Wednesday, August 30, 2006
its been a surprisingly tiring 2 days. but i've learnt so much. i know that this unabashed exploitation of my otherwise total unemployability is awful, but i stand so much to gain that i can't complain. when cheryl called me last week to do this presidents design award thing, i accepted on a whim, simply because a. i was happy to hear her after such a long time. b. i was bored and c. i was planning to visit dsg anyway.so, we hung out at oriental hotel with the jury. oriental hotel is nice. its.. oriental, but in a chic, modern way. the lounges and restaurants are thoughtful and sophisticated, and the suites that we were doing the judging in were just extravagant. we contemplated staying the night in there.
so, the first thing i learnt was that design can come in all shapes and sizes. of course, we already know that. but, watching the presentations somehow made it that much clearer to me. desing could be anything from haute couture, to the uncle who makes the packaging for camel brand peanuts. who;s to say that one is more of a designer than the other?
but then, if everything visual, and sometimes, not even visual, can be called design, then how do we differentiate the designer from anyone else, or a good designer from a wannabe? listening to the candidates made me think that the difference is in vision. its hard to explain-- you know what its not, and you know it when you see it. its the state of being there, but yet somewhere else altogether at the same time-- being more than you are. thinking more than what you've been given. having some sort of deeper and further vision than just meeting immediate demands. i know that this all sounds horribly contrived, but that's really the best way i can chose to put something that's so easy to identify, yet so hard to explain. and even harder, i reckon, to ever do.
the other thing i learnt, which surprised me, was how little it takes to survive, or indeed, not just survive but succeed, in this industry. i can see how people can make more than ends meet by just churning out design after design, campaign after campaign. these aren;t neccessarily amateurish or unprofessional (although alot of the entries, i think, kind of were), but they can be totally unthinking-- striving to be different or to be designer just for the sake of it. there need be no sense of pushing boundaries, no need for cleverness of ideas or that special x-factor ingenuity. so much gets by, and gets celebrated, acknowledged, even awarded. i think i've been so used to the idea of design as an eclectic, totally committed to finding the 'aha" moments that only the most creative and witty and talented minds coudl acheivem, but now i can see how those examples were precisely that-- examples, ideals and outstanding cases. apart from these cases, the market is just saturated wiht a million gazillion semi-designers, all slogging hard to crank out that super new logo for macs or somthing.
Posted by i confound myself at 6:47 pm
Monday, August 28, 2006
another crisis. i can't type with the radio on. they are going on about dafur and it makes me think of jordan's bracelet. against that, i don't remember what i was going to complain about.i should not be up now. tomorrow i have to be at oriental hotel at 730am. its exciting because i will get to meet don ryun chang and peter zec. this is for the president's design award. i am free labor for designsingapore, again. i'm cool with it. cheryl called when i was in a superbly optimistic and amicable mood, and missing everybody that i had not seen for the last 8 months.
Posted by i confound myself at 6:05 pm
Friday, August 25, 2006
clubs are a very bad place to meet people after you have not seen them for a long time
yes they are. you end up screaming personal information at the top of your voice, before realizing that you have a thousand and one more things to say to the person, but this is just not the place and time for it because the ground is vibrating and the other party is either desperately lipreading under strobe lights, highly distracted, or drunk.but it was still good fun. way to go cum. its been a long time since i've been in a s'porean club. the band (the late one-- NOT the student one, which massacred every song i did and did not know) was great. alroy, mich and i chilled in there for awhile before i decided not to be antisocial. there were more freshers than i thought there would be. everyone was from rj. everyone looked familar in that you-sat-next-to-me-on-our-primary-school-schoolbus kind of way. it was exasperating at first but just fun later. singapore is a tiny place. microscopic.
i am glad that i went. but then, getting back into all the old activities makes me feel like i;m letting my life here shade back into meaninglesness and mediocrity. it frustrates me and yet i feel powerless about it. why should i feel this? my life is not meaningless and it is not mediocre. i've just had the most amazing 2 months of my life, and yet i;m falling into all the typical traps. if i was god, i would be so annoyed with me. its like, nothing he does for me can lift me out of my lethargy. but i know that this is amatter of personal decision. i can choose to make everything i do different, whether its going clubbing or grabbing lunch or doing the dishes or just existing. i have everything i;ll ever need to do that. when i didn't have my old creature comforts, god satisfied me. what's so amazing about being under contract not to drink for 2 months? only yesterday, when i was talking with van, did i realise that i did not once think of drinking at all, in all the time i was there. its not that it never crossed my mind, but if it ever did, it just wasn't significant. it was a non-issue-- it mattered so little and i didn't need it at all.
Posted by i confound myself at 4:34 pm
Wednesday, August 23, 2006
reality bites
its true. the minute you get back home, everything's different, yet everything's the same. my home is the same. everyone has new practices and a new schedule, they behave weirdly and structure their days around different activities and schedules, but yet the old preoccupations and indeed, fears, are still exactly the same. its disorientating. with friends, its been the same. i've heardd (not yet met) people who apparantly have changed drastically within these 9 short months. changed beyond recognition. yet, when i meet up with people, it seems as if life has just been humming on uneventfully while i was away, and i feel like a strange alien whose just crash landed in the middle of a party and is trying to pick up on a conversation that's been going on for an hour.the rubber hits the road. nobody really cares that much what i did the past 2 months. some people don't even know where i've been the past year. i don't blame them. how many of my friends have i been keeping tabs on? do i know where they all are right now? how far people can seem to be after such a short time!
yesterday i met bry, mich, liz, cher, huishan and kaimin. it was wonderful to see them again. i'm finding, with every meeting and parting, that i'm getting worse and worse with words. there's simply so much to say and so much that i feel that i don't even know where to start. i feel just happy to sit and listen to the stream of talk around me-- talk about familiar things which are unfamiliar to me. it gives me a proper feeling of being home. yet, i also makes my sense of being absent huge to me. today i met leb, teaching at acjc. i'm so happy to see him. exactly the same. and later in the evening, with toshi and zhiwei. toshi cracks me up, as always. his life in the army singing thing could be seen as totally degrading and depressing, but somehow, the way he told it made it seem like a huge, hilarious in-joke that he shared with god knows who. as he told random stories and reenacted his cheesy sequences, it just seemed like clips out of some american comedy. it was funny. it was nice to see him. we talked about alot of things. i remember feelign like zhiwei. i know i;m on fire right now, and i can talk like i do because of the almost fantasy that i've been living in for the past 2 months, and the things i;ve seen. yet people around me don't share that, and there are reasons why they don't. real life gets in the way, though strictly speaking there shoudl be no such division. i have to remember to be sensitive. its such a challenge, learning how to channel the energy and extraordinary enthusiasm i've suddenly got, into encouraging tired people as opposed to being obnoxious and pissing them off. i feel weak jsut talking. i want so much to do something. maybe my time here being short is just an excuse. is 1 mth not enough to get sth going?
we'll talk about it on sun. like i said to zhiwei, i don't believe that god put me on that mountaintop just so i'd have a stack of nice pictures. he put me there cos he wanted me to come back and make it count for something. i've changed, and i can feel it. things which i once accepted now seem unacceptable; things which i once obsessed over now seem like non-issues. yet because of this i feel like i have to try extra hard to relate rightly. i really want my difference to help, not hurt. i've seen how the latter happens. its easy.
tmr will be another interesting day. i'm looking forward to seeing zing. and designsingapore. and then van and co. gosh there are just so many people i want to meet!
Posted by i confound myself at 6:29 pm
Monday, August 21, 2006
20.8.06
I could not have chosen better company for myself for my return home. As always, god uses random situations to bring people together. Its suprising how much a friendship can advance, just based on a couple of good hours spent together. The train ride and the day spent waiting, in unspoken dread, for the final departure, somehow brought me, joel, connie, ryan and even Andrew closer together. I will miss them all so much. Ryan was like a brother to me. my time spent TAing with him was, without doubt, the most memorable and fulfilling of my time on this trip. Without it, I would not have been prepared for the other camps, and neither would I have got to share in the joy of knowing the NIT students, seeing the toughest and coolest and most deliquent of them coming in humility and brokenness and searching, before the Lord. It was such a powerful testimony of how God works in mysterious ways. And we had so much fun in the process. Half the in-jokes that make me chuckle were shared with ryan and the unforgettable NIT class 2. It was my own weakness of decision to have left the class. I am none the worse—god still chose to use me in other places—but I know that if I had obeyed his first prompting and stayed, I would be able to have seen the fruit of that whole process to its completion, and the whole trip would have been different for me. but I just thank god for letting me, initially against my will, spend that time with ryan and class 2. As for connie, I am so happy that I finally got to know her. At the same time, I feel the pity that I did not get to know her earlier cos we were never on the same team—I can now see that she is someone whom I could have gotten close to and shared many laughs with. In the past 3 days alone, having spent more time with her, I find her alot like some of my NY girlfriends. She’s crazy, irreverent, laughs at the weirdest things, and yet she is serious about her faith and her relationship with others. I find her a breath of fresh air in an environment where everyone is sometimes abit too nice. If only we had more time to spend together! And finally joel, whom I have take for granted the whole trip because he always seems to take me for granted—somehow saying goodbye made me value him more and look forward greatly to seeing him in camb next year. This friendship excites me because it has the prospect of continuing and growing stronger, as opposed to dying off with parting. The same with weixin, Carmen, both Rachels and liz. How I wish that the people I was closese to were in Cmbridge too!I am so excited about going home. At long last, I will be able to say that I have gotten back to where I come from, and have a nice rest in the place where I actually stay. How much I take that for granted when I’m living at home! But now I can really say, there’s no plce like home. Over the past 2 months, I;ve grown to love and be proud of Singapore even more. Being the only Singaporean on the team has sharpened my awareness of the differences between me and others, and yet made me feel that I have such unique things to be proud of. I'm happy to be Singaporean. I love my accent, my idiocsyncracies, food, history (whatever little of it there is!) and I love meeting Singaporeans overseas. I feel that my home has, though nothing but being the place that it is and having the culture that it has, made me a person who can add something new and different to any international group I am in. snigger as you might at my uncharacteristic idealism. its what i think!
Posted by i confound myself at 9:49 am
17.8.06
woke up this morning to a brilliant qingdao sunshine. After the horrors of Beijing smog, this weather was simply divine. The beach here isn’t the nicest thing you’ve ever seen—sand a tad too brown, seaweed clinging unattractively off everything, and way too many local Chinese tourists and vendors shouting and screaming everywhere. But even that could not spoil the novelty of being close to sand and sun and sea after 8 months of deprivation for a beach bum like me. I reveled in it.Jason and I went out at 6 expecting it to be nice and peaceful, and to watch the tide go out and the sun rise, but at that early hour, the place was already teeming with tourists. The sun, we later found out, rose at 430am. Tough. Still, we managed to find Mary, this little girl whom we had met with her parents the night before. They had been one of the many curious Chinese beachgoers who’d stopped to hear us singing worship at 10pm last night. Eventually, in typical ISEC style, the worship session turned into a full blown evagelism extravaganza. This Mary girl was particularly interested in Korea, so I summoned Jason who entertained her the rest of the time.
In the late morning, we had a short debrief session, where we were told to think about the top 10 memorable moments in the trip, as well as come up with a 3 minute presentation/testimony, for use when presenting our summer experience with church at school or back home. I had fun thinking of the memorable moments.
After a lunch consisting of nothing but a variety of dumplings (delicious!) we headed down to the beach. On the way, we stopped by for 1 kuai ice cream. Weising got 2, just to get his 2 kuai off dave worth. As we walked to the beach ice cream in hand, it just struck me that there would never be a day like this again. It was a perfect day. It was like we had no worries, no troubles, just the sun and the balmy beach breeze, the endless seaa, the promise of an afternoon of fun, and most of all, such beautiful company. I would not rather have spent the day doing anything else with anyone else. It was just such a surreal sense of perfection and total satisfaction and bliss, that it almost scared me. what had I done to deserve this day?
In the evening, we went back down to have worship. Mary met me on the pavement above the beach. She said that she’d been waiting there since 9 and we were late. I was touched and felt bad. I talked with her while the others sang. She couldn’t find her mum, and later we discovered that Jason had been talking to her. Eventually, they had got on the subject of Christianity, at which point Jason’s Mandarin ability ended and he had to recruit Lisa to supplement. Mary’s dad, a law professor, soon came along too. Lisa did a great job of explaining her faith—a combination of logical reasoning and personal experience; of conviction and confidence tempered with startling honesty and humility. At fist, I was listening as I always do, to learn how to explain the bible better in Chinese. But soon, I was totally engaged, as were Mary and her parents. It was an incredible evening. At the end of it, both Mary’s parents were saying that they believed that there was truth in it, but that they could not believe, perhaps because they were both communist party members. We don’t know. All I know was that it was a most poignant moment for me. we were all exhausted, but Jason suggested that we pray for the family. They agreed. We laid hands on them, and Jason prayed while Lisa translated. He prayed that the family would one day overcome the barriers set up against tehm, and come to know the love of God, which had always been there for them. And he thanked god for meeting them through us tonight and for capturing them, because once he captures someone, he never intends to let them go. It was in echo of lisa’s words to them, that our meeting on the beach was not fate not chance nor coincidence, but the perfect plan and timing of God. This definitely features as one of the memorable moments on my list. It bumps off the Kelvin Karaoke night by a mile.
Posted by i confound myself at 9:47 am
16.8.06
Wednesday, 10amWe just spent 8 hours on a Chinese train from Beijing to the seaside town of qingdao. It was a pretty trying trip. The seats were close together and not the most comfortable things to try and get sleep on, and knowing that they were probably really grotty as well helped nothing. But, it was quite enjoyable in that we were mostly in the same carriage and so got to talk loads. I was sitting with Jordan, Katie, Naomi, geoff, Carmen and Rachel endersby. Rachel swapped with Claire later so that we could play mafia. It was the most intense game of mafia that I’d played, ever. I’m so used to playing it with my class in that totally random, over-in-2-minutes way that i’d completely forgotten how analytical and interesting the game could be. Jordan said that he knew of people who’d actually fallen out because of mafia. I can kind of see how that could happen.
Besides playing mafia, we also got to evangelise a family sitting across from whitney and lorna on the train. The man was a journalist with a small local newspaper, and he and his wife and baby daughter were traveling to some town just short of qingdao. The kid was really cute and lorna and whitney got to carrying her, at which point Geoff irrelevantly suggested that she was called Jane, which immediately got taken up as a suggestion to give her an English name. giving people English names is a fantastic way of evangelizing them. Jordan got out his bible and we went through the works—Deborah, sarah, Hannah, esther, etc. finally we settled on mary, cos that would give us the best excuse to tell the Christmas story and the whole death and resurrection bit. It worked. The guy was thrilled that westerners were naming his kid, and that there was a story behind the name too. Being the only Chinese speaker, I had the privildege of telling the story—as usual, completely badly and losing elephants in translation, but thank god that his word is indestructible, even when brutally corrupted by incompetent mandarin speakers like myself. The guy got the message I think. In true ISEC style, someone suddenly produced a Chinese bible which “just happened” to be laying at the top of someone’s suitcase in the top suitcase of the entire pile, and we gave it to the man. we wrote a note in the front, saying that we were happy to have met him and that we hoped Mary would one day come to read the bible and find out the origins of her name. I exchanged email and land addresses with him, and he even promised to send me a box of dragonfruits for some strange reason or other. Apparently, his hometown is the number one spot for dragonfruit production.
On the whole, it was a fun experience. it was like the beida yiyuan expedition, where you got the full Chinese experience, rubbing shoulders with the locals. It was chaotic while it lasted—the time at the train station was horrendous, what with all 40 something of us waiting on a really grotty pavement with all our bags and thousands of smelly, noisy, rushing people pushing past us and porters and vendors assaulting us from all corners and everybody staring at us for being the weird, out of place, backpacking foreign kids htat we were. But somehow, I think experiences like that are the most bonding. The whole randomness of every situation, and the way we stick out like a sore thumb, and how, even on the train, or at the spa place, I feel like we stick out for more reason than that half of us are white. There is just this air of difference and joy and refreshing that seems to emanate from the group when we walk around together, and I am convinced that that is what makes people stop and watch.
Posted by i confound myself at 9:45 am
14.8.06
today we went to the great wall. It was beautiful. Everywhere you turned, it was postcard. The weather was perfect—not too hot and yet not raining, and the usual fog seemed to have lifted somewhat. We climbed a lot—some of the steps were almost vertical; it was like we were actually climbing a wall. We took a lot of fun shots and I also tried to take some nice shots, but I found it a bit hard with the camera that I’m not used to, and I can’t really control the apeture. I really wished that I had my D50. It was the most amazing place for taking photos. I would come back here just to take better shots. I know that I shouldn’t have to rely on a camera to define my phototaking, but I’m not good enough a photographer to feel confident when I can’t actually see the shot properly, and when I’m using buttons and digital menus to control everything.When we reached the top of the wall, or at least as far as we could go in that particular area (mu tian yu), joel got out his guitar and we sang. We sang How Great Thou Art, which is one of my favourite hymns. Like I shared with the bank people the other day during my testimony, I believe that god has put me in Cambridge simply to bring me near to the very thing which draws me closest to him and directs my eyes to him most-- nature and beautiful architecture. The great wall was both of these things.
We took a toboggan ride back down. It was the epitome of dangerous Chinese tourist rides—a beat up plastic racer going down a metal chute, with no safety functions whatsoever. Its amazing the kinds of things you can bring yourself to do in the name of fun and under the blessing of lady luck. But it really was fun. I wish it could have gone faster.
We’re now sitting on a bus, taking a really long journey to this funny spa place that we’re supposed to be chilling at for the night. I just want to go swimming or play tennis or go shopping. I don’t really care for a massage. But its what a lot of people like to do. Somehow I don’t get that much pleasure out of health treatments. They are boring and there are things in the world that make me happier.
14.8.06 9pm
another totally random experience. Step into this spa and you’re immediately greeted by the most hideously garish deco—faux coroninalian pillars, gold paint, fake frescoes, you name it. A huge, mismatched mish-mash of anything and everything vaguely western looking, put together in no order whatsoever. Yet, this place is probably the epitome of luxury and grandeur for the rich in Beijing. Here, you get pampered sick. You don’t have to do anything—you don’t even have to think. Your belongings are taken from you. You strip naked, shower in front of half of china, and then get into a dressing gown that the rest of the rest of the customers are ALL wearing. You do your hair, face and skin, get a massage (the big feel—back AND front) if that’s your thing, and then go upstairs to feast on a huge spread of weird and wonderful delicacies. In your dressing gown and tracing paper underwear. With another 50 people wearing exactly the same thing. After the meal, you can get a manicure, pedicure, haircut, facial, play table tennis or pool, watch TV, watch a cabaret show. At 11pm there’s supper. Its ridiculous. But I can see how its appealing. Whatever indignity you suffer from being stripped (figuratively and literally) of your identity, you somehow redeem from the fact that this experience is strangely liberating. Everyone looks the same, nothing on you belongs to you, the staff wait upon you hand and foot, and you don’t even need to know the time. Yet, this place gives me bad vibes. I feel as if this is such a stark and sudden re-entry into the secular world of materialism, luxury, extravagance and pleasure. I feel sorry for the staff here—how they have to kowtow and pander to the client’s every need. All the boot-licking—its sad and disgusting. I’m glad we’re not staying here for long.
Posted by i confound myself at 9:42 am
5.8.06
Saying goodbye to my TA class was bad. It was sad and disorientating for me. I’m bad at goodbyes. I never know what to say—nothing I say is ever enough to express myself. And I never know what it really is that I want to say. Something in me is always in denial that this is it, even though it obviously is. I always feel as if we will meet again, virtually or otherwise. The ease of communication makes me feel like there will never be a complete parting. Peter Kim and I talked about it, when I by chance got stranded in the boys’ room on the 4th floor after the power suddenly went out again. He’s gonna be leaving on the 14th, which means that we won’t be seeing him at debrief. So this might be the last time that I see him, at least till I fulfill my promise to visit the US. I never really got to know him well and feel it’s a pity, cos he’s a really funny guy and I would love to talk to him more. He was at beishida for the 1st camp. I only got to hang out with him more in this camp, cos he was a teacher. But even then, we were so busy that there was little time to have conversations. Its exasperating. On the one hand, it seems like there’s so much time to get to know this whole team really well, and we’re all so united and feel as if I could talk to anyone about anything, but on the other hand, when I think about it, I really havn’t known some of the people for more than a week, and had more than a few conversations. Its just the general gum-ness of the group and the fact that we are related to each other by something deeper and spiritual, that gives this false sense of being close. I wish terribly that I had more time. As I was telling liz, I feel like given enough time, everyone here had the potential to become a really good friend. There has been no other social situation in which I find myself thinking that. Often, given a random sample of people, the ones that I think are “worth getting to know better” are a minority. I know that that sounds horribly exclusive and judgemental, but everyone does that—and its impossible to become best friends with everyone, hence unrealistic to try and invest the same amount or nature of time and energy in every single relationship. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think that every one in this group would be worth me investing the same kind of time and energy to get to know. So, every time a camp ends or a splitting of teams occurs, I feel a strange, unreasonable sense of dread for what will inevitably soon come. Its almost like all the small partings are a foreshadowing of the fact that in a couple of weeks’ time, we will all go our separate ways and possibly never see each other again.Posted by i confound myself at 9:34 am
8.8.06
we had an adventure today. It started with Jason, on impulse, saying that he wanted to go to silk street. I, still a little sore from not having got the chance to go back there after forbidden city the other day, immediately suggested that we go today. It was totally irrational and ill thought out. In my mind, it was just a matter of jumping on the bus that the kids usually take from the bank to xidan, take what I estimated would be no longer than a 20 minute ride, and then get the train from xidan to yong an li. So it was highly do-able.It wasn’t. after we were on the bus for half an hour, the driver kindly informed us that it would take another hour and a half to get to xidan. So we decided there and then to just get off and take the train from wherever we were then nearest. It so happened to be the very train station that we were close to from Jimen Hotel in the first days of being in BJ. So, it was like we’d come full circle.
It was strange wandering into that station, and remembering how, not so long ago, I’d been one of a huge group of Beijing newbies, following the whole crowd blindly and knowing that I had no idea where we were going because I was too busy getting my bearings within the group of new people. Today, I was the one leading the way. its interesting what your brain can choose to remember and apply so clearly, when you really want to do something and get somewhere! Not a very flattering reflection of my life priorities, I’m afraid.
We ended up having to change train 3 times from there. I hate the BJ underground—its not extensive at all, and a big pain in the neck. When we finally got there, I just went on a crazy round picking up all the things I needed, knowing that I probably won’t get the chance to come back round again
We met back outside the DVD shop lleading to the train station. Nelson’s conquests were incredible. He bought a Giorgio Armani suit for 400+rmb, 10 ties, track shoes, and basically spent a fortune. He and Jason ended up talking to some shop people and found out they were Christians—missionaries shopping in the place had shared Christ with them. Amazing! Lillian and Lorna didn’t have that much stuff, but then again they’ve been here 3 times already! You can never get enough of this place. Its unhealthily addictive.
I think we all found it a pretty successful and interesting trip, though. Jason was especially proud of his new-found bargaining skills. He even ended up making friends with one of the storeholders and buying her an ice cream!
But the most exciting part of our adventure was the trip back. Between the changing of trains, which required getting out of one station and walking to another., we got caught in massive rain and had to run thought a crazy, dirty torrent together with hundreds of other Chinese commuters. When we finally got to our stop, Shang Di, looking drenched as water rats, there was no cab willing to take all 5 of us for a low price, so we turned to some buggy drivers who were soliciting for business outside the train station. One of them, who looked like he was just playing some joke, suggested that all 5 of us get in his buggy—a tiny, pathetic looking structure consisting of a metal box thing with an opening, attached to the back of a motorcycle. It looked so small and beat up, you wouldn’t have put a cat in it. The rest of the cab and buggy drivers around, obviously thinking he was joking, laughed and egged him on. By then, we were all pretty game for it, and so Lillian and lorna got on. Then nelson and Jason squeezed in, and I just stood outside staring at them cos the guys could hardly fit in and the buggy looked like it was about to break. Then the driver stood there giving me the “so, what are you waiting for” look, and I knew that he was serious. So I got in the thing and sat on lillian’s lap, and before we had time to think about the ridiculousness of what we were doing, the guy revved up the engine and off we were, speeding into the wet, glittering Beijing streets. There was no door to the thing—Lillian was my seatbelt. The buggy lurched and swerved and bumped, and when it went over puddles, the water just sprayed up at us. We were like crazy kids, shrieking and singing and Jason was sticking his head out of the thing and snapping photos all the way. it was like, everything that your parents told you never to do—travel at night, get in dodgy vehicles, not wear a seatbelt, go on the road when its raining, behave llike a tourist… But it was definitely one of my highlight moments—one of the most memorable here so far. I can’t believe we actually did that. It was so much fun.
What a frivolous evening. Is is wrong to get pleasure out of this sort of thing? I guess on a mission trip, so much more is expected, but it was just a fun evening out, and one that I will remember for the fun and the company, for a long time to come
Posted by i confound myself at 9:31 am
6.8.06
the bank is amazing, by whatever standards. We got here at about 11am today, after a bus ride in which we talked about evolution, polo and nelson’s stinky shirt. Things don’t dry properly in those stupid ac rooms.There is a tennis court, swimming pool, sports complex with indoor basketball, badminton, ping pong, billiards, cards room, and some random game which involves pushing a little metal disc across a long, smooth table and getting it to stop on a mark with points on. After the NIT life of sprinkling radiators, broken water heaters and blackouts all around, this place is surreal. Looking at it in context, this is a normal bank training center— its rather cold and to me, unattractive in fact- a typical Chinese style establishment. The façade is all grayish white tiles and there;s this huge billboard over the top of the flat roof that says Beijing MInsheng Bank. But compared to what we’ve been living like, this is glorious. I make it sound like NIT was hell, when really, it wasn’t. The thing was that it was just frustrating and annoying because everything looked fine, but inside everything just didn’t work. It seemed that the default state of every electrical or electronic appliance in that place was faulty or broken. When you were in a hurry, or wanted to get things done, or simply wanted to live, you couldn’t do it without having to run to about 20 different management and logistics people in between. I guess it really taught me not to take things for granted.
I don’t see things like this happening here. Everything is pretty slick. The canteen here is phenomenal. It’s a buffet type thing and there;’s so much choice.
I am afraid that I’ll get spoiled or distracted here., I know myself. When there’s work to be done, I’ll do it., but in the interim, the spaces which could be used to make things better, I sometimes rationalize that there;s no point, and if there are alternative things to do, I’ll do them. Yesterday, I prayed that god will help me, and help all of us, to fight our own battles. This is one of my battles, ironically. Humans are so difficult. Whether in comfort or discomfort, we are always straying from the goal.
I had an interesting conversation with Jason over lunch. We talked about relationships, and whether it is that there is 1 person or a pool of many people, of whom you choose one. Jason thought the former, and I the latter. And we both agreed that sometimes, people make mistakes. I still cannot accept how mistakes and remedying the mistake is frowned upon in the marriage context. People make mistakes in all things, so why is it unbiblical to make mistakes here? We also talked about friendships becoming relationships, and how that’s hard sometimes. Hard to tell when one bleeds into the other, and hard to define the boundaries. i think these things are complicated. Why do we always gravitate toward them?
Posted by i confound myself at 9:30 am
Monday, August 07, 2006
minsheng bank days
6.8.06I am afraid and averse to mountaintop experiences. That is one of the main reasons that I held out of short term missions for so long. Now, I think I have come to accept that what I am having is an obvious mountaintop experience—the challege is to learn from and transfer the experience into real life after I get off the mountain. Today, we had a worship service in the evening, on the flat roof of the training center. It was one of those surreal, bizarre yet beautifully random and romantic moments—reminicent of singing praise songs outside NIT gates while waving to lorry drivers. This time, our worship session was set against a backdrop of half-built tiled building, scaffolding, green construction wrap and cranes resting for the night. There we sat, surrounded by protruding air vents, under a smoggy sky shading salmon to lavender and a sun bleached flouroscent red by pollution, and a the massive half of a lit sign reading Minsheng Bank. It looked like a set on the matrix, or some mtv. We sang psalm 126 (which we had invented on the fly back at NIT). Ellie led worship, playing songs off ally’s computer while we prayed. Was it beautiful or weird? Both, I think. Only on a trip like this. A mountain—no, rooftop experience.
Later, we went swimming in the indoor pool. I told Rachel about rolling her shoulder. Rachel is wonderful. She is uninhibited and eccentric—a true character. She’s a true engineer too—gained herself a reputation for being plumber and electrician supreme—a very useful skill in this land of the broken toilets. When I look at her, I think of someone who loves her job and her study, uses it for others with total delight, and makes a challenge, adventure or comedy out of every situation. Her eccentricity is so unpretentious. Its wonderful. I can’t believe that I didn’t discover this gem in her while we were in catz. I’m glad that I’ll still get a chance to hang out with her in camb.
7.8.06
2nd day of camp. The kids were more responsive today. Can only be a good thing. I have great hope for this class. They are smart and responsive, not totally participative but enthusiastic enough, and are basically good kids. I wish that this were a stay over camp—I could get to know them so much better. Ally taught them about the difference b/w fact and opinion, and gave them a really challenging comprehension passage, and they did it all. So different from my NIT class, where the comprehension exercise just ended up as a big vocab and tranlation fiasco
it was an exciting day. Lorna and nelson managed to have a good conversation with nora, one of the girls, who asked them how to pray. Jason and dave got talking to this guy called Humorcne (no one has figured out how to pronounce it, not even the guy himself), and found out he had some understanding of the bible and god, and was interested thought his knowledge was sketchy. Rach and ally and I were the only ones that didn’t have conversations, but I’m confident we will soon. God has increased my faith in his ability to create situations out of nothing—after the mysterious and totally unexplained appearance of a Chinese bible in mine and Ryan’s class at NIT, nothing surprises me anymore! Its cool to see how excited everyone is just by the faintest hint of interest among the students—at night we sit in meetings and share conversations like they were battle conquests. Why only here? Do I sit down every regular, non-isec day and rejoice over conversations that I managed to direct in the direction of the most important thing in my life? Do I even have those conversations?
We went to a huge electronics shop in the evening. It was Mark’s idea- the geek that he is. When we got there, the blokes unanimously decided to give themselves 2.5hrs shopping time—which drew obvious protests from the girls to the tune of now they know what it feels like to be given half and hour and a black face at silk street. I wandered around with Rachel, lorna and Lillian. Managed to buy a neoprene bag for my apple, for 20 yuan. I’m proud of my bargaining prowess. I managed to get a set of speakers for rach for 40 yuan too. I’m so bad when it comes to shopping. I think I’m too addicted.
Interesting conversations today:
With lorna and ellie during lunch. We talked about whether we are different in Cambridge from how we are on ISEC. Both of them said that they are so different—in camb or at home, they are so much more dressy, girly, have different styles, and they feel “not-them” here. I didn’t know that other people felt this way too! I thought I was the only one who was so superficial, and hence somehow morally and spiritually deficient. Over here, I’ve been feeling so out of sorts—not necc in a bad way, but just that I feel llike I;m so different here from the usual me. It shocks me to realize how much this is because of my totally different wardrobe here. I spent longer than I ever should feeling un-confidernt and frustrated because I felt so sloppy and needlessly under-dresssed here. Lorna said she felt exactly the same thing. I know that there;s no reason to let my identity and confiendence be affected by my clothes and hairstyle, but I can’t help it—it makes such a big difference, esp to me, since I am so into dressing up and maintaing my style. I realize that this is not right, if it causes me to feel inadequate just because I can’t do it here.
Mark’s sharing about his life, which later turned into a story about his love life. He talked about how he struggled to deal with rejection by a girl who he was so sure God was leading to be his girlfriend. It was strange to hear someone say that they could be sure that god intended for a person to be theirs just because they felt it—can we ever jjustify our deep emotions and desires for something which seems secular and selfish, by relating it to God’s will? And, like nelson asked later, how can we be so sure? How do we know its God and not me? i hope that when it happens ot me, I will know when its god and when its not. I sometimes feel that I already know, and have always known deep in the back of my mind, who it is going to be—whenever the topic of relationships comes up, there is only 1 person that springs to mind as consistently and totally unremarkably. I always thought that this was “just me’, but mark’s talk made me wonder whether it is possible that god means some things to be. I must admit that it might not be what I dream of or intend—there are much more exciting possibilitiies around. But I just feel this sense of safety and being comfortable, whenever I consider it. Well, only time will tell. All I can say is that for now, its one of the reasons why I’m looking forward to going home.
