Today was was a pretty good day, I didn't wake up to terribly late as I usually do so I had time to go for a tiny little 15 minute walk, then I ate lunch, a real lunch with vegetables and pot stickers, then I walked back, took a shower, studied and went to school.
At school it was just me and one other student, the first time we've only had two students. During the last period the teacher decided to put the book away and just talk about whatever, in Chinese of course. She asked us about various mundane things, and wrote many new words for us on the board so we could say what we needed to say. But then the other student Zh�ng Zh�n Jīng asks me what my favorite book of the bible is, she's Catholic and likes to read the bible. So I thought for a second, and said Genesis. "Why?" they asked, "lot's of stories" I said. Then the teacher asked me to tell one of the stories, I guess having only two students is kinda cool for sometimes. Zh�ng Zh�n Jīng says, in English "Joseph!" OK, that's an easy one, so to make a long story short I started with Joseph's brother's hating him and selling him and ended, when the class-over song started to play on the intercom, with the Pharaoh (king) having a dream. I really wonder how much the teacher really understood from my limited vocabulary, but it was kinda cool because I got to mention how Joseph didn't have a law yet but that he knew not to commit adultery, and how God told him the dreams. So it was kinda fun, and probably the longest time I've ever spoken Chinese without stopping. Apparently the teacher, younger than me, had only heard a little bit of the story before.
But that was not the end of my day. When I got home from school I wanted to go to the new Ironman movie, but I knew that I should probably go in service instead, I made the right choice and went in service.
Finding the service spot is always a little tricky, but today, I was only a few minutes late. I took a pedestrian bridge over some sort of parade, walked past a huge "flower pot auction" building, interesting, turned left, within a minute I saw a park, just like on the map. Within minutes of the "flower pot auction" building, which is about 3 times the size of Costco for some reason, I was walking into a lovely park waving to my brothers and sisters.
Evening service today started at 6:30, right after the sun goes down. I was paired with an older sister who's Chinese I can never understand, also she didn't seem to want me to take any doors, I'd knock, the person would open the door, I'd step forward open my mouth and then she'd take over from behind me. I had to exercise patience with her, but despite my frustration I was able to place a set of magazines with a nice lady, and my service partner was very helpful with this.
Half-way through the service captain brother usually shuffles the service partners and I was put with another sister, the mother of the two boys that I had been talking to all night, telling them that I was in fact Superman, not an American but a Kryptonian, and yes, I can fly. They got a kick out of it, and so did I, One is 11 and the other 8 I think. They asked me questions about my super powers the rest of the night.
We only had a half hour left, so the service captain points us, me and about 5 other sisters into a dark alley. Something we'd never do back in America. The alley is about 15 feet wide and goes back for hundreds of feet with no light, turning off into who-knows-where. So it's dark, very dark, but after a couple minutes we got to the end of it and now we were behind a bunch of tall apartment buildings. Behind these buildings there is a big hill, and a forest, basically we're at the edge of a big patch of jungle, or a jungle hill with a few buildings climbing partly up the side of it, and I can hear the sound from it, it sounds just like a jungle is supposed to sound.
Along the edge of this "jungle hill" is a little narrow street that climbs up the hill a little bit then back down, running parallel with the backs of those big apartment buildings. Of course it's a little extra dark, and "exciting" as I was thinking at the time. There a many funny looking little houses and buildings packed unevenly and tightly together. There is even a weird little "tunnel" type part of the street, not a natural tunnel but someone has built a building, a single story, over the top of the narrow street, so it's even darker than the alley. I felt like I was on the "Pirates of the Caribbean" ride in Disneyland, minus the boat. I don't think there was anyone home inside the tunnel part of the street, but beyond it there were some pretty nasty sounding dogs. The sisters were kinda scared of the dogs so I scouted ahead to see if there were any doors to knock on, but I didn't see any, and it turns out the sisters weren't that scared, and probably knew there weren't any doors.
After we came back from our "Pirates of the Caribbean" walk, we stood at the end of the alley waiting for everyone else to get back, the sisters sitting on scooters parked there (It's OK to use any random parked scooter as a seat if you want here, they always sit on them.)
Eventually the two boys came back from some fork in the alley they had been working with someone. And this is where the magic of the evening climaxed. The oldest boy had his hands cupped, he had something alive in there. His mom made him show her, she looked in his cupped hands and said something excited. So I was curious now, I stepped in to look, he opened his hands and at first I thought it was a little Cockroach, but it wasn't, it had a little red spot on it's back. It looked pretty ordinary, though I had never seen one, I wondered why his mom had seemed so excited. They tried explaining it to me... ah, a firefly. I'd never seen one before. And sure enough, it's little light started blinking. Then he let it go, and my evening was sealed with magical wonder.
Of course on my way home I celebrated by buying myself a beer and a bag of stinky tofu. (edit 323) Permalink