老北京人：weather forecasts

New Beijingers: 天气预报 is Chinese for "weather forecast," when the guy on the news tries to guess whether it will rain or shine the next day.

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老北京人：天气预报 is Chinese for "weather pronouncement," when the guy on the news calls over to the military dudes shooting photodecomposing silver iodide missiles into the atmosphere to hear when and how much rain will happen.

老北京人："Old Beijing Folks"

Driving home tonight in pelting rain on top of a motorbike that seemed to be disintegrating underneath me, I had an idea for another thread. 老北京人 lao beijing ren is Chinese for "old Beijing folks," folks who know how it really is in the North Capital of China. Hopefully, LBJR posts can shed some light on how your perceptions about things in China change as you spend more and more time here.

6 Chinese 8-year olds may now believe this is the legend of Easter

Class: "It's about Jesus, we already know that!"

Mr. Kevin: "Nooo, Easter is not about Jesus. Do you guys know what the world really looked like 5,000 years ago?"

Class: "......uh..."

Mr. Kevin: "Five thousand years ago, things were a bit different than they are today. Things were bigger. Plants, garbage cans, houses. Rabbits. They were the size of people" <cynical expression of disbelief washes over class> "and they ruled the world."

"The rabbits, for as long as they could remember, had their run of things, lazing away the days, eating grass peacefully. One day, arriving on their shores were these birds--they couldn't fly, they had these weird feet--"

Class: "Chickens!"

Mr. Kevin: "--and they were interested in more space to grow their chicken kingdom bigger and bigger. The rabbits didn't like this, they wanted their homes to themselves, to live in peace. But the chickens were having none of it. A war began that lasted for many years" not
be real>
"After many years of fighting, the rabbits had had enough and they decided to do something drastic. They--"

Nancy: "What's 'drastic'?"

Mr, Kevin: "Something really really BIG. They figured that, what's the best way to get rid of the chickens? We could kill them, but that's way too crazy. Hey, how about we took at the chicken babies?! Then there won't be any more chickens to fight.

"So late one night, the rabbits crept into the chicken's camp, and stole all of these huge eggs. At that time, chickens were pretty big, right? So that was no small thing stealing thousands of eggs bigger than basketballs!

"The rabbits felt bad about stealing all their eggs. They were peaceful animals and they felt like they had no choice. 'Hey, this isn't us,' said the rabbit leader. 'We can't do this.'

"Instead of rolling the eggs into the sea as they had planned, the rabbits ran around the glen and gather flowers and petals of every kind--red ones, blue ones, yellow and green. They threw them into big, boiling pots of water, and soon their were these big pots of color into which they dipped all the eggs.

"Back at the chicken camp, they went to bed heartbroken. But the next morning, in the middle of camp, there was a pile of colored eggs 5 stories high. 'Our babies!' they shouted.

"The rabbit commander shook hands with Captain Chicken, and the war was over. We commemorate that day, every year, by coloring Easter eggs, celebrating the peace between rabbits and chickens."

Bob: "But what happened to rabbits and chickens? Why are they so small today?"

Mr. Kevin: "Good question. People came along. We had big sticks, then we had axes and tools for fighting with the animals that the rabbits and chickens didn't have. So what's the only thing they could of have done? Only thing to do was hide--under the ground, under the house, wherever. Slowly, evolution selected for the smallest chickens and rabbits."

Americans Promoting Study Abroad

While the number of Chinese students studying in America each year gets a lot of play (it's now around 200,000, recently passing India as the most from any country), an even more incredible number is how many American students study in China each year: about 17,000 in 2013. This "education gap" is appalling and potentially very dangerous, as America and China's future together is interwoven and will be based on the quality and depth of understanding that each side has for the other. Right now, on a person-to-person basis, China is doing a good job building up a critical mass of worldly young people. America, for various reasons, needs to keep up. That is why it's so exciting to be involved with APSA, an organization promoting study abroad opportunities for at-risk American students who otherwise couldn't dream about an experience living and studying in China. In association with President Obama's 100,000 Strong Initiative to increase the number and diversity of Americans studying in China to 100,000 total during his time in office, APSA is doing incredible work identifying and providing exciting study and professional experiences for talented young people who will go on to become the next generation of ambassadors promoting partnership and understanding between our two countries.

Just last week, Jeffrey Wood, an APSA Scholar who participated in APSA's flagship Summer Scholars 10-week immersion program (we have 90 kids this summer, up from 50 last summer), had the chance to interview First Lady Michelle Obama, who was passing through Beijing with her mother and daughters. Jeffrey, who is now enrolled at George Mason University, is currently studying abroad here. Not a bad way to spend your time away from studying Mandarin, eh?!?