tale of two cities

Sorry, but this post is less about Judd and more about China. But I'll throw in a couple pics of Micro Kahn for you blog stalkers.

city 1: beijing

We flew into Beijing, which has the largest airport I've ever seen. It's one million square meters in just the main terminal, which easily fits four of University of Tennessee's basketball arenas. Every building and road in Beijing seemed big, and it is a strikingly big city. Our guide said it is 20 million people now, and it sure seemed like it. People were everywhere we went. Every street, bus, sidewalk was crammed with people. We drove for an hour and people were everywhere on bikes, cars, buses, and on foot. Plus the sheer size of the city was big. You know how many cities have a bypass loop around them? I've lived places that have two. Beijing has eight because it keeps outgrowing them. The city is just dang big.

Lots of pollution. Our guide said the sun never shines fully there.  

 Top floor of one terminal at the airport

If I had to sum up the people we met (and I can't speak for the entire 20mill since I was there for two days), I'd say the people were in a hurry. To me, a Southerner, they seemed rude and selfish. In my two days I saw one person willingly let another person go first. The best example of this is driving. Cutting you off, honking like crazy, passing cars in the bike lane, and driving into oncoming traffic is literally totally normal. Nevermind that a person is walking and you are in a car, you cut them off and keep going. Anne likes to say that traffic rules are more like suggestions: lanes, speed limits, sidewalks, traffic lights... suggestions. But it's more than driving. Even at the airport as we were walking onto the plane two guys cut line in front of Anne. I literally wanted to grab their shoulders and turn them around so we can talk about chivalry and now real men treat ladies. But that's just how they are. They are in a hurry and don't really think about others. It makes sense, being piled on top of 20mill people, but it's still weird.

And frankly, Beijing is a pagan town. There was so much talk about superstition and luck and prosperity; it got old. Licenses plates on cars never end in 4 because that number is bad luck. Lions are put beside doors and thresholds are tall enough to make you step over them, both to keep out evil spirits. The zodiac signs are big deals. The axis of the city (from the Forbidden City to the Olympic Bird's Nest Stadium) is 8km since 8 is the luckiest number and number for prosperity. Even the city airport was built in the north since north is luckier than south in Feng Shui. This shouldn't be surprising. There are almost no Christians there. Without Christ, we are all selfish, superstitious people, and being in Beijing reminded me of that. I'd be no different except by the grace of God.

city 2: hohhot

We are now in Hohhot, also called Huhehaote, which means green city. It is in Inner Mongolia which is one of the provinces that gives China trouble (along with Tibet which wants freedom, and Xinjiang which is a heavily muslim area). This area has a large minority of Mongolian people which has warred with China since 1000AD. The province is actually north of the Great Wall and hugs the border with Mongolia but still in China, like a buffer between enemies. It's odd because every sign is Chinese with little Mongolian letters above it, which amazes me that anyone can read (see below). So in many ways the culture here is unique, very Chinese yet very Mongolian--oil and vinegar somehow mixed.

View from our hotel window; past the mountains are the grasslands

Notice the squiggly Mongolian writing on the top of the signs.

I love this dude

Busy Hohhot intersection

Hohhot, the capital of the province and where we are now, is the size of Chicago (2.5 million), which shocked me to find out. But it's not big compared to other Chinese cities. It's also not very nice, to put it bluntly. It looks poor and economically struggling. The buildings look run down. The sidewalks are cracked. And we've been told that it's not a very safe city. It's just not very nice.

The people in Hohhot look hard to me. In Beijing, the girls carried umbrellas to keep the sun off of them. Here, they seem concerned about more important matters, like food on the table. Once again, I can't speak for the whole city, but that's what I see. The depression seems more than economic to me.

Day laborers waiting for work

However, it's hard for me not to project Judd's story of abandonment onto the culture. The orphanage here in the city is huge, full of kids (like Juddster) who were abandoned at malls and hospitals and police stations. I don't think these people want to abandon their kids, but life is hard and they feel like they must.

It's harder to be here than we thought. It's a sad place to me. Communism. Buddhism. Islam. Poverty. Crime. People from here may not see it like I do, but the area seems dark. We sightsee, buy some Mongolian garb for little man, but I find myself praying for these people and being thankful Judd won't grow up on these streets.

When we got Judd-man, we were given a note from a buddhist monk that had Judd's Chinese name in Mandarin, Mongolian, and Tibetan. This monk had prayed for Judd, blessed him, and gave our guide the note. Thank you God for answering that Buddhist monk's prayer to bless Judd. Little did he know that many Christians were praying the same prayer for little Judd. Judd is blessed, not because our family is so much better than the people here. If anything, we are sinners just like them. But I know a good God, who loves to show grace. And Judd will learn about him. And that's why Judd will be blessed.

-Chris