back in the motherland

Hey everyone- i'm back in the motherland.

I spent most of yesterday, my last day in HK, in IFC. I was at Cheung Zhou for a while, but it was raining, and there was a big funeral going on that day there. Left me feeling really uncomfortable, so i just went back to cheungzhou. I was considering watching a movie, but i got distracted at the IFC (international Finance Center). It's pretty new- it wasn't there last time i was in HK. It's now the tallest building in all of HK ( i think). Anyways, I was walking through it, and the architecture in that building is simply amazing. I was literally walking with my head bent looking upwards as i walked through that mall. There was so much detail and awesomeness in that building. Especially cool is all the mobile art. Then i found a secret elevator that goes to the roof of the building in between the two towers. That place was crazy. ONe side, you could see all of Central, and the other side looked across the bay to mongkok. There were also freaking crazily awesome sculptures and fountains. I had a field day with my camera. It was one of those days where I was trying really hard to look artsy. haahahaha. at least as well as i could with my unsteady hands and camera that has strange quirks here and there... i think i was trying too hard, but it was a lot of fun for me.

Then I had hot pot with letty and nana. I was completely conquered. I got full so fast that I was embarrassed. it sucked. But it was good hanging out with them. I've just lost a lot of pride by not being able to finish as much food as i used to. What's happening to my stomach??? Anyways, it's kind of funny because I've had a buffet on my last night of being somewhere for this whole summer. Last day in America- Hot pot city. Last Day in Nanning- Brazillian BBQ (yes for reals). Last day in HK- Hot Pot.

anyways, the last few days have been raining in HK, but i pressed forward nonetheless to be the best tourist i can be. It was a really good time of rest and personal reflection.

now i'm back and it's feeling a little strange without the first team. I'm kinda missing them. Actually i'm missing them a lot. Especially my roommate, Deny. We've roomed together before on my trip to Duan. He's probably one of the best people i've ever roomed with period. Somehow we were able to live together. It was always fun to run around shopping for clothes with him during free time. I caught myself looking at interesting T-shirt designs in HK. I would turn around and tell Deny so he could take a picture of it, and then all of a sudden I'd remember he wasn't there. It was fun running around getting food that was probably bad for us, sneaking out when nobody was watching, and making our room the party room for the rest of the team.

So yeah, I'm pretty anxious about this next part of the trip. It's a whole batch of new people. Nuff said.

anyways, today, that anxiety was swallowed away by our 11 or so plates of dumplings for dinner tonight. hahahaha. I'm so full. Tomorrow it's back to the orphanage. All the orphans think i've gone back to america. I wonder what their reaction will be when I'm back playing guitar at Josh's side. hahahaha.

change in plans

so. Funny thing happened. Yesterday, on our free day before our departure today, I got a folded binder paper from Auntie Solange. I unfolded it, and there was a handwritten letter from Auntie Lillian, asking me to stay for the second team. I already had my reasons for not staying- Nat's wedding, taking care of IV stuff, having to take a written test for my class B liscence, finalizing some housing stuff, etc. But as I went through each reason, each one didn't seem to have any pulling effect on me going home. They didn't seem important. It also didn't really feel like Dad was done doing what he wanted to do in me. It seemed like so far, there's been a lot of inward growth and heeling, but in terms of growing in leadership- It hasn't really been happening. So, i decided to get on my knees on this one, and during twa, they talked about passing onto the next generation and not being silent. I also had a vision, which I haven't had in a long time- I saw thousands of guitarists singing to dad. This was exactly what auntie lillian wanted to see begin in the next month. I was on my knees for a little longer, asked some of my close team members what they thought, and they all said it sounded right. It was something I should pursue.

So, I've made the crazy decision to go with the team to HK, then stay there for a week, and then go back to china for another 2 weeks. That means 3 more weeks. This feels like the stupidest decision I have ever made, yet the most exciting. I feel scared and anxious, yet at the same time energized.

So, sorry people at home- I won't be home until the 19th of August, and then I'll be going to SD on the 25th still.

Please please please please be on your knees for me. I still don't feel totally secure about this all, but all the changes have been made already. However, just learning from this last year- delayed obedience is almost as bad as total disobedience. Even though i'm having trouble trusting Dad after stuff last year, somehow something inside of me won't let me stop trusting Him in doing the insane. This is so damn insane.

well. Here's hoping for the best. Ready or not, here I go.

The difficulty of being Mr. Bad Cop

Today I had to discipline the kids again. I hate being the bad cop. It really sucks. I just felt so sad that they didn't want to obey today. There was one girl who was almost crying as I made her copy "i will not fall asleep in class" 10 times. But she was literally going to sleep in the middle of me telling her why she shouldn't sleep. aaaaaugh. frustrating. I just felt gross inside for being so mean. I hope tomorrow will be better. It's the last day.

anyways we helped the older kids start their first p&w team. that was pretty cool- watching them stepping up from just being spoon fed into leadership.

anyways. There's a lot of fleas now. I got a lot of bites last night. I think i just got a bite on my thumb knuckle. It's really annoying. okay. Bye.

longings

I wish i could stay here longer. It's winding down to the last few days. We're already in "exit mode". I wish i had longer to be with the kids and hang out with auntie lillian. oi.

anyways... just random thoughts...

My chinese has unfortunately not gotten better hahaha. Guanxi is an interesting place, linguistically. In Nanning, they speak both cantonese and Mandarin. This doesn't even account for the area's native dialect, zhuang. Anyways, it has made my "cantarin" much better, but has destroyed any sense of cantonese or mandarin. It's kind of created this pseudo pidgin/creole deal. It's kinda like what they talked about in communications- the "mestiza conciousness" or the borderland conciousness. It's gotten me thinking a lot about globalization. It think it's kind of how i've come to terms with post-modernism: It has its positives and negatives and it's no use fighting it because it's already here. It's more about what to do in the present situation of globalization than fighting it. It's here, and it's here to stay. Anyways... that rant there went a little tangented. The bottom line is that I don't feel my language getting better. It's also because there are team members that are fluent and will immediately translate for me when i could be practicing. I need to just go to china myself one day without any help.

It's made me think about taking chinese a third year next quarter. It's actually something i'd like to do, but I feel like i keep falling behind and I keep getting busier with comm major stuff and with outside stuff. Anyways, we'll see what happens. Maybe i'll magically appear in class one day. And if not, I need to find a way to keep practicing my chinese. Maybe keep a chinese journal or something. We'll see. Anything to keep me on track with my language. and to make me stop making up tones. hahahaha.

Been thinking a lot about going back to san diego next year. Thinking about p-team next year at 1V, and pondering on some bad flops i made near the end of the year. I think this trip has started to put me back on the right track- stopping my worrying and just trusting. I feel like my closeness to mr. omnipitent is returning.

today, dad in the sky told me he was right there with me, and he never left me. I just stopped paying attention to him. Had some reminders of my bitterness towards him, my anger towards him... i'm still trying to work it all out. It's all a process.


auntie lillian made a half idea half offer to help start a music school in Nanning while i was painting her office today. That'd be pretty fun. But it was just an idea. She has a lot of good ideas hahaha. She also kinda took back the offer because she said i probably shouldn't do it at my age yet- i still need a community around me. And that was pretty cool.

with auntie lillian, I've learned over the years how it is- the first part of doing something with her is always testing your submission and everything. It makes you want to rebel, be bitter, or whatever. What makes doing things under her rewarding is enduring that first part. Once you get used to it, you realize she does everything for a good reason. You also realize she genuinely cares for you. And then you realize she's pretty cool, and that's just her style of leadership.

anyways, i'm just wasting time. it's nap time, and i can't sleep, so i'm writing an unnecessarily long entry in this blog. bye bye.

laying down the law.

I finally got around to disciplining my kids today. It started out with me not smiling at all before class today. If they started to poke me during breakfast, i would just stare them down. They would continue to poke me, but see i wasn't smiling. Then they would have a really awkward look on their face, poke me again shyly, and then run away and hide. MWAHAHAHAHA. lovable daniel is on vacation now.

Then at class, I told them that there was a huge test today because they weren't behaving on saturday. I also made phillip, my co-teacher take a chinese test because he wasn't behaving with them on saturday. It was hard not to smirk.

I also kept 4 kids after class today and they had to write "I promise to behave in class" 10 times before they could leave.

Oh... being the bad cop teacher feels so great... but i'm a good cop inside, so i don't know how much longer i can keep it up. One of the girls I punished hasn't talked to me since class. hahaha. hopefully nice daniel will emerge from his slumber soon.

I wish i could stay longer. These kids haven't learned enough english yet. I want to just work on phonics and pronounciation with them, but i don't have enough time. It turned out that the curriculum didn't take a solid shape. It came to the point where i had to sort of make my own curriculum, but that happened much too late for anything effective. Hopefully the second team can do a better job than me.

ok. That's it for now. bye bye.

some more thoughts

I forgot to talk about some stuff last post.

Every night, we have a thing called "family time" with the kids. We sing songs, we give a short encouragement, and we talk in groups for a few minutes.

I did the encouragement a few days ago about my time in chinese class. I talked about how hard it was for me, but I kept doing it because i had a class and teachers that kept pushing me. I told them about the awesome support they gave me in going this summer. I think that's the coolest thing i learned in communications this year- learning is a social process. I told them that yes- English is hard, but I told them that it's something they have to all come together and finish as a community. I told them that your dreams are not impossible if you pursue them as a community.

But then in group time, all of that seemed so hopeless. We talked about what their dreams were and what they wanted to become when they grew up. There were some awesome responses- the blind kid Jeremiah just growled "MASSOUSE" and immediately started rubbing his friend's arm. But with all of them, there was a sense of hopelessness in them. They have no idea how they'll survive after the orphanage. This community here at the orphanage is so awesome- they all look out for eachother and they stick together. The wheel chair kids help out the blind kids. It's broken people helping one another. But after this- the real world. Even if they weren't disabled or orphaned- there is no class mobility here. Once poor, always poor. Farmers will always be farmers. Factory workers will always be factory workers. I felt naive and over optimistic in saying they could achieve their dreams if they "only tried".

But then I guess I have to just grasp that hope in the father- that he would raise these kids up to do great and mighty things.

The kids have been opening up a lot more lately- we asked them about their parents the other day. some of them just simply got lost shopping and got picked up by the police. Others ran away. The deaf mute kid just kept talking away in sign language. It was pretty crazy.

anyways, please keep communicating with dad for me. I think i might be coming down with a cold, but we prayed it out pretty well. Alright, i gotta teach guitar in 10 minutes. catch you guys later.

oh yeah- these are some pictures from our photographer's xanga

Smothered by xiao haizi

These last few days have been rather eventful.

First of all, right after the last post, we were on a motorcycle taxi tricycle thing and we crashed into another motorcycle taxi tricycle thing that almost crashed into a bus. It's okay. We didn't die. We were quite alright. we got off laughing. Those motorcycle taxi tricycle are awesome.

The kids have been just awesome. Yesterday, they had an insurrection against me. I told them we were going to have a listening test. they immediately stood up and said "BU DONG! BU DONG! I DON'T KNOW! I DON'T KNOW!" It took a while to convince them to take the test. They are way too cute. I can't discipline them effectively.

Anyways, that's just a short update. The person next to me is watching strongbad. Anyways, i need a nap. Goodnight.

15 minutes to go

Hello everyone. It's been a week already. It feels like nothing.

Hanging out with the kids has been ridiculously awesome and tiring. The little kids are so hyper.

We just got back from the pool. That was crazy. They all had a project of trying to drown me. It was a public pool. It was sad seeing people run away from the handicapped kids and the blind kids that bumped into them. Somehow, these kids seem so much more happier and genuine and loving than other kids.

Anyways, classes have been a little bit hectic. stay on your knees for us. Nobody really knows what's going on in English class. The curriculum seems unsuitable no matter what we do. But i don't really have to worry because I was food poisoned in the first few days from this fried fish we had. It was bad. I was in bed for 30 hours. Anyways, because of it I got relinquished a lot of responsibilities. It's kind of nice. hahaha. It's nice to just sit back and go with the flow.

However, I'm still teaching guitar, and that has been pretty fun. I've never taught guitar before, but it's been pretty awesome. They're learning pretty quickly. I've taught them the keys of C, G, and A.

For both english and guitar class, I feel like I see a giant wave of responsibility and anxiety and inability. But then, I just sit back and ride the wave through, and things are all right. It's great trusting dad with this stuff.

It breaks my heart when I go around in the bus. I see a mixture of the broken dreams and promises of communism and the hollow compromise of capitalism. Broken brick buildings in the midst of fast rising bamboo laden modern looking buildings. And the people around them have no clue what to do. I'm remembering what it feels like to have a broken heart that isn't from yourself, but from dad's- what it means when he "looked out and saw that they were sheep without a shephered and had compassion on them".

anyways, I leave you with a quote from a kid named abigail there:

Wo feichang de HEPPY!

LDG

Hey just letting you guys know i've made it to guanxi. me and a friend are at an internet cafe down the street. It's quite confusing with all the usual english in internet explorer in Chinese. Quite awkward indeed.

I felt something spark in me as we were descending into the airport. Seeing those limestone sentinels draped in green cloaks overlooking the vast farmland... I remember I wrote my college essay on going here. I remembered a lot of things on that descent. I remembered the students I last taught. I realized a lot of them probably couldn't go to college because of the demands a farm family has on their children. I remember them surrounding our bus and begging us not to go. And I felt something inside of me that I haven't felt for a long time- My heart felt like it was breaking again.

Today, we had orientation at the orphanage. I remember the lady saying two things- "You not only bring your love to us, but we bring our love to you". That felt so good to hear in the midst of my feelings of inadequacy in loving because I don't really have the ability to love like dad does.

The other thing they said was "The weather here in guanxi is the hottes during july and august, so it's right in time for you. They call them the months of fire. But don't worry. the weather is simply a reflection of our people's hearts." aaah if only dad would capture that fire for him.

The first evening we got there, the older college kids on the team went out to buy guitars for the guitar lessons. We haggled for a real long time and bought four mediocre guitars for 930 rmb. We must have been the best business they got in years. They were the best deal i've ever seen for guitars- 930 rmb is about 100 bucks. that means 25 bucks each, not including all the strings and stuff we got with them. Hope the kids like them. Anyways, that took a long while, and by the end we plopped down on our beds and slept.

we hung out with the kids today. It was pretty good. They had no idea josh, our half chinese half white guy could speak english. He was trying to pretend he couldn't speak chinese. Everyone could hear the uproar at his table when he spoke his first word of chinese. haha. He's an instant celebrity.

For me, I feel like things are just sailing along. I don't feel as stressed out as I should. There's things to be done, lessons unplanned, and uncertainty on how exactly we are going to teach english for 2.5 hours every day. However, i've realized after several years- that's just how auntie lilian works. Extremely specific, yet extraordinarily vague. hahaha. I've learned to just smile and trust her and dad that things will go alright.

for the food report-

don't tell anyone on the trip, but I snuck out this morning and bought some xiao long bao and some stuff that looked like sieu mai, but had rice instead of meat in it. It was pretty good. I saw a plethora of other possibilities too. I can't wait. I've started a secret society on my team called LDG, or La duzi gemen-er. If you understand mandarin, you might know what that means. At the school, they had chicken and noodles and spicy stuff for lunch, and dinner had deep fried fish and too many vegetables. What's ironic is the fish is giving me stomach problems, but the stuff i got off the street didn't do diddly-squat to me.

Well, earth-daddy- I hope you're proud of me. I'll continue as long as my stomach can hold.

Hm. I'm not sure if there's anything else to say for now. anyways, continue to talk to dad for me.

By the way, the internet is freaking exploding in china. we had to look for a few cafes before we found one with open seats. i hear they have almost as many users on the internet as the US, and it's still growing. anyways, they're all playing world of warcraft right now. nerds. hahahaha. okay bye.

we're leaving real soon. i gotta go.

Haircut and packing

Well, I'll be driving to the airport in a few hours. This day in which i celebrate the US's birthday was spent cutting off my hair (courtesy of deny and steve), which hasn't been at this length since august or september. I'm getting ready for maximum head ventilation when i'm in the motherland.

Packing's been a little hectic, but it always is.

I want to bring a lot of books to read, but i don't want my backpack to be heavy. Debating what to do on that. Hopefully i can get some good reading in, some good writing, and some good sleep. And maybe a nice in-flight movie.

Please keep talking to dad for me.

two days before i go to the motherland.

it's about 2 days from me leaving to China, and i feel dreadfully unprepared.

Our team had our last meeting today. There's about 20-30 of us going split into two teams that go at different times. I'm on the first one, and there's about 15 people in my team. We are going to an orphanage. We will all be teaching English there, along with art, music, and games.

The humidity is crazy there, and everyone is having a panic attack over mosquitos. It's quite funny watching the meeting. There are moms handing out herbal mosquito repellent from Hong Kong and recommendations on where to get 100% deet, although it only goes up to 98.75 or some ridiculous number like that. Not too excited about the plane trip either, which will stop in taipei, and then in Hong Kong, and then somewhere in the middle of nowhere in China, with nice big chunks of lay over that are just short enough in which we can't go out of the airport. Oh well. That means more time to read and review all my forgotten chinese vocabulary.

This will be an interesting trip because it's a trip with all chinese people and a lot of young people. Usually families don't let their kids go to an awesome place like China when they're so young (we have junior highers and high schoolers coming with me). However, there's a fair share of "parent chaperones" going too. Don't worry, I have nothing against them hahaha. They're pretty funny parents- the type of parents that are funny to everyone else except their kids, so it's pretty fun to watch the family element in this team.

I found out today that there are going to be a lot more kids taking English than expected. This consequently lead to certain events in which I am in charge of all the advanced English groups and their curriculum. This is the exciting part of this trip- last minute changes. They're not bad, they're just hard to plan ahead for. So I'm going to be digging into my closet for the old curriculum I used on my first trip teaching english in China, because there is no solid curriculum planned for the English teaching class, save for some games to excersize English and showing American movies. I'm also going to be teaching guitar with Josh. and maybe help with teaching keyboard with denise. There's a lot more on my plate than I expected.

That brings this entry to myself (sorry for my selfishness). I really have not been feeling ready. I came out of the school year with a lot of emotional baggage. mr. G. seemed to just go and dig out a lot of crap in my life and told me to face it instead of run away from the stuff. It wasn't fun, and in some ways left me not trusting mr. G on some stuff anymore. Anyways, i've been trying to regain that trust this summer, but it's mostly been unsuccessful. I feel like this baggage just won't come off of me. I wish I could just be finished with that stuff. But it won't. In other words, i've been feeling like crap lately. However, as my good friend paulo once said when he got a thorn stuck in his foot or something: "his strength is made perfect in my weakness (okay that sentence sounds real lame).

Anyways, usually i go to China with visions of grandeur and wanting to see change or whatever. This time, it's not that those visions and dreams are gone, but I just feel distracted and distant from them. i really need you guys to talk to dad about that for me and that I can serve cheerfully and wholeheartedly without being distracted.

However, my heart continues to break for the kids. my family got a letter from a friend who's already there already, and nobody sees these kids as useful for anything in society. He was talking to a taxi driver and the taxi driver didn't see the use in working at an orphanage. These kids are on the brink of society there- the outcasts. We saw a slideshow of the kids- a lot of them are handicapped. The pictures were real powerful. I can't wait to meet them. I'm finally starting to anticipate going.

Somebody said something profound today at the meeting today- it went somewhere along the lines of this: Yes, we can have awesome programs and activities planned. But we cannot forget that we are going to love these kids.

I'll have to keep that in mind.

Dad, help me to love these kids. I really don't know how I can give love to these kids when I feel so broken and unable to do anything. I feel overwhelmed with distraction and inadequecy. But you always used broken people to help other broken people all through those stories you told me. Help me to trust you.