
Jiang came to stay with us as a HelpX volunteer in February 2018. Jiang grew up in Xinjiang province, near the far Western border with Kazakhstan, where his parents had a pear farm. He currently works as an IT consultant and goes where the work takes him. After helping us build a garden fence, Jiang made me a potting bench with the scrap wood from the old fence. That’s what he’s doing in the photo, working outside in the rain and snow! When it was his turn to cook, he went off to Chinatown and found a new friend Shirly, and together, they cooked us a feast. Jiang gave us our first lessons in Mandarin and he found us a student, Anqi, to continue as our teacher. Anqi has invited us to stay with her family in Zhengzhou and we’ll have plenty more to say about Anqi and her family. We hope to spend a few days in Beijing with Shirly, who is an English teacher there. We also hope to meet up with Jiang who has opened so many doors for us.