DAY 15: Talkin' the talk, walkin' the walk.BEIJING -"Ma," I say."Mother," she says."Ma," I say, my voice rising."Linen," she says."Ma-a," I say."A horse.""Ma!" I declare."Fight," she says.One word. Four meanings. The only difference is a tone change. You could, with the slightest wrong inflection, ask your mother what she wants for Horse Day. Or tell Mr. Ed you want to punch him in the snout. Oh, and if you put "ma" at the end of sentence? It turns it into a question.You following-ma?
DAY 14: The Green Flash.BEIJING - Oh, mon, it was a party! Bang the steel drums! Yams for one and all! Anybody in a green "Jamaica" shirt was being swarmed for interviews. We didn't even know who they were. "We're proud to be Jamaicans!" a middle-aged woman declared. "We are the sprint factory of the world!""Is that his mother?" a reporter whispered."He can go faster! You won't see nobody like him for another 50 years!" insisted a middle-aged man."Is that his coach?" a reporter whispered.
DAY 13: Old gold. New gold. And a little white ball.BEIJING - Let me throw some names at you. Carl Lewis. Bob Beamon. Bob Hayes. Evelyn Ashford. Bob Seagren. Cassius Clay. Sugar Ray Leonard. Greg Louganis. These are athletes who became famous by winning Olympic gold in sports in which the U.S. once excelled - the 100 meters, long jump, pole vault, boxing, diving. There was a time where you could check off American medals in certain events before we even marched in the Opening Ceremonies.
DAY 12: Major duds and a major dud.BEIJING - In a moment, we will get to the injury and abrupt quit of the biggest sports star in China, an event that, on Monday morning, brought this nation of 1.3 billion people to tears. But first, the big news: The suits are back, and they fit great!So do the shirts, which I bought five more of, along with three more suits, two more sport coats, all handmade, and I think I got change from my dollar.
DAY 11: The Mommy factor.BEIJING - You can't just go to church on Sunday if you're Chinese, not under a government whose official religion is atheism. But you still can find inspiration. I found some Sunday in, of all places, the women's gymnastics competition.Normally, this is where apple-cheeked Tinkerbells flip and twist, while spectators use magnifying glasses to find them. The minimum age is 16, and teams want their girls as close to that as possible.
DAY 10: The big race, the big climb, the big difference.BEIJING -"Fruits? Almonds?" he says in Chinese.His "store" is a table. He sits on it, offering plastic bags to visitors. The sun is hot and the mountains loom overhead, and there are half a dozen vendors trying to sell us the same stuff, and besides, on the way into this village we passed a donkey sitting in the middle of the street, so to be honest, business is slow."Can you take us up to the Wall?" we ask.
Mitch Albom writes about running an orphanage in impoverished Port-au-Prince, Haiti, his kids, their hardships, laughs and challenges, and the life lessons he’s learned there every day.
