Hello KL! And hello blogging!

I haven’t blogged a single time when I was in China, resorting instead to sending pdf files on mass email list servs because not only did I have to go through many different proxy servers to access my blog,( it was super slow), I was always unsure how my critical observations of Beijing and China would be interpreted by the Great FireWall of China. 

But…..

Whew, another semester passed in a country that I breathed and lived in for several months. To quickly sum up my experiences and perspectives from inhabiting Beijing, I am now more acute to the

-Needs of the people in China-in terms of

• spiritual (religion and a dubious faith in the government as provider of all needs),
• physical (overcrowded public hospitals and frustrating long-winded bureaucracy) and
• materialistic (effect of overpopulation on public school system, hospital, legal system,etc.)

-From now on I will not merely see China as the “sleeping dragon” through the Western media perspective but it is now populated by the faces of friends (never knew so many were such ardent fans of KTVing), and memories of many “horrific” culture-shock experiences like seeing the murky pollution of the sky for the first time in April as the weather warmed up, carrying your own toilet paper everywhere in squatting toilets, navigating the heat and traffic of ever-hectic streets of Wudaokou, seeing kids in those “split-in-the-middle” pants held over trash cans and streets to do their “business”, I could go on…. but now that I’m back in Malaysia, give a shout-out if you are home as well, and I’ll provide more detailed stories!

along Yeats line..

Its been two weeks since coming back from Washington DC and I am surprised how far away my former life seems to me now. Leaving the political hub of the American capitol, I came back to Malaysia energized to replicate the important bits of my DC life in my home country: a church that seeks to be relevant in this culture, friends and acquaintances passionate for God’s heart for justice, the spirit of volunteerism and political awareness that was all around me. In the past two weeks since, I have confronted a common theme among my friends during mamak and mahjong sessions, open house and even, during clubbing events-a general resignation to the socio-political conditions back home…one of “this is how life is here in Kuala Lumpur (KL)”, and the nascent ambitions among my peers for a better life in all its different stripes. Mind you, I know I am being unfair in summing up the depth and complexity of decisions that we go through-as minorities (religious, ethnic, etc) in this country. And the idea of risk is quite frightening, particularly as well-bred middle-class inheritors (of privilege, of class, of education) that most of my friends and I are. However, as I hear the grim tones, the statistics of Malaysians wanting to leave the country, the overall pessimism by friends, family, compatriots …I am reminded of the struggles that will always accompany this faith: the inward groaning described in Romans 8:23 “as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons [and daughters], the redemption of our bodies” in the future. It is our calling to be uncomfortable amongst secularism, it is our duty to strike a balance between the increasingly blurred lines of our tenets and the values of our postmodern world, etc. But we need to remember that this “foolish” struggle–i.e. the path that makes no sense to anyone else of this world– can only succeed if we believe, wholeheartedly, that we can only find complete fulfilment in something that is not of this world. And in following the call, we have to give up many dreams that have been laid out for us..

[addendum] In a famous Yeats poem, one line said something like…”Being poor I have nothing, but I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly, because you tread on my dreams.” I am currently gripped by that idea of willingly trading one’s previous ambitions in exchange for something more..a something that is vague and uncertain but resting at the footholds of an infinite glorious Creator.

Reactions to elections:

Amazing how emails can keep you in contact with people like the editor of Cafe Babel, an online European magazine that I became acquainted with during my semester abroad in Paris. After getting goosebumps from both McCain and Obama’s speech, I quickly jot off a couple of lines before I went to bed last night, and I attach the excerpt below, reproduced from the website itself. If you do want to share how your own night was, let me know..I had a housemate that went off to U street at midnight to join in the festivities-what a crazy night.

Washington DC

From the morning, I feel the buzz in the air as I walk past the growing line of people waiting to vote at my neighborhood’s elementary school. My office is teeming with stories being swapped of how many hours each person waited at their polling station. Every vote seems crucial, even if it is in a definite blue state like the district of Columbia. I rush back home to watch the news after work.

A little after 11:00pm – Obama wins. My housemates and I – a white American, Asian, and African-American on the couch together – shout for joy, celebrating the advent of an America that has been truly changed.

the impact of sexual restraint

I read this from an article, which was certainly thought-provoking:

All this ties in with a discovery Oxford anthropologist J.D. Unwin made as long ago as 1934 in his study, Sex and Culture (Oxford University Press).

Having researched more than 80 cultures past and present on this subject, Unwin discovered that societies, which do not impose some restraint on their sexual behavior, cease to develop significant social energies after only one generation.

Conversely, when social regulations forbid indiscriminate satisfaction of sexual impulses, the emotional conflict is expressed in another way. In other words, civilizations are built upon sacrifices in the gratification of innate desires.

number-crunching

There could be more Christians than  Communists in China, which means they could have the highest number of active Christians in the world!  The place where I work at the moment, the Pew Forum is part of the efforts in trying to find out these numbers exactly, anyway here’s a link to the Economist which talks about this: http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12342509

What it means to be intentional in a community.

It’s been more than three months since I graduated from middle-of-nowhere Wesleyan University to end up here in “inner-city” Washington DC on my second internship with a research “fact”-tank. Many of the choices I have made during the summer was borne from much anxiety and prayer, and I am amazed to see how God has led me here, here regardless. When trying to explain to beloved friends and family about these choices, it was hard for them to understand why I chose this low-income, graffitied neighborhood. I am reminded of a conversation I had with a Malaysian friend yesterday who is just starting his Harvard Phd in Physics this fall, “My parents have no idea what I am doing, so the only way I can explain it is, “Physics allow you to make things like handphone or batteries or space engines,” and they are like, “oh, like engineering!”

Well, anyway that was a bad analogy, but I just read this article in the New York Press about a pretty large intentional community in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. Although our house is different in many ways (ask me how, if you’re curious) and the article paints quite a radicalized romanticized image of the community, I will quote certain similarities our communities share as part of the New Monastic movement:

While their website describes a group of people, “dedicated to living a meditative, prophetic and prayerful life, centered in Christ, engaged in our neighborhood, concerned with social justice, and led by the Holy Spirit,” their Facebook profile advertises an affinity with like-minded communities around the country with names like The Simple Way, The Mustard Seed House and the Ecclesia Collective.

Like backpackers who meet each other at youth hostels, coffee shops and dive bars to share stories from the road, progressive in-the-know evangelical pilgrims travel regularly among these communities, meeting each other in these safe spaces of fellowship and devout faith. At the Hart Street house, there is a permanent “hospitality” bedroom where these “pilgrims” from around the country are invited to spend the night.

Many of the residents hold jobs as educators or social workers and occupy their spare time with volunteer work.

P.S. What is New Monasticism?

for you,my friend.

Sept 4, lost in transborder time:

I just watched Sex and The City: The Movie on the flight from Kuala Lumpur to Washington D.C, with many transits in between, and it made me think of the common struggles that people in their 20s face, as opposed to those in the 30s, 40s, etc. I will be 22 in a month’s time, just another recent college graduate returning at the end of summer for a new chapter in her life: job-seeking.

The common thread in the lives of my friends and mine is no matter how uncertain the future is, we plod on with our doubts and fears.
There is the friend who just returned from her gap year where she backpacked around Latin America, looking for adventure, different perspectives, new relationships, etc. Talking to her over breakfast in her parents’ newly-constructed bungalow, I exclaimed at the stark differences between the tiny, sparse Guatemalan house she had rented and her current life at her airy, spacious house back with her parents.
“It’s too comfortable-lah, if I stay here I won’t be able to do anything because I would not be challenged.”
I completely understood what she was trying to say, because it was my own story as well; as if we both had to live, and glimpse, what was different from the lives we had, in order to find purpose and give meaning to our undecided futures. Even now, I struggle to put into words to explain to people why I chose to live in a high-crime-rate, segregated yet convivial neighborhood, where people waiting at my bus stop to go back to our neighborhood loudly proclaim their grievances of the day, and we wonder together where the resident homeless woman went today; a place where our next-door neighbor takes out our trash because he thinks he’s our guardian angel and warns us to be careful because my housemates and I manifestly stand out in this neighborhood.
“You both like to lead difficult lives, ah?” a friend asked during our last conversation together before I left KL.
Ironically enough, he will be heading to India à la medicine school, where he had previously glimpsed the equivalent educational systems at Adelaide and Kuala Lumpur already. Our parents are big factors in the decisions we make, and what happens if we fail to convey the urgency and importance of being able to do what we want to do? Caught in the transition between graduating from college but not yet from our parents’ pursestrings, our upbringing demands obedience but it is not necessarily immediate. I wholeheartedly respect this friend who will “give my mother another five more years” of his life by finishing med school, despite his talents and yearnings to write and play songs on his guitar.
Fast-forward twenty years later, and this friend would probably face the demands of providing for family and fulfilling his passion at the same time. A columnist cum playwright I knew told me that his desk job was a way of sek wan (Cantonese for earning money) while he writes his plays and books during his off-office hours. He is also an active family man. I shall not complain further about my impending juggling act in the coming months to study for the GREs, apply for jobs, be a model intern, and actively contribute to my household and our mission.
If anything, being surrounded by the overworked, ardent culture of Washingtonites–replete with NGOs, politics, segregation- has made me earnest to acquire skills and live out their ambitions too.
Although I have to say, take my words in stride, I have so much more to go.

filial love

Sept 1, 2008

 

A friend came by today to catch up in our usual once-a-year style or whenever I am back home in KL. His impending play with Footstool Players, a Christian traveling theatre group, will be featuring the theme of family. After (some) persuasion, he gave me a preview of the monologue he will be doing: a “prodigal” son’s reflection of his relationship with his father who was dying of cancer. The monologue left me reflecting on my own relationship with my parents.

How do you put into words the nebulous emotions of obedience, responsibility, appreciation, genuine admiration and friendship that one balances and strives for in her relationship with her parents?

Right now, I am sitting in my childhood room, replete with pictures of me growing up through the years; 5-year-old me looking forlorn on my dad’s laps (I was never a smiley child), me looking giddy holding my first illicit cocktail at my boarding school, me surrounded by my family aboard a cruise ship on a recent family trip.

Throughout my eclectic educational experiences and adventures in Malaysia and abroad, it was a challenge to maintain the same level of closeness with my friends from wherever I was, but one thing was for sure: my parents were there as I grew from a child to a teenager to the person I am right now.

Yet somehow, the internal tension within me whenever I am in my parental home befuddles me: why is it a struggle for me to be patient and communicate my self to my parents?

 

This trip home began with the final farewell remarks from my mentor at the organization that I interned at during the summer, who reminded me in his gentle-and-earnest-way; “Remember, be intentional with your parents when you are home.”

In the past week:

-I reluctantly walked with my parents in light rain who catered to my grouchiness

-I visited refugees living in the heart of our city with my mum and her sister as our eyes were opened up to the plight of the stateless and the unwanted.

-I visited my father’s new office and saw the disastrous impact of the corruption in our government as well as the admirable efficiency of the operations in our capital’s port

-I went back to my father’s hometown for my grandfather’s 80^th birthday and realized for the first time how much my cousins and I have grown but also, at the same time, how much my grandparents and their own children have aged

 

I remember clearly the way my aunts were attentive to my sickly grandmother during this dinner. I hope that I will have the chance very soon in the future to learn Mandarin and then communicate to my grandparents. I am also thankful that I have begun to see how I can be a friend as well as a daughter to my parents during this short break in Malaysia. There’s many more “walls” to break down, and I will mark each small victory in this tenacious, all-encompassing thing called love in our relationship.

twilight summer.

You know how there are days when you’re having so much fun that you don’t have time to record those sensations and the new experiences you’re going through? That’s how this summer has been for me; I think I made a unofficial pledge to stop blogging and write only emails so I could be more specific and personal about this huge transition phase I am undergoing. But moving here last Sunday, to the South-east of DC has made me run back to blogging again. Too many new things I’m going through, too many stereotypes that I have to break through.

I just came back from taking the bus at 10 PM, its a first for me, as I’ve managed to avoid taking public or walking back home at night. I had my bike with me and although it was a short ride back from Amy F’s house, I heard too much about the shootings nearby that I didn’t want to risk it- So I took the bus and boy, was it overcrowded. Somebody asked me on the way back if that was my bike in front of the bus on the rack, and I said, yes, (how did he know? Coz I was the only non-black?) and he said, why didn’t you ride back you could have saved space..And my first response was I am such a small person anyway, how much space could I take up?

So easy for me to be angered. So quick for me to fear. I keep on thinking if only i have a car, but that would be too easy, wouldn’t it?

It’s been a great week nevertheless, one full of reflections and intimate nights with fellow interns and wonderful hosts from our workplace who invited us to their house for dinners.

So much to give thanks for, and so much to pray about: 1 death, 1 unemployed, 1 lifestyle change, but many more promises ahead.

transitions

I am amazed constantly at people’s durability. Here I am, struggling to get “settled” in a new city, new house, by myself, yet I go to work with 16 other interns and 40 others who are going overseas very soon during training week, and we are mostly in the same boat..It’s been a while since I wrote on my blog, maybe I need more encouragement through “comments”, hehe, but the truth is because I have been either too busy or decided to commit more to personal emails. But I want to freeze this moment and remember that during this transition phase, here are a couple of things that I can praise God for and feel completely blessed:

1. The ex-military elderly man who gave me directions around this neighborhood yesterday, who started comforting me and giving advice on overcoming homesickness (he was very intuitive)

2. Fellow co-interns and everyone else in the entire organization that clearly shares and articulates my faith and belief in social justice

3. Friends scattered around the east coast, who are undergoing post-graduation blues too.

4. The fact that once I stopped self-pitying, I realized how much need there is in the people around me..and how much I can also relate to them due to this greater humility that I have during this period.