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In a developing story, a family from the United States has narrowly escaped a series of harrowing events but is still pushing forward in their efforts to bring home two beautiful new children. The Green family of Herriman, Utah, had just finished a fantastic weekend with a local Chinese family in the beautiful city of Hangzhou. The mild-mannered and incredibly sweet father of this family, Mr. Ding, had gone to great lengths to treat his guests with kindness, generosity and sincere respect. Yet this same man, when driving through the tumultuous Chinese traffic, turned into an aggressive and vocal eccentric with the focus of a NASCAR competitor. Fortunately the words that were uttered in contempt at the drivers around him were spoken in Chinese and were unintelligible to the Greens.

Simply getting from point A to point B within this type of traffic and with Mr. Ding’s mindset was a huge accomplishment. Despite many near collisions and obnoxious stares and comments from surrounding drivers, the Green family had safely navigated two days in Hangzhou. All that remained was a trip to the airport so they could fly to Zhengzhou. On the way to the airport, however, Mr. Ding had the opportunity to demonstrate a skill which the Green family had heretofore been unaware of. After careening past the necessary exit, the Mr. Ding decided to come to a complete stop on the left side of the freeway, next to the median. Mr. Jeremy Green was in the back of the 12-passenger van the family was traveling in. He viewed first hand the headlights of the cars bearing down on their now stock-still vehicle. Some of these cars would notice the stationary vehicle with plenty of time to veer out of the way and lay on their horn. Other cars wouldn’t notice the vehicle until there was only a minimal amount of time to veer out of the way and lay on their horn. Displaying an amazing sense of bravery, Mr. Ding at this point decided to go BACKWARDS on the freeway. Did the fact that he had over 500 yards of asphalt to traverse in this manner deter him? NO! He continued to display the impaired judgement and stubbornness only to be found in a man as he slowly made his way back to the appropriate exit. This, despite the continued warnings of the female tour guide in the passenger seat. “This is dangerous!” she cautioned over and over and over. But with the characteristic male “my way or the highway” mindset, Mr. Ding persevered and was eventually successful in reaching his exit. Just before he started across the freeway to go down the exit, a police car with lights blazing was spotted as it sped in their direction. The Green family was sure this would cause a delay that might make them miss their plane. Surely someone had reported this large vehicle going the wrong way in freeway traffic, and this policeman was here to restore the public safety. But no! Mr. Ding showed no concern about the quickly approaching public safety vehicle. Instead, he calmly veered across three lanes of traffic and CUT OFF THE COP CAR. Once the opportunity presented itself, the cop car passed Mr. Ding and sped away to serve and protect, leaving Mr. Ding to drive as he found fit in order to serve his guests. In a related story, Mr. Green is recovering nicely from his heart attack…

Upon arriving at the airport, the Green family thought they were past the most dangerous part of their journey. However, as they were preparing for their final approach into Zhengzhou, they were aware that there was more turbulence than usual. It seemed that they were swaying and swerving back and forth and up and down as they came closer and closer to landing on the runway. The plane seemed to be moving too fast on the approach. The initial contact with the runway was very hard, but that proved to be the easiest part of the landing. Unlike anything that any of the travelers had ever experienced before, the plane at that point tilted to the left as the right wheel left the ground. How close the left wingtip came to scraping the asphalt, we’ll never know. But for now, the Greens feel that somewhere, someone is watching over them.

With luck the Green family will return to the United States in another week. Without luck, well, it may go hard with them. Wish them luck!!!

This is Jeremy Green reporting from Guangzhou, China. Good night and good luck.