After a zillion, billion, million years, two months, nine and a half weeks, four days, twenty six hours, eight minutes and .0003 seconds. I have found out how to dance around the Great Firewall of China (as I just said right above here in the title of the article. No really. Its right up there. Look).

Okay… Time to get serious (or as serious as I can get. If you do not know me that well…trust me, do not set your sights too high.. I am a screw ball.), Christmas just passed, so what did I do? I spend a lot of time helping Alenah’s Kids. http://childrenshope.net/

Now to be Politically Incorrect for a moment, most of these kids have never unwrapped a Christmas present, so I went out and bought them a bunch of presents and wrapped them (well, I had some help to be honest. Mucho thanks to Alan, Danielle, Shino and Rebecca. Many people volunteered, yet when it came time to put your foot in the stinky shoe, they actually showed). It WAS a lot of work, do not kid yourself, carrying about 40-50 presents around Beijing is a special kind of misery… every day in China is like Black Friday times 10). But I wanted to make sure these kids knew the joy of unwrapping a present at least once in their life.

That paragraph went longer than I thought.

All this was worth it though. Check the pictures. The kids were happy.

The kids are all physically or mentally disabled. The girl I was pushing around in that chair, she is mostly blind from MS. It made me smile to see these kids enjoy the presents, yet it was heartbreaking at the same time. But these kids need someone, and it is the Christmas Spirit to help others. Anyway, I am not sharing this to be an sphincter, and be like “Look at me! I am SOOOO kind and wonderful!
Crap, that is the LAST thing the internet needs is more narcissism ( I am looking at YOU Facebook). I did it because the Christmas season is not about what you can get, but what you can do for others and hopefully it will inspire others.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

HEY WAIT A MINUTE AXIOM YOU JERKFACE! Who is that guy in the last picture?
Oh yeah!  I am glad you asked, multiple personality me.

Christmas is only another ‘getting stuff’ holiday in China. Seriously, this country has like fourteen valentine’s days and you need to buy stuff for ALL of them. There are decorations, but few people actually get into the spirit of the holiday. (A popular saying here is Go! Go! Go! Buy! Buy! Buy!) I live behind a huge mall called ‘Joy City’ (I will cover that in another episode) and after getting out of the taxi, I was mobbed by people all ready to spend on themselves.

Pushing and shoving, not caring about others, just ‘what can I get for me (That is not a mentality just for China either, just saying)? So I go around the back of the mall where the deliveries come in just because there are less people there. But there was this Chinese delivery guy, dressed as Santa! He looked at me and smiled (as you see) and in broken English he said, “Mirry Crissmass!”

Between the magic of the kid’s faces, and this nameless delivery guy, I truly had a Merry Christmas.

Hope you did as well.