Yeye Goes to China - Flat Stanley 2017

Flat stanley goes to China with Gavyn's Yeye

Sat, 29 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

I’m in China now. I arrived about a week ago. I start teaching later today. Right now, as I started writing this it was Wednesday morning, May 17th. China is 13 hours ahead of my hometown of Searcy, Arkansas in the USA. It usually takes me a few days to get my clock turned around, meet with all the teachers and administrators here at the University of South China for which I will be a visiting professor for the next four weeks.

And yes, I am traveling with Flat Stanley! My grandson Gavyn's class in Fairfax, Virginia, had a lesson on Flat Stanley and the class had to send or give it someone who could journal about Flat's travels! The first grade exercise is a nationally known program designed to teach geography and culture of those that live far and near away from them. My daughter-in-law, Jennifer, called and told me about this and said "This seems like the perfect assignment for you!" After accepting that assignment Gavyn drew and colored Flat Stanley and mailed him to me. A few days before I left, Flat Stanley arrived in my mailbox in Arkansas and off we went.

I started pulling out Flat Stanley and taking photos as soon as I got to the airport. As I started taking pictures, a Delta Airlines customer service agent asked me if that was a Flat Stanley? “Why yes, I said, my grandson gave it to me to accompany me to China!” She replied, “If you want, I can take Flat Stanley to the cockpit of this aircraft to visit with the Pilots? You can’t go with me but Flat Stanley can.” I said, “Oh yes! Here take my camera and get photos of him while he is with the Pilots.” The pilots even gave him some Wings; the same ones they give to children that fly on Delta Airlines. The Wings were the crack and peel stick on variety so I stuck them on Flat and he looked official! I took his picture so that I could send back the photo to Gavyn to show where Flat Stanley had been and what he had been doing.

In addition to traveling with Flat Stanley I was also accompanied by Javen Yeager. Javen was a freshman at Harding that had befriended many Chinese students and asked me aloud one day how I was able to travel to China as I did every year? After telling him briefly how and why I went, I asked him if he wanted to go with me the next time I went? Wow, he jumped on that idea! I went on to explain to him what he would need in passports, visas and money, thinking that would quickly draw him back, but it did not and I was excited about having him as a traveling companion as I made my way across the world. Soon Javen had all the necessary paperwork and finances worked out and off we went.

On Wednesday, May 10th, we made our way through the Little Rock and Chicago airports, on my way to Hong Kong I continued to take photos of me and Flat together in various situations. I was surprised how many people were aware of the Flat Stanley story, purpose, and function. When we boarded the flight to Hong Kong, there were a lot of Asian people looking at me funny, (no surprise there), but I soon realized they were wondering why this grey haired Caucasian traveler had a paper doll as his traveling companion. It was along and grueling flight. It was scheduled for 16 hours but we arrived about an hour early.

Javen, Flat and I arrived in Hong Kong on Thursday, May 11, and spent the night in Shenzhen in a Hotel near the home of a couple of my Chinese students from Harding, Betty and Ren, (a married couple), actually, her parent’s home. Thursday morning, we awoke, had breakfast and headed to the Lin family home to meet and greet Betty’s family. Betty was a student in my Communication Principles class about a year previous. Ren was a classmate of mine when I enrolled in a MBA class. They are a sweet and delightful Chinese couple that had been dating for a couple of years but got married soon after they both arrived in Searcy. At Betty’s parent’s house I told them of the story of Flat Stanley and they all wanted to make sure they got a picture of them and my grandson’s school project!

One of my usual activities that I do as soon as I can after arriving in China, (or any country), was to head to a phone store and acquire a phone number form that country, (china), by purchasing a “chip” that can be inserted into my IPhone. Ren knew exactly where to take us to acquire that and help us negotiate a good deal.

After that short night’s rest, some good Dim Sum for breakfast, a delightful visit to Betty’s family for Chinese tea, and a new phone, they put me, Javan and Flat Stanley on the train to our destination, Nan Hua Da Xue, in Hengyang, Hunan.
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Entering China with flat stanley

Fri, 28 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

While on the train I pulled Flat Stanley out of my carry-on bag so that I could get a photo of him on the Chinese High Speed Railway system. When I looked back down there was the cutest little Chinese girl looking at me and Flat as if she wanted to know what I was doing and who was this friend I had with me. Her parents, from across the aisle had sent her over to say hi to me, as she had just started learning English in her pre-school classes. I had her hold Flat so I could take their photo together. It was all I could do to get Flat back from her. I tried to explain in my broken Chinese why I was traveling with a Paper Doll. That little girl was soooo “ku ai.” (Chinese for cute).

When we arrived the Hengyang East train station, we were met by two professors of business marketing department from Nan Hua Da Xue (the University of South China), one for whom I had met the previous year, Fanny, (Xiao Huan) and her colleague, Joy, (Zhang Bao Xin). Xiao Huan waved furiously when she saw us, leaving no doubt she and her friend was there to pick us up.

I am teaching at the University of South China in Hengyang, Hunan, China. It's a city of about seven million people and a campus of about 40,000. I will be teaching two sections on Principles of Marketing, one each for Joy and Fanny, and one class in Brand Management for Fanny. All total I will have five class meeting per week, but only three preps per week. Each class will have about 90 students. I teach in English and a little Chinese. My PowerPoints are in two languages. My Chinese professor friends, (Joy and Fanny) will be my teaching partner while I am here. They translate my PowerPoints into Chinese and we merge them into one file. What I can't communicate to them in my feeble Chinese, they will be translating for me. It's actually their classes that I will teach for the next four weeks.

Both of these Chinese professors were so excited to have us there for four weeks. Maybe because they were not going to have to teach much during that time. But they had plenty to do for me for class preparation and delivery. Fanny and Joy took Javen, Flat, and I back to the apartment where we would live for the next four weeks. I knew it well. I had lived there for four weeks on four other occasions, the summers of 2010-2013. I actually had to show them where the apartment was on the campus and which apartment we would occupy. After they made a quick perusal through the apartment to make sure everything that we would need immediately was in place they offered to take us to dinner. We were exhausted. One late night arrival in Shenzhen and an early rise didn’t really get us caught up on our sleep. We declined, gracefully explaining that we were tired and that we wanted to catch up with our Harding graduated, current English teachers, for this university that lived in the same apartment building. Joy said, “Why don’t we go to dinner tomorrow night and you can bring all of your American friends with you?” We gleefully accepted that offer!

Meanwhile, my former Harding student Rachel Weiss, who lived three floors above us and was expecting us, came bounding through the door to greet us throwing her arms around my neck! She brought with her two other former Harding students, Meredith Riddle and Ali James. Meredith I had met several times before, although I did not know her well. I had seen Ali around the Harding campus and had even skyped with her but had not met her in person before now. Joy and fanny was still there and told them all of our dinner plans for the next night!

I could blubber on and on about my admiration of Rachel Weiss. She’s beautiful (inside and out), talented, outgoing, loving, fun, never seems to be down, giving, energetic, great people skills and absolutely loves what she does. Plus, I have never seen a group of students, Chinese or otherwise, that is as crazy about their teacher as much as these students are about Rachel. If I am in another class and I mention that Rachel was one of my students in America, they swoon at the sound of her name and tell everybody that she is the best teacher they’ve ever had! And rightfully so, She. Is. Amazing! I playfully once told Rachel’s mother that if Rachel was ever available for adoption that I would be first in line! Wendy Weiss, returned the jesting comment with, “If you’ll pick up her school loan payments you can have her now!”

The next morning, on a Saturday, I got up early, (I usually do anyway, but I was wide awake from my jet lag). So I took my buddy Flat to the open market! The open market is sort of like a huge Farmers Market. The markets sell meat, eggs, fruits, and vegetables, just like grocery stores in America. Sometimes they sell strange foods, but strange foods can be delicious, too! They even had Scorpions for sale. I once wrote about the Chinese open markets that it is a "Cacophony of Chinese Culture and Cuisine!" Flat seem to have a good time loved the people he met! The Chinese folks buying and selling their produce and such seemed to enjoy Flat Stanley as well. They wanted to get their picture with him when I explained who he was and why I was doing this. They all wanted to send their greeting to my friends and family back in Mei Gua (America).

The next night came, we all gathered at our apartment building and walked the half-mile or so to the main commerce area outside the south campus gate. I suggested a restaurant that I had really liked the many years that I had been here before and they all agreed. It was one of their favorites as well. While at dinner I pulled out Flat Stanley and told them of the project that my grandson Gavyn we doing together. The Americans knew of flat Stanley, the Chinese did not.

The first few days I just visited a few classes to just to bring them greetings from Harding University and the USA. I always leave time at the end of my talks to let the students ask me questions... about almost anything. One student asked me how far away from home I was? I said, "I'm not really sure in miles/kilometers, but if I were any farther I think would actually be closer!", (they all had to think about that one). And yes, I told them of the story of Flat Stanley! I think he became more popular than I did! They lined up after class to get their photo made with Flat!

Occasionally, Javen and I would venture out to look around the city but I always took Flat Stanley with me looking for more and creative ways to show him to others so that Gavyn would have an amazing story to report back to his class. One day we went to McDonalds for Ice Cream and caught a few young girls, probably high school age, casting their stare over our way several times. I knew they were looking at Javen, but I walked over and introduced myself, and Flat Stanley to them!

During the entire next week of classes, I carried Flat Stanley with me and took many opportunities to introduce him and teach the students about the concept of learning about our world through geography, culture and people. As he had been the first week, Flat Stanley became very popular among the students.
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Flat Stanley Goes Missing

Wed, 26 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

On Saturday, May 20th, in our second weekend in Hengyang, Javan, Flat and I started out for Guangzhou and Donguang to visit our Harding students that were from that area. Plus, on Monday,I had been invited to speak to the Public Relations majors at the Guangdong University of Foreign studies (GUFS). Javan and I were going to two different cities, he to Guangzhou and me first to Donguang. I was going to visit Chen Yingying, a delightful young student that I first met in 2016 while visiting and lecturing at the university she was attending.

Yingying later transferred to Harding and she had invited me down to her hometown to have dinner and meet her family. I was really looking forward to this meeting. Javan and I were going to meet that evening in Guangzhou at the hotel we had reserved and we planned to return to Hangyang on Tuesday.

We all left early in Saturday morning. Joy, my teaching colleague, and now good friend, had made arrangements for a Didi, (like an Uber car) to pick us up at the south gate of the campus. We got up, had a bite to eat and headed to the gate. I checked my bag, my fanny pack, my hat, and my backpack. I had my train ticket, my cash, and my passport – check, check, and double check! Everything was in place. The driver was waiting for us. We loaded up and quicker than ever before we arrived at the train station. The early morning traffic was light (for Hengyang standards).. and then it happened! The belt/fanny pack I was wearing was nowhere to be found! It had my ticket, my passport my credit cards, and about ¥4,000 or about $600. Aaagghh! The car was pulling away and I was convinced that it must have been in the seat where I was sitting. I shouted to wait, stop, ...wait!!! But the Didi kept driving away. Javan asked me if I wanted him to run after it, and before I could answer he took off sprinting trying to get the drivers attention, but to no avail. Watching that car leave down the highway had my heart and my stomach bending over in disbelief! When Javan jogged back to where I was stranded, out of breath he gaspingly asked, “What was in the bag?” Well, I had my phone in my hand, but I listed the aforementioned items and then it hit me... FLAT STANLEY was in that bag! No! Not Flat Stanley????? Noooooo.....

How could I have been so careless? What was I going to do now? And then what really horrified me, how do I tell and explain this to Gavyn? I decided to sit down right there on the sidewalk to assess my situation and think. I beleive it was God who gave me a sense of peace at that moment. First as I assessed the situation, I counted my blessings. I was well, safe and had plenty of resources of time, talent and money to overcome this problem but I had to take a deep breath and think about what to do next. I got up and immediately went into crisis management mode.

My first call was to my teaching colleague Joy and told her of the situation. I knew I would need some Chinese language assistance and she had been such a blessing about helping me with all things about my daily logistics of being in a foreign country and her hometown. She said she could call the same Didi driver and ask him to go back to get me, which he did. Then I called my wife, Donna. I knew it was 13 hours earlier back home so it was about 6:30 p.m. on Friday. I told her quickly what had occurred and immediately after hanging up she called and had my credit and debit card cancelled. I didn’t know what was going to happen next but I decide to send Javan on to his destination without me. Javan is about as responsible and mature of a young man than I have ever met, and he is only 19 years old. We talked about it. He had a Harding, Chinese student friend, David Fan, that was going to meet him in Guangzhou at the train station. David was then going to get him connected to the other people Javan was planning to see and meet. I had promised Javan’s parents that he would be travelling with me and that I would be responsible for him. I felt that compelling directive, but I also knew that I was not going to Guangzhou, at least not soon. He, on the other hand, couldn’t really help me and I hated to ruin his plans. I somehow knew that things would get worked out and that I would get back to Guangzhou sometime later that day or at least that weekend. I trusted him completely to handle himself, plus I knew he had a phone for which he could call me or his Chinese friends in Guangzhou if he needed anything. I pointed and said GO, and gave him little choice! I knew he felt felt bad about leaving me so I kindly assured him that Joy and I could take care of this problem and I didn’t really need his help. He looked at his watch as his train was departing shortly. He took a few steps backwards, wished me luck, and headed through the doors of the train station. I sat back down to wait for the Didi driver. While I waited I called Chen Yingying in Donguang and apologetically explained what happened and that I would not be coming to see her today. Of course Yingying was so gracious and said, “That’s OK, maybe another weekend?”

It took about an hour but the same Didi driver finally returned. He had with him about three friends that spoke some English, of which he spoke none. They all helped me look through his car, under the seats and every nook and cranny inside the car and we found nothing. He assured me that he did not see another bag of mine. I suspected that if he did, he had taken my ¥4,000 and tossed the bag! I asked him if that were indeed the case, not expecting him to admit to that, and sure enough, he vehemently denied that accusation. He then drove me back to my apartment, which is when I realized that my apartment keys were also in that bag.

I sat down on to the steps of my apartment building almost in tears when I heard my phone ring. It was Fu Huali, Sunny, the office manager from the office of International Relations which was offically hosting me and providing me with my apartment. Joy had called her and told her of what was happening to me. She asked for me to meet her at her office where she had another key to my apartment. I walked across campus in the rain and sat on her building steps. The office was closed as it was Saturday, so I just waited... for what seemed like forever, but in reality it was about 30 minutes. Soon, Sunny arrived, opened up the building and found her way to a cabinet in her office that held keys to the apartments for which she managed for the foreign teachers. She asked where I was going? Guangzhou, I said, to speak at GUFS on Monday. Cancel those plans, you can’t travel in China without a passport! And, it will take a couple of days to get you some temporary paperwork for you to do so. We can go to the local government office to get that on Mondsay. My heart sank. I was supposed to spend four days in Guangzhou with Harding students, university collegues and dear friends! I asked if there was any way... “No!” was the abrupt answer.

I walked back to my apartment, let myself in, left the door open, and slumped into the most comfortable chair in the apartment to assess what to do next when I soon heard, “Hello Steve, Are you Ok?” It was Zhang Bao Xin, Joy, my colleague. My my, wasn’t she a welcomed sight? She had come to help me get this situation taken care of. Unbeknownst to me, she called the local police to report my missing bag. Joy had spent most of the morning at the police station. Joy told them what Didi she had arranged for me, so the police could summon the driver to report to the Police station. The Police and Joy had questioned him for a couple of hours, with him giving consistent answers that he had never seen my bag and that he had no part in its disappearance. Joy also brought the police report that I could use to travel without a passport! “But, Sunny said, I couldn...” “No, this is what you need,” she said. And she handed me the police report. Here, you’ll also need this while you’re Guangzhou,” and she handed me her credit card to use while I was there! After my mouth closed in amazement that she would make such an offer, I thanked her kindly but said, “No, I don’t want you to do that. I still have plenty of money.” I had learned a long time ago while traveling in another country not to carry all of your money in one place. I had another ¥4,000 in a hiding place in my suitcase that I had left behind in the apartment. I couldn’t express my thanks for what she had done but it wasn’t money that I needed right now. What I wanted, was to get to Guangzhou for the weekend. For one thing, West Ling, my Chinese colleague from Harding, was there and I knew he could help me navigate my way through this process. And, I knew that GUFS was planning on paying me ¥2,000 for speaking on Monday. That was half of what I just lost. No, money wasn’t the problem, I just needed to be walked through the process of reacquiring a Visa to even be in the country and then a Passport in order for me to get back in the USA once I departed. I had determined by now that this incident was not going to keep me from doing what I came to do – be a blessing from God to those that were seeking him. I told that to Joy, when she said, “You know, I’m a Christian too.” That’s when I truly believe that God had arranged for us to meet so that she could be that blessing from God to me!

After Joy helped me buy another train ticket she put me on the correct bus to the train station and by mid-afternoon I was on my way to Guangzhou. To say that I was clutching my possessions a little tighter was a gross understatement!
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Flat Stanley was no longer with me!

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

Upon arriving at the Guangzhou South train station I made my way to the Subway station and carefully studied the map to see where I was and where I needed to be. A young man, probably a university age student, thought I needed his help, (which I certainly did), and he asked me in broken English if he could help?

Between my poor Chinese and his poor English, he helped me acquire the token I needed, gave me some directions on what train to take, what transfers to make, and after about an hour of subway travel, I walked out of the Subway station and looked up at my hotel! Javan was already checked in and came down to the lobby to meet me after I called to check on him. I had reserved the room with my credit card, but he had to use his to acquire the room upon checking in. He used his Debit card, so I just handed him the cash that I would have paid for the room for the night. The next day we were to change hotels to the location that GUFS had pre-arranged and paid for as part of my compensation for speaking on Monday. But, for now I was in Guangzhou, checked into my room, and had plenty of cash to continue on with my plans. I got a bite to eat and went to bed early that night. I was exhausted. But the lingering thoughts about what had happened that day had kept me awake longer than I wanted it to. I was fine. God had cared for me, kept me safe and sent an Angel named Joy to help me. But what an ordeal... and Flat Stanley was somewhere in China without me... How was I ever going to tell Gavyn? I didn’t cry myself to sleep over losing Flat Stanley, but almost, I was distraught over losing Flat more than any of my other losses.

The next thing I knew the morning light was peeking through my curtains. It was a new day. It was the Lord’s day and I felt so much better. I got up to take my morning walk and concocted a story about what was going on with Flat Stanley. I was going to insert into this story that Flat had been kidnapped and was being held for ransom... or something like that. The story was fun to think about and it gave me a creative outlet to weave around my misfortune of losing Flat.

Javan and I had church plans this day! We were going to meet Jeff Zhang and his wife Dan Ho Li this morning and attend the small Guangzho gathering of Christians that this newly married, Chinese, Harding graduated, couple met with. Both Jeff and Dani graduated from Harding. They were both baptized and became Christians while attending Harding before they ever met each other. Dani had been one of my students in my Principles of Communication class a few years previous. She went on to get her degree in nursing. Jeff had been one of my classmates in an MBA class. Sounds like Ren and Betty doesn’t it?

This day was going to be exciting for me because Dani and Jeff had agreed to travel with me after worship to Foshan, a nearby city where we were going to meet up with one of my other former Harding students, Ivy, and her brother. It was Ivy’s brother last year, when I went to visit Ivy, that asked me if I could tell him all about Jesus and the Bible. I was so startled about that and the fact that we just couldn’t communicate very well that I asked him if I could get back to him with some help on that matter? He said, yes, and we stayed in touch with each other throughout the next year. I had told Jeff and Dani about him and they quickly said they would help out so that they could study with him. I wanted to make the short trip to Foshan to meet them again and this time take Jeff and Dani with me.

Soon Jeff arrived at the hotel and met us in the lobby. He explained that Dani would meet us at church. The meeting location was almost across the street. We walked just a few blocks into the back streets of a neighborhood, found the building and went up the elevator to the room which was the meeting place was for this sweet, sweet little group of Christians. I had met with this same group the year before and many of the 12-15 people remembered me. One family had become Christians about 15-20 years ago while attending university when he met up with some China Now workers. But Javan and I were their guests, so they tried as much as they could to conduct the service in English just for us! We sang a lot of familiar songs albeit in Chinese.

They preached in Chinese but prayed and had communion in English. Afterwards we visited with each other and had a lot of photos taken together. One man, Daniel, Zhang Dan and his wife, Sara, Liu Tian and their little daughter, Kate, Zhang Jingshu all spoke pretty good English. He asked me what our afternoon plans were? I told them that Jeff and Dani were taking me to Foshan, when he interrupted me to ask Jeff how we were getting there because there is no train all the way there? Jeff said he didn’t know yet, and that’s when God’s plan started unfolding. This young man and his little family said they were traveling beyond Foshan and would happily drive us there, especially after he heard why we were making that trip. Praise God! We all loaded into his car and off we went!
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Foshan Without Flat

Mon, 24 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

After about a drive of one hour, at around noon, we arrived in Foshan. We went to the designated area where we were to meet Ivy but she was not there yet. We assured Zhang Dan and hi wife Sarah that we would be fine and that he and his family should go on after dropping us off. I had Dani and Jeff with me and we could figure out how to meet with Ivy and how to get back. We waited in a park.

The sun was out, it was muggy and warm but not to bad. Soon Ivy came walking up to us and I introduced everybody to each other. We then walked to a nearby restaurant where Ivy’s brother had made reservations. Often in China dinner meetings are made in private rooms away from the general dining area of the restaurant. When her brother showed up I explained that I had brought Jeff and Dani along with me to help him understand the Bible and Jesus. He seemed to be genuinely excited about that. He greeted us all very warmly and as we sat down, he and Ivy began perusing the lengthy menu together.

The food was great but the real reason I came was to connect Jeff, and Dani to Ivy’s brother so that they could continue to engage in each others lives and study the Bible together. I felt very satisfied that after one year I had been able to make this connection for him. I have yet to hear how they are doing with this effort.

After dinner we were shown around town to see what this city looked like, but we didn’t have a lot of time to spare as Javan and I needed to get back to check into are other hotel and meet the hostess that GUFS was sending to take us to dinner. Ivy’s brother seemed genuinely touched that I had remembered to help him with is Bible study and then offered to drive us back to the Guangzhou subway station so that we could each go our separate ways. It was so good to hug Dani and Jeff as we departed from them.

When we got back to the subway station Javan and I decided to take a taxi to the Aloft Hotel near the GUFS campus. At our scheduled meeting time Stella, our student hostess, was waiting in the lobby for us. Stella was a beautiful young lady, immaculantly dressed, and probably about 20 years old. She was an English major and spoke our language very well. As is the case in China many girls major in English hoping that they can be employed after graduation with a company that does business with American company’s. Part of that job is to meet the American business people, be their translator for them as they transact with the Chinese business, take them to dinner and get them transported back and forth to where they need to be, whether it be meetings, or meals with the corporate management team, or just shopping. Stella had volunteered for this role of helping us as a part of one of her class projects. She was friendly, kind and courteous to me. But to say that she was enamored with Javan would have been a huge understament. Stella answered my questions and would say what she needed to me, but always quickly turned her attention back to Javan wishing to engage him in a much more bantering and lively discussion. She said she had a special restaurant picked out for us that all Americans really liked. I was excited to get some Chinese food that was not Hunan spicy, although the food in Foshan was great. Where did Stella take us? Pizza Hut! Now, I’m from Chicago, which automatically makes me a Pizza snob. I don’t even eat Pizza Hut in America because it’s not very good. But there I was trying to feign excitement as not to offend Stella.

It was raining very hard that evening. Stella had plans to walk us around the University Island area where we were located and show us the Hot Spots of the evening. But the rain put a damper on those plans. I thanked Stella for the meal and the evening, explained to her that I was much older than Javan and her and that I was going to return to my room, but that she and Javan could go out and see more of the town if they wanted to do so without me. “Yes, she said, without checking with Javan, “We’ll do that!” I went off to bed and I heard Javan come in sometime much later but I never rolled over and looked at the time. Javan later told me that Stella called a few of her friends and they all met at some sort of game center business where they spent the rest of the evening playing pool (billiards) and trying communicate.

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A Day At GUFS

Sat, 22 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

The next morning Javan and I had breakfast at the hotel and waited to meet West Ling, (and Stella) in the lobby to take us through our itinerary for the day. I don’t think Stella knew that West was going to be there and I could see the disappointment in her face at not being able to show us to our meetings on campus. I invited Stella to go with us until she had to leave for class, and that we would meet up with her when we showed up for our afternoon class for which she was a class member and I was the guest speaker. She seemed to be delighted with that opportunity.

West Ling had a full day planned for us. Including handing us off to Dr. Janet Cai. Janet was a professor at GUFS that I had met when she was a visiting professor at Harding in 2012. It was her class that I would later be guest lecturing.

We sat down in the Lobby and I explained to West what had transpired just two days before when I lost all of my credentials, ID cards, money and such. Stella listened as I was looking for West to give me some direction about how to proceed to acquire a new Passport and Visa. Stella broke into our conversation to tell me in what seemed like a very stern voice, “You should be more careful! You need to make sure you keep track of your stuff better when you travel!” I was stunned that this 20 year old girl would give an older man such a rebuke. It was so unlike the Chinese culture to do this. I was a bit surprised that she said this. I sarcasticly said, “Thank you Stella, I’m so glad to now know that!” West said something to her in Chinese and she backed off. As soon as I saw her back down from West’s comments I felt bad. I guess I shouldn’t have been so sarcastic to Stella, after all, she was right!

I knew that West would help me about as much as anybody I knew in China. After all he had arranged for hundreds of Chinese students to acquire their Passports and Visa’s so that could attend Harding University. He said, “You need to go to the U.S. Embassy to get another Passport. Then you need to go back to Hengyang to get a replacement Visa. Where is the Embassy? What do I do to apply? How long would this take? I had a zillion questions....

I then asked West if he would talk to Sunny back in Hengyang. She is my International host and was in charge of all my legal details while I was in China. “Sure,” he said. I called her number and handed him my phone. I wanted him and Sunny to be on the page as to my next move and somehow make this Flat Stanley kidnapping get resolved. They spoke in Chinese for a few minutes. As they spoke West would look back at me, but I couldn’t read what that meant. When he got off the phone he looked at me and said, She’s angry! She said she told you not to leave town. Well, I needed to be here to keep my commitment to you and Dr. Cai. So I’ll smooth things over with her when I get back.

West Ling told me I would have to go to the U.S. Embassy in Guangzhou to apply for a new Passport. He made a phone call, spoke in Chinese for a few minutes, said Zai Jian, turned to me and said, “You need to go on-line to the Embassy website, download the forms, and make an appointment to come back to Guangzhou to complete the process.” I had a full day the next day in Guangzhou and I was returning to Hengyang on Tuesday. “I’ll start this process when I get back to my apartment,” I lamented.

Today is Monday and it’s a National Holiday on Tuesday, it’s Dragon Boat Days. So we can’t even call them until mid-week.

Our first stop upon leaving the Aloft Hotel was a campus meeting of prospective students. There were about 20 students who seemed very delighted to see me and buzz to each other about us, but I couldn’t get them to engage of communicate back with us. I was told that they thought their English was to poor to talk to me, so I greeted again, this time in Chinese. They laughed at my poor Chinese skills! I told them to relax, that their English was better than my Chinese! I delivered to them my pre-planned speech about the differences of universities in America compared to Chinese. Ironically, the Chinese High School system is very hard compared to America’s but their University process was so much easier than ours. That meant these students had experienced their own rigid high school system and was now going to be transferring to a harder more rigid university life as well. There were two female students that came up to us afterwards to get their photos made with us. One had good English skills and was actually quite chatty with us. The other student never said a word, even when spoken to. She smiled, nodded her head, looked at her friend, and allowed her friend answered for her.

It was near noon, and West had planned a luncheon with two of the University leaders along with Dr. Cai. Even though I had been communicating with Dr. Cai via email and working out our speaking arrangement I had not seen Janet in a year or so, she was very excited to see me again What a wonderful and delightful person she is.

After lunch we hurried back to her classroom where upon arriving a minute or so late we walked in to a thunderous round of applause and standing! There were about 125 students that had been told we would be there. Stella was in this class and had prepped the class about who we were, where we were from and such. I first told them a bit about myself, and my family. I introduced Javan and then went into my planned lesson on Public Relations practices in America. They also applauded when I finished! Dr. Cai apparently told them that I would be happy to take photos with them and they just rushed the front of the room when we dismissed. I stood there for about 30 minutes trying to meet everybody that wanted to say hi to me and get there photo made with me or Javan. Finally, Dr. Cai told them all we had to leave and they applauded again! I NEVER get responses like that back home.

Janet escorted us back to our hotel and informed us that she and her husband would be taking us to dinner that evening and to be ready at 6:00 o’clock. I headed for a Chinese nap and Javan chose to walk around the area promising to be back soon. We were ready and as scheduled Janet showed up in our lobby and we got in the waiting car for which her husband was driving. Her husband, whom I had met in 2012, was also a university professor but he was at the Guandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Soon we arrived at the restaurant. It was raining again. And our table was outside, or so I thought it was. It was actually in another building that we had to access by walking out of the back of the building and down a walkway that was built over a pond of water. Our table was in a private room off of this walkway that had glass walls and one very large round table. I thought Janet must have invited more people to join us? Yep, soon one of my Harding Chinese students,Yuyang, and his parents walked into the room. I had met the parents the previous year and had Yuyang man in my most recent class. Then I remembered that he was in fact the nephew of Dr. Janet's husband. His Mom brought us gifts! It’s so Chinese to bring gifts for visitors. But they brought way to much. I knew that unless I left something behind that I would need to buy another suitcase to get home. I couldn’t refuse the gifts. That was a real social no-no in this culture. I thanked them again, and again, and carried them out as we left that evening. Later, before I returned home, I took the gifts of tea, and the porcelain tea set (cups and serving pieces) out of the styrofoam packaging the were in and repacked them in something that took up a lot less room in my suitcase and I was able to get them home unscathed.

Before the evening ended Dr. Cai asked for my train tickets. She then reached into her purse and pulled out almost ¥2,000 to pay me for speaking and cover my costs of travel and such. I knew this was the arrangement and after losing ¥4,000 earlier it was a bit of a relief to get this in my pocket, although I would have done what I did for absolutely no charge!

The next morning, after breakfast, Stella was there to escort us to the train station, make sure we were able to get our tickets and set us on our way back to Hengyang. She was a delightful hostess and a very welcomed help while we were in Guangzhou. We both thanked her. Then she turned to Javan and announced that she had a gift for him. She then proceeded to pull out a book, a paperback, used American literature book of some sort, that she said was one of her favorite American books. Stella handed that to Javan. He looked surprised and I didn’t think he had a return gift for her, but without a second's hesitation he said, I have a book for you too. It’s my favorite book. He reached into his backpack and pulled out his traveling Bible and gave it to her. She was excited to say the least! I’m not sure she actually knew what it was but it was from Javan! Stella held the book to her heart and told him she would cherish it! Just as we were finished saying goodbye I wanted to get a selfie of she and I. No! She exclaimed. Why I asked?” She didn’t like the way she looked. Are you kidding me??? She looked like she had just stepped of the front page of a fashion magazine. But she insisted that she did not want me to have a photo made with her! So I just said, “OK,” turned around and we left. I was very disappointed in not having that picture, but she would not have any of that.
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Flat Stanley 2.0

Thu, 20 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

The two-hour train ride back to Hengyang seemed to be shorter than usual. We made our way from the station to the bus, to the open market bus stop near our apartment, and walked the last two kilometers or so. Still, all the while I was going over in my mind what I would need to do to start the process of replacing my Passport and Visa. I still couldn’t keep from thinking about how bad I felt about losing Flat Stanley… What was I going to do to fix this? I mean money is just money, and the Visa and Passport was just time and money to replace, but Flat Stanley… Flat Stanley was irreplaceable! All I had was a photo….

Yes! I had a photo! That’s it! I had a very high quality photo of Flat that I had made just after he got his Pilot Wings back in Little Rock the day we left. I can get a photo printed to size and I could use that. Yes! I called Joy and told her of my idea and wondered where I might get a photo printed? “I know just the place,” she said. “I’ll be over soon to take you there.”

When Joy arrived She took me down to the south gate and right next door was a photo and print services store. I had walked passed the little shop hundreds of times but never knew what they did at that store. It was a photo print shop! She explained to the shop keeper what I needed. I emailed the image from my phone to the shop owner, and in another :45 seconds or so I had a brand new glossy version of Flat Stanley! I borrowed a pair of scissors, cut out the image, held it up and said, “Joy, meet Flat Stanley 2.0!” Joy laughed and laughed. I then suggested we get another one printed for Joy’s 6-year old daughter Anna.

As excited as I was about getting a Flat Stanley replacement, still I could not seem to go two minutes without thinking about how I was going to get my Passport and Visa replaced.

The Chinese holiday called Dragon Boat Days was now upon us. Joy asked Javan and I if we would like to join her at her family holiday gathering. Yes, I said! I thought, this is what real China is like… family, food and fun. Plus, I was anxious to meet Joy’s family; her husband, her parents and especially her daughter, Anna. Anna Qian is Zhang Bao Xin’s six-year-old daughter. When we arrived at the restaurant that was to host the family dinner I was introduced to everyone and they all seemed really excited to have two American visitors at their family gathering. Then I finally saw Anna. I love little Chinese children. They are sooooo cute! And, they make me feel like the grandpa that my Chinese name implies. Anna was as advertised, very cute, a little shy and apprehensive about meeting me, as any six-year-old would be meeting one of her parent’s friends, especially from a different world. shy… until she warmed up to me! Then Anna was lively and rambunctious, but she was still cute. In fact, just adorably cute! I gave her the Flat Stanley I had printed for her and had her mother explain the meaning behind this paper doll. The entire family laughed at me carrying around this Flat Stanley character but they seemed to welcome me with the joy that their daughter, Joy had shown me.

The next day I started making arrangements to start replacing my Passport and Visa. The university still owed me about half of the money they would be paying me for teaching. It was Sunny Fu that needed to help me start the process of replacing the Passport and Visa so she went ahead and secured the rest of the money they owed me. Throughout all of this ordeal I had plenty of cash to do pretty much whatever I needed but I knew my travel options would be limited or at least more difficult. You need a passport or national ID card to buy and train ticket in China. But I had my paper copy of my Passport and the paper copy of the Police report from my lost items. I had been instructed to go on line to start the process of replacing my Passport but new that I had to go back to Guangzhou where the nearest U.S. Embassy was located.

I decided to call Crescent, or Zhang Yijun. Crescent was my delightful Chinese son that I had connected with the previous summer and had arranged for him, along with Donna, to be a part of the Harding Chinese Student Host Program. That program had an American family become a home away from home for a Chinese student. When I called Crescent I told him what happened and that I need to get back to Guangzhou and to the U.S. Embassy. I asked him if he would be willing to meet me at the train station, get me over to the U.S. Embassy and then back to the train station for a return trip to Hengyang the same day? Of course, he said, but do you know my Harding roommate Michael Fu? I thought I did, but I had not had him in my classes, nor had engaged in him socially beyond meeting him. “Well,” he said, “Michael’s father is the Director of International Relations for the Guangdong province,” (for which Guangzhou was located), and that he thought his dad could help me with this process. Crescent, said, let me call Michael and get back to you?”

Michael called me directly and with near perfect English told me that he heard what happened to me. He said, “I will call my father’s office for you and have them get back to you.” The next day I got a call from Dr. Fu’s secretary informing me that she had been assigned to take care of my Passport issue. Her spoken English was excellent. When I mentioned to her that it was good to hear an American speaking English she informed me that she was in fact, Chinese! She said that every Chinese person who worked at the Embassy had to pass an English proficiency test. None-the-less she told me exactly what I need to do to get my passport and paperwork in order. I need to go on-line and make an appointment, download the correct forms and come back to Guangzhou to visit the U.S. Embassy. She also let me know that she would have the staff know I was coming and what I needed before I got there, and not to worry about anything, that she would take care of this for me! I never felt so relieved… I knew that God was taking care of me, but God sometimes works in mysterious ways. Little did I know that He was using my students, for whom I love so dearly, to help me while I was in their hometown. Guanxi is what they call this in China, (the system of social networks and influential relationships that facilitate business and other dealings). In my circles we call this the providence of God!

I had an appointment for about 10 days out, I had the forms downloaded and printed, I had someone to escort me to and from the Embassy and I exhaled knowing that I would indeed get home at the end of this excursion!

I went on with my mission of teaching and being a difference in somebody’s life! And I went on introducing Flat Stanley, albeit Flat Stanley 2.0.
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Flat Stanley Meets up with zhang yijun

Tue, 18 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

On Saturday, May 27th, Javan and I left Hengyang once again for Guangzhou. Our plans were to visit some of my other former and current Chinese students, namely Li Aiting (Kitty), and her husband Berry, and of course Crescent and his family. Javan was to meet up with JoJo. The best part of the trip was that this time Flat Stanley 2.0 was going with me.

Javan and I met Jojo at the Guangzhou South train station. Jojo was Javan’s Chinese Chapel Buddy from Harding for the last year. Javan always told her that if he ever made a trip to China he would try to come see her. And sure enough here we were. I wanted this trip to be much more relaxed than the last trip to Guangzhou where I was so anxious about how to live without my Passport and Visa for a few weeks. I was to meet Zhang Yijun at my hotel that he suggested that was near his home. Jojo helped me buy my subway ticket and instructed me where I need to catch the first train, which transfers I need to make, and what my final destination stop would be. She wrote it down for me in Pin Ying and in Chinese so that I could recognize it on the overhead map that is in every subway car. Javan was going to be in another part of town than I was so we got two different hotels, but did plan to meet up with him for a family meeting on Sunday morning.

By now, I was on my way, headed across Guangzhou by myself, the third largest city in China and one of the largest cities in the world. I made it there with little or no issues. I love traveling alone in China just so I can say I did, and to show myself that I can! And, I wasn’t really alone… my buddy Flat Stanley was with me, albeit FS 2.0!

Soon I was at my last subway stop. I exited the car, wiggled my way through the crowded station and the menagerie of people, bound up the stairs to the street level, and looked around. It was a crowded, chaotic, and loud environment. Street vendors were everywhere, lots of people gathered around in circles watching others play Mahjong and more. I was told what direction I would need to walk to get to my hotel, or, as my better discretion at the time dictated, try to get a taxi to my final destination. I must have looked lost and bewildered because soon there was a nice young man who came up to me and in pretty good English asked if he could help me. After I told him where I was going he said, “Oh you need a taxi, that’s too far to walk.” He waived down a taxi, I got in and he looked in the passenger side window instructed the driver where to take me. I sat there thinking, I hope he really knows where I need to go… and off we went.

In a few minutes I was in the unloading area of the Hotel that Yijun had arranged for me to stay. I had called and asked him to make my reservation because I didn’t have a credit card to do so. I assured him that I wanted him to make the reservation and that I would pay for the room with cash when I checked in or out, as the hotel would dictate. I checked in and went to the room and took a quick nap, not knowing where and when I would be for the rest of the day to do so. I pulled Flat Stanley out of my backpack, set him on the night stand and told him (and Siri) to wake me in 30 minutes!

When I awoke I called Yijun to tell him I had arrived. He said I’ll be right there. I only live about a five-minute walk from there. I met Yijun in the lobby and we went to lunch. It was a restaurant that was in the lobby of the hotel. The food was good, but nothing very unusual in cuisine and taste for Guangzhou, but the tea they served was great! That restaurant provided a Chinese tea service at each table. I inquired about the kind of tea it was and the staff member that prepared the tea for me brought me back a new unopened tea bag of the kind of tea she was serving. I told Yijun that I would like to find a place to buy some tea like this before I left Guangzhou.

Yijun and I hailed a taxi and we went to his parent’s business, Creative Teaching Academy. It’s a private English school for preschooler’s that also has an after school program for elementary aged students. Yijun had told his parents that I taught marketing, advertising and public relations. They asked me if I would be willing to make a video for them. Of course I didn’t really have the proper equipment to do so as I would have done at home but said, Yes, I’ll do what I can for you. It turned out to be a lot of fun. Crescent (Yijun) ended up being the videographer shooter (with a little coaching from me). I thought for a few moments and had a series of simple statements that I conferred with Yijun about and I was ready. I had about four different talking points I would extemporaneously speak to while I was walking in and then out of the frame. Doing this strategically made for an easy edit opportunity by somebody else. Crescents Momma and Baba loved it!

I had met his Mama and Baba the previous year. In 2016, West Ling had taken us to dinner which was where I first met Zhang Yijun, Crescent. His father, Mr. Zhang, which was his family name, but all I knew him by, was a businessman that owned this English language academy. West and Mr. Zhang had picked me up at the airport. West explained that this was one of his friends and that his son, Zhang Yijun, was going to be a student at Harding in the fall and he wanted me to meet Yijun and his parents, so he had arranged for all to go to dinner that evening.

Later that evening as we were driving to meet Yijun’s parents, West explained to me about his father’s business and asked if I would be willing to go by the school and meet his staff and see what they do. He wanted me to give him some marketing advice. It was a delightful tour of his school and an even more delightful dinner and meeting with Yijun and his family. During dinner West explained to the Yijun’s parents about our host family program, and that I was one of directors that managed that program. Yijun’s Momma then asked me if I would be her son, Yijun’s, American Dad! I usually had a policy that I did not sign-on one of my direct students to be assigned to me as it could be uncomfortable if the student did not score or perform well in class, so “Mmmmm, maybe,” was the best answer I could muster up. When fall arrived Yijun was NOT going to be in one of my classes so yes, I signed him up quickly. Crescent is one of the most delightful young Chinese male students EVER! He is just wonderful.

Fast forward back to the present, in 2017, it was this same Crescent, and his family, that I was now back in Guangzhou to visit for a few days. Crescent asked me about my Visa issues, and about Flat Stanley! I explained that I now was traveling with a new and improved Flat Stanley, which I named FS 2.0. Crescent is an International Business major and has a pretty good marketing mind. He said, “You now you might just have a great travelling product there.” I explained that Flat Stanley was a copyrighted product and all I could do was travel with him and tell my stories.

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Kitty and Berry

Sun, 16 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

I had dinner plans with two of my favorite former Harding students. Berry was once in my Principles of Communications class as a student. BTW – Berry, not Barry, was the way he spelled his English nick-name. He chose that name because he loved strawberries, blueberries and berries of all kinds! The semester Berry was in my class he left at Spring Break and did not come back. When I inquired as to why, I was told...

his grandparents were in failing health and he chose to stay with them until they passed. Berry did return the next fall, and he brought his newly announced fiancé with him! I met Li Aiting, Kitty, in the Chinese student office and she and I became friends very quickly. Her English was more advanced than Berry’s so we were able to communicate better. Kitty had already graduated from college back in China and was now at Harding to get her MBA, as well as to be with Berry. They both returned to China for the Christmas/Winter break where they got married before returning to school in January.

Kitty was a sweet and delightful young lady, that as fate would have it, wound up in the same MBA class that I was taking. We were assigned to be on the same group project and I grew to admire her even more. She worked hard and always completed her portion of the team project with high quality work. When she graduated I promised to come see them the next time I was in Guangzhou. And now, here I am!

I called Kitty to arrange our dinner meeting. She suggested a restaurant that was close to Berry’s work but one that she and I would both have to travel across town to get to. Kitty wanted to come and get me, in order to escort me to the restaurant, because she didn't think I could navigate my way through the complex Guangzhou subway system by myself. I assured her that I could do so and after some back and forth she acquiesced and said, “Hao De,” (OK) - but call me if you have any trouble!

I was determined to get to the restaurant across Guangzhou by myself. I left early in the event that if I had any delays I could re-route and still be there on time. Much to my delight, I had no trouble and made may way rather easily. But, the last subway-stop put me out on the street that was still several blocks away from the restaurant. Kitty had dropped a pin on a WeChat map for me. I called up that Pin Drop up on my phone, switched the directions to walking, and it gave me distance, and turn-by-turn directions for walking to the restaurant. I arrived early. I love WeChat!

I love to arrive early, especially when I am by myself. It gives me a chance to sit and execute one of my favorite past times, PEOPLE WATCHING! And that I did for almost an hour. Many Chinese people walking by would stare at me, or wave and I would try to say something in Chinese to greet them, or to simply let me know that I saw them staring at me.

Soon I decided it was time to get a table or try to find Berry who was supposed to get there before Kitty. When I walked up to the check in table, and before I could say anything the hostess asked, “Ni shi Xie Yeye shen ma?” Yes, yes, I am I said! I thought, “Wow I’m getting to be known in China,” (haha)! She then explained that one of my party was already there and he had given her notice that I would be coming. I guess he came in while I was visiting with my new friends that were passing by as they stared at me. But how did she know it was me??? (I was the only white American looking guy there at the time). The hostess walked me to a very large upstairs dining room and found our way to where Berry was sitting. After we greeted each other he explained that Kitty got stuck on the busy subway and that she would be delayed. WHAT??? Kitty got stuck on the subway system and I didn’t? I couldn’t wait to tease her about this. I texted her and told her that I was at the restaurant and that if she needed me to, I would come and get her and escort her back to our dinner meeting! We all had a good laugh about that when she arrived at the table.

Kitty and Berry ordered some really unusual foods to see what I would like. I ate just about everything they put in front of me. It was only the durian that gave me pause. I’ve had durian before, and it doesn’t taste that bad, but it smells terrible! I mean just AWFUL! Kitty and Berry knew what it was and knew that most Americans don’t like it. They waited in anticipation for my facial expression and disapproval after I tasted the first bite. I smiled and said, “I know what this is! None the less we ate and carried on.

During dinner they asked about my informally adopted Chinese daughter, Qu Xiaoya? Alice, as she is also known, had just graduated from Harding in May of 2017. She had moved to New York City in seek of a job and a bigger Chinese community from which to function. She loved Searcy but always knew that she would be alone and either unemployed or under employed. I was worried about her. I wanted her to move back to China, but she wouldn’t hear of that saying that jobs were even harder to come by unless you were connected. As I was telling this story Berry inserted, “I can find her a job here!” Berry worked for the Chinese government, specifically for the Guangdong Province for International Development. What he needed was somebody that could speak good English and work with American companies to bring their business to China. I thought Alice would be a perfect fit.

I also told them of my troubles of losing my Passport, Visa, credit cards and Flat Stanley. They never understood the Flat Stanley story, or what I was talking about. So I pulled out Flat Stanley 2.0 to show them! They surprise and bewilderment on their faces was priceless. After showing them my paper-doll like character I think they understood even less. They looked at each other with a, “What’s this all about look.” After I explained it in detail and the relationship it had with my grandson they were all onboard. Now they wanted to get their photo made with Flat Stanley.

After dinner we went for a walk. This is very customary in China, especially after eating a nice meal. They will tell you that’s it’s good for digestion and to keep someone from getting fat! They are so worried about getting fat. We took a few more photos, said our goodbyes and promised that we would do this again the next time I was in Guangzhou.

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Sunday in GZ with FS 2.0

Sun, 16 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

Sunday; a Day to meet old friends and new family:
I love Sunday’s in China. It gives me a chance to meet with my family from another part of the world. I particularly like it when one of my Chinese students wants to attend with me. Crescent wanted to meet with me this day and join me in my weekly family time. Crescent knew that I took time to meet every week like this and he wanted to be a part of this. He had never been to a meeting such as this, not even in Searcy, even though he had a class every semester to study the Good Book.

Crescent met me at my hotel and off we went across town together. Even though Crescent didn’t know where were going, and I didn’t know how to get there, I did know where we needed to end up. Between us, Crescent and I were able to navigate our way across Guangzhou. On our last subway stop we emerged to the street and I was surprised that it was very near where I had dinner with Kitty and Berry just the night before. But, we still had a few more blocks to walk to get to our destination. Even more surprisingly we crossed paths with Javan who was navigating by foot from his hotel to the common meeting place we were both trying to find. I thought, WOW, twenty-million people in Guangzhou and I run into Javan on the city streets on a Sunday morning!

We made our way to what we would call an “underground church.” It was in a rented room on the third floor of an old building that had multiple uses, from a restaurant on the second and third floors to office space for anybody that could rent a room. The room we used was one room, no plumbing and only a room air conditioner for the more in climate days. Soon the family started showing up a few people and families at a time. There were only about 20 people, many of them I recognized from previous years. Many of them asked me about a family member back in the States who was responsible for them becoming family members through various English language classes from their time at different universities. The church shared a common meal, and sang familiar songs, at least the tunes and the melodies were familiar, even if the words were in Chinese. They asked me to close the meeting by speaking to the father on everybody’s behalf. I hesitated because of my Chinese but they said, that talking to the father is the same in all languages, so I proceeded in English with full passion. They all said “Amen” at the end!

As per usual for me, I worked the room, meeting as many of my old friends and family, plus all the new friends that I could. I always love seeing the young families brought together for this occasion. I especially like to get down eye-to-eye with the children. This time, as I spoke a few greetings in Chinese, I even introduced them to Flat Stanley! Of course they were confused, so I told their parents of the travel adventures of Flat Stanley and how that this is an educational experience for many school children in America. Everybody got into the spirit of Gavyn’s gift and wanted their picture made with Flat!

Also, as per usual, we went to lunch as a church in a nearby restaurant after we were all done visiting. Many of the group went home because of other commitments but many of us went downstairs, (in the same building where we were meeting and found a large table or two that could accommodate all of us. It wasn’t a church potluck, but it really felt like family. I felt so blessed to have experienced this time together.

Crescent escorted me back to my hotel which was a short walk back to his house and said he would come get me in about 90 minutes after Flat Stanley and I both had a chance to rest. I love Chinese NAPS!

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Langtao Village

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

I like history, but am not a great fan of many historical things like many in my family are, but I love to see the old villages and places where people engaged in everyday life from many years ago. Those kinds of historic replicas or original places show me about people and life. When Crescent (Yijun) asked me what I wanted to do that afternoon I asked him if we could see something old and historic. He must have heard me and Donna discuss this back home because he immediately said, “I know exactly where I want to take you! An old Willage!” I’m sure he meant Village, but he never could seem to say it properly. I wanted to snicker every time he said willage but I resisted… as best I could.

He spoke to his Baba and they took me to an old village called Langtao. It was a very interesting glimpse of the way many Chinese people lived a long time ago. The entrance to the city had a very large and magnificently ornate gate, very typical to the Chinese culture to have a wall around the complex, in this case the entire old city. Once we got inside the city gates there were several signs written in Chinese and English to explain what I was about to see and experience. If Donna had been with me she would have read every one of those signs before we moved on slowly through the village. I glanced at them and even read a few of them completely through, but I was much more interested in seeing the images of the village firsthand and then finding out more about the place after I saw what was before me. I actually found a website describing to me what I was about to see.

According to their website, Langtou Village is located at Tanbu Town. In the past, there was a large lake in the south of the village and the village was on a small hill near the lake, on which there were full of Lang grasses. As a result, the village was named Langtou Village. The village consists of three main areas, i.e. Eastern Langtou, Central Langtou and Western Langtou. Eastern Langtou is located next to Central Langtou and Western Langtou is separated from the other two villages by a small river called “Deep Pool”. Both Eastern Langtou and Central Langtou are about 210 meters wide and the Western Langtou is about 170 meters wide.

The surname of the village is Huang. In the last years of the Southern Song Dynasty, the ancestors moved from Zhuji Lane of Nanxiong County to Shenshan Town in the northern suburban district of Guangzhou, presently known as the Baiyun district. The Baiyun district is where Crescent and his family lived. Currently the total population of the village has reached 3000 people. There is a large field in front of the village. There are 3 half-moon-shaped pools. The litchi trees, Longan trees and Banyan trees grew beside the pools and along with plenty of towering Banyan trees and Kapok trees that seemed to embrace the entire village. The village has large a farmland acerage and a carp pond which connects to the Deep Pool in the west and the Bajiang River to the east. Thus it has natural, quiet, and peaceful feel to the whole area. It was visually beautiful.

The buildings in the village are well preserved and now destined to be a tourist site. According to some of the signage that was in both Chinese and English, there are 388 well-preserved black brick buildings built in Ming and Qing Dynasty, including 34 ancestral halls, bookrooms and academies and five blockhouses and gateways. Most of them were built in Qing dynasty and some of them were built in the Ming Dynasty. The general layout of the building is three rooms and three doors, or three rooms and two doors. The buildings are well decorated by high quality stone carving, brick carving, wood carving and plaster carving. There are 18 existing ancient lanes or streets. The names of the streets are scribed on the top of the gateway.

In 2010, Langtou Village was selected as the Characteristic Ancient Villages in Guangzhou. In 2012, it was awarded the title of "Historic and Cultural Village in Guangdong Province. This was such a perfect venue for me to see. It was spacious enough to get a good walk in as we walked around the lily filled lakes, yet small enough for us to see many of the buildings, streets and people in a rather short period of time.

Of course one of the main things I wanted to do was to take photographs. Not just any picture but travel photographs with Flat Stanley! As I pulled Flat Stanley out of my pocket I could almost see the other Chinese visitors turn to look at me. They were already looking at me because I was the only Caucasian person in the village, but even more so now they were looking at Flat Stanley as I held him up to various buildings and landmarks to get his photo in front of each landmark.

Flat and I ran across some children playing at a picnic table. We had stopped for some drinks and snacks and saw the children staring at Flat and me. I took Flat, (and Crescent) to their table and tried to converse with them the best I could. Flat was his usually… very quiet, but had a happy smile on his face.

Soon we walked by a restaurant, where the kitchen workers were coming outside to carry out meals or other food service functions. There was a girl that looked like she was about 12 or 13 that couldn’t keep her eyes off of me or Flat. I asked Crescent if he would help me introduce us. After a minute or so of language that went right over my head she stepped up to get her picture made with us. When we were finished she asked if Flat and I would come with her to meet her family? Me? Meet new people? That are from another culture in their work and home environments? Oh yeah, I live for moments like this. She motioned for me to follow her back inside to the kitchen area of the restaurant to meet the others. There was a lot of loud talking, chopping and cutting vegetables and a few woks sizzling with all sorts of delicious looking foods. They looked up in surprise and smiled at me but I think their questions were, “Who are you, and what are you doing in our kitchen?” After some smiles, handshakes and a few photos we left and continued on to our tour of the village.
When we had walked around until it felt like my legs would fall off, Crescent’s parents said they had one more place they wanted to take me, a tea market.

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All The Tea In China

Mon, 10 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

Have you ever heard the line, “All the tea in China?” Well, I think I saw most of it in one tea district in South China. I was in the city of Guangzhou with my Chinese son, Zhang Yijun, also known as Crescent. I had mentioned the day before while we were eating lunch that I really liked the tea that was being served at the restaurant. I casually mentioned that I would like to find some tea like this to take home with me. Chinese friends never forget statements such as these and especially never miss a chance to give a foreigner, or friend, a gift.

On Sunday, after our excursion to the old Langtao Village, Yijun had told his parents of my desire to buy some good tea. Yijun told me where they were now taking me to a Tea Market. He also said that his Baba loves tea as well and he was going to take me to the tea market where he shopped for his tea supply. I was expecting a store… WOW, it was so much more than a store! The tea market was several blocks in all directions of nothing but tea shops. Now to be sure, this was a central distribution center for much of the tea in China to be packaged and shipped around the world, but most of the various companies had a store front to shop and peruse for the tea of your delight and the various accessories that accompanied the tea industry.

I walked around a bit, taking pictures of what I was seeing in front of me. This was an experience that is not on the usual tourist track of those visiting China, but it was amazing. After I was somewhat satisfied that I was digitally capturing the moment, Yijun’s Baba motioned for us to follow him. We walked a block or so more and entered what I later found out was his favorite store in the market. He knew the proprietor, spoke some Chinese to her while pointing to me and Crescent. She smiled, welcomed me in a dialect that I didn’t recognize. Crescent told me she was from another city where her family owned the tea farm and she ran the distribution in Guangzhou. They showed me around the large barrels of various tea varieties and many unique paraphernalia needed for properly preparing tea with its Chinese.

It was time to shop for tea. I was escorted to the back of the store where they had a glassed off room with a large ornately designed table that looked like it was carved and crafted out of one large piece of wood for the table top. The proprietor was a young Chinese woman that was well dressed, unlike many of the worker-bees, and she seemed to command the authority of the management of this operation. I was probably told her name but I can’t recall. She was a Tea Master in that she was trained in the art of expertly brewing and serving the tea her family grew and sold. It is called a Kung Fu Tea Ceremony.

According to Wikipedia, “The Kung Fu Tea Ceremony (Chinese: 工夫茶 or 功夫茶), involves the ritual preparation and presentation of tea. It is probably based on the tea preparation approaches originated in Fujian and the Chaoshan area of eastern Guangdong. The term literally means "making tea with skill." Today, the approach is used popularly by teashops carrying tea of Chinese origins, and by tea connoisseurs as a way to maximize the taste of a tea selection, especially a finer one.”

The table and seating had plumbing running to it so that she could prepare the next tea flavor while we were tasting her current offering of tea. The Tea Master made sure the water was steeped to a certain temperature but not quite boiling. Through Yijun translating for me she explained the various ways that each tea was grown, harvested, dried and prepared for drinking. Yijun and his father told her what they knew I liked in tea based on some of the teas I had consumed while eating meals with them. They went back in forth in conversation with the Tea Master before she finally turned to a few assistants and directed them with loud language and waiving of her hand.

Soon they had a variety of teas for which she was planning on brewing for my tasting. As she opened up each container she allowed me to smell the tea before passing it to the others to do so. Then with lots of conversation she told of the origins of each tea, how to best brew them, what to eat with each tea and what the nutritional value was for each sample. Yujin had to work overtime to try and keep up with his translation for me to understand what she was communicating. As we tasted each tea the Zhang’s waited to see the expression on my face to see if I like it. Unfortunately for them, I liked all of them. In fact, while I could taste some slight difference in each, I really had no preference from one to another, and to be honest, there was so much information being delivered in another language, translated to English and in a very rapid pace that it was all a bit confusing. After the brewing and tasting of each they asked me if I liked that tea? “Yes, yes I did,” I said. They took that to mean I wanted to take that flavor home. What I didn’t know was that Yijun’s parents were planning on paying for all of this. I really didn’t want them to do that, but I had a hard time keeping that from happening. After serving me one particular tea, she looked at me and told they others that it would help me lose weight and reduce my bulging belly!

About half way through the Kung Fu Tea Service I noticed that a few different young people would wander into the room for no apparent reason. These were girls from about 14-15 years old down to a little girl As an extrovert I always wanted to say hello, and upon doing so I was always told that they were related to the tea master in some way and wanted to see what we were doing. More likely, said Yijun, they wanted to see the American. The tea service all started sounding the same and I was honestly more interested in the people and the business. One of the younger girls looked like she was about five years old. She walked up to the Tea Master and promptly crawled up into her lap. I asked if that was her daughter and she smiled affirmatively. She apologized for her daughter’s intrusion but I assured her that I thought it was endearing and encouraged her to continue with her daughter in her lap. The little girl was very ku ai! (cute)

I decided to engage these young girls, so I pulled out Flat Stanley! There were all confused with what I was doing with this “paper doll” but listened carefully as I explained. The more I explained, and Yijun translated, the bigger their smiles got, until they were all laughing in agreement with the fun I was having with Flat! What else was I supposed to do but make sure Flat had his picture made with each of his new friends. I had used Flat in many ways during this adventure but he never was more valuable to me than he was at this moment.

As we began the final descent into conclusion of the Kung Fu Teas Service, I wanted to get up and greet each person a little bit more. I had my photo made with the Tea Master and tried to thank her in my limited Chinese. Unfortunately, most of what I could say was in Mandarin and they spoke primarily Cantonese. However, I’ve found that “thank you” is expressed with and without words in a universal manner. She knew exactly what I was trying to communicate and she reciprocated with a warm gesture of appreciation for me being there. I left the Kung Fu Tea Ceremony with what seemed like a lifetime supply of Chinese tea. I’m really anxious to see if my waist-line is reduced after a few weeks of drinking this tea.

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Flat Gets A Make-Over

Sat, 08 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

My time in China was quickly coming to an end of my service contract and mission. But I still had this lingering list of things that I wanted to do that are better done in China than anywhere else I’ve ever been. Of course, getting my Visa and passport so that I could get home was chief among that list. But that was something for which I couldn’t do for another couple of days still.

One of the other items on my to-do list was getting some custom-tailored shirts. I like getting custom tailored clothes when I am in an Asian country because they usually fit me so well and very inexpensive, relatively speaking. I have trouble buying shirts off the rack because I have short arms, and a bulging belly! I need the tails of the shirt to be a little longer to cover that excess. I asked my teaching colleague Joy where I could get this done? When I explained to Joy why she seemed to know exactly what I wanted so we decided to meet the next day. We she came to pick me up she took me to a mall that had a men’s clothing store. Joy chattered with them faster that I could keep up, so I just watched them communicate. As a professor of communication, I love to watch two people talk in another language and culture. Especially, as it was in this case, that I knew what they were talking about. Knowing the subject matter helps me pick up cues of words and body language. Many of my foreign (Chinese) students and colleagues are amazed that I know what they are talking about even though I don’t understand their language. They often talk among themselves thinking I don’t understand (and to be sure, I usually don’t), but then I drop a word or two and it makes then pause and ask if I understood, (as they gave each other they eye, wondering if I knew what they just said about me).

But, I digress… back to buying me some shirts. Joy rattled on to the workers in the store about what I wanted and they started showing me samples or materials, and styles. Then they uttered the price. ¥1,200! WHAT???? That was not what I had in mind. I was thinking more like ¥100, give or take a few Yuan. I soon realized, and told Joy that this is not what I had in mind. She was perplexed, not knowing what I wanted. Joy, asked me to excuse her while she reached for her phone and phoned her aunt. After speaking to her aunt, she turned to the store proprietor and thanked him and said we were leaving. “我们走吧 - Wǒmen zǒu ba, she said to me, which translates to, “Come on, let’s go.”

Joy, Flat, and I left the store. Apparently, Joy’s aunt knew what I wanted. Joy drove a mile or so to an older section of town, and we headed to a small, alley-like row of stores. She parked her car and we walked a few feet to a store front tailor.

This place looked like a hole-in-the-wall seamstress service. There were three women sitting in the corner eating noodles. One of them looked up and made eye contact with us. The surprise of seeing me walk into their little shop put an amusing look on her face. A middle-aged male Caucasian, (OK maybe a little older than that), and a 30-something young Chinese woman was probably not their most common customer demographic description. The three woman looked back at each other eventually landing on who was apparently the shop owner. She wiped her mouth, then her hands, with her apron before taking it off very quickly and headed over our way with a greeting. Joy apparently told her what we were looking for and immediately the shop owner started pointing to a few samples of her tailoring work of men’s shirts. She also started pulling out a few bolts of potential cloth samples to show me. It was all rather quick and between the many samples, language barrier and body language it was a bit overwhelming. I just wanted to look around and get my bearings on what was there and what was being offered. If I smiled, pointed or in any way indicated that I liked something they were ready to start cutting and sewing for me. With Joy’s help I was able to explain what I wanted, and picked out a few cloth samples and negotiated a price. The price of ¥140 per shirt was much more in line with what I was expecting, especially compared to the Men’s store at the mall. I was planning on order more than one shirt so in true Chinese custom I made an offer of two for less. I was met was an emphatic NO! It may have been the only English the woman knew but she said it loud and clear! Then she started in a barrage of Chinese that I had to only look to Joy for help. Joy explained and told me that this was a good price and that unlike many Chinese store owners he does not negotiate, and that I needed to take her price or leave it! Ok, then. I’ll take it. As she commenced with the measuring I asked when these two long-sleeved, buttoned-downed collared shirts would be ready to pick up? “Tomorrow,” she said calmly. I thought, “WOW! Are you kidding me? You’re going to make these two shirts and have them ready for me tomorrow?” All of a sudden, the ¥140 per shirt seemed like a bargain.

As the Chinese seamstresses began to gather what was needed to get started, the store owner saw me with Flat Stanley and had a curious smile on her face. She said something to Joy, and I assume she was asking about my paper companion Flat. When they completed their conversation I asked Joy to ask the tailor if I could get a couple scrap pieces of each of the cloth selections I had made? Why she inquired? I gestured in a kidding and playful manner and said, “I want to make Flat Stanley some matching clothes so that when we went out on the town, we could dress alike!” By now Joy was not surprised at the many directions my imagination was going!

The next day, as promised, I walked out with two custom fit, made to order, casual, buttoned down shirts. I had crafted a couple of matching shirts from the scraps to fit Flat Stanley and off we left to see what they world had next in store for us as we travelled the streets of Hengyang!

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Back to GZ and the U.S. Embassy

Thu, 06 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

The day that I first set out for Guangzhou and subsequently lost my wallet, money, Passport and Visa, was quite an ordeal. This easily was one of the worse days of my life. I was alone, in a communist country and was completely befuddled as to what to do next. I knew God was still with me. My feet hit the floor when I woke up that morning. I wasn’t physically hurt and had plenty of money resources to survive the situation. So, why did I feel so helpless? In my mind I knew, that given time, this would all be fixed, so I consoled myself with the thought of, “just relax and take this one step at a time.

Fortunately, my teaching colleague, Joy, was there to help me process through this situation. She Had originally called the Didi for me and after I called her to inform her of my mishap she really went it to action. She first called the same Didi driver back to go back to the train station to allow me to look in his car. When I could find it, I had him take me back to campus. In the meantime, Joy had called the police and went to the police station to file the incident as a potential crime. After the Police questioned and released the driver, Joy called Sunny.

Fu Huali, Sunny, is the office manager from the office of International Relations which was officially hosting me and providing me with my temporary employment, apartment and pay. Joy had called her and told her of what was happening to me. Sunny called me and asked for me to meet her at her office where she had another set of keys to my apartment. I walked across campus in the rain and sat on her building steps. The office was closed as it was Saturday, so I just waited... for what seemed like forever, but in reality it was about 30 minutes. Soon, Sunny arrived, opened up the building and found her way to a cabinet in her office that held keys to the apartments for which she managed for the foreign teachers. She asked where I was going? Guangzhou, I said, to speak at GUFS on Monday.

“Cancel those plans! she said sternly, you can’t travel in China without a passport! And, it will take a couple of days to get you some temporary paperwork for you to do so. We can go to the local government office to get that on Monday.” My heart sank. I was supposed to spend four days in Guangzhou with Harding students, university colleagues and dear friends! I asked if there was any way... “No!” was the abrupt answer.

When Joy came by my apartment to check on me she also brought the police report that I could use to travel without a passport! “But, Sunny said, I couldn...” “No, this is what you need,” she said. And she handed me the police report. Despite the admonition of Fu Huali, I went anyway. I had plans, and I was to get paid for speaking to a meeting at GUFS. Sunny was sometimes direct and emotionless. It was hard to read her intent, i”m sure because of her poor English and my even poorer Chinese language skills. Plus, there was a culture and body language that was evading me, but I thought she was she was just saying, “No, you should stay here until we get this straightened out.”

When I did return from Guangzhou Sunny was very angry, I think. She scolded me in respectful way. She told me that I didn’t realize the severity of my leaving town when I did. She was the representative of the Chinese government at that time. U. S. citizens cannot freely move about the country without permission in the form of a Visa. She needed to help me acquire that Visa the next week when the local Visa office/police station was open.

Later that afternoon Sunny and I went to the Police station where I could process a temporary Visa. I had a chance to banter with the agent. It was a smiling woman that seemed amused that this older American found his way to her desk. I couldn’t figure out why she was so smiley and laughing as she spoke to me. Then I realized she saw Flat Stanley peeking out of my shirt pocket. I tried to tell her about the adventures of Flat Stanley, but she never seemed to understand. I hand her Flat and asked if I could take a photo of them together. Then I concocted a story where Flat had been kidnapped, escaped and ran to the station seeking political asylum, and I had to be summoned to the station to bail him out.

Nine or ten days later, it was time to get my paperwork together so that I could leave the country as my selected departure time. It had been very anxiety ridden without my Visa and Passport. I had previously called Zhang Yijun, my Harding Host Family son for some assistance. I decided to call Crescent, or Zhang Yijun to see if he could get me back and forth from the train station to the Embassy. Crescent was my delightful Chinese son that I had connected with the previous summer and had arranged for him, along with Donna, to be a part of the Harding Chinese Student Host Program. That program had an American family become a home away from home for a Chinese student. When I called Crescent I told him what happened and that I need to get back to Guangzhou and to the U.S. Embassy. I asked him if he would be willing to meet me at the train station, get me over to the U.S. Embassy and then back to the train station for a return trip to Hengyang the same day? Of course, he said, but do you know my Harding roommate Michael Fu? I thought I did, but I had not had him in my classes, nor had engaged in him socially beyond meeting him. “Well,” he said, “Michael’s father is the Director of International Relations for the Guangdong province,” (for which Guangzhou was located), and that he thought his dad could help me with this process. Crescent, said, let me call Michael and get back to you?”

Michael called me directly and with near perfect English told me that he heard what happened to me. He said, “I will call my father’s office for you and have them get back to you.” The next day I got a call from Dr. Fu’s secretary informing me that she had been assigned to take care of my Passport issue. Her spoken English was excellent. When I mentioned to her that it was good to hear an American speaking English she informed me that she was in fact, Chinese! She said that every Chinese person who worked at the Embassy had to pass an English proficiency test. None-the-less she told me exactly what I need to do to get my passport and paperwork in order. I need to go online and make an appointment, download the correct forms and come back to Guangzhou to visit the U.S. Embassy. She also let me know that she would have the staff know I was coming and what I needed before I got there, and not to worry about anything, that she would take care of this for me! I never felt so relieved… I knew that God was taking care of me, but God sometimes works in mysterious ways. Little did I know that He was using my students, for whom I love so dearly, to help me while I was in their hometown. Guanxi is what they call this in China, (the system of social networks and influential relationships that facilitate business and other dealings). In my circles we call this the providence of God!

It was a Thursday morning and I was going to travel to Guangzhou by myself. I’ve travelled through China by myself before, but I almost always had someone meeting me at the other end of my trip. Crescent was that person today. As I got off the train and worked my way through the massive crowd to our appointed meeting place I saw his smiling face furiously waving at me. He was such a calming presence. I knew with Crescent that I would be safe and get where I needed to be at the appropriate time.

We made our way to the U.S. Embassy and arrived a little before noon. It was very crowded! It was hot and we decided not to wait in line. We were going to get some lunch and come back. Crescent said he had the perfect place that he wanted to take me for lunch. I thought, GREAT! I love Cantonese food. Where, I asked? “It’s a surprise,” he said. We walked about three blocks, rounded the corner, and there it was… BURGER KING! I tried to hide my disappointment because Crescent was so excited. I just ordered the Whopper combo.

We arrived back at the embassy a little after 1:00 p.m. The lines were no less long! We then discovered that most of the people were waiting to get a Visa from the U.S. Embassy and I needed an emergency passport. That was another line. The line I needed to be in was almost non-existent. As I found my place in a very short line, showed my paperwork, freshly downloaded and printed from their website, the agent took a look me and them at my forms, then took a look at me again, and said, loudly, “Oh, you’re Michael’s professor! Come this way.” Michael Fu was my Harding student that opened the door for me. His Father knew of my plight and instructed the staff to help get me what I needed. That normally two-hour wait and process experience only took about 30 minutes! I had a new passport, albeit a temporary one that would only get me home. I was given instructions to apply for a regular passport once I returned to the States.

I made my way through the lines at the Embassy, out the doors, out to the corner of the street intersection, to a taxi and onto the subway station. As I sat down on the subway headed back to the Guangzhou South Railway station and it dawned on me that once again Flat Stanley had a front row seat to the entire event. He was in my shirt pocket!

One more thing… When the morning started out I had left my apartment without eating any breakfast. After I arrived at the Hengyang Dong train station I stopped and got me a McDonald's sausage, egg and cheese on an English muffin. That evening, while waiting at the Guangzhou train station I was hungry. I saw someone with a Chicken sandwich and I asked where he bought that, (among the many fast food options at the station). He pointed to a KFC nearby and I went there and bought a couple of them and ate them before my train loaded. Then it dawned on me; I had McD’s for breakfast, Burger King for lunch and KFC for dinner! I have never done that before, even in America!

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Hong Kong Was On The Route Home

Tue, 04 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

I was so anxious to get home. While my time in Hengyang this year was fun, it was one of the most stressful trips of my many years traveling to China. Because of the debacle of losing my passport and visa, credit cards and Flat Stanley left me with a feeling of, “I can’t wait to get home and put all of this behind me.” On the plus side, I got to meet two amazing young professors that hosted me and Javen and helped us in so many ways. I will always be thankful for Zhang Bao Xin (Joy), and her colleague Xiao Huan (Fanny), for the many ways they became a part of our lives and even our mission. Joy was a Christian, and she let me know that early, so we connected on a different level than I did with Fanny. Leaving Hengyang was sad because I knew that I may never see these two young women again.

As the morning came for our departure Joy and Fanny assured us that they would be at our doorstep to get us to the Hengyang Dong train station to start our trek to Hong Kong and home. All was normal until it was time to say goodbye. As I hugged each of them I noticed that Joy was tearing up a bit. I was too. My esteem for both of these professor and now friends is something that is hard to describe. We hugged, we waived, and we hugged some more… finally walking away backwards so we could waive some more. Maybe the cutest part of this goodbye was when they waived they said, “Bye, Flat Stanley.”

I had always heard about the big city of Hong Kong. I never had great desire to visit such a big city in China because I felt like I had done so many times in other cities. I had actually landed in Hong Kong the very first day of this excursion, but we immediately got into a car and was driven to Shenzhen, China in the dark of night so I didn’t really see any of Hong Kong.

I wanted to go back to Hong Kong just to be able to say I had done so. Hong Kong did intrigue me. I had been told that English was spoken almost as much as Chinese. It used to be a British colony and reverted back to the property of mainland China in 1997 when the 99-year lease expired. Hong Kong had been considered for many years a separate country, but now that it was back in China’s fold and it is considered one of their provinces. It was supposed to be able to function as a different country even though it was a part of China. Like other countries it used a different currency that the Chinese Yuan/RMB, and they called them Hong Kong Dollars! The valuation was different, and even Chinese residents needed a passport to enter. The Chinese Visa was sufficient to get me in, but was still required.

Our flight home was leaving from Hong Kong. And even though the original plan was to take a train from Hengyang to Hong Kong and then taxi over to the airport on the same day, I thought given the travel issues I had, and now a temporary passport and Visa, I should go there the day before, get a hotel room and leave for the airport bright and early the next morning. That’s what we did and I am so thankful for that!

As we exited the fast train CRH system and took the subway across the border, I got pulled out of line because the temporary passport and visa were flashing warning signals. I tried in vain to explain my situation to the TSA that were processing the thousands of people passing through but my language skills and theirs weren’t exactly lined up. I was asked to get out of line and follow an agent. I wanted Javen and I to stay together but they wouldn’t let him go with us. I simply told Javen to go on to the other side and wait for me, that I would be along as soon as I got this cleared up. Little did I know that it would take TWO HOURS to get the situation taken care. Fortunately, the agents treated me with kindness and tried to tell me what was going on, but we just weren’t communicating very well. Finally, a new agent that could speak pretty good English showed up. He explained that they needed to verify with the two agencies that issued me a new passport and a temporary visa that they did indeed do so. He asked me to wait and he would be back with me as soon as they had done their jobs. It took two hours. Had I been doing this the day I was flying out I would have missed my plane back to the states. I was so glad I came the day before.

Hong Kong wasn’t quite the vacation spot I had always wanted and heard about. As we were flying out the next day I was surprised how small of a land space there was. The fact that it was squeezed in between the mountains along the coast line was something that I had never known. Still it had big city lights, stores, eating, entertainment and people. Lots and lots of people! Perhaps most amusing was that the cars in Hong Kong drove on the opposite sides of the roads that I was used to in America and in China. The steering wheels were on the right side of the interior of the cars. I had only one time previous in my life (Bangkok, Thailand in 2015) been in a situation of this nature so it was fun to experience.

One of my Chinese students in Hengyang, Minnie, helped us select a hotel on line so that Javen and I could now where to stay at a reasonable price. The problem was that my credit cards had been cancelled when I lost my wallet and I never got them back to service because I had plenty of cash to tie me over. So we used Javen’s card to hold the room as I assured him that I would pay for it in cash when we checked in. When we did check in they informed us that we didn’t have a room reserved because Javen’s card had been denied. We didn’t know that when we reserved the room on line. It had been denied because when he called his credit card company before we left informing them of his travel plans to China he didn’t realize that Hong Kong was considered a different country by the banking world, so the card company denied the charge suspecting fraudulent usage. They did have a room available so I just pulled out my Chinese RMB to pay the security deposit and the room for one night. That’s when I discovered that Hong Kong had a different monetary system and that my Chinese money couldn’t be used! The front desk personnel had apparently been used to this happening so they kindly directed me to a Currency Exchange Service down the hallway and that they would hold my room while I exchanged my Chinese Yuan for Hong Kong Dollars.

After the many delays we had getting to Hong Kong and getting a room it was almost dinner time and Javen and I were exhausted. We had originally planned to get out and see Hong Kong but both of us said, “I just wanna eat and go to bed!” And, so we did just that. I had converted just enough money to eat and get us a taxi the next morning to the airport. I still had a large amount of Chinese Yuan that I planned on converting back to US dollars when I arrived at the airport. We ate at the restaurant at the hotel which turned out to be a pretty good choice. It had a large selection of buffet items and a good menu to order from, both with lots of choices of Chinese and Western foods.

After dinner I wanted to get out and at least around a little bit… but sleep was calling me.

As the sun peeked through the curtains the next day at dawn I hopped out of bed like a piece of toast! It was a day I always looked forwarded to every year. I say every year that the only thing I like better than going to China is going home. Today was the day. Despite having a pocketful of U.S. Dollars and Chinese RMB, Javen and I didn’t have much Hong Kong dollars to get breakfast, so we decided that we would just wait and get something at the airport. However, when going down to the lobby to check out the taxi situation while Javen was till packing his bags I discovered a Xing Ba Ke – Starbucks! I had a USD $50 Starbucks gift card in my wallet that did not work in mainland China because of the two countries not agreeing on proper compensation for such transactions, but I thought I would try it in Hong Kong. Yes! It worked! Breakfast sandwiches and Starbucks coffee was, “what’s for breakfast!” Plus, I was behind in my shopping for my grandchildren’s gifts. This Starbucks not only had their standard array of coffee mugs, but also had a few Chinese gifts in the form of stuffed animals with HK logos on them. What Yeye/Pop Pop goes to China and doesn’t bring something back for the grand babies? As I recalled that I had used my Starbucks gift cards in Bangkok, Thailand in 2015 and then realized, “Starbucks Gift Cards – An International Currency,” what a great marketing campaign!

“Let’s go Javen, it’s time to go home! We checked out, flagged down a taxi and soon arrived at the Hong Kong airport. Everything went smoothly. My last bit of business was to get my Chinese and remaining Hong Kong currency exchanged to US dollars. There, right in the center of the aisle was a Kiosk looking booth with a sign – Currency Exchange. My first thought was, “how much will I lose in this transaction?” But to my surprise, it may have been the best exchange rate I had ever had in all my years of traveling throughout Asia. Our flight left on time and the next stop was 16 hours later – Chicago!

Upon landing in the good ole U.S. of A. The first thing I always did was call my wife. That’s when I realized that one of the losses in my Flat Stanley story was also my cell phone Verizon chip, that had my American phone number. There wasn’t much I could do about that so I did the next best thing; I was in an airport WIFI zone, so I was able to use my phone as an old version iPad. I text messaged, and emailed my wife of my existence and that I would hopefully be home on schedule. In many ways, Donna is so much more tech savvy than I am, so she sent a message back saying that she had been tracking my flights, and that she would be in Little Rock when the plane landed.

As I landed I take one more look at Flat Stanley, and said to him, “Wow, what an adventure!”

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The Handoff of Flat Stanley 2.0 to Gavyn

Sun, 02 Jul 2017 07:00:00 GMT

Home! It seemed like a long time coming. It was the most stressful and in many ways the most rewarding trip I have had to China to date. But, I say that every year, the rewarding part, not the stressful part. This WAS definitely THE most stressful trip I had ever taken. I had always prepared for times and experiences such as these and this was the first time I had to actually executive my emergency plan.

It was only about two minutes from realizing what had happened that I called my wife Donna in the States to make the calls, cancel the cards, and start the replacement process. We had talked about his for the last 17 years I had been traveling out of the county, most often without her. Donna usually stayed home with a pocket folder of backup and duplicates of all credit cards, visa’s, passports, airline itineraries and just about anything else one could imagine.

As I ran through my mind about how I could have been so careless, and retracing my steps in my mind I thought about the Didi that was ordered, how I walked from my apt to the school’s gate, got into the car, getting out of the car and reaching for my fanny pack/bag as I watched the driver pull away. Thankfully, I had my cell phone in hand when all else seemed to be lost. I knew that everything that had been lost could be replaced. Not easily and sometimes not cheaply, but replaced nonetheless.

Everything lost could be replaced… except… FLAT STANLEY, the original art form of that paper pal and traveling companion entrusted to me by my grandson, Gavyn!

By the time I had actually reconnected with Matthew and my grandson Gavyn it was a couple of days later and I acquired Flat Stanley 2.0. My children had heard from my wife what had happened to me so the Facetime calls from each of them came through quickly. Aaron was the easy call. I explained what happened, got lots of sympathy and “Oh no’s” from Aaron and Kara. It was Matthew I dreaded talking to. Not because I was fearful of anything Matthew would say, but because I knew I needed to tell him to relay to Gavyn that I had lost his Flat Stanley. I called him before he could call me. I remember when much of the excitement had died down calling Matthew to inform him of losing Flat Stanley. “Oh Nooo…,” were Matthews words, “Should I tell him?” “No, I will,” I said slowly as I rubbed my forehead. There wasn’t sugar coating this, but I said, “I’ll tell him the next time we talk.”

The next time we talked was right then. Gavyn was in earshot and I was on speaker phone. “What?” Gavyn asked. Yep, I told him. But I quickly pulled out Flat Stanley 2.0 and showed him to Gavyn and even showed the Delta Wings that were a part of the photo. I was 12,000 miles away and the photo was blurry but he noticed right away that the new Flat Stanley. He said that’s not the same… it looks shinier… I tried to explain as best I could, and I apologized profusely, but there was no acceptance. I’m not sure what was harder, actually losing Flat Stanley or telling Gavyn that I lost Flat Stanley!

When I arrived home I realized that it was the Episode of Flat Stanley and the attempt to bury this tragedy in creativity that really saved me from completely falling apart. Flat Stanley and his escapades was one of the most fun events that I have ever experienced in all my years of traveling to China to minister and teach.

But December 29, 2017, (coincidentally Josie’s 5th birthday), was steamrolling toward me and I tried to stage an official handing back… but the entire ceremonious event was just FLAT! Flat Stanley 2.0 that is!

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