She began life as a castaway child- somewhere in another province to a mother who could not care for her. To view the princess charm and beauty now makes it even more difficult to understand how someone could have relinquished her willingly. The mother she has now had 2 natural-born sons when the desire to choose her stirred inside. She definitely needed a girl. The daily flow of bows and dresses and meticulous tresses required an outlet. [Internal damage of some sort would certainly have been the consequence of leaving that part of mothering unused.]

There is a strange kind of irony that she has returned to the nation of her origin where her parents care for children who have a similar inauspicious beginning. Two years ago when we arrived, she shared her home with 3 sisters and no fewer than 5 brothers. Two of the sisters have moved on to forever families in the States. When she was asked if she was going to miss the sister who last left- the one who wore a ring that matches her own- she glanced at her ring finger thoughtfully for a minute and said, “No, I’m not going to miss her. I’m going to remember her.”

Recently she came to class and noticed a cut on Miss Nanette’s finger. “What’s that?” she inquired. “It’s a paper cut.” “A paper cut? Miss Nanette, paper can’t cut you,” she responded incredulously. “See?” said she, with her finger sliding along the edge of a sheet of paper picked up from her desk. “Well, it can cut you if it hits you just right,” responded the teacher. “Miss Nanette. In all my seven years, I have never had a paper cut [certain that seven years of experience qualified her as a competent judge of whether paper could actually cut one’s finger or anything else].”

What fun to watch her learn in 2 languages, assimilating as much of 2 cultures as we can provide her. [She, the Chinese daughter, was thinking in English when we arrived, while her blond-haired, green-eyed brother was thinking in Chinese!] She is secure and happy, and doing many of the things 7-year-olds normally do, like learning to ride a 2-wheeler. “What might her ‘other’ life have been like?” I ponder. I have no clue; but I am certain it would have been totally different from the one she now gets to live.

James Dobson once shared that it takes about 2 years to settle into a new home-even if the move is only across town. We’ve moved to the other side of the globe and changed living quarters three times since our arrival, so it is no small thing to say, “It feels like home.”

While Dana’s week is a mix of teaching in the classroom, running errands and doing house repairs, my week is between our little cottage and the classrooms at the Main House. I seldom even scale the second flight of stairs to the third floor.

Things have become more or less familiar-the sounds of the village out side our bedroom window, the sounds of ping pong games in our little court yard, even the scurrying of what I hope are squirrels and not other vermin, nesting in the eaves.

Even the language is sounding less strange. I can recognize words and phrases and piece together the gist of some conversations. With the exception of a few animal parts that we deem inedible- chicken feet and pig testicles- we have hardly had an adjustment to the food. We feel healthier and enjoy the wide variety.

Just when I think I have fully adapted. I have a “blog moment.” The day began with my usual consumption of Green Vibrance- a Barley powder, mixed in diluted apple juice. This is breakfast. I chase it with a bottle of lemon water that I carry to the classroom and consume before lunch. By 10:30 I am heading for the Lav. Only this day, the door on the bathroom was unable to close. The doorframe was bent. It was too late for me to seek out an alternative bathroom. My only option was to barricade the door. I am shoving the wastebasket, laundry basket and small plastic shelf against it. I even tried using the plunger as a lever against it. Although it did secure the door, sort of, it did not eliminate the crack- a one-inch gap at the base widening to more than two inches at the top. It would have to do. Thankfully the relationship between the door and the crack was in my favor.

Now I take a pre-water break leaving time to find an alternate bathroom until the door is repaired. Still, there is a great demand on these three rooms in the Main House, so a bucket full of water stands ready as a barricade and we’ve all learned to understand that this means occupied. At least this is my desperate hope.

As it approached 9:30 AM, I told Nanette that I was going to take a walk to the port authority to see what information I could gather about the status of the ferry to Mawei. The departure hall was dark, but a cleaning person could make it clear that there was no ferry that day. When I asked if anyone spoke English, she exited through a side door and up a flight of stairs, returning with two security officials. They informed me that the ferry was not scheduled to run for six more days- a whole week between runs. This was not at all what I was hoping to hear.

Many times when I was having “difficult” day, I would recall stories I had heard from peers who served in Vietnam: trudging through steamy jungles with no changes of clothing, sometimes for several days. Often I would cheer myself with this maxim: “Any day with clean socks and underwear is a good day.” Thankfully, in all of my married life [and largely due to the diligence of my spouse keeping up with our laundry over several flights of stairs] I had never had a bad day- until now. I have, in the past, improvised a clothesline in a motel room or dried my socks with a hair dryer after washing them out in the sink. I learned very early on to tuck a spare set of clothes in my carry –on luggage whenever I traveled, recognizing the real possibility of a forced separation from my luggage by illiterate baggage carriers.

The thought of a full week of successive bad days was intolerable, so I began to implore the officials for some help exploring our alternatives. They agreed to make some calls to the tourism bureau. After about an hour and a half, one of the officials said that a travel agency had said they could accept my American-issued VISA. There was a flight from the Matsu airport to Taipei at 12:10. From there we could fly to Jinmen, and catch a shuttle bus to the ferry serving Xiamen on the mainland. I knew I could retrieve some additional cash from an ATM once we were back on terra firma, and I knew the bullet train to Fuzhou was both fast and inexpensive. I had to decide on the spot due to the time: did I want to fly to Taipei in 45 minutes?

Not having anything to pack, I readily said yes. They whisked me back to the hotel where I bounded up the four flights and announced to Nanette that we were leaving. Now. We offered a quick explanation to Charlene, then rushed to the waiting van. We showed our passports at the single check-in counter at the airport, got our tickets, and waited about 20 minutes for the turbo-prop to Taipei to load. At 1 o’clock, we were looking for the Mandarin Airlines counter in Taiwan’s capital city where we would finalize arrangements as far as Xiamen. An agent for the travel service approached us with an envelope containing our tickets. [I suppose the fact that we were the only westerners within sight was his clue he had found the right targets in the crowded terminal.]

The flight to Jinmen was a little turbulent, but nothing compared to the pitch and roll of the ferry to Matsu the day before. A young woman in an airline uniform asked for our passports, then walked away. This always makes us nervous, because one of the first rules of international travel is this: Don’t get separated from your passport. I noticed that she had collected and bundled several passports, so felt a little more at ease. At the same time, I kept my eye on her parcel as she headed out an exit to one of the waiting shuttle buses and handed the driver the package.

The bus headed down narrow, scenic roads which became more and more rural. Homes were spread apart, and the fields were plowed by men walking behind water buffaloes. The port was a small concrete and glass fortress cemented to the jetty that faced the mainland. The bus driver handed the passport parcel out his window to a waiting official, whom we scurried to follow into the nearby building. Inside there were 2-3 separate stations for the several ferries which embarked from here regularly- far more regularly than Matsu- and our passports were carried to one of these. Keeping one eye on our passports, we small-talked with an English-speaking official who was near the same counter. When he learned that we had not eaten since our 7 AM breakfast – and it was now about 2:30 PM- he handed us 2 boxes containing a standard issue Asian airline snack: a small container of water and a piece of cake. It was all we had time for anyway, even if there had been access to another resource.

Departing on time, surprisingly, we nevertheless sat in the harbor for a good 15 minutes before getting under way at a modest pace through the gray chop toward the mainland. 40 minutes later, we were waiting our turn in line at the customs entrance. Being the only Americans, the whole boatload of Asians was processed before we made it through. We cared very little about this extra attention, however: we were nearing home. A driver offered to give us a ride. He was able catch that we needed to visit an ATM first, and showed us a machine in the lobby close by. He had to consult with a buddy by phone in order to understand what we meant by “train station”. Thirty minutes of congested downtown traffic later, we were wearily climbing out of the back seat of his vehicle and heading for a ticket line at the train station.

We readily agreed that we would prefer not to go any further that day. Across the street, a KFC and several other tempting eateries beckoned to our grumbling gastric machinery. The Ibis Hotel down the street offered the promise of a good night’s sleep, which we would accept at any price at this point. But man that I am, I felt the need to complete the business at the train station first. Lacking the rudimentary language needed to ask all the right questions, I left the window a few minutes later bearing 2 tickets to Fuzhou. They were not open tickets, as I had thought, but specific seats on a bullet train leaving in less than 15 minutes.

We scurried around a corner and up a flight of stairs, trying to get oriented in a building modeled after an octopus. We located the car by number, then our seats in one neat compartment already filled with 6 other people. Noticing a fellow passenger with a styrofoam plate of food, I headed forward to look for the dining car. Rice with chicken for two for the price of McDonald’s: not bad, but I won’t be writing for the recipe. The LED sign above the door in the passageway said we were traveling at 249 kilometers per hour, and the outside temperature was 20 degrees C. I began to feel hopeful that we could make Shadi Village before midnight.

We rolled into Fuzhou Station a little after 9 PM, a little too late to catch the last #55 bus to our neighborhood. We found an empty taxi and negotiated a price to Shangjie, undoubtedly about twice the price for a metered ride but still only $12 USD for a 25 km ride. For some reason, the driver was less than enthused about the narrow winding streets of our village, but we encouraged him on to our gate before the stroke of 10 o’clock.

Ten Tired Turtles on a Tuttle-tuttle Tree never fell into bed with greater tenuity. Home at last. The travel adventure has ended, and we will have another 90 days of everyday adventure at Hidden Treasures Home.

As we eat our microwave lunch of noodles at the 7-Eleven, young soldiers drift in and out to the post office next door. We watch a few smaller ferries bob at dockside while they carefully time the unloading of passengers one-by-one. They quickly turn around to make a short trip to one of several nearby island ports. We have a couple of hours before the 2 o’clock ferry to Mawei, so I suggest we try the ATM at the post office to procure a few Taiwanese dollars to replenish our supply of snacks. Despite the VISA symbol on the machine, the ATM refuses to communicate with my American bank. Alas, we are destined to roam the snack aisles at the 7-Eleven with no spendable currency.

We make our way back to the port authority, skirting the puddles in the concrete street and pointing the umbrella directly into the wind to prevent a re-enactment of Mary Poppins. It is much quieter than usual for this time of day; but we attribute this to the inclement weather and to fewer people wishing to make the journey under these conditions. As 2 o’clock approached, however, I began to be concerned that there may be more to it than that. Just at that moment, an employee walked over and made it clear that the ferry was not going that afternoon. Come back tomorrow for more information.

I was regretting that when we had made our phone call yesterday to ask if the ferry were running to Matsu, we had failed to ask if it were returning. Of course there was nothing to be done at this point except to button our jackets against the wind- thankfully the rain had stopped- and to head to the other side of the harbor to the Holiday Hotel. I had met the owner’s daughter, Charlene, a year ago on a previous visit. She was a university student studying hotel management. Back then, she had shown me a room on the fifth floor with a view of the harbor. [It is really the fourth floor, but the Ch. word “four” sounds like the word for “death”, so hotels routinely rename them: much like the absence of the 13th floor in many western hotels.] So I knew I could secure a clean, simply furnished room with a hot shower and a view.

Charlene had now graduated and was back home to help with the family business. That made the registration process easier, since neither of her parents spoke any English. They accepted my PRC currency as payment [the pinkish RMB that resembled their own but featuring different benefactors], and even exchanged a small amount of what I had left so that we could expect to eat for one day. We had brought just enough cash to meet our needs for the one-day trip, living by the principle that what we didn’t carry we couldn’t spend.

After checking in, we returned to the desk to ask for directions to a bank. If this adventure took another unexpected turn, we really needed to find a source for additional cash. Charlene drew a circle around a spot on a Matsu tourism bureau map, and we headed off to find a taxi to drive us to the spot. After negotiating the price with a driver, we climbed into the back seat and the taxi climbed the hill to the other side of the island. We stopped on a hill just below the Bank of Taiwan, now closed for the day, but equipped with a brightly lit ATM. Though it was emblazoned with the same UnionPay symbol as my Bank of China card, there was no union and the machine would not pay. Ditto my American card.

We managed to communicate our need for a place to eat, and the taxi went up and over another hill, stopping next to a narrow alley lined with small shops and restaurants. We understood that the dinner hour would begin at 5 PM, which was still a few minutes away, so we walked the length of the alley to scout out our choices, settling on a place with knotty pine walls and several tables. As we settled into our seats, a young girl brought us a menu written in English in trade for the Chinese menus already on the table. The cook emerged from the kitchen to help us with our choices. When we asked for the fish ball soup, she suggested a noodle dish that would make a good complement. Enough food for an entire family, as it turned out.

As we prepared to pay, Nanette pulled out a picture of our Hidden Treasures children to show to the grandmother who was nearby. From out of nowhere a grandson was by her side, in his early 20’s, and with very good English. He explained to the grandmother what we did, and we explained to him that we were planning to catch the ferry back to Mawei the next day. His response took the wind out of our sails: the internet had already announced that there would be no ferry on Tuesday. Wanting to make the most of having the ear of an English speaker, we explained to him that we had money enough for only one day, that we had been unsuccessful with 2 ATM’s, and wondered what our options might be to resolve our predicament. He said he would speak to his father- we thought perhaps about alternative, cheaper lodging- and he returned to say that his father had agreed to pay for the hotel room for another night. Moreover we were invited to take our meals on Tuesday with them as their guests. Extraordinary favor.

We extended our thanks and headed back on foot in the direction of our hotel. The threat of rain was still on hold, but the biting cold of the wind tore through our clothing. We gratefully crawled beneath the warm quilts, watched a movie in English on the TV, and turned in early. By this time, we have made friends with the Chinese bed, which gives a whole different slant to the phrase “room and board.” We drift off to sleep knowing that our Travel Guide has everything covered.

We had been planning on a “visa trip”; and as the date approached, Saturday, October 23 would be the least disruptive to our school schedule and other household needs -food shopping and medicines for the kids. What we had not calculated into our planning was that Typhoon Megi would be in the South China Sea. The nearby ferry from Mawei, PRC to Matsu, ROC [Taiwan] was not running Saturday, October 23 due to high winds and rough seas.. So we were on to Plan B: call Sunday and see if it is running on Monday morning. Yes, the ferry is running on Monday morning. The driver arrives at 7 AM, and we are at the ticket counter as soon as it opens at the Mawei Port Authority. The agent doesn’t speak English, but I know he is telling us we must wait because his desk calculator shows we have now been 91 days in China from our July arrival date. So we wait while others purchase tickets and proceed to the departure hall.

The ferry leaves in about 20 minutes when the agent signals for us to follow him to an immigration and customs office. We sit at a table where I can see an official filling out forms on a computer in the inner office. An older woman sitting with us has a similar problem, and she is anxious about missing the ferry. It didn’t require any language between us for her to communicate her angst.

Almost everyone is through customs and on to the ferry when we are again following the ticket agent back out to the line through security and customs. After the customary customs check however, we are again herded back to the big table in the immigration office. Please sign these three pages of documents, and seal the signature with a red fingerprint. Gotta have that red ink with an official document. Finally onto the ferry, which leaves a few minutes behind schedule.

The seas are still rough, and the pitch and roll has the predictable result for many of our fellow passengers. Thankfully we were exempted from direct participation in this purge. The sight and sound bytes were vivid enough in themselves. We arrive at high tide, and step ashore into a brisk wind and light rain. Customs was routine, and we were at our favorite Matsu spot in 10 minutes: the harborside 7-Eleven Store. We can get something to eat while we wait for the afternoon ferry back, and the weather is not at all inviting for a walk up the steep craggy hills behind us.

Flash forward to the summer of 2010, when I managed to break one rear molar on either side while visiting the States. I knew that I needed to have them addressed fairly soon- I don’t really like pain-but I also knew that my new dentist friend Daisy was both competent and reasonable: far less expensive than what I would have to pay in the US. So I opted to have the mouth overhaul done in the People’s Republic. Really my chief concern was communication. Daisy’s English ability is far ahead of my primitive Mandarin, but sometimes things break down a little. After my first visit last spring, I came home and said to Nanette, “I think I had a root canal.” I had never had one before, and Daisy was doing the best she could to explain; but “root canal” was not part of our shared vocabulary.

As we discussed my treatment, I asked whether she could also do something to fill the space created by an ancient extraction many years before. She proposed making a bridge by crowning the molars fore and aft of the hole. This brought the total number of crowns to 4 plus one fake tooth. We did not discuss the total number of hours I might have to recline in her new chair with my mouth propped open like a rattler getting milked; but let’s just say it was far longer altogether than I have ever had to gape.

The timing was a little off. We started in late August, and managed during a weekly visit to finish the temporary crowns and bridge just before National Day, October 1. Holidays are serious business here. From October 1 to 7, everything is put on hold. Everybody is on a week’s vacation at least, and sometimes more. My mouth impressions sat in a lab in Shenzhen for the fireworks and festivities. So rather than one to one and a half weeks of temporary, it dragged on to more than a month.

Then last Friday, the permanent crowning took place. What a difference! No rough edges, a near-perfect bite , and good color match make for “good as new”. I can once again masticate bilaterally- chew things on both sides of my mouth. One side benefit is no more shredding of floss is some difficult spaces.

I had been told that medical and dental care here would not be comparable to the States. What I find interesting is that my Chinese lab does work for American dentists [ with German material]. And I bet they don’t charge Chinese prices for them either. While there were some procedural differences in the whole process, there was nothing I found inferior or scary. I’d do the whole thing over again in a minute. [Well maybe I wouldn’t go so far as that. Who enjoys the dentist’s chair?]

I had thought I would have to wait for my Crowns. And I still have Hope to add to my collection someday. But for now I can smile broadly with one glittering gold and four antique white.

As we moved to Florida and a much warmer clime, there emerged a style I would call the “funky-artsy” [or alternatively that other naughty word that rhymes with “artsy”]. Nanette shed her long hair for a length more suited to “hot and humid”. Forget the hair dryer and styling techniques she’d long practiced: wash and wear only for the desired curly girl look. An assortment of pastels joined her fashion palette. Who could forget the bright melon color that woke up her sleepy living room like a caffeine overload? The Granola Kid is transfused with the lifeblood of the NBC peacock, in living color.

Nanette’s new Birkenstock sandals are a dramatic example of the blending of these two styles. Nothing, in my opinion, is more stereotypically earthy-crunchy than Birks- a real favorite of the flower children of our youth and other back-to-the-earth types of later years. Good foot support, very practical, low maintenance, and durable. But while we were home last summer in America, Nanette found a pair of Birks at the Bargain Barn which shattered the earthy-crunchy stereotype. They personify funky-artsty bonding with earthy-crunchy like nothing I’ve ever seen. They don’t match anything else so you wear them with whatever.

If the truth be known, I find it kind of fun- me, Mr. Oatmeal-for-Breakfast-Every-Day daring to add honey and raisins for a little pizzazz. Her earthy-crunchy phase certainly prepared me better for life in China: tofu prepared in every imaginable way [yes, tofu pudding], almost un-American in the quantity of red meat that graced our dinner table for years. The more recent funky-artsy phase has forced me beyond my comfort zone, pulling me out of my stick-in-the-mud mentality. Adaptability and flexibility have been two key requirements of our Fuzhou lifestyle.

Hidden Treasures Home is a small community of blended styles: cooking styles, clothing styles, decorating and furniture, child-rearing, and education. Things evolve very quickly to adapt to new needs. It can never be about East or West, Chinese or American, a right way or wrong way to do something. It is about raising special needs children in a nurturing but stimulating environment, preparing some for adoption and all for a future and a hope. I hope it will always resemble Nanette’s Birkenstock sandals: an excellent example of blending styles.

No, it wasn’t amazing. It was fast and efficient, and a good way to make French fries for a scout troop. But 3,000 repetitions on afternoon television caused me to invoke a vow rarely to use the word “amazing” again.

Today I am ignoring this vow. I feel compelled, because I can’t think of an English word that is more suitable for this story. For over 5 years, Mike and Deena, our friends who founded and direct Hidden Treasures where we volunteer, have left China periodically with their family of 5 in order to comply with the conditions of whatever particular visa had been issued to them. Generally the longest stay allowed on a non-business visa is 90 days. Taking a forced vacation to Hong Kong may sometimes be an appealing reprieve from the hectic lifestyle of a foster home for 30+ kids; but it is more often inconvenient and always expensive.

Over the years, many friends have looked for ways to secure a different kind of visa: setting up a branch office of their US non-profit in Fuzhou or opening some kind of side business among others. All of these attempts have smothered somewhere in a pile of red tape after many valiant efforts. Frequently officials would express a sincere desire to help them, but no one knew of a legal avenue around the roadblocks.

The day after Abigail’s surgery in June, Mike and Deena met her surgeon, Dr. Lee, early in the morning to debrief about her condition. When Dr. Lee learned that they were heading out that day for Hong Kong on yet another visa trek, he said, “This isn’t right. You are here helping these children, and you shouldn’t have to leave.” He promised he would do something.

When he approached Fuzhou city officials he knew, he heard the words many before him had listened to: “Sorry, we’d like to help but there is nothing we can do.” But Dr. Lee believed there had to be a way. So he approached provincial-level friends. They, too, were sympathetic, but no one knew could offer a solution to the dilemma. A crack in this stone wall appeared when a woman called to tell him about a change in the law- for Fujian Province only, and only for this year- whereby a tenured professor in a valued subject area [you could read that “high-tech genius”, perhaps] could be granted a five-year visa. Dr. Lee somehow thought this law should apply to Mike and Deena’s situation. [I’ve personally never thought of Mike and Deena as “high tech”, despite their near-genius ability to operate an iPod].

Before I go on with this part of the story, I think maybe I have to introduce a little background about Deena. She earned her Master’s in Speech Pathology. There were other fields that held more appeal to her, and she didn’t realize at first that she was making a 7-year commitment to her education. Somehow she felt drawn to speech pathology. She practiced for a while after interning and before having her 2 boys; then became a stay-at-home mom- like her mom. Sometimes she wondered what all of that effort amounted to- not to mention the hard work and considerable expense her father shouldered in order for her to attain her goal.

Now we can fast forward a dozen years and complete the story. What possible interface could there be between Mike and Deena’s situation and this very limited law with a sunset clause? I’m afraid you’ve already guessed it: Deena has a graduate degree in speech pathology, a very limited commodity in China. Like an expert billiard player, Dr. Lee worked this angle until he got his winning shot in the corner pocket.

It is far too complicated for me to remember all of the details, partly because the English names of the public agencies are so unfamiliar and convoluted to me. Dr. Lee, when he came out to recount the story this week, kept saying continually, “You don’t understand how lucky you are.” His good friend was the head of this agency, and he had performed surgery on the son of an official of that agency. Visa officials had been willing to devote a whole day’s meeting to a discussion of how this could be accomplished. Every cog in each of the wheels meshed precisely as it must in order for there to be success.

There are other “minor” details: Deena and Xiao Yu hand-delivering papers that were needed for required medical insurance, and remaining to fully explain their situation. These officials had said, “If you hadn’t stayed, your application would have been denied [on a technicality].” This would have killed the whole effort.

Finally, with all of their ducks in a row, everything came to a head on Sunday. The upshot of it all is this: Deena is the first-ever ex-pat to hold a Chinese license to practice speech pathology. Can I repeat that? The first foreigner in the nation with a license to practice speech pathology. The first 5-year contract [with the government orphanage] granted to a foreigner to operate a foster home. And with that, the ability to secure a 5-year visa, renewable annually right in Fuzhou, for each member of her family.

Now I think that’s AMAZING! Move over, Veg-O-Matic.

The first time I sat at a red light and a large dump truck rumbled through the intersection on my left while a motorbike breezed by me on my right, weaving through the crossing traffic, I was startled. Presently if a visitor were to make a comment about someone ignoring a red light, it is very likely I would no have noticed. It is different with the squeezing and cutting-off behaviors. I am unable to control my visceral responses [ranging from swerving alarm to panic-stop terror] to the aggressive bullish style that is commonplace.

To be fair, there are certain driving characteristics that are much better than in America. Road rage is nearly nonexistent. I have concluded that drivers simply do not construe the actions of other drivers as directed toward them personally. They do not view the space around their cars as their “personal” space. Maybe years of crowded buses and elevators have inured them of this concept. At any rate, I do not witness the fist-waving, epithet-swapping, or anger-contorted glaring as is the norm in the USA.

Horn-blowing is another matter altogether. There is so much blowing of horns that there are actually “No Horn Zones” in certain areas of the city. It seems to me that use of the horn in America is more of a defensive gesture, declaring “Hey! Watch out!” I interpret the Chinese horn as trumpeting, “Here I come, ready or not!” The former alerts other drivers; the latter informs. One of our friends, the wife of a Daimler engineer in Fuzhou where the company is building a Mercedes Benz plant, told me that MB has developed a horn just for the Chinese market: their European tooter would not stand up to the demanding Chinese conditions.

Perhaps two years ago, I heard someone in America facetiously describe other drivers like this: “Anyone who drives slower than me is a jerk; and anyone who drives faster than me is an idiot.” It made me laugh, then made me realize how easily the male ego [in particular] gets wrapped around a steering wheel. And secondly I was forced to concede that I easily fell into this kind of thinking myself. As I began driving in China, I resolved not to make scathing judgments about other drivers; and to view their anarchic driving style as “different” rather than “wrong.” For the most part, this resolution served to bring me home in a less frazzled frame of mind after an intense driving experience.

Maybe 2-3 weeks ago I was driving into the city when it occurred to me that I was adopting some of the “different” habits of the drivers around me: intimidating pedestrians in a crosswalk into waiting, jockeying for position at a stop light, ignoring right-turn-only markings in the right hand lane to get by the trucks, and even passing slow pokes on the bridge across the solid yellow line. Worse yet I justified my actions by thinking that it was really a form of survival in a hostile driving environment. When in Rome drive as the Romans drive. I had watched Ben Hur in the chariot race, and the poor man just did what he had to do.

Then my conscience somehow got jumpstarted. Out of my cranky cranium came another Roman story advocating this road strategy: “Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. “ I decided that I was needing an oil change and some performance tuning very badly. My EGR light had come on, too [no, not Exhaust Gas Recirculator: Extra Grace Required].
Because I know I am called to live differently generally, I need to be driving differently specifically. There is a contagious cynicism that mockingly sneers: “What difference does it make? Who even notices?” But Someone does notice, and someone has invited me to China to drive for him and not Miss Daisy.

So now when I climb behind the wheel, I’m repeating my new motto: Drivin’ Like No One Else.