A language the Chinese understand well

I don't speak Chinese, but I have traveled all over China, sometimes alone, and I have had marvelous experiences because I do speak the universal language - a smile. A smile is not only "your umbrella", but a passport to as many wonderful exchanges as you have smiles to give.

Many people stare at my foreign face, it's true. That I get tired and annoyed with it is also true. However, most of the time and in most of my interactions, I confess to being a smiler.

Usually a smile acts like a boomerang and comes right back at you but sometimes it can be a challenge. For several years I walked by a man who made keys. I'd smile and he'd scowl. I nicknamed him Grumpy. Returning to the area after a year, I walked by, caught him off-guard and by golly, before he could stop himself, he smiled. I gave myself the Gold Medal for Perseverance on that one.

Babies are fun. It is astounding how even tiny little infants will stop and stare at this laowai. It must be a very primitive survival mechanism to stop and take a good look at whoever looks different. I confess, some cry, but most, after a period of contemplation, gift me with the most adorable smiles and giggles and laughter.

Truly, smiles and laughter are gifts we can give each other. Smiles contract any distance we may feel for each other. A good laugh together makes us nearly kin.

Mother Teresa said, "Peace begins with a smile," and she was right. It is impossible to hate those who have a twinkle in their eye and are sharing a smile or a laugh with you. A smile means instant warmth on the coldest of days or during the most trying of times. Former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji was a favorite in international circles because he had a great sense of humor. Current Premier Wen Jinbao is rarely photographed without a smile, a smile of genuine enjoyment. These are the diplomatic "tactics" that win the hearts and minds of people. Isabella Bird traveling to China in the 1800s wrote, "A Chinese man loves a joke and, as I have often experienced, if he can only be made to laugh his hostility vanishes." True then, true now.

When I can laugh at myself, I never have to suffer any loss of face. My laugh says: "Hey, I'm human," and if you are laughing with me, you are not laughing at me, and that makes all the difference in the world.

In this country that reveres youth, I can recommend smiling over the most expensive face creams. If you smile a lot, as you inevitably wrinkle, the wrinkles will be in all the right places! They will reflect a life of living, laughing and loving. Better yet, you will have developed a lifestyle where smiling and laughing are second nature. Who doesn't like to be around people like that - at any age?

I don't always agree with the controversial American comedian, Carlos Mencia, but I'm with him 100% when he says: "If you ain't laughing, you ain't living, baby."