Inside a brightly-lit classroom, around 20 schoolchildren are singing the Chinese national anthem. That song is followed by another tune in Chinese—one typically sung during the Lunar New Year. But this scene is not taking place in a Chinese school but at Lakewood Premier school, thousands of kilometers away in Nairobi（内罗比）. Here, schoolchildren are learning Mandarin, a language spoken by nearly 1 billion people almost 8,000 kilometers away from their home. More will join their ranks in 2020 when Mandarin will be officially taught in all Kenyan schools alongside French, Arabic and German, which are already on the curriculum.

Sandra Wanjiru, 13, is one of hundreds of African schoolchildren who are increasingly skilled in the Chinese language. Lakewood Premier School, where Wanjiru studies, has begun the program a year early to give its pupils a head start. “I chose to learn Chinese first not only because it’s interesting to learn a foreign language but also because I would want to travel and do business in China,” said Wanjiru.

Julius Jwan, CEO of the Kenya Institute of Curriculum Development (KICD), told Chinese state—owned Chinese news agency Xinhua: “The place of China in the world economy has also grown to be so strong that Kenya stands to benefit if its citizens can understand Mandarin.” China has become increasingly powerful across Africa over the past two decades. Through President Xi Jinping’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative, China has loaned money to African countries to build highways, dams, stadiums and airports.

Henry Adramunguni, a specialist at Uganda’s National Curriculum（课程）Development Centre, said Mandarin was included in the curriculum because it is one of the United Nations’ languages of work.” We want to give the opportunity for our young Ugandans to have access to jobs, education and business beyond our borders. That’s why we’ve given them this opportunity to learn Chinese,” he said.

When I was sixteen, that summer my brother Andy and I hiked the Sierra Nevada in the back country near Lake Tahoe. Our parents had left us with two water bottles and instructions to stick to the trail. “Don’t get lost,” my mother shouted as the car pulled away. I nodded, not quite paying attention, because I had never been in high mountains before. I was eager for the experience.

We struggled up the switchback path, not used to strenuous (艰难的) activity in the July heat. We seemed closer to the sun. Andy and I emptied the bottles quickly into our throats, unfamiliar with moderation and conservation.

My brother and I walked around the lakeside. Our drinking supply was almost gone. The heat of the day had demoralized (使意志消沉) us. We sat on the edge of the wide lake, took off our shoes and bathed our tired feet.

We eyed the lake and began to question. “Should we jump in? Are we allowed? Should we get our clothes wet? Is it too cold? Will some great monster rise up and devour us?” We asked ourselves. We excused. And then, we walked slowly back through the cloudless summer gap, down into the valley. Why? Why didn’t we jump in that lake? It was clear, clean and wet. No one would have stopped us. We could have been cool and comfortable all the way home. But no.

At some point in our lives, we must learn this lesson: to dive into the lake, to be free, to follow our heart’s desires. When we are old and sitting by the peaceful lake in patient stillness, we can then abstain (避开) from jumping in. We can linger (留恋) in the perfect happiness of our lake memories, with nothing left undone.

In the Pascucci household, putting up Christmas lights was always a big day of celebration and a family affair. Every year, Anthony Pascucci, the male head of the family, and his older sister, Connie Pascucci, and Anthony’s son, Anthony Jr., and daughter, Sara, pitched in it.

In 2020, Anthony Sr., 60, tied colorful lights all around their roof until it looked as if the brightness of the lights could counter some of the darkness of the past year with COVID-19. However, just several days after Christmas Eve the pandemic claimed his life.

Sara says the next weeks were the worst of her life. But when she pulled up to the house at the end of a long day, the twinkling Christmas lights brought her a spark of joy. Taking the lights down felt like a final act of closure she wasn’t ready to take. So she kept them up.

One day Sara received an unsigned letter which read “Take your Christmas lights down! It’s Valentine’s Day!!!” Sara was shocked and angry. She decided to post the letter. “I wanted to remind people that we all had a tough year and people should be a little more caring toward each other,” she says.

“I know what it feels like to lose someone and not want to put their things away. It’s very hard,” one man commented. And something strange began to happen. Sara was driving back from work one day when she noticed that Christmas lights were appearing—or reappearing—on neighbors’ houses. The mystery had a sweet explanation: Her neighbors had gotten together and decided, collectively, to hang their lights back up and turn them back on in honor of Sara’s father.

“To see the lights and the block lit up again,” Sara says, “it touched my heart.” A few weeks later, Sara decided she was ready to take down the lights. Sara said it was hard to pack them away—“but not as hard as I think it would have been if we hadn’t experienced all that support and love.”