And then there’s Levi.  Levi is one of the most gentle spirited humans i’ve ever encountered.  His smile can pierce the hardest and thickest of walls that dwell inside of people.  His quiet leadership is a quietness that’s full of confidence and yet humility that join together in a wonderful dance that’s truly unique.  I’ve paid close attention since meeting Levi and i’ve noticed that when he speaks, people listen.  When he moves, people follow.  And when he smiles, people smile back and the world seems like a better place for a few moments.  I trust Levi infinitely and am honored that he lets me be his friend.

Levi and Jessie got married last Saturday and i think their joining together in holy matrimony might be what made the flowers bloom this week. I think it also might be why the Chinese government lined all the roads in Beijing with roses.  This week following their wedding we have seen unprecedented blue skies in Beijing and i like to look up at the blue and think it’s because Jessie and Levi got married so all of heaven is saying, “Yes! We’re so happy!”  Their lives together are going to carry a powerful force of good into the world around them.  I can’t wait to see the ripple effects that their influence will have in the lives of people literally around the world.  They asked me to be a groomsman and Jenn to be a bridesmaid at their wedding.  While standing in front of a couple hundred of their friends and family members i tried to stand tall to communicate with my body that i’m fully into this and i’m with them.  To stand in a wedding as a groomsman is to say with your presence that i believe in this couple and i’m excited for them and i’m with them.  No matter what, i’m there.  So i tried to be there. All there.  I stood tall, hands crossed in front of my waste, tears in my eyes, and a proud smile across my face.  Somewhere in the middle of the ceremony i thought to myself that if i moved all the way to China more than four years ago just to build this friendship and stand in this wedding then it was worth it.  It was so worth it.

*sidenote* Jenn planned, organized, and designed the reception. That’s worthy of a whole blog post of it’s own so be looking for that soon.

My girlfriend is Asian-American, but i don’t think that’s a big surprise to anyone.  Her ethnicity is Korean, but she was born and raised in America.  Now we live in China and to the untrained Chinese eye, she looks Chinese.  I can’t blame them. She has dark hair, tan skin, and almond-shaped eyes so naturally she MUST be Chinese.  Everywhere we go she gets treated like a Chinese.  Everyone speaks to her in Chinese, pushes her on the subway when they get out of the way for me, and is utterly confused when she doesn’t understand what they’re saying to her because they speak to her a lot faster than they speak to me.

After being in Beijing together for a while and spending a lot of time with locals i have made an observation about how the Chinese language works.  I know many of my friends who have studied the Chinese language extensively will likely disagree with my observation, but to that i would say they should spend a few days roaming the city with Jenn.

Here’s my observation:  Tones and pronunciation of Chinese words don’t matter as much as the perception that the Chinese person has of the speaker.  Let me clarify.  Jenn looks Chinese, so when she speaks it usually doesn’t really matter how botched her pronunciation is of the language, they typically understand her perfectly.  They don’t lean in for clarification or bark a loud, “HUH?!?!” like they do with me.  Often my pronunciation may be more “correct” than hers but they see my white face and a trigger goes off in their brain somehow preventing them from understanding.  But when Jenn speaks, her meaning comes across flawlessly.  When learning Chinese it is drilled into our heads to practice pronunciation and get the tones right.  I disagree.  I think we should just spend some money dying our hair black and getting ourselves some almond-shaped eyes.  I’m only half kidding.

So eventually cart fetching and bagging got a little boring so during the slow times in the store i’d make my way back to the fruit and veggies section to hang with Fred the Fruit Guy.  Fred was the fruit manager and he drove a black Camaro that he parked in the very furthest parking spot to make sure no one touched his car.  He was there everyday cutting fruit trays, taking inventory, ordering more fruit, and mostly hanging out in a refrigerator in the back of the store far from the peering eyes of store managers.  So we hung out.  I’d eat all the watermelon i wanted, help him cut stuff up, help him restock, but mostly i’d just eat fruit.  It was the perfect way to pass the time on my shift.  Every few minutes or so i’d run outside and fetch all the carts. That was easy because i would just put all of them in one tremendously long train and take them all in at once.  My boss would yell at me, i’d laugh and show him how efficient i was being and he’d roll his eyes and go back inside.  Once the lot was clear i’d check the lines to make sure there weren’t customers in need of any grocery bagging and then i’d run to the back of the store for another handful of watermelon.  I learned a lot about being a fruit manager.  I’m pretty sure if Fred had decided to leave i could have easily taken over his job.  Not that his job was easy or that i’m brilliant, it’s just that i thought what he did was fun so i learned a lot about it rather quickly and as my interest grew, my performance cutting fruit and stocking fruit grew too.

So now that i’m a bit older and have had several jobs since then, i still think what i learned in the fruit fridge was a valuable lesson.  Enjoying what you do and finding your work to be fun eliminates the need for forcing employees to clock in and out or to be micromanaged.  They will crank out far more innovative, efficient, and productive work when given the freedom to find enjoyment in their work.  So love your work.  And for pete’s sake, if you’re the boss, let your people have some darn fun.

Anyway, i just wanted to give a shout out to this blog reader.  Jenn and i had an awesome time having dinner together and it was so great to finally meet your husband!  Thanks for stopping through Beijing and saying hey to us!

Anyway, this isn’t a post about Google, it’s a post about curiosity.  I love being curious.  It’s healthy to have a list of topics that your curious about that have nothing to do with your current occupation, but are just fascinating.  It’s another way to keep learning, growing, and expanding.

What are you currently curious about?  Here’s a list of my current, yet constantly changing, curiosities:

• Out of Body Experiences & Near Death Experiences. I read a 24 page article the other day about this.  Fascinating stuff! Makes me much more curious about the intricacies of the human brain.
• Business jets.  China recently held a private aviation fair for businessmen to purchase private jets.  I was also recently looking at the amazing Boeing 747 Business Jet.  Crazy awesome.
• Interior Design.  My current home is not an example of this curiosity being lived out to its fullest potential, but i find myself very curious about the creativity and innovation that others have when it comes to interior design.
• Cities.  I’m so curious about what different cities around the globe are doing to encourage innovation, art, education, and business.  Today i was reading about community-wide art projects in Saõ Palo, Brazil

Stay curious, my friends.  It’s healthy.

When leaving your apartment, your friend’s apartment, the restaurant, or the cafe you must always always always double check with your inner self to make sure your bladder is empty and you’re prepared for the journey ahead.  Many times getting from point A to point B can mean any combo of buses, subways, crowds, traffic, taxis, and walking.  It’s not always a quick journey and there aren’t often bathroom breaks along the way.  If you gotta go, make sure you go before you leave wherever you are.  The last place you want to be is sitting in gridlocked traffic with a full bladder!  It’s a miserable feeling.

Just yesterday i went to meet a friend and found myself in a serious predicament.  I was  meeting him at a cafe that i had never been to before and as soon as i jumped into the taxi i realized i had broken this very valuable rule.  It wasn’t an emergency yet, but by the time i arrived at my destination i was seriously contemplating doing what many Chinese people do – peeing on the side of the building.  I decided to find a bathroom in a nearby mall, but because of construction i couldn’t find the entrance.  The pain in my bladder was intensifying and just as i thought i was going to burst i asked a nice shop owner in the mall where the bathroom was and she kindly pointed me in the right direction.  After finishing my business i walked out with a smile on my face to now continue my mission of finding the cafe to meet my friend.

So remember: use the bathroom before beginning any commute while in a big city.

The other day my organization was hosting a few people visiting Beijing to take a look at what we do here in China.  I always look forward to these trips because it usually means we eat good food and it’s fun to be with people when they experience China for the first time.  It’s always neat to see their eyes open to the cool stuff and weird stuff of China that i get to live in everyday.  Anyway, so on this particular day a couple of days ago we took them to the Great Wall.  If you’ve never been to the Great Wall then this is going to be difficult to explain, but imagine this: a long narrow uphill road full of hawking vendors on both sides of the road.  This road leads you to the ticket counter to buy your entry ticket to get on the Wall.  They sell water at 500% mark up and they sell silly Communist-era hats, wooden pipes, “antiques”, paintings, trinkets and toys.  It’s a zoo of people, to say the least.  People are shouting prices and shoving their stuff in your face; it’s a madhouse.  On our way down from the wall we were walking back through this madness when one of the people in our group spotted a wooden basket with two live chickens sitting inside.  And this is where it gets weird.  Suddenly one of the other guys in the group is yelling, “Buy it! Dude, you have to buy it!”  The peer pressure gets the best of us all and before you know it a very confused 107-year-old Chinese grandma has sold us her basket of chickens.  So now that we’re the proud owner of two chickens, what are we supposed to do?  We took them back to our van and showed our van driver our newly acquired friends.  He thought this was hilarious and helped us place them carefully in the floor of the van between the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat.  We drove more than hour back into the city to go to the Pearl Market for some bargain shopping with the group.  When we got there we still didn’t know what to do with the chickens.  It was hot that day and we concerned about having grilled chickens when we finished our shopping.  The driver told us not to worry that he would gladly babysit the chickens while we shopped.  A few hours later we returned to the van and the chickens were still in their basket and seemingly very happy.  They were actually surprisingly docile.  The next stop was a quick walk around Tiananmen Square.  On the way to the square we collectively decided that the chickens must be very hungry.  Lucky for the chickens, we had just happened to pick up some snacks in the morning on our way to the Wall.  To our surprise, the chickens really loved the taste of chocolate wafers.  We shoved a couple of them into their basket and within a matter of seconds they had pecked them until they were completely gone.

The story goes on…

After Tiananmen Square we had a nice dinner planned at a fairly nice restaurant with a few other people.  To make a long story short, after dinner one of the guys in our group got the chickens out of the van and brought them into the restaurant to present as a gift to the couple that was hosting us for dinner.  We videoed the whole thing and it was hilarious – to say the least.  Our dinner host wasn’t incredibly impressed, but he laughed and was a great sport about it.  After only a couple of minutes we were quickly escorted out of the restaurant by the management.  But everyone was light-hearted about it and even the management was all smiles over our little practical joke.  After we left the restaurant we stopped at a small remote corner in an obscure neighborhood and gave the chickens to the owners of a small fruit stand.  They were ecstatic about our gift and kept telling us how they couldn’t wait to eat them.

So, after a long day of babysitting chickens we decided that we’re actually chicken murderers.  And surely the most memorable day i’ve ever had on the Great Wall of China.

I was at a conference about four months ago and heard one of those lines that made me want to throw my chair at the speaker.  Without further ado, here is my favorite line ever from a conference speaker:

It might seem like self-promotion to speak on a topic that i wrote a book on, but i’m okay with that because all the proceeds go to feed hungry children… MINE!

It’s pretty strange to become an uncle again.  The first go around was mind-blowing and surreal.  This time is real, but strange.  Strange to think that we’ve added one more person to the 6 billion already on earth.  He’s going to need food to eat, clothes to wear, a house to live in, a car to drive, a computer to use, an iPhone, and so much more.  It’s a strange feeling that now there’s this whole other human being within our care and concern.  I’m going to know this person for the rest of my life.  It should be fun, and actually, i’m looking forward to it.  Being a couple of days old has to be rough because the little guy doesn’t even know what he’s in for.  He’s just here and trying to sleep some more, but soon enough we’ll be apologizing for the way the world is and we’ll be trying to carefully guide him around the land mines of what it means to live on earth.  I’m sure he’ll be fine.

But think about this mind-blower:

• In 2028 He’ll drive a car. Or spaceship.
• In 2030 He’ll graduate from high school (hopefully).
• In 2077 He’ll be retirement age.
• In 2100 He’ll only be 88 years old and could see the turn of the century.

I realize he’s only 2 days old, but come on, that blows my mind.

Nathan Reeves Burr