Maybe....

As we prepared to leave on our journey, we were required to attend a two-week training session at Brigham Young University. We learned about Chinese history and culture, had a crash course in Survival Chinese and a host of other relevant and interesting topics.

During one of the units we learned  about Taoism, Buddhism and Confucianism, three religious / philosophical traditions prevalent in China today, which have been woven into the fabric of Chinese life and culture for several millennia.  The professor who was teaching us shared a short story / parable that illustrated Taoism's goal of being in harmony with "The Way" and how important it is to flow with life.  The story was called The Taoist Farmer by Sofo Archon:

There was a farmer whose horse ran away.  That evening the neighbors gathered to commiserate with him since this was such bad luck. He said, "Maybe."  The next day the horse returned, but brought with it six wild horses, and the neighbors came exclaiming at his good fortune.  He said, "Maybe."  And then, the following day, his son tried to saddle and ride one of the wild horses, was thrown, and broke his leg.

The neighbors came to offer their sympathy for the misfortune. He said, :Maybe." The day after that, conscription officers came to the village to seize young men for the army, but because of the broken leg, the farmer's son was rejected. When the neighbors came in to say how fortunately everything had turned out, he said, "Maybe."
     
It was a lovely story full of wonderful meaning.  As much as we enjoyed the story / parable, little did Bonita or I know that we would have a similar experience on our journey to Jinan.  I thought Bonita captured it perfectly in her journal entry about our trip to Jinan:

      1.  During our training at BYU, we were excited to receive our travel itinerary to Jinan...
           Good fortune!  Maybe...

      2.  We flew from Denver to Los Angeles to catch our flight to China...which was cancelled! 
           Bad luck.  Maybe...

      3.  BYU's Emergency Travel support was able to book us on a flight to China the next
           day.  Good fortune!  Maybe...

      4.  We went to the ticket counter and had to wait 90 minutes.  Bad fortune.  Maybe...

      5.  BYU Travel called back to say she had found a hotel near the airport for us to stay,
           and the airline said they were able to give us a voucher for the hotel.  Good fortune. 
           Maybe...

      6.  The airline said the flights rearranged by BYU Travel wouldn't allow enough time for
           us to transfer to our next flight.  Bad fortune.  Maybe...

(Are you seeing a trend here?)

      7.  But -- the airline felt they would be able to change our flights.  Good fortune.  Maybe...

      8.  However, it took so long for them to fix the ticket that the flight they were going to
           get us on for the next day was fully booked.  Bad fortune!  Maybe...

      9.  They found us a flight to our original interim city -- Guangzhou.  Good fortune. 
           Maybe...

     10.  But we would have to spend the next night in Guangzhou and arrive in Jinan a day
            later than we had planned.  Bad fortune.  Maybe...

     11.  But nothing was working!  Four airline agents and the airline's Help Desk were
            unable to change our flight for some unknown reason.  Bad fortune!  Maybe...

(Are you getting tired yet?  At this point in the trip, we sure were.  We were nearly twelve hours into our journey, and were only about 1,000 miles into our 6,500-mile odyssey...)

     12.  Finally, we were asked if we would be willing to fly on another airline, through a
            different city (Xiamen) to get to Jinan.  Good fortune!  Maybe...

      13.  But if we did that, we would have to claim our baggage in Xiamen, go through
             Customs and re-check our baggage to Jinan.  Bad fortune.  Maybe...

      14.  If we hurried, we could catch the flight to Xiamen in the next 45 minutes rather than have to
            wait until the next day.  Good fortune!  Maybe...

      15.  We arrived in Xiamen excited and tired after the 15-hour flight.  But we found the
             airline had only booked us through to Xiamen and not all the way to Jinan!  And
             they had not given us any paperwork other than our boarding pass which proved we
             should have been ticketed through to Jinan.  Bad fortune!  Maybe...

      16.  We spoke with a young woman at the airline counter who clearly didn't have the
             authority to help us.  But her supervisor took over, and seemed to understand our
             problem.  Good fortune!  Maybe...

      17.  The supervisor found us a flight to Jinan that morning, but we would have to pay
             for it -- it wouldn't be considered part of the original flight plans.  He directed us to a
             ticketing agent.  Bad fortune!  Maybe...

      18.  Just as we were handing a ticketing agent our credit card for the flight to Jinan, the
             supervisor had a change of heart, and took us to another ticketing agent who ticketed
             us to Jinan for no extra fee.  Good fortune!  Maybe...

The final flight to Jinan was smooth and uneventful, we found all our luggage, our driver, and made it the hotel we will be living in for the next year without further issues.  And -- we did it in four fewer hours than the original itinerary called for (32 hours door-to-door rather than 36 hours!  )

Good fortune?  Absolutely!

China -- Here we come!

When I was a kid, I liked to hang out with older boys.  One time, while on vacation in Oklahoma, I went with a group of older boys to their neighborhood pool.  After playing in the pool for a while, they all decided we should go off the high dive at the pool.

So off we went...as I ascended the ladder, I kept thinking, "We're sure going up pretty high."  We came to the first diving board, and the boys kept going...and of course so did I.  We came to the second diving board...and they still went higher.  Finally we got to the third and last diving board -- the jumping-off point (literally) for our watery activity / potential death.

In dismay, I watched each of my friends go out to the end of the board, and with no hesitation whatsoever, leap into the water below.  I marveled that their internal organs weren't crushed when they impacted the water. Finally, I was the only one who hadn't yet jumped.  As I moved boldly (not!) toward the end of the board, my courage ebbed with each ensuing step.  When I got to the end of the board and looked down at my minnow-sized friends in the water far below, they were all yelling for me to jump.

I didn't know what to do.  Quitting wasn't in my nature...especially when I was with friends.  But I was way up in the sky, probably further than I had ever been in my life.  Clouds darted past me, not seeming to care about or even notice my predicament.  Some of them even seemed to be mocking me. (My memory is that I was about 100 feet above the water...but I suspect it was no more than 20 feet....)

At that moment, if I had remembered my mother's oft-repeated expression --

                   "Well, if your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump too?"

-- I might have swallowed my pride, backed carefully away from the business end of the diving board and climbed down the ladder to at least the 75-foot board (which was probably about 15 feet above the water).

What to do, what to do?  I could hear my friends' calls...which now included words that sounded a lot like "sissy" and "chicken."  I looked down again, and saw I was still 100 feet / 20 feet above the water.

Finally the decision was made, and I leaped into the thin air. As I leaped, I remember thinking, "What have I done?!"

Somehow, I survived.

Why am I sharing this story that seems totally irrelevant in a blog about going to China?

As I reached the point where I knew there was no going back -- when my momentum carried me off the end of the diving board and I could not turn back even if I wanted to -- I had a number of conflicting emotions including....

Sheer terror...

Pure exhilaration...

(Sure Terrilaration?  Peer Exilarerror?)

The reason I share this story is that those emotions have assailed me once again -- as I now pass the point of no return, I ask myself, "What have I done?!"   I feel sheer terror...and pure exhilaration about our upcoming adventure.  I'll let you know if my organs get crushed when I impact the water.  (If that happens, Bonita may have to do that post...)

We're on our way -- China, here we come!