Uncommon Thoughts

Death is not a strictly taboo subject in our American culture, though here in China it is very rarely talked about. I don't know if that's because most people here have little or no tools in their heart-mind (this is a Chinese word that encompasses both the heart and the mind, xin, pronounced 'sheen'; I prefer it to just heart or mind, seeming to reflect more of the whole person) for dealing with the grief, loss, fear and/or anxiety about it.

Though not taboo like in China we don't often feel its presence in American culture, and there seems to be a certain uneasiness about it. We do our best to ignore it, play our music louder than the nagging reminders we see on T.V. or even experience in our own lives. Through things like computer games we try to trivialize it's impact, creating the temporary illusion that we'll just respawn in 30 seconds, to go on another killing rampage. Even the nearness of real death through the media can numb our heart-minds to its chilling reality. Sixty or seventy years ago you would never have seen photographs of such horrors as a pile of bodies on the sidewalk, reminders of the all-too recent earthquake that struck Haiti. But flipping through any Time or Newsweek today you're bound to find a photo collage that features death, and on the next page a Toyota ad that emphasizes the power you could feel while driving it, or some nasty perfume that your great-great grandmother wore to feel younger (again, avoiding impending death).

But it is a specter that cannot be ignored for too long.

Several events have recently reawakened my perception of the nearness of Death. A good friend recently returned home for a short visit to gather with his family around his dying father. The funeral was ten days ago. Emily and I had the privilege of meeting this glorious saint earlier this year, while he was visiting his son and daughter-in-law (our friends) in Hong Kong. He was in his late eighties, and though somewhat frail, the spark of life was in his eyes. I'm sure that spark is a blazing fire, now that he's in the arms of Jesus. Our friends were kind enough to include us in their journey by sending several email updates; one, particularly, of an unspeakably intense, beautiful, worshipful time just days before his translation into the Joy of the presence of Jesus.

The second is a much longer story, of my uncle Mike (sorry if I butcher the story Mike, and Stevens; feel free to comment and correct). In my own mind I think of him as Miracle Mike. I don't recall all the details very clearly, but his life has been one of what I consider unparalleled grace and kindness. He was diagnosed with melanoma that had already developed to a stage where the doctors pretty much guaranteed 6 months. That was about 15 years ago. Through treatment and God's grace it went into remission and was largely forgotten about.

He suffered (if I remember right) two strokes, one while he was on a retreat in the mountains of So. Cal., and only a stop at a fireman's station on the way down to give him some form of mild rat poison that sometimes works to stop the stroke saved him that time. I'm also pretty sure he suffered more than one heart attack. The most recent one, about two years ago, literally killed him for an hour. The medics came, and after an unusual six or seven defibrillations, his heart started beating again. He was dead, once. When I saw him just a couple months later he was riding a bike again, looking healthy. The doctors told him, "we don't know how your heart keeps beating, it's so floppy."

Most recently, two or three months ago, the melanoma that was supposed to kill him fifteen years ago was discovered to have returned. When they found it, it had already progressed far far beyond anything that medicine could do. The doctor gave him two weeks to two months. His courageous wife, Cheri, would update us from time to time of his slowly deteriorating exterior condition, as well as the strengthening of his inner condition. He had not walked with God for many years. But God has used a number of events and experiences during these recent months to call Mike's heart back to him. He repented of his living life apart from the Lord, and God fully restored him, giving him full confidence of faith and a heart of love. These most recent days Mike has been longing and longing to step into the arms of his Loving Savior, and just this morning we received an email that his hope and his joy was made complete early Friday morning.

The third story is very brief. A friend of a friend back home, in his late twenties I believe, was hit by a truck while on his bike and taken into eternity. I did not know him, but I know my friend and it has been a very deep loss.

These are three stories that have awakened thoughts in me. You could say, it is this one of the questions that philosophy tries to answer, and why I find it so fun. If all we do is live and die, what's the point? And what about that in-between time; what are we to do with it in light of such unpredictable circumstances of our lives?

To top this all off I just received a package from my mother-in-law (Yay!!! Thanks Mom!) with several books I had ordered and she forwarded on. One is a book by Francis Chan. If you haven't heard of him, he's a dynamic preacher from So. Cal., and very passionate about the questions above. I was flipping through the book and at the back it has an 'interview with the author'. One of the questions was: There is an urgency in your message. Where does this come from?

Here's his response:
I think from two things. One, I'm doing funerals just about every week. A lot of these funerals are people younger than I am, and so many of them are unexpected. Seeing the shock of their loved ones and realizing God can take your life any time gives me a sense of urgency.

The other is my upbringing. My mom died giving birth to me; my stepmom died when I was nine; my dad died when I was twelve. I learned that there might not be a tomorrow. I always want this to be the greatest message I'll preach in case I'm not here to give another one...

And so i encountered death yet again, in a book.

I don't know about you, but it stirs in me a strong desire, like Francis Chan's, to live this moment as if it were my last. The father of my friend lived a long life in worship to God and ended his days well, my uncle was given numerous extensions on his life until just the right time, and my friend's friend probably didn't have a chance to look both ways.

We can't predict when our time will come. Some of us are given an opportunity to put a few things in order, some have less than a heartbeat's time.

I know this is uncommon. It can be easy to forget how near we are to death. At this moment. And this one. And this one.

And it does no good to curl up in the fetal position and cry or scream. Death comes no more quickly or slowly.

How will you live today? And do you have hope for tomorrow?

Hoping and praying for you,

jc

News News News

I like to keep my friends informed of things happening over here that they might not be tuned into. Here's a few 'sound bites':

Mr Huang's wild ride

Global Times July 20, 2010

Article found here: http://life.globaltimes.cn/odd/2010-07/554041.html

Passengers aboard the high speed D305 train from Shanghai to Wuhan, Hubei Province were startled on the morning of July 17 when they looked out a window and saw a man clinging to the train door, his face pressed flat against the glass as the train sped along at 50 kilometers per hour.

The chief conductor was quickly alerted and the train stopped, allowing the "Spider- Man" to collapse on the ground before reboarding the train for a more conventional ride.

The man, Huang Sigui, 40, from Guizhou Province, said he'd left the train for a smoke break at the Hefei Railway Station, Anhui Province when it suddenly began to leave the station. The door closed as he tried to get in so he clung to the window edges praying to survive the perilous ride.

[Comment: Another reason to quit smoking...]


RESPECT NATURE

ENGLISH NEWS JULY 21, 2010

Article found here: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/indepth/2010-07/21/c_13407623.htm

BEIJING, July 21 (Xinhuanet) -- Controlling the deluge along the Yangtze River would have been far easier if the 56.1 billion cubic meter flood storage capacity -- lost due to the shrinkage of lakes over the past five decades - had been carefully preserved.

Extremely heavy rains have battered many cities along the country's longest river over the past weeks and rapidly rising water levels have threatened to breach dikes. In such a situation, it is worth pointing out that the nation has paid a huge price for being short sighted on the question of flood control.

More than 100 lakes have either been artificially filled to meet construction needs or reclaimed for farming just in Wuhan, the capital of Central China's Hubei province, during the past half century. This year too, part of a well-known lake was reportedly filled to make way for a holiday resort.

Several famous freshwater lakes such as Poyang, Dongting and Taihu along the Yangtze have shrunk considerably in the past decades due to farming, real estate development projects or industrial units.

During the 1998 floods, more than 3,000 people were killed, 5 million houses razed and 20 million hectares of arable land inundated. The economic losses totaled 160 billion yuan. Nobody wants a repeat of that this year.

Local resources have been mobilized to consolidate river embankments to prevent the disaster from causing more damage. People's Liberation Army forces have been sent to rescue stranded residents.

Still, governments at all levels must work to preserve lakes. Otherwise, we will be more vulnerable to such disasters.

If anything, the grim flood situation this year must teach us to respect nature more.

(Source: China Daily)

Stimulus funds give high-speed rail a kick in the caboose

By Brian Palmer

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

I only put up the beginning of this article, as it's a little longer (2 pages). I've wondered for a long time why the U.S. has 'such stinky railroads'. Palmer's article was really insightful. Note: the Wuhan-Guangzhou rail can reach 350+km/hr. Rippin' fast!!!

Read full article here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/19/AR2010071904540.html

Americans love to complain about the pitiable state of our once-great rail system and wonder why our locomotives are stuck in the past. I mean, you can zip between Wuhan and Guangzhou, China, at 220 mph. Japan's Shinkansen system tops 186 mph. The French TGV can blaze across the countryside at more than 200 mph. Yet the Acela train, the pride of Amtrak, hits a ho-hum 150 mph at top speed and maintains that for only a few minutes between New York and Boston.

Outside the Northeast corridor, few people even consider train travel. America has the worst rail system in the developed world, right?

Well, sort of.

Humor on Wednesday, Part II

Emily and I were walking through Carrefour [French grocery chain] looking at the meat section hoping to find something similar to Summer Sausage. Had a little hankerin' for it. Here's some of the alternatives we found. I've seen a good deal of Chinglish, but these really are winners...uh, wieners...

Vote for your favorite!!!

1. Several varieties of 'Elbow Ham'
- Elbow Ham
- Hot Spicy Elbow Ham
- Crisp Elbow Ham
- Reformed Elbow Ham (for Calvinists only...)

2. The normal variety (or almost normal)
- Common Smoked Ham
- Honey Roasted Ham
- Smoked and Roasted Ham

3. Only for the rich: Wealthy Family Ham

4. Strictly for the Pentecostal: Spirit Ham

5. For those with a sweet tooth: Sweet Flesh Ham

6. Best in soup: Fragrant Bone Soup Ham

7. This one is green, like Chinese preserved eggs: Sausage of Preserved Egg

8. My favorite (this one brought me to tears): Food was Beef Ham [ahem...what is it now?....]

Guizhou III - Life at a Glance

Pictures of Guizhou life:

A hill, mostly terraced for corn and other veggies
A faint rainbow over grazing cattle
Valley after valley, as far as the eye can see. Guizhou province is over 90% mountains.
Pretty cool outcropping. The only point higher than our friends' farm for miles around.
Farms. Lots of farms.
Little terraced wedge between two hills. How do you get a tractor down there, you ask? You don't. That's what water buffalo, cows and donkeys are for.
The ruins of an old building from the days of the Revolution. As a bit of history, in the 60s people were sent to the countryside to be 'reeducated' (particularly intellectuals, but really just about everyone went), and they lived in these compounds WAY out in the middle of nowhere.
Another view of the ruins.
Homes, perched on the hillside.

Humor

I'm nearly through my fifth year in China, and Chinglish still makes me laugh. Here's some of the most recent mentionables, as well as a few other things Emily and I found funny in the last week.

While stopping at McD's for lunch, we saw this sign. We feared for our lives...

Also at McD's that day we were surprised to find Ronald himself! And he spoke flawless Chinese!!!!
Just before we ate at McD's we encountered some uniquely clad individuals in a mall. They were all gathered from some exibition that the mall was putting on. Very interesting. They're all dressed as their favorite computer game characters. When I posed with the guy with the WAY sweet sword he asked me if I knew the sword's name....I didn't know it...

Then, again today I was in the Men's room and saw this one. There's a strange reality that occurs in Men's rooms in China. It's like men lose all depth perception, and a puddle forms at every stall in the country. And this begins at a very early age...
Close up, in case you can't read the 'fine print.'

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary my love!

We made it through Year One! And what a year! I wouldn't want to have it with any other!

I love living life with you and making our way through life together!

- Your Husband

Guizhou Pictures II - Camp

Pictures from camp - hike to waterfall, 'the Spa', and various other activities and moments

Looking down the hill at campers, and Emily"Lord of the Rings-esq" picture of hike to the fallsPlaying in the little falls above the big one (1)(2)(3)The BIG one@ The Spa (The water is usually crystal clear, but because they had a guy out to dig a small pond all the dirt washed down and made it dirty. But it was still fun!) (1)(2) - They're making bubbles for the 'Spa'....(3) - A little fuzzy, but you can see they're having a good time!(4) - The stillness of the Spa after the chaos of play
Dodge Ball in the activity center

Guizhou Pictures I - People

Sorry, if you've been waiting for these pictures. I posted late, and decided to go to bed before posting the pictures...

Several sets, by theme:

Em and I in the truck on the way up the mountain

Our friends kids, Rianna and Mark

Us, helping a guy who's donkey cart had managed its way into the ditch. We helped unload the big bags of rice so he could pull out, and then helped him reload it

Kids in a village on our way up. We visited their school later in the week to play with them.

Julian and Tim (Tim owns the farm and Julian, from New Zealand, works with them full time; Tim is squinting into the sun, he doesn't always make that face)

All the kids on the bus waiting to go back to Guiyang (capital of Guizhou), minus Josh off the bottom right of the picture, and Debbie (who's arm you can see on the bottom left)

Returned from Guizhou

Emily and I returned from Guizhou very early yesterday morning, rolling into bed around 2:30am. We had an incredible time!

We had an enjoyable train ride from Wuhan to a "medium" sized city in Guizhou province called Kaili. We shared a sleeper car cabin with an older lady from Wuhan, and a youngish lady with her son. We boarded quite late (nearly 11pm) and didn't have much conversation until the next morning. But once morning broke and we all become more comfortable with each other the conversation rarely broke until we got off around 1pm. We were really happy with the progress I/we have made in our Chinese.

From Kaili we took a bus to Duyun. We met our friends and stayed with them for two nights to wait for students to arrive, before heading up to the farm/camp they have in the mountains. It was an hour and a half ride up the sides of mountains on sometimes very poorly maintained roads before reaching the top.

The camp we led was for TCK's (Third Culture Children). These are kids who have grown up or spent a significant amount of time outside of their home culture. This year the camp had kids from Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and the U.S.

I'll let the pictures tell the rest of the story, but a few activities in brief: we had teaching times in the morning and evening (these focused on things often particular to TCKs, like 'saying goodbye' and friendship - both can be very hard for TCKs because there is so much change in their lives); in between these we did some great activities like hiking to a waterfall, bathing at "the Spa", sliding down "Slippery Rock" (no pictures of that day, sorry), and fun activities in the dark like a bonfire, and 'bathtubbing' (two teams, each with a large and awkward object to carry-like a large wooden bathtub, try to make their way across fields and hills without getting caught by counselors with flashlights; if they're in/on the object they're safe, if not, they lose a point).

Jesse led them in song each day, taught one morning, and together with Emily talked about relationships (dating, courting, marriage, etc).

In all it was an incredible blast!

We returned wiped out and worshiping, thankful that we got to pour into the lives of 'the next generation'.