced Huh). Li He is originally from Dalian (east of Tianjin); Di Di is from Daqing in the far northeast of China (just northwest of the big city of Harbin). Li He described Daqing as the place where 50% of all of China’s oil is produced. Li He has been an associate professor for fourteen years in a university Fine Arts Department. In fact, our school is close to his. Li He had Di Di as one of his students in the past. From there a romance apparently began; they have been married three years now. Di Di is a stay-at-home mom with little Xi Xi, though we picked up on the fact that she may be a gifted sculptor like her accomplished husband. Li He showed us some of his work on his IPhone. His “mud” and bronze sculpture works were something to see. Amazing! I feel like we live next door to China’s Michelangelo… J.

Di Di and Li He could not have been more encouraging with our attempts to speak Mandarin. Like a true artist, she would beautifully write out the phrases in both pinyin and the simplified Chinese characters. I’ll take a picture of her writing and post it on this blog later. No doubt we will see them again. I offered to Di Di that we would keep Xi Xi any time so she could go shopping, run errands, see a friend, or even get a haircut. As their parents live a long distance from Beijing, Li He and Di Di do not receive the help that many young couples receive in the form of “grandparents.” We are so happy to have met them. When they left we said, “Women dou shi pengyou” – “We are all friends!”