Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year everyone!!! I wish you all happiness, good health and all you desire. I still don’t know for sure how I am going to celebrate yet. We’ll see what the evening has in store. They do celebrate the New Year here, at least more than Christmas, but I don’t know how. Bu the way, I finally beat John at chess after at least 30 attempts. A great moment! It’s probably sign of success coming my way for 2008. At least I hope so.

In my quest for news, I heard about some orphanage in financial difficulty that supposedly was on the verge of eviction. A visit was organised there just before Christmas to go play with the kids and cheer them up a bit so I tagged along. It was about a 45 min. drive outside of town so that made my second excursion to the country side, the first one being The Great Wall one six weeks earlier. It made me realise once again how limited my view of China has been so far. I will visit the rest sooner or later.

It was my first time visiting an orphanage. I was somewhat expecting a relatively heavy and sad ambiance but it was all to the contrary. I was happily surprised to see all the kids being so smiley and joyful. The place resembled an elementary school more than anything else. The classroom walls were covered with Chinese characters for their learning. The kids seemed very pleased to see us and immediately accepted us as new friends. Children truly are marvellous beings. They make you wander what transforms us in such a way once adults. We seem to have lost this spark of intense joy that seems to be so tenacious even in children who have already been through so many hardships.

Apparently their financial situation was soon to improve and they had good hopes of avoiding eviction. Good news being unfortunately less popular than bad ones, I had lost my scoop. Of course it’s all for the better. Let’s all wish them best of luck and a Happy New Year!!!