Beautiful Things about Living in Beijing

“ To celebrate the May Day, the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs has invited the China Philharmonic Orchestra to hold the SAFEA May Day Concert at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, April 25th, 2018 at the Forbidden City Concert Hall.”

This is the invitation that we received in our email yesterday. How fun! We have not been to the Forbidden City yet. (I know this is a terrible admission, but those of you that know us realize that we are the world’s worst tourists and don’t go to the usual places….we do need to make it to the Great Wall soon here though.) Anyway, we will go to hear a concert tonight with a group of very nice people.

There are so many, many wonderful things about living here:

Top-notch cultural events

Adequate salary to do what we want

A very nice apartment (one of the best we have ever lived in)

Convenient subways

Easy, pervasive biking situations

Good health care

Nice massage options

Availability of most any food we want

Often cheaper to eat out than cook at home

The easiest work load I have ever conceived of having

Fun lessons with motivated, intelligent students

Supportive team and sending organization

Helpful, interesting, available wonderful people in the country as a whole

Good international church to attend and support

Non-violent, safe culture

Ancient philosophy and traditional long-term view of issues

Ability to share my faith in a myriad of situations, surprisingly

Respectful attitude towards teachers and particularly the university where we are

The list can go much longer, and I will probably add later. I also did not put these in a priority order. You can tell. But sometimes it is better not to emphasize some aspects. That will go into the “Frustrating Aspects of Life Here” which will be in a future post. Looking forward to the concert tonight.