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It’s the year of the dragon.

I’m not a brilliant reader. I’m not one who gets up at 5 a.m. every morning to read 3 chapters of whatever book is at the top of my list.  Heck, i hardly even crack open a book while on long flights (i know, the travesty, right!!??)  However, for as long as i can remember, i’ve loved to read.  There was a day when people actually called me or emailed me to ask for book recommendations.  And there was a day when i had an answer.  For now, i don’t know if i can recommend any books with any level of wisdom, but i can tell you what i’m reading at the moment.

Currently, on any given day (with maybe a few days in between) i could be seen with one of these books in my hand:

• The Accidental Creative: How to Be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice
• The Confessions of St. Augustine
• Tide Players: The Movers and Shakers of a Rising China
• The Spirit of Cities: Why the Identity of a City Matters in a Global Age

What are you reading?  Anything you’d recommend?

One good thing that the Chinese have going for them is that they seem to be easily pleased.  Sure, this poses a problem when it comes to pursuing excellence, or innovation, or some of the bigger things we want to see this great country accomplish.  However, when it comes to the simpler things in life it’s nice to see how easily pleased they can be.

Ever since moving to Beijing I tend to most often observe their easy-to-please nature while riding the subway.  And i saw it again today.  It always cracks me up, even to the point of audibly laughing to myself.  Let me keep this short and just tell you what happens.  I want to warn you first though, because it’s likely you won’t think it’s very funny or entertaining until you see it for yourself.

Imagine you’re in a subway car and all the seats are taken, there are few people standing, but this is far from the crammed subway cars people often imagine when they think of Asian public transportation.  It’s just a normal day.  It’s 2 p.m. on a Tuesday and a small army of people are trying to move across the city.  This is not a big deal.  Just pop in the headphones, know how many stops you’re riding, and hold on.  So here’s where the easy-to-please Chinese concept comes in.  I see this all the time.  All. The. Time.  Someone gets up from their seat and the nearest person to that seat rushes over and shoves their butt into the seat as fast as possible.  The next moment is the golden moment.  More often than not, that person who just sat down starts beaming with a smile like they just found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  If their excitement can’t be contained in their face then they start bouncing their legs up and down.  It’s like they just got a fortune cookie saying they will inherit a million dollars – or i guess Ren Min Bi in this case.  It’s simple, it’s a normal everyday occurrence, but it’s like their whole day or week or month was just made perfect by that one moment where they got a seat on the subway.  And so i usually let out a soft chuckle and feel a little warm happiness inside for them and their accomplishment.  All is right in the world when the longings for the subway seat gets fulfilled.

And now i realize that perhaps i am the one who is far too easily amused.

Since post-Thanksgiving is officially the appropriate time to decorate for Christmas a few friends and coworkers got together at our office to Christmas-ify the place.  We put on some Christmas tunes, baked a few cookies, ordered some pizza and everyone pitched in to decorate.  It’s now beautifully ready for a month of Christmas celebrations.  I tried to a take a few pictures, so here ya go:

Each year our office staff and friends from around China gather together in Beijing for a big Thanksgiving blowout!  It’s incredible.  Everyone contributes food and a helping hand in preparing for the day.  This feast is usually a feast for about 100 people.  I could write about it all day, but let me let the pictures speak for themselves.

A few articles of interest that i’ve been reading this week:

The Regulation of Religion in China

Can You Say ‘Booger’?  OMG! MeiYu English Teaching

China’s Wild West: Jackson Hole, China

Ugly Americans Make Us All Look Bad

Last week was my birthday.  I’m not one to make much of my own birthday, mostly because i don’t like the spotlight of it all.  However, this year was loads of fun and i felt overly special thanks to the generosity and creativity of Jenn.  She went way above and beyond what she should have done and made the entire week a week of celebration.

We started the weekend with an afternoon together in my favorite area of Beijing.  She took me to get chicken wings for lunch (one of my favs) and then a very relaxing, put-me-to-sleep massage afterward.  Once we were nice and relaxed from the massage we spent some time together hanging out, eating cupcakes, and enjoying the day.  Later that evening two of our friends joined us at a delicious Spanish restaurant.  Jenn did her homework because apparently this restaurant was voted to have the best tapas in Beijing.  They certainly lived up to the hype!  Amazing!

The next day we went shopping at one of my favorite markets in town.  Mostly just for fun and to pick up a couple of things for other people, but a day at the market is always a good time.  The bargaining, the knock-off clothes and toys, and the bustling crowds is a recipe for some laughs.

Finally, Tuesday was my real birthday.  It was mostly a normal day, but she made my favorite Mexican cheese dip as an afternoon snack and an amazing chocolate cake for dessert.  mmmmm!!!  To wrap it all up, she surprised me with a video comprised of short clips of my friends from all over the world wishing me a happy birthday! What a wonderful surprise!!!

I’m not much of a birthday person, but wow, what a great few days of being pampered and treated like royalty.  I could get used to that.

Here are a few pics!

Birthday brownies.

Birthday cupcake

Birthday dessert again

Birthday dinner with friends

I thought you could enjoy this while i work on a couple of blog post ideas such as:

• Birthday week roundup
• China’s slow internet

I’ll let you in on a little secret: this is how i hope i’m living and how we should be living.

Over the course of 14 days we hosted more than 100 guests from the US.  The first 7 days was for 80 special guests who came to help us celebrate our 30th anniversary of providing excellent English education in China.  The second half was for special partners from the US who will be helping us find new english teachers.

During the first 7 days we not only hosted our 80 guests, but we also hosted our Chinese government partners and university presidents from our partner schools in China.  This was a historic week as we had an unprecedented opportunity to put on display our passion for excellence both inside the classroom and outside.

On Tuesday, Oct. 25, our government partners hosted us for a banquet at the State Guesthouse in Beijing.  Being invited to the State Guesthouse is on par with a diplomat or guest in the US being invited to dinner at Camp David.  To say that this is a rare treat that not many experience would be a huge understatement.  To put it into proper perspective, it’d be appropriate to say that when President Obama is in Beijing he would be invited to dinner at the State Guesthouse.  So there we were, our group of 80, having dinner at the highly distinguished State Guesthouse.  Although i was merely there as a photographer, it was a moment i’ll never forget.

The following night was our turn.  It was our turn to host our government partners and university presidents for a night to show what we’ve accomplished over the last 30 years and where we plan to go from here.  We held our event at the Shang-ri La hotel in western Beijing.  Though the Chinese way is to present ourselves in humility and not to boast about our 30 year history, we still viewed this night as a moment to shine.  It’s a once-in-thirty-years opportunity to show that we’re serious about our love for China and that we’re truly grateful for our partners.  We used musical performances with a renowned pianist and a string quartet, we used beautiful video imagery, and we used lighting to create a beautiful environment.  Our hope was to put on a banquet and event that our Chinese guests had never seen before.  I think we succeeded.  From the opening song through the various speakers and to the closing musical piece, i hope our guests felt appreciated, honored, and maybe they even saw and heard our passion for being in China.  In everything we do, we hope it is never boring or ordinary.

I was honored to work alongside a world-class team of passionate event producers, videographers, and photographers. They made the night shine and made my life seem easy.  A massive thank you to all of them!

Here are a few pictures from our event on Wednesday :

A remarkable thing happened last week as China celebrated their National Day Holiday which was a week long.  There were blue skies everyday in Beijing.  Blue skies and perfect 75 degree temperatures.  Not just any blue either, i mean blue blue. Deep blue. Royal blue. Perfect blue. How did they do that? Okay, so that was weird enough that somehow – magically – on their huge holiday where hundreds of thousands (millions?) of visitors flocked to Beijing the skies just so happen to be perfectly blue.  Then, immediately when the holiday was over it was like someone flipped a switch and everything went gray and smoggy again.  The smog is so thick that you can’t see buildings more than 100 yards away.  It’s so thick that the smog index chart was off the charts… literally.

I’m not saying, but i’m just saying that it’s a little weird that Beijing was very very perfect when droves of out-of-town guests came to visit, but suddenly it’s dark and gray when they leave just like it was before they arrived.  I’m not saying, but i’m just saying that it’s a little bit like someone is behind a curtain flipping switches.  It’s a little too much like that movie, The Truman Show.