A disheveled Santa Stevo from December 24, 2006. I’ll don the red suit again tonight, and be swarmed by 1000 students. In Chinese, Christmas is Happy Jesus’ Birthday. Presumptuous. No, I won’t rant about the religious right or brainwashing. If Christmas gives me an opportunity to be mobbed by my youngsters I won’t complain about the holiday’s lineage.

Yes, I believe.

Thanks to Jay Nova for pointing me in the direction of Slumbering Lungfish. Buy some of their gear.

Shadow morning march. Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.

The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
Winston Churchill

(I’ll steal Robin’s thunder with the use of a quote. Apologies.)

It’s a small world, as the syrupy song proclaims.

My lao po and I were returning from a restaurant a week or two back when we learned some surprising news. We have become incapable of cooking for ourselves. Either laziness or exhaustion, or a little of both are the explanations.

We stopped at the little convenience store/fried chicken shack for provisions. The man sitting behind the counter started speaking to my wife. To my amazement, I could follow the conversation.

Man: Are you from blah-blah village?

Lao Po: Yes.

Man: Is your father’s name ….?

Lao Po: Yes.

Man: Are your brothers ….?

Lao Po: Yes (getting excited).

It turns out the bookstore, a few tables under a large blue tent, is run by a father and son from the same area as my wife’s village. The father went to high school with my wife’s father, and the son with her two brothers. They have been here two years and we passed like proverbial ships in the night.

Of course, this called for a celebration of some sort. A lunch was arranged. The twins, one working across the city, made the trek to dine with new-found old friends. (aside: Chinese men are more physically affectionate than western men. I will never get use to walking arm-in-arm with a man. I will never get use to walking arm-in-arm with a man while sober.)

We ate, we drank. Then the six of us returned to Chateau Stevo, and crammed into the shoebox-like living room, watching a Jackie Chan movie on television while eating endless oranges and drinking countless cups of tea.

New friends from old friends. In a nation of 1.4 billion people, in a city of 12 million, in a community of 50,000, people reconnect. Wonders never cease.

Morning exercises, as seen from the 4th floor. Each day 6,000 students engage in calisthenics, something that might lead to mass protests from their North American counterparts. This was a rather unsuccessful experimentation with the RAW file format. Meh, maybe I’ll get a better shot when I learn the ins-and-outs of this format.