A Rainy Day in Beijing, China

I just called down stairs in my Hotel, The Shangri –La Hotel, and requested a Bible.  They told me that they did not have a Bible in the hotel.  Two minutes later the phone rang and the same guy told me they could have some one buy me a Bible for 75 Ran, Chinese dollars, which is $2 US dollars.  Unreal! 

The first night I arrived here in Beijing, after my 25-hour trip, I went over to the courts to practice a little while to get the jet lag out of my system.  After arriving at the site and seeing there was no one to practice with I decided to go hit some serves.  I took 6 balls to the back courts at the tournament site and hit serves for about 20 minutes.  While I was hitting serves a small crowd of local Chinese people, mostly workers at the site, began to gather next to my court.  One of the younger guys asked me, in very broken English, if he could try to return my serve.  I said sure, I figured at least I would not have to walk around the other side after I hit 6 serves, he would be my ball boy.  I handed him one of my racquets and he began to swing away at my serves, missing most of them and the hitting a few.  Next thing I knew there were about 50 Chinese people standing all around the court.  They formed a line and began to take turns trying to return my serve.  I was amazed at how happy they were to hold a racquet in their hand and completely miss a 100-mile per hour serve.  After about 15 people tried to return my serve a guy got up there and stood on the line in ready position.  Believe it or not this guy could play.   It turned out that he could really hit the ball.  So for the rest of my practice, 30 minutes he hit balls with me.  These experiences along with many others that I am lucky enough to have are creating memories for me.  Traveling around the world and participating in these events allow me to experience things like I just explained.  These memories, I pray, will stay with me for my entire life.