"Tension." Not a particularly obscure word to the English speaker. Not one that is difficult to understand. However, it is a word that defines much of one's experience living abroad. No, not just living abroad, living in a world full of humans.
I am, by nature, a black and white thinker. I see trends, make judgments, and categorize people and experiences accordingly. When I move to a new country--or even city--for the first months, I absorb and analyze moments, noting what they imply about the host culture. Example: "Every time I ride the Beijing bus, lots of people touch me. Therefore, the Chinese personal space bubble must be smaller than my American one." Eventually, these little discoveries evolve into a whole mental framework of A+B+C+D=Chinese Culture. However, the problem with this way of thinking is that it is highly generalized. There are exceptions. There are cultural rebels. There is a least one old man that thinks, "wow, that laowai smells weird; I'm moving to the other end of the bus."
But wait! Ayoh! Ayah! That kind of complexity is hard to accept! It makes my brain sweat and my heart palpitate. It confirms my fear that I will ever be able to decipher the world completely. It warns me that my judgments are subjective and vulnerable to my own naivete.
Thankfully, friendly host cultures, loads of dialogue and debate, combined with wonderful literature in the hands of wonderful English teachers have all worked together to help me. I can now approach the color gray without too much anxiety. But I still wrestle with my own mind; I sword fight temptations to stamp every person/action/perspective with GOOD or BAD; and I often have dance-offs with the tiny philosophers I imagine sitting on the shoulders of the people I disagree with.
Two of my good friends often cite the importance of "living in the tension." But accommodations are not so comfortable there. The mattress is stiff, and the comforter scratchy. The sink sometimes leaks, and the air-con is on the fritz. It's much cozier resting on my initial impressions, condemning other worldviews (as well as their possessors) as simplistically flawed. Ignorant. It's easier to be ruled by my reflexes, my preferences for style of worship, style of conversation, style of community, my presuppositions about scripture, my condemnation of all things crustacean. :) But that would be irresponsible. A kind of intellectual apathy even. And if God has called me to love Him with my whole mind, I think He then beckons me to wrestle with truth, with His Truth, with half-truths and lies. I must engage the people and experiences that threaten to unravel what I assume is inflexibly concrete.
Hear me out. I'm not trying to embrace a kind of relativism, but instead, to be suspicious of my own blindness. In doing so, hopefully I will thus, value the complexity inherent in the lives of human beings that differ with me.
To close, here is a quote from Reading Lolita in Tehran. At this point in the book, the author's lit. class has put The Great Gatsby on trial, as many of the class's conservative students accuse the book of celebrating Western immorality--i.e. adultery and materialism. One female student, Nyazi, in her defense of the novel indicts its prosecutors of being,
another brand of careless people...who see the world in black and white, drunk on the righteousness of their own fictions.
I, for one, do not want to live a life, drunk on the righteousness" of my own construction of truth or worshiping a God that I have imagined rather than understood from his own, written words of self-disclosure.
May I continue to struggle with Truth and furthermore, seek a Truth inseparable from Love. Let me be a wrestler, wondering and wandering on the kingdom path of seeking God.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Monday, April 30, 2012
From Sea to Shining Singapore
It has been five months and counting since I last updated this blog. For those of you keeping up, I was in the PRC for eight months studying the old mandarin (not the tiny oranges kind, but the squawky one with all the pictures). Since then, I have immigrated, south, to a land where fried-noodles are still trendy, but the Chili Crab takes the cake.
I personally have an aversion to all things crustacion. [Basically, except for pork...and the occasional snack of roasted pithon chips, I live by the saying: If it ain't good enough for the jews, it ain't good enough for me.] So, that being said, I feel that I have not taken advantage of all Singapore has to offer in the way of the cullinary arts.
However, as for its other perks--cleanliness, public transportation, air con, beautiful foliage, and peanut butter--I am thriving. Well, now, at least. I have hesitated to update my blog during these past 3 1/2 months of transition to the Pac Rim because the fact of the matter is: since January, I have been in a constant state of sweaty agitation (it is sticky humid here, people, and in the upper 80's/90's daily. That alone is enough to put any Western newcomer in a near-menopausal state.) Anything I could have written up to this point would have been whiney. Or bitter. Or cynnical, or all of the above, and there are enough Rush Limbaughs and Papa Bear Bill O' Reillys out there without me adding any more hot air to the international pool of noise [<--Whoa, can I break any more laws of physics with that mixed methaphor?]
Without further ado, this is my official pledge to consitent, non-bitter but instead, semi-sweet blogging about my Eastern travails. As I am working for a church (IBC Singapore, whoop, whoop! shameless plug!) and the subject matter is a little too sensitive, my topics of discussion will turn to my other loves: Food and Words. And hopefully these topics will be brought to you with a reasonable level of frequency. Feel free to keep me accountable. But until then, enjoy some fun facts about Singapore:
Cool facts, Cool facts!
1.) Singapore is a South East Asian Island about 252 sq miles large if you include its other baby islands. However, the mainland is only about 22 miles long. Its neighbors are Indonesia and Malaysia.
2.) Singapore is a major port city and hub for international commerce. Oil is big here, as is the population of Texans.
3.) The average humidity is appx. 84%, and it rains almost everyday.
4.) Official languages: Bahasa Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and English (though you'll hear a smattering of many other local dialects including: Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, and of course...Singlish.)
5.) Ethnically, the Singaporean population is appx. 77% Chinese, 14% Malay, 7% India, and 1% Other (aka, this scrawny white girl)
6.) We have geckos, monkeys, and lizards oh my! with the most common insect being the...butterfly...awww!
7.) Ranks 3rd highest in per capita income on the world list--The liscense just to be able to purchase a car is 90,000 SGD--and the streets sure aren't empty.
8.) Young Singaporean men are required to fulfil two years of national service in the military in order to maintain their citizenship. The common abbreviation is NS, though some chaps may prefer SOL (which consequently, is what any country that ever attacks them likely will be.)
9.) Hawker Centers are the name for local eating canteens, and not in fact, as I orinally assumed, the place to buy organs off the black market.
10.) Due to it once being part of the British Crown's constituency, there are a lot of British throw-backs here, such as driving on the left side of the road, school uniforms, superfluous 'u's in words, long fancy dinners, yuppies, and the tragic death of the letter 'R'.
I personally have an aversion to all things crustacion. [Basically, except for pork...and the occasional snack of roasted pithon chips, I live by the saying: If it ain't good enough for the jews, it ain't good enough for me.] So, that being said, I feel that I have not taken advantage of all Singapore has to offer in the way of the cullinary arts.
However, as for its other perks--cleanliness, public transportation, air con, beautiful foliage, and peanut butter--I am thriving. Well, now, at least. I have hesitated to update my blog during these past 3 1/2 months of transition to the Pac Rim because the fact of the matter is: since January, I have been in a constant state of sweaty agitation (it is sticky humid here, people, and in the upper 80's/90's daily. That alone is enough to put any Western newcomer in a near-menopausal state.) Anything I could have written up to this point would have been whiney. Or bitter. Or cynnical, or all of the above, and there are enough Rush Limbaughs and Papa Bear Bill O' Reillys out there without me adding any more hot air to the international pool of noise [<--Whoa, can I break any more laws of physics with that mixed methaphor?]
Without further ado, this is my official pledge to consitent, non-bitter but instead, semi-sweet blogging about my Eastern travails. As I am working for a church (IBC Singapore, whoop, whoop! shameless plug!) and the subject matter is a little too sensitive, my topics of discussion will turn to my other loves: Food and Words. And hopefully these topics will be brought to you with a reasonable level of frequency. Feel free to keep me accountable. But until then, enjoy some fun facts about Singapore:
Cool facts, Cool facts!
1.) Singapore is a South East Asian Island about 252 sq miles large if you include its other baby islands. However, the mainland is only about 22 miles long. Its neighbors are Indonesia and Malaysia.
2.) Singapore is a major port city and hub for international commerce. Oil is big here, as is the population of Texans.
3.) The average humidity is appx. 84%, and it rains almost everyday.
4.) Official languages: Bahasa Malay, Mandarin, Tamil, and English (though you'll hear a smattering of many other local dialects including: Hokkien, Hakka, Cantonese, and of course...Singlish.)
5.) Ethnically, the Singaporean population is appx. 77% Chinese, 14% Malay, 7% India, and 1% Other (aka, this scrawny white girl)
6.) We have geckos, monkeys, and lizards oh my! with the most common insect being the...butterfly...awww!
7.) Ranks 3rd highest in per capita income on the world list--The liscense just to be able to purchase a car is 90,000 SGD--and the streets sure aren't empty.
8.) Young Singaporean men are required to fulfil two years of national service in the military in order to maintain their citizenship. The common abbreviation is NS, though some chaps may prefer SOL (which consequently, is what any country that ever attacks them likely will be.)
9.) Hawker Centers are the name for local eating canteens, and not in fact, as I orinally assumed, the place to buy organs off the black market.
10.) Due to it once being part of the British Crown's constituency, there are a lot of British throw-backs here, such as driving on the left side of the road, school uniforms, superfluous 'u's in words, long fancy dinners, yuppies, and the tragic death of the letter 'R'.
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