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| Anniversaries
So
many interesting stores, so little free time to write about them! This
past weekend was exciting. The International Church I've been attending
just celebrated their 25 Anniversary. It all started out as a small
fellowship of 3 diplomats and their wives. Then it just exploded from
there because the pressures of living overseas prior to the Internet
age was too much to handle. People started turning to God and church
became a safe haven for foreigners in a foreign land. Somewhat off
track, I started thinking about the state of the local
house/underground "gatherings". Meetings would shift from house to
house, groups are small and intimate, speakers rotate because of the
dearth of mature believers, stayed under the radar to avoid persecution,
and some groups are even lead astray because of self serving or false
teachings. Sounds to me like the New Testament church. They need a bit
of guidance so, if you know any "Pauls" or "Timothys" *hint..hint* they
are always welcome. :)
Back to the anniversary. That
Saturday, I attended a charity ball hosted by our church to raise money
for educating local children at the Kempiniski Hotel. Can you imagine
it only takes 400RMB or about 50 dollars to put a kid through school
for a year? There was also a silent auction and raffles to raise more
money for the local orphanages. Since this was also one of the few
events where we were allowed by the government to invite local
businessmen, it served a ...bigger purpose. We had a big banner on
stage that said "25 Years of God's grace and provision" which our elder
spoke briefly about. It was an eclectic yet oddly wonderful mixture of
people. There were diplomats and foreign businessmen, local government
officials from the Religious bureau, Chinese managers, and normal folk
like me. The table I sat at had two Englishmen, two Americans, one
Australian, a Hong Kong raised Caucasian, and 2 local friends from central
China. But we all agreed on one thing...the steak we had that night was
a bit dry.
On Sunday we had this huge service
for the church of 2000+ members. Since our meeting place is at a
theater (stage theater, not movie) there were some impressive ...
stage/scene transformations. Afterwards there was a fair/carnival with
the proceeds going towards different church ministries or community
outreach programs. There were food stalls (prepared by church members)
from all different nations... I think I tried about 20 dishes...hey it
was for a good cause. Later that afternoon, we celebrated the birthday
of a local sister who attends our Book study group. We brought the rest
of our group and a few foreign friends to play laser tag. Local friends have
never played it before and were surprised at how fun it was. We had
booked the arena and ended up playing for 1.5 hours straight. Talk
about dead tired...I was sore for the next few days from all the
crouching.
I was an exciting weekend, and took
tons of pics...maybe I'll post them up later once I get to a wireless
cafe. Thanks for reading!
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Pic with people at our dinner table. The guy on the right has a genuine
British accent since he grew up in England. I don't know if it is an
American stereotype of the British accent, but this guy sounds SOOOO
classy. Order him a Martini please. It reminds me of "Collin" from Love
Actually. The girl in the pic attends our Book study. It was her
birthday that instigated all the events.
Older sister of one of one of my international friends. People say we
sorta have the same complexion and skin tone...you be the judge.
My weird international friends and me after laser tag.
Birthday dinner with some folks.
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| Paradigm Shift x2
At the beginning of October, I returned to the States for 10 days and
got a chance to catch up with some of you cool folks. Most of the time
was spent with family but I stole a day and went up to Davis to see the
1218 crew and Compass. When I stepped into 1218 and saw Luke, Cliff,
Almon, and Jason, like all good buds, we just sorta picked up from
where we left off. I told them it felt like I just returned from a day
of class. We dove right in and started talking about happenings at
church, Compass fellowship, "potentials", and oh yea...games. That
night, after a good ol' American steak dinner we booted up 2 xboxs for
some Halo2 live. Couldn't hang with them on Halo2 (Cliff and Luke are
too good)...but we booted up Halo afterwards and Slammaster gave them a
sound whoopin'. Hehe. Jenn came by after work sometime between the 3rd
or 4th game of Halo to say hi, still as cool as ever. Vicky K stopped
by too...still as tall and skinny as ever.
In all seriousness, it was great to
see them... wished I had a bit more time to chat with them. But then
again, you can't ever spend enough time w/ good buds. Oh, that reminds
me, I got to see some folks from around the bay too from my year.
Eugene, Gary, JChew, Vero, Trish, Joyce, and Air(honorary promotion).
We all went out for dinner at Chili's, yum. But with supreme
trouble-maker Eugene, dugout heckler JChew, and Persian muscle man Air,
it was anything but a quiet night. Glad I was able to fend off their
triple tag team of terror and survive.
Anywho, now that I'm back in
China...it's time to get back to "work." Due to the very open access
nature of the web, I can only be brief. Recently, I've been put in
charge of improving the English level at the office. Twice a week, we
have a 30-40min conversational/usage & syntax English lesson that a
co-worker and I need to prepare. What a great opportunity invest time
into employees and get to know them better. For our first meeting, we
broke up into groups and had each group come up with a name, symbol,
and catch phrase for their team for future English competitions. When I
got my group, I'm thinking to myself how I can use this as a jumping
point to introduce certain...concepts. So I chose our team color to be
Green, which symbolize hope in Chinese culture. So far so good....now
for a symbol. Before I could come up with something, someone blurted
out "Noah's Ark!" (in Chinese.) I was like..."huh?!" Then some other
employee started explaining to me how there was a flood and someone
named Noah took all the animals and put them on a boat. Then everyone
in the group was like, yeah thats a great group symbol, saying how it
matches our color, hope.
Ok wait a sec, time to backtrack.
"I" was suppose to introduce...concepts, not have them explained to me
:P I had no idea that Noah's Ark is common knowledge (at least in my
office.) I guess they teach it in college as a Western cultural icon or
something. It's not a trivial story either, because you can introduce
God, sin, and righteousness w/o breaking a sweat. And another thing,
what is the chance of people choosing Noah's Ark as a group/team symbol
in America? Like zero. Too religious for a company event and not
politically correct for the public. So while people are debating about
acceptable religious behavior back in the States, know that there is a
small English team under a green, Noah's ark flag half way across the
globe. | | |
| Life in a tin can
After being here for a year,
thought I would do a little entry about all the interesting things I
have experienced here. Hm...think I'll start with my morning and
after work commute.
Most of my morning commute is spent
on the Beijing line 13 light rail. This modern transport system uses
4-car trains to ferry people from the city -> suburbs -> middle
of nowhere -> colleges -> back to the city. It's also the ONLY
and the FIRST rail line to use an electronic gate system. All other
rail and subway systems requires you to buy a ticket at a window and
physically hand it over to a ticket inspector when you enter the
platform. Actually, even in the electronic gate system, you have to
approach a window to buy your magnetic tix. I've seen a good share of
adults dumbfounded in front of the electronic gates not knowing what to
do. Just another instance of technology out-pacing social habits.
On the platform, there are areas
marked where the doors of the train will be when it arrives. There is
also a marked place where people should wait in order to avoid blocking
people from exiting the train. Of course...this is dutifully ignored
and people just crowd the exit area. If there's a lot of people waiting
to get on, expect people to "help" you in. In China, there is no
concept of a full train car, or bus, or anything else, you can always
fit more. "Full" in China is like absolute zero... can't ever get
there. When you finally do get on... the game begins.
Position is EVERYTHING. Stand too
close to the door and you'll be "nicely" pushed out by the people
exiting. Stand to far away and you'll never make it off during rush
hours. It's an intricate balance of holding ground and slipping through.
More often than not, people are pushed up against each other. It seems
like I always get pushed up against big sweaty guys. Since I work at
the high-tech area of town... most of the people who get on with me are
*engineering type* guys. The demographics would be a lot more favorable
if I traveled through the colleges or shopping areas.
There is this one time I was taking
the train off-peak. Plenty of space, but no more seats. So I sat on a
cabinet near the end of a car that houses the fire extinguishers.
Instructions were in English (oddly enough) so I figured I would be the
most qualified to sit on the cabinet in case of emergency. The cabinet
is not big...maybe 6 inch deep and 2 feet wide maybe enough for 1
medium build person. I tried to take up as much space as I can to deter
anyone from sitting next to me. But alas...im not big enough, and there
is ALWAYS enough space. Some guy comes over and practically sits on my
leg, squeezing in on the last bit of empty space on the cabinet. THEN
he leans back right onto my arm. If this was my first month here...I
would probably complain and nudge that guy off me. But then by this
time, I know it to be a futile effort because someone else would try.
At least the guy wasn't sweaty and was well kept. Just gotta know how
to pick your battles.
Another time I stood across from
two sitting mothers and their toddlers. Thats the only way to have a
seat...be old, be pregnant, or have toddlers. Of course, the toddlers
did not have diapers...only the wealthy and westernized families can
afford them. The kids just had slits in their pants and just ...go when
they want. I think you know where this is going. So you see this little
puddle start to trickle toward the back of the train...cause it was
accelerating. The funniest thing happen...instead of thinking the
situation as weird or ghastly, the standing passengers finesse their way
around the puddle as it flowed toward the back of the train. It look
like Moses parting the Red Sea...all these people moving to one side to
avoid the flow.
Of course, I've been on the light
rail long enough to recognize the regulars. I have names for them as
well. Names like...Queenie, Pale dude (not me), Vanilla Ice, Taffy,
Goldie, etc. I've also chatted with a bunch of nice old grandpa type
guys; they're the most friendly. You can just sit or stand next to
them...make eye contact...and they just spill everything about their
kids. Gotta love Asian parents. You can run into a lot of people taking
the crowded train everyday. Once in a blue moon, you might run into a
girl who just takes your breath away, but more often it's just sweaty
guys who take your breath away for other reasons.
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| Life's Simple Pleasures
Conversation with a very good friend of mine in NYC. He's talking about his new found love that is Central Park.
[13:02] g****808: gotta wake up tomorrow for tennis! gonna play in the Park, found a wall I can play on for FREE!
[13:02] dbjlam: hahahha
[13:02] dbjlam: yes...walls are ...hard to come by
[13:03] g****808: ..
[13:03] g****808: you loser, I hate you
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| God's love > 100billion light years
Oooo people actually check my xanga...exciting. Well,
I've been planning to write the next post for awhile now, but due to
the fact went to Tibet for vacation and the business at the office I
haven't been able to update. I dont have broadband at home, and the get
triple charged for dial-up so I don't use internet at home. Can you
imagine that? Brian Lam...computer engineer (aka. nerd) that doesn't
use internet at home, and come to think of it....I dont even use my
computer much at all. Imagine that.
Anyway, to satisfy my readers and to make up for my absense...i'll try
to put 2 entries within the next 24 hours. Hopefully you will find them
interesting.
So
a couple months ago I ran into some pictures taken by the Hubble on
a news site I frequent. No doubt many of us have seen amazing gas
clouds and supernova pictures before but I think they're beautiful
enough to post them again.
A gas cloud masterpiece. In a museum artists display their work on
canvas a few feet wide using colored oils. God displays it on a canvas
a few lightyears wide using planet-dwarfing fireballs and tiny
particles of gas.
Some sort of intergalactic explosion. Check out the power.
Partial photograph of 10,000 galaxies 100billion lightyears away. All
those bright spots are galaxies...not stars. 100billion lightyears?
Can't even begin to imagine that distance. I remember in Isaiah
40...the prophet says our nations are like dust; so small and
insignificant. What a hyperbole...compared to the rest of God's
universe...nations are much much less than dust. Why God puts up with
our petty squablings is beyond me. Guess His love is bigger than His
universe.
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