I will be flying into Beijing tomorrow, and I'm hardly ready.
The past two weeks were supposed to be a sojourn and a period of rest, but I feel as though my confidence has withered away. To imagine that tomorrow I will be in the city, preparing for many months of research leaves me with a little bit of dread.
The realities of my weaknesses, granite monuments in the dizzying landscape of my life, stare at me gravely. There's no way I'll have confidence that I'll have a safe place to stay; things to eat; comfort... and there is even more doubt about my abilities as a researcher. Is my interview protocol finally complete? Is there any way to guarantee that I won't scare away my subjects? Having emailed countless contacts, compiled scores of references, written and rewritten interview protocols, I've somehow forgotten that my breath comes not from the work of my hands but rather the workings of my spirit. The traveler in a desert that doesn't bring water will soon tire.
My father likes to sit in his room opposite mine, equally engrossed as I am in my computer. Wearing an undershirt, he nonchalantly walks into my room and lies down on the bed (well, I'm not sure it counts since I've only been here two weeks). He declares that the air conditioning is more comfortable here. "Do you have anything you need?" he asks, "vitamins?"
"Yeah, I packed those."
"聖經呢？可以帶吧？"
"已經在我書包了。"
"Maybe you should bring some extra Bibles... 我到時候過去在帶給你。"
"我十月就回台灣了，到時候再說吧。"
My mom is getting ready for her first day of teaching tomorrow, pulling out that old microphone so that her voice doesn't get strained. She cooked a fantastic dinner tonight, one that I'll miss dearly. She passes my room and--now a little frustrated by the fact that I don't do it myself--shuts the door to not let the air conditioning run out.
It leaves my heart not a little sore to know that it's going to be goodbye yet again... and that it's time yet again to jump into that uncertain world. But I know full well that they'll still be around every time I return to welcome me wildly (boy, my mom is a little crazy at the airport).
But what's more, even when the day comes when they aren't able to, God has already revealed his promise to be that sanctuary. I've structured my mission for the past months to be a wonderful researcher, but I sense God calling me to forgo that mission to learn more about God in a completely new context. At first I thought it was to trust God to somehow magically take care of everything. But God isn't Santa Claus. I think He's gently urging me to understand that everything can go to pieces, but he'll continue to be--like my parents--an eternal sanctuary amid it all, even in death.
I will be flying into Beijing tomorrow, and I'm hardly ready. But does that matter?
Friday, August 29, 2008
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Photo-Fest
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
History
I've recently been learning what it means to have witnesses to history. It started with something quite mundane.
My mother has a a plastic plate that I colored in preschool displayed alongside fancy plates and mementos. It's quite ugly. There are two stick figures, one green and one blue. Their faces are formed by an unconnected, squiggly line that attempts to form an oval. Their hair consists of five lines each, radiating from this lopsided oval, leaving their heads looking more like ameoba with long flagella. This plate is one of the only objects that shows I attended preschool in America.
But it reminded me that there were other witnesses. The courtyard outside the Nanking Massacre Victims' Memorial reminds me of a sci-fi temple. Rubble cracks beneath my sneakers as I accidentally slip off the stone walkway. The obnoxious sun and humid air are strangling. Bullet holes further disfigure the ragged concrete walls. Near the center of the courtyard is an enormous silver bell. It's called the bell of peace but seems more like one you hear tolling in a graveyard, as the whole place is seething with oppression.
A blast of air conditioning greets you as you enter the actual memorial , a relief from the furnace-like temperatures of Nanking (南京是中國四大火爐之一). But the whole exhibit is doused in a shroud of darkness, leaving your eyes struggling to see what's ahead of you.
The exhibits are a little distasteful and overtly political. One wonders why Japanese translations are written alongside the English and Chinese. Photographs are chosen to overwhelm you with emotional and gory images, with questionable captions that ring of "heartless Japanese" and "comrades." My friend called me over, and the nearby guard questioned me about whether "一场浩劫" could be a part of "文明史" (whether a massacre could be a part of civilized history). "Obviously not," he said, "because civilized history is good." Apparently one of the guests had informed the guard that their description was incorrect, and the museum curator decided to change the words the next day.
But soon, one begins to realize that there are few tasteful ways to talk about the massacre. When more credible first-hand accounts like journals, letters, orders, interviews with Japanese soldiers, and Japanese newspapers at the time begin to confirm the horrors, I begin to understand what Conrad and Golding meant. The atrocities testify to the darkness in human nature, a bestial survival instinct that weathers away--when given a chance--any socially-cultured 'civility.' Of course, I don't discount the heros like Magee and Rabe (ironically, the former an American pastor who collaborated with the latter, a German Nazi businessman) who certainly defied the times. And I'm not saying the "Japanese" deserve the title of bestial. Rather, when governments fail and humans are left on their own, we're all prone to wade deep into the murky river and discover our "heart of darkness."
But enough on this.
Before you loop out of the memorial, you walk through a half-excavated graveyard, the site of a mass execution. These countless, sun-bleached bones are now housed under a rectangular prism, an obsidian and austere structure. As I walk on the glass panes, just centimeters above a maddening crumple of countless femurs, skulls, and radii, a chill courses under my skin and I begin to understand... life is fragile and short. It's an experience that leaves you moody for days, When your blood and ancestry is the same as these people, either extinguished by a fortunate bullet or suffocating slowly in a watery mess, you can't help but feel an eerie connection.
It's doubly chilling to hear from a living witness what one gathers from a staid memorial. Recently, my grandfather has been telling my brother and me (obviously at different times) stories of his youth. When the Japanese attacked Shanghai, my grandfather was witness to some of those same atrocities. They burned down his home, for that matter. Lots more on this... but it's a story for another day.
They say history is boring. I must disagree.
My mother has a a plastic plate that I colored in preschool displayed alongside fancy plates and mementos. It's quite ugly. There are two stick figures, one green and one blue. Their faces are formed by an unconnected, squiggly line that attempts to form an oval. Their hair consists of five lines each, radiating from this lopsided oval, leaving their heads looking more like ameoba with long flagella. This plate is one of the only objects that shows I attended preschool in America.
But it reminded me that there were other witnesses. The courtyard outside the Nanking Massacre Victims' Memorial reminds me of a sci-fi temple. Rubble cracks beneath my sneakers as I accidentally slip off the stone walkway. The obnoxious sun and humid air are strangling. Bullet holes further disfigure the ragged concrete walls. Near the center of the courtyard is an enormous silver bell. It's called the bell of peace but seems more like one you hear tolling in a graveyard, as the whole place is seething with oppression.
A blast of air conditioning greets you as you enter the actual memorial , a relief from the furnace-like temperatures of Nanking (南京是中國四大火爐之一). But the whole exhibit is doused in a shroud of darkness, leaving your eyes struggling to see what's ahead of you.The exhibits are a little distasteful and overtly political. One wonders why Japanese translations are written alongside the English and Chinese. Photographs are chosen to overwhelm you with emotional and gory images, with questionable captions that ring of "heartless Japanese" and "comrades." My friend called me over, and the nearby guard questioned me about whether "一场浩劫" could be a part of "文明史" (whether a massacre could be a part of civilized history). "Obviously not," he said, "because civilized history is good." Apparently one of the guests had informed the guard that their description was incorrect, and the museum curator decided to change the words the next day.
But soon, one begins to realize that there are few tasteful ways to talk about the massacre. When more credible first-hand accounts like journals, letters, orders, interviews with Japanese soldiers, and Japanese newspapers at the time begin to confirm the horrors, I begin to understand what Conrad and Golding meant. The atrocities testify to the darkness in human nature, a bestial survival instinct that weathers away--when given a chance--any socially-cultured 'civility.' Of course, I don't discount the heros like Magee and Rabe (ironically, the former an American pastor who collaborated with the latter, a German Nazi businessman) who certainly defied the times. And I'm not saying the "Japanese" deserve the title of bestial. Rather, when governments fail and humans are left on their own, we're all prone to wade deep into the murky river and discover our "heart of darkness."
But enough on this.
Before you loop out of the memorial, you walk through a half-excavated graveyard, the site of a mass execution. These countless, sun-bleached bones are now housed under a rectangular prism, an obsidian and austere structure. As I walk on the glass panes, just centimeters above a maddening crumple of countless femurs, skulls, and radii, a chill courses under my skin and I begin to understand... life is fragile and short. It's an experience that leaves you moody for days, When your blood and ancestry is the same as these people, either extinguished by a fortunate bullet or suffocating slowly in a watery mess, you can't help but feel an eerie connection.
It's doubly chilling to hear from a living witness what one gathers from a staid memorial. Recently, my grandfather has been telling my brother and me (obviously at different times) stories of his youth. When the Japanese attacked Shanghai, my grandfather was witness to some of those same atrocities. They burned down his home, for that matter. Lots more on this... but it's a story for another day.They say history is boring. I must disagree.
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Long-Overdue Update
The short update goes like this:
I've returned from China a week ago and have been preparing for my research trip to Bejing in September. The previous month has provided a taste of China and what to expect, but more importantly, it has left me with human faces that I can remember and love. In its essence, teaching middle school students has left a burning reminder of why I wanted to do research on middle school students in the first place. More on this in the long update ;).
In the meantime, I've been revisiting Baldur's Gate 2 (old computer RPG), my church in Taiwan, my grandparents, the National Taiwan University library (NTU... which by the way is a fantastic university and has a gorgeous campus), and plenty of email/phone calls to work out logistics.
Since then, some highlights of my past two weeks in China have been the following:
a) 去爬愛民後山、黃山，去漂流 (Climbing the back mountains of Ai Min, Yellow Mountain, and going river rafting)
b) 在學校裡有奧運活動
c) 在村裡面搞營火晚會 (Having a bonfire night at the village)
e) 最後一天上課，大家哭哭啼啼的 :( (The last day of class, with everyone in really low spirits)
f) 去南京...江心洲、明孝陵、中山陵、澳體、總統府、夫子廟、同胞紀念館、等！ (touring Nanking...and lots of places that are ridiculously hard to translate ;p)
Call that a menu for what comes beyond. The long update goes something like this:
-*-*-*-*
a) 經過媽媽細心的教導，學到這句話：「我見青山多嫵媚，料青山見我應如是。」
Growing up in Taiwan, I've always had an affinity for the ocean and mountains. Soaking in the fog at the top of a peak, I find those seemingly mundane burdens dispelled in the enthralling breath of the mountain. The trek up Yellow Mountain started at 6:00am in the morning at the 'waist' of the mountain (山腰) and ended for me at 5:30pm as we made our final steps into the 'North Sea Hostel.' Most of the trail was well paved granite, sometimes cut directly into the rock face. Along the way were 挑夫 (pictured here), who would shoulder burdens up to fifty kilograms up the mountains. A well-organized national park, the best indicators of this are the immaculate and modern bathrooms!
Needless to say, walking up steps isn't easy when there's a whole day's worth. What I find most fascinating is how climbing mountains easily reflects the way humans approach life. Sometimes (especially in our American volunteers!) Yellow Mountain is a challenge, something of a race to the top. Each step was working toward a goal, each rest to charge up for the next stretch of climbing. The enjoyment from overcoming a challenge as formidable as Yellow Mountain manifests itself in victory shouts at the peaks, plenty of drinking, and for myself, the rush of adrenaline that matches that last step into the hostel. Sometimes the scenery is the focus. For the photographer in me, finding the best vantage point for the sea of clouds on the other side of the peak was my driving force. Along the way were elderly folk whose wrinkles resembled peach pits, stopping every twenty steps to stretch out and comment on the scenery, and riding cable cars (索道) up to the mountain peaks. Sometimes the people are the focus. Losing the other 30 people in Learning Enterprises was a little daunting, and for a while, I was calling all the people I knew frantically. There's a little bit of apprehension associated with hiking with strangers in a mountain that you know little about, but more importantly, the fact that people can whittle away whole afternoons talking to their friends in coffee shops is testament to how a hike (generally the last thing one would endeavor alone) can become pleasurable in the presence of friends. I eventually met up with 曉丹，another 
volunteer from my village along the way, but we never saw any other volunteer on the way up. Sometimes its the memories that matter. Trails would experience traffic jams as one or two tourists decided to turn around and photograph or call their relatives. Being able to document a trip as fully as possible for future reference seems to be the forte of middle aged fathers with video cameras and prosumer SLRs. I can't tell you how many times fathers would stop to photograph their families. It's also testament to China's developing economy, but that's another story.
I've returned from China a week ago and have been preparing for my research trip to Bejing in September. The previous month has provided a taste of China and what to expect, but more importantly, it has left me with human faces that I can remember and love. In its essence, teaching middle school students has left a burning reminder of why I wanted to do research on middle school students in the first place. More on this in the long update ;).
In the meantime, I've been revisiting Baldur's Gate 2 (old computer RPG), my church in Taiwan, my grandparents, the National Taiwan University library (NTU... which by the way is a fantastic university and has a gorgeous campus), and plenty of email/phone calls to work out logistics.
Since then, some highlights of my past two weeks in China have been the following:
a) 去爬愛民後山、黃山，去漂流 (Climbing the back mountains of Ai Min, Yellow Mountain, and going river rafting)
b) 在學校裡有奧運活動
c) 在村裡面搞營火晚會 (Having a bonfire night at the village)
e) 最後一天上課，大家哭哭啼啼的 :( (The last day of class, with everyone in really low spirits)
f) 去南京...江心洲、明孝陵、中山陵、澳體、總統府、夫子廟、同胞紀念館、等！ (touring Nanking...and lots of places that are ridiculously hard to translate ;p)
Call that a menu for what comes beyond. The long update goes something like this:
-*-*-*-*
a) 經過媽媽細心的教導，學到這句話：「我見青山多嫵媚，料青山見我應如是。」
Growing up in Taiwan, I've always had an affinity for the ocean and mountains. Soaking in the fog at the top of a peak, I find those seemingly mundane burdens dispelled in the enthralling breath of the mountain. The trek up Yellow Mountain started at 6:00am in the morning at the 'waist' of the mountain (山腰) and ended for me at 5:30pm as we made our final steps into the 'North Sea Hostel.' Most of the trail was well paved granite, sometimes cut directly into the rock face. Along the way were 挑夫 (pictured here), who would shoulder burdens up to fifty kilograms up the mountains. A well-organized national park, the best indicators of this are the immaculate and modern bathrooms!
Needless to say, walking up steps isn't easy when there's a whole day's worth. What I find most fascinating is how climbing mountains easily reflects the way humans approach life. Sometimes (especially in our American volunteers!) Yellow Mountain is a challenge, something of a race to the top. Each step was working toward a goal, each rest to charge up for the next stretch of climbing. The enjoyment from overcoming a challenge as formidable as Yellow Mountain manifests itself in victory shouts at the peaks, plenty of drinking, and for myself, the rush of adrenaline that matches that last step into the hostel. Sometimes the scenery is the focus. For the photographer in me, finding the best vantage point for the sea of clouds on the other side of the peak was my driving force. Along the way were elderly folk whose wrinkles resembled peach pits, stopping every twenty steps to stretch out and comment on the scenery, and riding cable cars (索道) up to the mountain peaks. Sometimes the people are the focus. Losing the other 30 people in Learning Enterprises was a little daunting, and for a while, I was calling all the people I knew frantically. There's a little bit of apprehension associated with hiking with strangers in a mountain that you know little about, but more importantly, the fact that people can whittle away whole afternoons talking to their friends in coffee shops is testament to how a hike (generally the last thing one would endeavor alone) can become pleasurable in the presence of friends. I eventually met up with 曉丹，another 
volunteer from my village along the way, but we never saw any other volunteer on the way up. Sometimes its the memories that matter. Trails would experience traffic jams as one or two tourists decided to turn around and photograph or call their relatives. Being able to document a trip as fully as possible for future reference seems to be the forte of middle aged fathers with video cameras and prosumer SLRs. I can't tell you how many times fathers would stop to photograph their families. It's also testament to China's developing economy, but that's another story.
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