Introduction Why do I teach? Is teaching worth it? These are questions I often ask myself. Teaching isn’t an efficient way to get rich. And I must admit, long ago when I was a young student myself, I did not always show teachers the most respect. But now my thoughts have changed. If I could do it all over again, I would have shown each of my teachers the utmost honor every day. They deserved my honor because it was certain teachers, at key moments in my life, which shaped the trajectory of my future in a vast multitude of ways. And as I get older, I find myself enjoying life more and more. Why am I so happy? I am happy today because of the tools of thought, that long ago, were given me by teachers. Main My 4th grade teacher was Miss Adams. My first impression on the first day of school was that she was quite mean. I was afraid of her. She was so very strict about every little thing. From the start we had to get her name right. She was “Miss” Adams. That means she was not married. A married woman should be called Mrs. (Missus). A widowed or divorced woman was Ms. (Mizz). But she was not married and we could not be casual. We had to be respectful and mannerly young people and that meant always-addressing adults properly. So she was Miss Adams and we’d better not mess that up. How about calling our teacher by her first name? Don’t even think about it. We learned all this on the first day of school in the 4th grade. She delivered this lesson on etiquette and all her other lessons with vigor and vitality and verve. As a result of her passion, I have never forgotten it. I always knew what to call adults. I always knew how to show respect. I never made a mistake. Because of this, people would say of me, “one day young Mr. Smith will be a nice gentleman when he grows up.” It is nice to have nice people say nice things about you. That’s what a good teacher can give to you. Miss Adams was tall and thin and blonde; there was never a question of who was in charge in the classroom - it was she. It was feminism for real. If I were to show you the picture of my 4th grade class you would see her, blond and beautiful, looking like a movie star straight from a 1950’s Hollywood movie. A classic golden-haired girl, but she was no pushover. Miss Adams established her authority on the first day and she never gave us a break. Her classroom was orderly. We had to line up to go from place to place. There was no pushing in the line, no jumping of the queue – good manners were most paramount. After the first few weeks of school, we children were terrified of our teacher. When she spoke, we were silent. What she said, we wrote down. We became a disciplined group of kids. Then, and then only then, did she reveal her true plan for her us… One day she came to school with a book called A Taste of Blackberries. She stood in the front of the class and just started reading it. That became our routine. The teacher reads, the students listen, they process, they discuss, they think. We couldn’t sleep, or daydream, or check our cellphones - there were no cell phones back then, but if there were, we wouldn’t have been looking at them in Miss Adams’s class. No distractions were allowed. No playing around during reading time. You had to listen. There was simply no choice in the matter. And so, more than 30 years ago, in her class, totally against my will and without my consent, something inside of me sparked, and that was the very moment which ignited in me a lifelong love for reading. Miss Adams read to us all the time. No videos. No PPTs. Just a single teacher with a single book and 30 students. One day she passed out pamphlet from a publishing company. It was a list of books you could order and they would come in the mail (needless to say there was no Amazon.com back then). I looked at every single title. I chose more than 20 books. The Red Tape Gang. The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew mysteries. The boy from the UFO, and more. I took the list home to my Mom. Books were expensive even back then. I was hoping Mom would buy at least one or two. What happened was a shock. My Mom bought every single book on my list. That’s what good Moms do. The books were delivered a week or two later. They made a big stack on my desk. My desk looked like a Chinese high-school students’ desk a few weeks before the Gaokao. My desk was stacked sky-high with books. I took them home and read them all in just a few weeks. Miss Adams kept reading and I kept buying more books. It was a true cycle of virtue. I’ve had the reading habit since then. I now have a library at home of more than 500 books on every topic you can imagine. I’ve traveled the world and I've purchased books in every country I visited. My collection of books is my personal treasure. I love going home to be with my books. They have trained my brain and guided my life. Conclusion My love for words was sparked in the 4th grade and it has never left me. My love for words is one of my favorite parts about me. “The artful arrangement of words” is what the Chinese-American writer Amy Tan calls it – the joy of words, yes this is my hobby. And this is what makes being a teacher a meaningful life for me now. I live in a world shaped by knowledge and the letters that carry that knowledge. Being a man of letters makes me like myself. So without reading, I’d be nothing. I wonder if Miss Adams had any idea the impact she had on one child’s life. I hope she did. Now I’m a teacher myself and I sometimes I find myself being strict. I feel bad every time I give a student a disappointing grade. I’m sad to see them sad. But then I remember, why I remember, a teacher named Miss Adams, from way back in the 4th grade. It was more than 30 years ago, on sunny September days in Northeast Ohio, but I remember those days like it was yesterday. She was proper and traditional. She was old-fashioned. She took her job very seriously. She cared about us. Miss Adams was a gift. I would like to pay her back. And that’s the first reason I’m a teacher. To pay back what I owe the world. Now it’s my turn to contribute, so I show up to give, not to get. By the way, my little sister joined Miss Adam’s class four years after I did. But my sister didn’t know her as “Miss Adams.” She’d gotten married by then and had become “Mrs. Maxim.” So my sister came home and told me stories about the strict Mrs. Maxim and how no one was allowed to confuse the difference between Miss and Mrs. and Ms. She told me how this teacher was strict and made them study and made them pay attention to every lesson. And then one day, my sister came home with a big stack of books… The virtuous cycle had started again. My sister has never stopped reading. That’s what a good teacher can do for you. That's why I teach. That's why it's worth it. “We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is…serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is encouraging, let him encourage.” Romans

As the clock slowly ticked its way to noon, and the smell of the lunches cooking in the canteen began to ever so gently, waft into the classroom (today was Texas-food day, it must have been tacos), the girl, in quiet desperation, as if tortured by a thirst gained from sitting in the back of a hot car with the windows up while mom went shopping, finally couldn’t take the wait anymore and committed the most unforgivable of seventh grade classroom sins - she reached for her cellphone...

Happy New Year. Happy Year of the Rooster. The new year is about renewal; it is about starting again. And I have decided that my word for this year will be “gratitude.”A new way of thinking: this year, whenever I start to feel down, I will shift my thinking from feeling bad about what I lack, to feeling good and thankful about what I have. And I have a great deal, especially my wonderful family back home in the Midwest of the USA. And 2017 marks 10 years in China - so I am super thankful to this country and all of its wonderful people. I am thankful for my Chinese friends and colleagues. I am thankful that Chinese food is delicious and I can eat it every day. I am thankful to live in Shenzhen. Perhaps Shenzhen lacks long history or deep culture but Shenzhen has a spirit. Shenzhen is a city of creativity, color, confidence, and innovation. Shenzhen is positively beautiful and that’s why I am grateful for the chance to live and work here. I am optimistic and hopeful that this new year will be a good one. Tough times may be coming in the relationship between China and America, but I am certain things will end up fine in the end. America may not be a friendly country right now, but the direct contacts between the good people of America and the good people of China will keep the relationship a peaceful one. So let the big leaders in Washington fight. We the small people can just enjoy life - all we have to do is “be the light.”I am grateful to have that choice; life must be pretty good. Midwest Observations. 2017

Since I've come to China, I have noticed a few changes with regard to how individuals talk here in Guangdong Province. I will write them in pin-yin. 1. A waitress used to be called "xiao jie." Now I'm told you can't say that anymore because it would be quite insulting. Now people say "Mei nu."2. Nowadays I have noticed people will just say "zao" early in the morning instead of "zao shang hao."3. Most noticeable, now everyone says "bye bye" either instead of "zai jian" or after it. A conversation does not feel complete without an English "bye bye."I wonder if it's the same in other parts of China.

This Monday, January 16th is a national holiday in my country. Schools and government offices are closed. On this day we honor Dr. Martin Luther King jr. He was perhaps America’s greatest moral leader. He tried to teach us to give up war. He tried to teach us to live in harmony. We didn’t listen. What an irony it is - Donald Trump will soon take over as president. So far, he causes trouble with China. He fights with both parties in Washington. Today he criticizes the only American congressman who marched with Martin Luther King. nd he’s not even the actual president yet!Irony. What a contrast to the grace, style, and class of President Barrack Hussein Obama - we will miss him. And what a contrast to a man of peace and compassion like Dr. King. I am always impressed when my Chinese students mention Dr. King; they may not know the details of his life, or his struggle, but they do understand his message. Harmony was his message. He was America’s last moral leader and we are a poorer nation without him. Today, a toast to Dr. Martin Luther King jr.

The president is still wearing "mom jeans," nevertheless, the family looks good. Not sure what Donald Trump's family would look like in the White House.

The Brexit was 2 weeks ago but the world still hasn’t gotten over the shock. Why’d they do it? What going to happen now? What does it mean for the future of Britain, Europe, and by extension - the West as a whole? Inquiring minds want to know.There are not a lot of answers so far because, let’s face it, no one truly knows how this will all turn out. Anyone who thinks they know is just guessing. Most in the media seem to think it’s all going to be a big disaster. Maybe they’re right. Maybe they’re wrong. But for me, I have faith in Britain, my country's mother country. Let’s not forget this isn’t the only time Britannia has gone her own way against the wishes and expectations of the rest of Europe. 500 years ago King Henry the 8th decided that Europe was Europe and England was England. He did his own 16th century version of the Brexit and pulled away from the Pope’s centralized leadership in Rome. He may have done it for small and personal reasons - the fact that he wanted to divorce his lawful wife and replace her with a younger hotter wife. But this small reason created big implications, because at that moment, England stood alone. Leadership was needed. If CNN or the BBC existed back then, they likely would have been predicting doom and gloom just like they are now.However, the fact is, things did work out. King Henry got his new wife, and then another, and then another, and then…well we all know the story. His daughter Queen Elizabeth crushed the Spanish Armada. England became Great Britain. And Great Britain became one of the most influential countries in all of human history. Needless to say, that first Brexit was a resounding success. Will something like that happen this time? Who knows. So far we must admit - it doesn’t look good. King Henry may have been a womanizer but he was a strong and decisive leader. And neither Nigel Farage nor Boris Johnson appear to be made of the stern-type-of-stuff that produced great queens like Elizabeth or strong prime ministers like Churchill and Thatcher. At moments like this, a country needs leadership. The UK appears adrift. But again, I believe in the country of Shakespeare and Adam Smith. They’ll pull through. How? I’ve no idea. But it will be interesting to watch as the history is surely to unfold right before our eyes.