Journal Entry #36: Friday, June 18, 2010

Today was going to be special because this Friday was to bring upon us a reunion of sorts.  We were going to meet up with Eileen, Li Jie in Tianjin.  Tina was going to meet us at the Beijing South Train Station and we were going to take the fast train to Tianjin. 

Tianjin is Eileen’s hometown.  She was my very first Chinese student I tutored in Chicago.  Her Chinese name is Li Jie.   Eileen and I first met in January of 2002 when she walked into a class we were both taking at Roosevelt University.  We went through the Roosevelt IMC program as classmates and had a few other classes together along the way. 
 
In this particular class in 2002 Eileen had made a presentation for one of our assignments and the teacher was brutally honest with her.  “Good content,” he said, “but you really need a lot of help with your English if you want to stay in this industry.”  Then he told her she needed to repeat the assignment after she got some help.  He then turned to the rest of the class, “Would anybody be willing to help Ms. Li?”  He asked? “I will,” I responded quickly.  It was then that I began tutoring Eileen in both oral and written English for the next two years.  In many ways it was actually training me for what I was going to be doing at Harding by teaching the Chinese Speech class.  However, I had no idea that this volunteer assignment was going to set us up for a wonderful day in China, eight years later in Tianjin!  Life is funny that way.  You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow, but you have to be prepared for God to work through you today. 
 
I had studied the Bible with Eileen while we were in graduate school together.  She had spent a few weekends at our house cooking and attending worship with Donna and me.  We all became good friends.  She called me Da Ge, which in Chinese translates Coach, Mentor or Big Brother.  I reciprocated by calling her Mei Mei, or little sister.  We had been emailing off and on for many years giving updates on jobs, family and life.  I e-mailed her earlier in the year when I realized that I would be in Beijing.  Eileen works for the IBM Corporation out of Beijing but works from home in Tianjin, when she is not traveling to their clients’ offices, which she does most of the time.  She develops e-learning models for corporate training for their clients.  Eileen says that her dream is to one day become a college professor like her Da Ge!
 
My Harding student Tina had never been to Tianjin and she asked if she could go with us.  Ironically, Eileen asked if my student in Beijing (Tina) would be willing to come with us to Tianjin so that we could buy the train tickets and meet her in her hometown without any problems.  Eileen is old enough to be Tina’s mother, but they hit it off like they were sisters and had known each other for years, even trading phone numbers and e-mails before we left at the end of the day. 
 
We had a wonderful day together!  Eileen had several stops and venues planned and sort of laid out the plans for us to make some final decisions when we arrived. I had not seen her in four years, but when I saw her smiling face and waving arms at the Tianjin train station she looked great!  We all smiled, hugged and laughed at the idea that we were all in China together. 
 
It was raining, again, so our first stop was indoors at the Museum of History for Tianjin.  This city, for many reasons, but chief among them was location on the sea, was one of the oldest and most economically important cities in China.  This Museum gave a very detailed history of Tianjin defending the importance that Tianjin had in Chinese Culture and history. We love museums. Donna and Tina read everything in sight but Eileen and I just spent the day following them, talking and catching up with our lives since we had last seen each other.  She graduated in the summer of 2003 a semester before I did so, in December of the same year.  She returned to China and had made only one return visit to the Chicago area in 2006. We got to meet her and go out to dinner together at that time.
 
After the Museum we taxied to a very unusual food court or food mall.  They had a restaurant there at which we ate lunch, but the unique part of this stop were the many venues for individual candies, meats, cookies, baked products, teas and more.  This place had very unusual items and even more interesting people selling their food and services.  I don’t think it’s on the tourism routes so the people there were very surprised to see us. 
 
After this stop had run its value we went to the “Old Streets of Tianjin.”  This place was similar to the “Old Streets of Beijing” that Tina had taken us to a few days previous. Fascinating old shops and stores that still sold many of the same goods and services that had been a part of Tianjin’s economy for thousands of years.  Of course, much of this was now set up for tourists but it was really neat none-the-less.  They had teashops, engravers, novelty items, food and more.  The rain had stopped and it was simply a pleasant stroll through the old part of town.  One of the stores yielded a major purchase by us when we bought a calligraphy set for our son Matthew.  I think he’ll really like what we got him. In addition to some stainless steel teacups and strainers, we also bought Aaron a Chinese Kite.  Kites are big in China.  The kites here are very ornate and very intricately made.
 
Eileen knew we were very interested in Christianity so she planned on taking us to what she called a Christian church.  What it turned out to be was a Catholic church.  Unfortunately, Eileen, and most Chinese people, has a hard time separating Catholicism from New Testament Christianity.  The Church building had just closed from its visiting hours before we got there, so we did not get to go inside and look around. 
 
By now it was almost dinnertime and as we sat on a park bench to discuss what our options were going to be, Donna asked if we could visit a Tea Room.  Eileen made a few quick calls to her friends standing by the Internet and soon she had a text message telling her and us of the nearest Tea House that we could visit.  We hailed a taxi and off we went.
 
The name of the Tea House we went to in Chinese Pin Yin is Zheng Xing De. These three characters have its own meaning, which is hard to translate on a word-by-word translation. When I asked Eileen to explain it further she said, “I prefer to add a flavor of philosophy into the name; it could be translated into ‘pursuing and enriching good virtues in one's life,’ hope it makes sense to you.”  We were able to select our private room based on the Chinese design of the surroundings, tables, seating, etc.  The hostess was a Chinese woman that came in and explained the menu to Tina and Eileen.  They talked for what seemed like a long time about the options on the tea selections.  Finally, they explained to us in English what they ordered and how the process was going to unfold.  We certainly learned a lot about Tea and its proper preparation, including water, washing and presentation.  The process included other elements such as an aromatherapy before tasting, and the proper etiquette of handling the different cups with their various specific uses.  I was interested but Donna really enjoyed this.  You might even say, “It was her Cup of Tea!” I mentioned to the others that sometimes our best activities were not on an agenda, as this Tea House was not even on the radar when we started the day.  Eileen really enjoyed sharing this part of her culture with us.  She even bought us, (OK, it was for Donna), three kinds of tea, a set of cups, a teapot and other items necessary to repeat this process at home.  She was so generous to us.  It was a very relaxing and pleasant way to end the day.
 
We taxied to the Tianjin train station for our return trip home.  The train station was like many of the other stations: new, big and crowded!  This station served the Tianjin area but primarily the routes and rides to Beijing and Shanghai.  We were able to purchase our tickets through an automated kiosk, but it did not display the instructions and process in English.   Fortunately, Eileen was still with us and had made this purchase many times in the past.  Eileen stayed with us until the train was open for boarding.  I saw that Eileen had been having such a good time with us throughout the day and she was very sad to see us go.  So were we.  We had not seen Eileen in four years and I wondered as we waved goodbye and walked away, just how many more years it would be until we saw her again... if ever?
 
            When we arrived in Beijing, Tina was going to get in a different taxi for her return home and our return to the hotel.  She spoke to our driver in Chinese instructing him where to take us.  I realized as we said goodbye that we were not going to see Tina or spend any more time in China with her.  I wish I would have had the chance to give her a more appropriate thank you and farewell, but that will have to be done when we all meet again in America!  The past four days with Tina were really special and very much appreciated by Donna and me.  Tina is one of my new favorite people!