Highlight of my day

Today as I was walking home from the south gate where my taxi always drops me off each day (which always pisses me off, because the guards' sole purpose seems to be, "Don't let the foreigners' cabs drive through. The Chinese students' cabs? That's cool"), I heard Chinese pop music playing in the distance. I got to thinking about how strange it is that there's so little western music here. I never hear it on the radio, and when I've asked my students about American music, they talk about The Beatles and Michael Jackson.

Heading towards my apartment, my mind continued to wander as the music grew louder, each song more Chinese-poppy than the one before it. I realized that I couldn't even remember the last time I heard an English song outside of my apartment. And then, just as I passed the boombox blasting the sweet jamzz, the next song came on, and I paused in surprise. "Hey," I thought. "I know this one!" And so do you.

Show me that smile again (show me that smile)
Don't waste another minute of your cryin'
We're nowhere near the end
The best is ready to begin...

Loudly playing for all of campus to hear and mixed in with today's other greatest hits was the original Growing Pains theme song from 1985 America. I'm pretty sure this confirms that China is not taking over the world just yet, but I sang it all the way home.

Oooohhh. As long as we got each other
We got the world spinnin right in our hands.
Baby you and me, we gotta be
The luckiest dreamers who never quit dreamin’.

As long as we keep on givin’
we can take anything that comes our way
Baby, rain or shine, all the time
We got each other
Sharin’ the laughter and love.