This too will change

 There's a poem from the Hobbit which starts off,
 "The road goes ever on, down from the door where it began.
    Now far ahead the road has gone and I must follow if I can."
For me it has always expressed a sweet kind of nostalgia - hope, persistence, curiosity - hallmarks of the adventurer.
Gradually, as so many times in China, a new life for me is struggling to be born.  Yesterday a coffee table and a kettle appeared in my room and also I now have internet. Tomorrow I will get heat, hot water and (if I'm lucky) a desk. I have a new neighbourhood.
I have become quite adept at moving around the city.  Instead of a long walk along crowded, dusty streets I take a taxi at the cost of less than half a cup of coffee.  All it takes is the ability to tell the driver where I want to go.  Alternatively I ride the buses, squeezing in among the teeming masses of humanity on the move. My current favorite coffee shop provides western food, great coffee, internet and English language books.  Its very comfortable, which is probably why international students often go there. So far I have met people from Spain, USA, UK and Somalia.  In the evening, the plaza bursts into life as hundreds of people come to dance.  They form several groups, all ages some in costume, all playing different music.  I wander among them admiring the gracefulness and the simple joy of movement.  My day is quite full, sufficient without luxury. I enjoy a warm and peaceful sleep.

 I have given considerable thought to my mission statement as a result of working on the speech - 'Why am I in Xi'an?'  In the '60s I loved to stand by the road, stick out my thumb and hitch a ride with whatever new experience the world had to offer.  50 years later I still appreciate an element of that; although I am more discriminating.  I put myself here deliberately and I choose carefully which rides to accept.  The criteria could be described as my mission in four parts.
1) I want to actually help people, not just play a role for money.
2) I thirst for new experiences.
3) I look for the joy of learning wherever it can be found.
4) I am the moth, drawn to the light yet trying to avoid being burned.
       When one lives alone in a far-off land emotions rise and fall like the tides.  The Chinese have an expression to 'chi ku' which means literally 'eat bitter'.  Any time life gives you hardship such as cold, hunger, pain, fatigue or loneliness you have to learn to eat bitter.  I believe it's one of the secrets of the historic success of the Han people.  Modern North Americans are soft in comparison.
         There is an advantage in being able to stop, to be patient, to fast for awhile.  I realize that I am OK even though things are not as I might have wished.  Even where there is discomfort, its really just a pattern of sensations that the mind labels as good or bad. Even where there is joy, and it arrives frequently, the reality is an eternal truth - this too will change.