this morning, after xiaoyun stepped out from the bathroom, i made to move towards it so i could use the toilet but she stopped me.
cannot use! it's flooded! she held her arms up as if to prevent me from going in.
sure enough, as i made to move towards the bathroom door, i could feel the top (fake parquet) layer of floor shift, and bubbles appeared at the part where it joined to the frame of the bathroom door. there were even bloop bloop bubble sounds.
***
paul and i have been attending the government-run church, 海淀堂 (hai3 dian4 tang2), which is about five bus stops away from our apartments. i think it's a presbyterian church, and the service isn't much different from a traditional church service back home, except that it's in chinese, and the congregation is extremely enthusiastic about saying amen.
after every sentence of prayer, and sometimes after every verse of the responsive reading (depending on which verses we're reading responsively), there will be very loud AMENS! resounding left-right-in-front- behind us.
i sometimes wonder whether everybody knows what they're saying amen for, or whether they say it because they think it's the correct and right thing to do, and everybody else is saying it. it's almost as if they were at a communist political rally, cheering for everything a political leader standing on stage says, regardless of whether they've properly understood it or not. . .
. . .but then i think about how china's experienced a spiritual vacuum for such a long time, and it is heartening to know that her leaders are becoming more open to the idea of religion, and some of her people's lives have been filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit.
perhaps it's no wonder they say amen so loudly and so often.
yesterday was a momentous day: i managed to understand the entire sermon, and take notes, all in chinese.
cannot use! it's flooded! she held her arms up as if to prevent me from going in.
sure enough, as i made to move towards the bathroom door, i could feel the top (fake parquet) layer of floor shift, and bubbles appeared at the part where it joined to the frame of the bathroom door. there were even bloop bloop bubble sounds.
***
paul and i have been attending the government-run church, 海淀堂 (hai3 dian4 tang2), which is about five bus stops away from our apartments. i think it's a presbyterian church, and the service isn't much different from a traditional church service back home, except that it's in chinese, and the congregation is extremely enthusiastic about saying amen.
after every sentence of prayer, and sometimes after every verse of the responsive reading (depending on which verses we're reading responsively), there will be very loud AMENS! resounding left-right-in-front- behind us.
i sometimes wonder whether everybody knows what they're saying amen for, or whether they say it because they think it's the correct and right thing to do, and everybody else is saying it. it's almost as if they were at a communist political rally, cheering for everything a political leader standing on stage says, regardless of whether they've properly understood it or not. . .
. . .but then i think about how china's experienced a spiritual vacuum for such a long time, and it is heartening to know that her leaders are becoming more open to the idea of religion, and some of her people's lives have been filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit.
perhaps it's no wonder they say amen so loudly and so often.
yesterday was a momentous day: i managed to understand the entire sermon, and take notes, all in chinese.
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