Pastor Gabe Orea of our Xiamen International Fellowship, or XICF, just sent me the link to an article about the newly opened Union Church on Gulangyu Islet, with before and after photos. The Union Church article is here: http://www.whatsonxiamen.com/news20453.htmlBy the way, in the article it mentions I’d given the church hundreds of old photos, but calls me William Pan. My Chinese name is Pan 潘 维廉 （often misspelled by Chinese as 潘威廉), so when they translate my name to English, it often comes out William Pan--but it could be worse. A year ago a well-dressed business lady stopped me in Xiamen (former "Amoy") and said, “You’re Professor Pan, right?” She thought a bit, then said, “Peter Pan?”
Well--close enough! I just turned 55 but still feel 15 (Sue says 5!).
On a similar note... When Sue and I were married in Taipei, Taiwan in December, 1981, we booked a room at the YMCA and paid in advance just in case we missed our Hong Kong--Taipei flight. Flights were indeed flighty back then (35 hours from L.A. to Taipei!). Sure enough, we missed the flight, but the people at the Kowloon YMCA said they had no reservation for us. We argued that we'd confirmed it and even paid for it, but it was no use.
We set out to find another place to stay but it was late at night, and everything else was too expensive, so we returned to the YMCA about midnight, dejected. The man behind the YMCA desk saw us sitting forlornly on a couch and said, "Oh, you're back. I have a question. Is William Brown the same as Bill Brown?" And we got our room.
Enjoy Amoy!
Bill
Xiamen University
www.amoymagic.com
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