Little ray of sunshine in shape of a girl

In a small village, north of Beijing, I joined a local family and celebrated the birth of their baby girl. Little Zheng Meng'ao looked like a bundle of joy. After a month of witnessing so much death and devastation in Sichuan, it was refreshing to see such a little ray of sunshine come into the world. In English, the girl's name is Olympic Dream. Locals have quickly nicknamed her Meng Yi or One Dream.

The village has about 2,700 people and is located in the Shunyi district. It rests next to the Olympic rowing-canoeing venue and local villagers have seen the Games venue develop over the past few years. They are really excited.

Village elder Huang Zhendong was my tour guide and was born and bred in the village. The 66-year-old lives with his wife, who was also born in the village. His son and daughter are both married and live in Beijing city and Shunyi town. The whole family comes visiting on weekends and holidays.

I envy Huang's great lifestyle. Everyday, Huang rises before 5 am, and spends 2 hours doing his morning exercises. One of the more unusual fitness routines is his riverside singing session. He stands on the nearby riverbank, and hollers out loud. By 7 am, he returns for breakfast, then plays table tennis until lunch with his buddies. He takes a nap and by 3 pm he's playing table tennis again until 6 pm.

The village is an interesting retreat with a primary school, grocery shops, wheat, corn, cabbages, a dairy farm, sheep and ducks. Locals have their own home vegetables gardens and the Huang family have grown some beautiful roses.

At night, locals don't need to lock their doors because everybody trusts one another.

I loved the fresh air, lush green views and the sweet water. I drank the natural spring water from the tap because it is pumped from under the ground.

As we ate, and ate, and ate lunch, I learned more about the 2,000 years of village history.

People started to live here since Eastern Han Dynasty (25-220AD), when a court official, Zhang Kan, was ordered by the emperor to guard the border against the northern nomads. He settled in the place with his soldiers and quickly saw the land's potential because good old Zhang had a green thumb.

The Sichuan native knew how to farm and taught locals how to produce high quality rice in the paddy fields. Over the next 1,500 years the rice became famous because of the excellent water and good soil. It became the official rice for imperial families in the Forbidden City in Ming and Qing dynasties (1368-1911). After a lovely day in the village, I paid 4-yuan for a bus ride back to Beijing.

I got off in the Lido area to buy my must-have Italian coffee at a Western-grocery shop. On my way home, I noticed a guy sitting in a nearby Starbucks, reading an "explore Beijing" story in a local expat magazine. I used to sit in cafes and read about things to do, but mostly never did them.

My village adventure reminded me of Nike's famous catchphrase, which has also become my Beijing expat lifetstyle mantra. Just do it.

(China Daily 06/16/2008 page10)