When I first got here I thought it was funny that every 7-11, though small, had a substantial selection of underwear. Now that I do laundry in this country, having to slowly air dry everything, I see that it's a good idea.
Today was another one of those days. In school my classmates were very disappointed in me for not knowing Mariah Carey's music, they asked me many times what country I was really from. So my advice: if you travel abroad you might want to brush up on your Mariah Carey. Also Britney Spears, but at least I recognized her picture, a girl actually had a Britney Spears music video on her cell phone. Also I'm not familiar with Korea's hottest movie stars, "why?" they ask me. And in case you're wondering, today we learned how to sing a short Chinese song, and how to say words for different types of music. It also may interest you that China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea each have there own versions of Twinkle Little Star. It's a popular song I guess.
This week we have the Circuit Overseer's visit. If I hadn't showed up at the book-study exactly when I did, about 2 minutes before it starts, I wouldn't have caught my book-studies hostess getting into a car to go to the hall. She jumped back out when she saw me and insisted that I get in, even though it was full. It was the first time I'd ridden in somebody's car here, it's kinda surreal. It was a nice car, very new, a shiny black Toyota whatever with leather seats. Of course I got to sit in front while 4 people crammed in back. It might sound strange, but it felt soo good to put on that seat belt and feel the security of having airbags. I was very grateful they gave me a ride, otherwise I'd have been over 30 minutes late.
I noticed two things about riding in this car. One: I'm not sure I'd even want to drive here, there are scooters, bikes, and people all over the road and I'd probably hit one. Two: You can't really drive that fast with all the people, scooters, and bikes all around you. He took a much different and indirect route that I would've taken on my bike, I think he was trying to avoid the areas crowded with people, scooters and bikes all over the road.
So there I was at the Ministry School, all nice and prepared with my English and PinYin Revelation books. And yes I had been told about the visit, but I had forgotten, not surprising since any reminders would have been in Chinese. But even though we were 10 minutes late, I was there and I was glad. Also adding to my embarrassment, I have to comment on this, before the meeting I had chosen a wrinkled light blue shirt to wear, no jacket, but it was OK because I had an iron, and it worked well, nice and hot. But I have a theory about that kind of shirt, because I keep having this problem. They must have memory of their previous shape. I believe this, because no matter how pressed and nice it looks when I put it on, by the time I get to the meeting it looks like I tried stuffing it into my pocket on the way there, then pulled it out and put it on right before I went in. It probably has something to do with not having a dryer here, I can't pull it straight out and hang it up. But nobody seemed to notice and all was well and the people were merry.
Something else I'd like to share too. There is a very nice young brother in my congregation, Chen Dixiong, about 23 years old, he's a servant and is used a lot. He knows a few English words, he's trying to learn English, his goal is to read the Insight books. He's been talking about reading them for awhile, tonight a shipment came in and he got them. I hadn't realized that they don't have them in Chinese until he told me about his goal. It really made me appreciate how spoiled we are in English, can you imagine making it a goal to read something like the Insight books in Chinese? Many of the brothers here learn English and then use what they've learned to try doing research with the CD-ROM library, also not available in Chinese yet. I have a hard enough time understanding all the English in those publications myself, talk about motivation. (edit 312) Permalink