Bethany Well

A lot’s happened since I last posted.  Beijing is bustling once again!  The city has awaken from a two-week slumber and as much as I don’t enjoy the crazy traffic and getting pummeled during my commute, Beijing feels more like the city I am used to now.  I just completed my first week at my internship with International Bridges to Justice.  I have a semi-stable teaching job at a really professional school that’s just a 5-minute walk from my home.  I finalized the arrangements for my next writing assignment for the United Methodist Church: Laos and Thailand from 2/24-3/6.   So in short, my schedule is firming up.  Here are some highlights:

February 11, 2009 – Stand In Line Day
Most of you are probably thinking about the next “big” holiday – February 14, Valentine’s Day – but here in China, February 11 marked another very special occasion: the 25th “Stand in Line” Day.  Yup, instated  in to promote the practice of standing in line in lieu of the Olympics, the government officially made the 11th of each month, “Stand in Line” Day.  I discovered this officially recognized day in a news brief in a local Chinese paper, which in addition to providing an overview of the history of this day, noted that “even after 25 months, people are still not standing in line.”  That’s what you call groundbreaking journalism.Before I move on, it should be noted that Valentine’s Day is actually a very big deal here.  Apparently the subways are even more crowded than usual because everyone is going out to celebrate.  AND, last year I’m told, there was a 2.5 hour wait at a Pizza Hut on the 14th.  In fact, apparently “Valentine’s Day will bring a marriage boom to China, with many couples choosing the Western lovers’ day as the day get spliced. Many registration centers in Beijing expect three times the usual number of couples getting married on that day, the Beijing Civil Affairs Bureau said on Friday.” [According on Xinhua News]

Censorship?
So, I was wrong.  The official end of the fireworks didn’t come until February 9th, the 15th night of the New Year (according to the Chinese calendar), which is known as Lantern Festival.  It celebrates the end of the  two-week celebration of the new year.  The first full-moon of the New Year is said to be especially round and bright and people treat it as a symbol of New Year .  On this day everyone (except me) eats yuanxiao.  Yuanxiao, which is also called tangyuan in some places, is a kind of stuffed dumplings made of glutinous rice flour served in soup.

Anyhow, in addition to eating yuanxiao people also light lanterns, and yes, they set off firecrackers.

This time, however, a newly built, but unopened New Mandarin Oriental hotel was set ablaze after a fireworks company hired by CCTV, the state’s  television network in China, used illegal firecrackers.  Some of you may have caught the Times’ coverage of this episode, which like most sensible newspapers, selected an eye-popping picture of a building “ravaged” by  flames.  However in China, what scored significant coverage, photo space, and blog posts around the world, was reduced to untelling photos of the building’s aftermath (basically an old, run-down building that looks like many buildings throughout China) with an uninformative caption, or small news briefs citing 1 casualty, a firefighter, who in his valiant struggle to put out the flames, selflessly offered his mask to someone else.   The next morning, news of this fire was suspiciously absent from any news broadcasts.

“What’s your name?”
I’ve been working some odd jobs ranging from giving a lecture on “How to Improve Your English” to a crowd of zealous primary school kids to administering mock-interviews for the spoken part of IELTS, the TOEFL equivalent in the UK and Australia.  Anyhow, I thought I’d give you a sense of how creative the naming convention is here in China. I’ve met students with names such as Cherry, Snow, Like, Hamburger, and Tom Riddle – yes, the evil wizard, the name of the muggle-form of He Who Must Not Be Named…  I seriously got chills as he explained the origins of his disturbing name choice.

Internship
I completed my first three days at my internship.  The commute TO work isn’t so bad because I go in slightly after rush hour at around 9:30am.  But the commute BACK is pretty treacherous.  I’m not sure how to describe it, so I’ll try to capture it in a photo for next time.  Door-to-door the commute is only about 30 minutes, which in a sprawling city like Beijing, is actually quite good.

As is expected, the work of an intern isn’t exactly enthralling, especially during the first week, and even more so when you’re only committed to going in part-time for three months.  But overall I think it’s going to be a good experience.  Only half the office is back from the holiday.  The two senior staff members are American, but the other program officers are Chinese.   Everyone is very cordial.  This week, after a demoralizing first day of cataloguing books and inventory, I researched the newly instated advisory jury system in South Korea, learned more about the various projects IBJ is working on, and edited a report on juvenile justice enhancements in China, which in the process, also taught me a lot about some of the grievous injustices of the legal justice here, especially for juveniles.

In short, the report described a case where a 16-year-old boy was sentenced to 5 months in jail for attempting to blackmail cab drivers who cut the cab queue at the Shanghai Airport.  Allegations against him included blackmail, disrupting the public and causing trouble, and marring China’s public image during the critical time before the 2008 Olympic Games.  He had been detained for 152 days before his trial went before the court.  All this because he wanted to earn an extra 40RMB, the equivalent of about $6…

I’ve also just enjoyed learning from the life experiences of others in the office.   Everyone has years of commitment to public service and are deeply vested in justice issues here in China and abroad.  Their perspectives on justice reform, the death penalty, legal education around the world, among other topics are really interesting to hear.

Human Rights
On a related note, I thought I’d include a recent brief I read on the status of human rights in China

China rejects human rights criticism at UN (February 11, 2009, AFP)
China rejected proposals Wednesday to end labor camp sentences, abolish the death penalty and guarantee freedom of religion, as it concluded its first examination before the U.N. Human Rights Council. Beijing, which in the past fought successfully to avoid any criticism before the U.N.’s top human rights organ, struck down virtually every suggestion made by countries such as Britain, Mexico and Germany, in a new procedure designed to open every country to scrutiny. The recommendations dismissed by China also included ending torture, respecting ethnic minorities and allowing independent experts to investigate human rights abuses. China said it did support proposals – mostly by developing countries – to improve social and economic rights such as creating jobs in rural areas and doing more to integrate people with disabilities.

Personal
Overall I’m doing well.  But I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t admit to lapsing into occasional bouts of second-guessing.  In the midst of things picking up, I’m struggling to find enough time to do everything it is that I set out to do.  So much has NOT gone as planned.  My idealistic vision of what my time here would afford is not entirely being fulfilled in the way that I imagined it would.  And even with the friends and community I’ve been blessed to have here, there’s something about home than can never be replaced.

I feel like sometimes God must gaze down on my and let out a heavy sigh.  I foolishly allow doubt and insecurity to overpower evidence of His love, guidance and provision.  It’s always in the moment, when His work is still unfolding, that my impatient self tires of waiting, trusting, and hoping in the faith that has brought me here.  It’s a cycle I’ve seen repeat itself enough times even in my short lifetime that I will be the first to recognize the folly of it all. I get exceedingly frustrated with myself when I allow my faith to falter, especially because I know that ultimately He is always working for my good.

Fortunately these moments of questioning and regret are fleeting, and by God’s grace, I emerge from it with a fortified faith and a deeper sense of peace.  The patient and loving support of important people in my life and quiet moments with God help me regain my foothold in faith.  I revisited the list of things I hope to accomplish while I’m out here, and realized that I can’t depend on my faulty value system or my reasoning to appraise the “success” of my time out here or this entire “year of doing something different.”  My plans are not God’s plans.

A devotion I read recently in Piper’s “Live As a Vapor” reminded me that, “We simply do not know whether one path or the other will prove to be the path on which some remarkable turn of affairs may take place for the glory of God all out of proportion to what we planned or expected.  A seemingly useless path may prove more effective than the best plan we could have made.  You simply cannot know what God may do on any given path of faithfulness.”
[If any of you would like to read this devotion, I can send it to you via email]

Thanks for your encouraging posts, emails and prayers!

Written by: bethanywell on February 13, 2009.