Sunday, August 31, 2003
So Bumpershoot is this weekend, but I can't go... things have been busy and there's a wedding I gotta go to. Just my luck that the hip.hop show with COMMON, De La Soul, and Black Eyed Peas starts at 1:00... early enough to interfere with going church, and long enough that it'll overlap the wedding. Poop.

This year, one of the stages was featuring an open mic and my homie Justin tried to persuade to go, but for the reasons listed above, I couldn't make it.

The piece he wrote and performed is a sort of crash-course in Asian American history for non-Asian Americans, particularly members of the rich and privileged majority class here in America. You can peep it here... but warning for the faint of heart though: lots of anger and profanity. Good stuff, though.

Ah yes... anger. Hrmmm... especially relevant in light of recent events like this.

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Saturday, August 30, 2003
Feminine eye for the Chinese guy...



So I forgot to mention that Thursday night, I went out shopping with Shiv and my moi-moi (kid sister). People tend to think that my little sister is a figment of my imagination, because I'll talk about her and nobody can recall meeting her, let alone the last time they saw her... haha.

Anyways, I fall in the category of men whose ideas about fashion are limited to me remembering to wear a clean shirt and a pair of pants whose over-size fit allows plenty of room for the family jewels and dining out at a lot of buffets. Since my upcoming life/work in Japan will require me dressed like a stereotypical (corporate) tool though, I'll have to trade my loose pants and t-shirts with smart-alec comments for a tie, buttoned shirts, dress slacks, and *gasp*... the occasional suit.

My girlfriend and little sister took great pleasure in picking "outfits" for me to try on and wear, and though normally, I might chafe under the possible humiliation of it all, I got to spend some quality time with my sister, the GF, AND grab some deals on work-wear... multi-tasking at its best. Nothing quite like the uncanny senses of women to spot the cheap deals on clothes. It's like the eyes of a Soviet sniper picking off Nazi officers in Stalingrad... frighteningly accurate.

So today (Friday), I got to kick it with moi #2, Cora. Finally got to hit up the hip.hop exhibit at Wing Luke and eat wonton-mein for lunch at Mike's Noodle House. Mmm, good. Afterwards, Cora reminded me that it was grand opening of Fry's down near my hood in Renton... so guess what I did...





It was a crazed mad house filled with geeks, soccer moms, and cheap old folks... took us about 15-20 minutes to just get inside Fry's. We spent about an hour walking around and scoping out the gear they had for sale, before making a couple of selections of the best deals and heading to the check-out line... which took about a whole hour to navigate! Nuts... but it's nice to have a 24 hour electronics store like Fry's near my house now.

wh00t!

Time to sleep... going to be a busy weekend.

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Friday, August 29, 2003
Irritated...

So I got a response from the "Christian" company offering that messed up VBS program. It's filled with a lot of non-answers and typical PR spin... I should know, part of my job is doing public relations. Here's what they wrote in italics, along with my commentary...

---

Dear Christian Friends,

We are writing in response to your concerns related to LifeWay's VBS for 2004. Please know that this material was developed in a sincere and honest attempt to provide for boys and girls, youth and adults a fun-filled spiritual adventure to learn about God's Son, Jesus. Each year since 1997 our VBS material has been developed around a theme that serves as the exciting vehicle in which to travel to present the gospel.

We in no way ever intended for this year's Rickshaw Rally to be offensive. In the fall of 2001, we gathered folks from around the country to help us plan for this significant event in many churches. We included pastors, ministers of education, VBS directors, children's ministers, lay church members and state convention personnel. The Far East theme was chosen by this group because of the colorful and exciting possibilities that it held, not to mention the opportunity to remind boys and girls in America that all cultures need to learn about Jesus.


Translation: We gathered a large group of people to help pick a theme, most of whom are probably non-Asian, and picked the "Far East", because its exotic and appeals to popular culture's colonialist / tourist fantasies.

While producing the material, we included folks who have served in Asian countries as missionaries and have also consulted people who are native Japanese. Some of our editorial team have actually visited Japan so that we would be as true to the culture as possible. We have not included anything in our materials other than the wonderful and fun elements of the Japanese culture that we have discovered on our own or delved into through research.

So the Far East = Japan? The opinions of a few missionaries and native Japanese people represent the opinions of all Asians and Asian Americans? It's interesting how you've reduced all the diverse and very different cultures of Asia to a single caricature of Japanese culture.

And nowhere in the title of "Rickshaw Rally" does your VBS program indicate the focus is on Japanese culture... "rickshaws" as you term them are from CHINA. Not Japan. If you've done so much research, how could you have missed that?

Our desire is in no way to stereotype but to lift up another culture for boys and girls who may never be able to go on such an exciting adventure. We have heard many, many affirming reports from churches who are already in the midst of gathering decorations and information to make this their best VBS ever. Please accept our sincere apologies if we have done anything to offend, realizing that this was never our intent or plan. We value all ethnicities and our only goal is to help introduce boys and girls to Jesus.

Translation: Oops, we didn't mean to stereotype or trivialize Asian culture, but we did. Many of our churches have already purchased our program, and it's too much trouble to do the right thing and stop offering the materials. We're willing to say "sorry" in word, but not in action.

Please be assured that as we begin development of future VBS themes we will take all of your input into consideration.

Translation: We'll call up the 2 Asian people we know and ask if it's OK.

---

I'm going to write them back again and ask if they're removing the program and posting an apology on their site. If not... hrmmm, I didn't want to do this, but it'll be time to start mailing Asian American political organizations.

I encourage everybody to e-mail them still and let them know this weak, mass e-mail letter they sent out is no good. The people to contact:

Jerry Vogel
Director of VBS Curriculum
jerry.vogel@lifeway.com

Louis Hanks
Director of Publications
louis.hanks@lifeway.com

LifeWay Church Resources
c/o Your VBS
MSN 136
One LifeWay Plaza
Nashville, TN 37234-0136
Phone: 1-800-458-2772
customerservice@lifeway.com

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Thursday, August 28, 2003
Stupid comment system is acting up... weird. I check the site and supposedly they're been moved to a new server.

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Wednesday, August 27, 2003
Borrowed from angryasianman.com...

Now this makes me angry. Every year, churches across the country use 'Vacation Bible School' curriculum to reach their kids with Christian education. Well, LifeWay Church Resources has designed VBS curriculum called Rickshaw Rally�and yes, it's as bad as it sounds. It looks like someone's well-intentioned attempt at diversity, but it completely comes off stereotypical, racially offensive material. Talk about cultural insensitivity�did the people at LifeWay consult with anyone about this? As an Asian American Christian (having grown up my entire life in church), this absolutely incenses me. Rickshaw races? Kimonos? Chopsticks? Karate uniforms? The ignorance is astonishing. There are children in churches across the US whose first exposure to Asian culture could be these stereotypical, narrow-minded images, and that thought is simply staggering. And I'm not down with that.

Here is some contact info:

Jerry Vogel
Director of VBS Curriculum
jerry.vogel@lifeway.com

Louis Hanks
Director of Publications
louis.hanks@lifeway.com

LifeWay Church Resources
c/o Your VBS
MSN 136
One LifeWay Plaza
Nashville, TN 37234-0136
Phone: 1-800-458-2772
customerservice@lifeway.com

While certainly not as blatantly offensive as Abercrombie's t-shirt designs or the 'Kung Fool' Halloween costume, Rickshaw Rally is still a few giant ugly leaps backward. Absolutely aggravating. That's racist!


This is so insulting, I'm speechless. Just goes to show that the Christian church here in America has a long way to go in learning how to be sensitive to the Asian American community. And they wonder why the majority of Asian America remains non-Christian... sheesh.

Talk about reinforcing the bad stereotype that Christianity is still the "white man's religion"... I encourage everybody to fill up their e-mail boxes and let them know how you feel.

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Tuesday, August 26, 2003
Work quotable of the day:

"I realize now, that after hiring a bunch of girls, I don't have workers... I have a talk show."

puwahaha

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News wh0ring...

The American Male is Need of A Makeover... my favorite columnist Jerry Large raises some questions about the state of men, their concern with fashion, and male identity in contemporary times, all with a bit of light-hearted humor. Metrosexual... that's a new one.

Free The Minks! About 10,000 or so, thanks to the Animal Liberation Front. Those nutty eco-terrorists... eco-terrorism always makes me think of the movie 12 Monkeys.

So when is the Asian American Liberation Front going to come and set me free from the prison of all these ignorant stereotypes about my English speaking ability, knowledge of martial arts, and skills in mathematics? Huh?

It figures that only in America, do animals, trees, and gay folks get more respect than Asians...

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Monday, August 25, 2003
Still awake... oof.

So of course, I should be asleep right now, but it seems to be some sort of immutable cosmic law in my life that basically goes, "If you should be doing A, you'll probably end doing everything and anything besides A".

So almost a month ago, I came up with this list of goals / things to do. I guess it's time for a progress check...

---

1) Eat less junk food, chips, candy, etc

This has been going pretty well. I drink a lot of water now at work... but I think my meat intake has increased. My boss likes cooking steaks, and lately, I crave katsu at Miako's like all the time...

2) Keep reading books... Christian living, philosophy, winemaking, geeky tech stuff

I've been reading a little bit, but not as much as I should. I did pick up a travel guide of Japan from the library and I read it mostly for the background history / geographical information. New reading additions I should make: my company sent some recommendations for books to read about teaching ESL, cross-cultural teaching, and Japanese culture.

3) Brush up my Nihongo via old tapes, textbooks

Mai asa, watashi wa kuruma ni nihongo no tape wo kikimasu. Every morning, I listen to the tapes in my car. Certainly is an odd habit now during my commute to work / running errands.

4) Start running / jogging / bike riding again

Hmmm, not so good. Saturday, I rode my bike for an hour, but that was like the first time inawhile. Most exercise I get during a given day is walking up the 3 flights of stairs to work. My muscles have gone stealth... last time I saw them was at the Warm Beach retreat, playing Ultimate Frisbee with the kids. Brought out the speed, jukes, and fakes and the kids were like, "Whoa, the old guy still has some juice!" Too bad my stamina was only good for 45 consecutive minutes. hahaha...

But hey, at least my right pointer finger is in good shape from War-crack... heh...

5) drag my butt back to kendo

Haven't done this one yet either, but it's complicated. I should go to practice a few times though before I leave for Japan, at least out of respect.

---

Well, like I thought... 3 out of 5. I know myself too well. Some other misc. things that have occurred to me at this moment to do before I leave for Japan:

6) Renew my driver's license. It's gonna expire this year in December.
7) Re-stock supply of contact lenses. Gotta last me a year.
8) Update my will. Call me a pessimist, but you never know, especially considering international plane flights these days. Last time I updated my will was before I went to Brasil.
9) Write a mass letter to family/friends. Not everybody even knows yet I'm going to be gone for a year, haha... guess I should let people know.
10) Finish cleaning my room, store valuables like toys and books. Maybe I'll give my Predacons and Dinobots to the Ryan Ko Museum of Robotica for temporary loan and care.
11) Rip MP3s from favorite CDs. I can't take all my CDs to Japan.
12) Gather up some photos of friends/family/Seattle for a small scrapbook when I get homesick. Hmmm, this might be tough... I wasn't very good about taking pictures and saving them pre-digicam.

Hmmm, there's a ton of other things I know I gotta do, but the grey matter isn't fully functioning at 4:30 AM. I think I'm going to shoot to accomplish 4 of these 7 things this week. I hope.

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Sunday, August 24, 2003
Is there such thing as food intoxication?

A full dinner = food coma = all motor skills impaired. Oof, and I still gotta drive home... =P

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Saturday, August 23, 2003
So I decided to take a short nap before leaving for the camp. I have just awaken from said nap.

Oops. I guess the week has left me more tired than I thought...

I suppose I could still go the camp now, but I think the youth portion was only between 9-2:30. I could drive there and be useless, but it's so much easier to be useless at home. Hrmm. Oh well... guess it's been awhile since I've had some personal time in between seeing friends/ ministry stuff / work.

Solitude is always therapeutic for me.

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yeah...

It's early. Oof. My church is having an all-church retreat this weekend, at a retreat/camp site just about 15-20 minutes away from my house. Shows how close I am to the boonies, eh? I'm probably going to drop in to help out with the youth part of the camp, though nothing nearly as elaborate as Warm Beach last weekend.

So yesterday, I went to a hip.hop show down in Chinatown at the Nippon Kan theatre. It was pretty interesting show, a mix of hip.hop and spoken word. I've heard one of the groups at the show before, Blue Scholars, who are pretty dope. When I worked my temporary gig at Wing Luke, helping to put together the sports exhibit, I worked a lot with George AKA Geologic from Blue Scholars. Definitely a good guy... how many dope emcees you know that are Filipino, eh?

No, I ain't talking about all the rumored "half-Filipino" mainstream artists like Jay-Z, Foxy Brown, or that one d00d from Black Eyed Peas...

Of course, something even more rare that Blue Scholars represents: dope Seattle hip.hop music. Hate to say it, but Seattle still is sort of a hip.hop wasteland... not that many dope local groups or good shows that often, though I think things may be changing slowly. Definitely check out a Blue Scholars show if you ever get the chance. A little song of theirs to sample from their website...

Morning Tea (right click "save as")

But I digress... yeah, I really dug the show, even if the crowd could have been bigger and the sound a little bit better. Shiv agreed to come even though it wasn't really her thing, but I think she really enjoyed the spoken word poetry... the opening act Good Sista, Bad Sista really rocked the mic. Something about angry minority women really helps to start off the show... haha.

Oh yeah, this d00d named Kiwi was nice too... felt sorry for him that he was the last guy to do a set, because the crowd really started thinning out at the end because the show ran late.

Well, time to scrounge some breakfast up before I leave for the camp... hmmmm...

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Thursday, August 21, 2003
Birthdays and Send-offs...




If there's one thing you can always be sure of, it's that time will continue to march on. It don't matter if your life's been crappy or fantastic, you've eaten your fill or you're still a little hungry... as long as you're alive, time keeps chugging along.

Siska threw Ryan a "surprise" birthday party this last Monday. Ryan is now 26, closer to 30 than he is to 20. I'd laugh, except that I myself am turning a quarter of a century this year. Whooo boy... geezer-hood. The funny thing though, was Ryan's birthday presents... tons of toys - LEGOs, Transformers, a bizarre laughing bag, and a GI Joe board game with disc-shooting gun (which of course all the guys dug out and played with). I wasn't sure what to bring, so I was the devil and brought a bottle of chamisul, some apples and apple juice, and made the birthday boy some apple soju. I figure he's read about it on Chopstixs.net enough to want to try it, heh.

Some fermented drink = rise in video game playing skillz. For real. =)

Yesterday, there was a send off party for my friend Ray at Claim Jumpers. He's decided to quit his job and attend seminary at Multnomah, so he'll be leaving Seattle for a little while for that hellish city called Portland in that most evil of states, wh0regon. I first got to know Ray when I started attending AACF my junior year and he's a great guy. We became good friends serving as CORE leaders the next year, mostly because we were the only 2 guys on a leadership team of 5... 2 out of 7 if you count our staff leaders, Christine Nakano and Jermaine Ma. Anyways, I admire his step of faith to leave a job he's doing well at just to follow God's calling for him and attend seminary. God Bless, man.

Hrmm. Another busy day... back to work.

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Wednesday, August 20, 2003
Roll a phatty...

I've been up since 8:00AM... Shiv wanted to see me before she went to work at 11:30AM today, so I volunteered to drive up and have lunch with her. We made sushi, specifically spam musubi. Yum.

So I'm at work right now... last night I pulled a pretty crazy shift, from 12:30pm - 10:00pm. I've had a lot work backed up because I left for the Warm Beach camp after only working a couple of hours on Thursday, but that's OK... the camp was worth it. And though it pains my thrifty Chinese soul to say it, it was worth $159 it cost me to go to retreat too. Well, the experience was worth the money. Not the naaaaaaaaasty Warm Beach camp food.

Anyways, as busy as work has been, I don't mind it too much. I can't complain about my job at all... it's chill, and a nice fit for me. I get to listen to whatever music I want to bump, the people are cool, and there's even afterhours multi-player Warcraft. I guess this little part time job has been quite the blessing from God, so working hard to get what needs to be done is my way of showing I'm grateful.

Speaking of working hard... back to work, you slacker.

Gotta work off that $159 hole I just made into my sad sad sad bank account... I'm still a ways off from raising the necessary scrilla for all my upcoming Japan expenses.

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Tuesday, August 19, 2003
Gar's Warm Beach Recap/Reflection

So massive, I divided it all into digestible chunks, Mr. Hipstomp-styleee.





For some reason, I wasn't expecting the camp too be as spiritually intense as it was, but I think what helped me bring things into proper focus on the very first night was worship and prayer times. I'm lucky to have friends gifted in this area... Dave (guitar) and Abe (drums) are helping the kids (and counselors) get their praise on in the above picture... in the shadows somewhere, Chris Bhang is rock'n the bass guitar.

Since Dave is the current youth ministry intern at CBC, and a large number of CBC folks were involved in helping with the camp, we got to borrow the cool LCD projector.





...and they keep growing

What's really touched me over my time with Warm Beach (WB) is kids like Evan (waving on the left) and Sean (looking like a crazy happa thug wearing my tenagui / rag in the above pic) who I had in my small group for the previous 2 years and whom both accepted Christ at the camp 2 years ago. The great thing about helping out with the same camp for 3rd year in the row is seeing kids really grow and mature, especially in their faith.

I can remember when these 2 first came and were so energetic, wild, and hard to keep on task. Now they're leaders in the camp and even bringing friends... Sean brought his friend Jonathan (far right) this year to the camp, who happens to be part-Brasilian - we got to bond over Brasil stuff. What an awesome provision on the part of the Lord in sending me to Brasil back in 2000... otherwise, I'd wouldn't have so much to talk with Jonathan about.






Call in the reinforcements...

Another cool addition to the Warm Beach family: Sean's sister, Allison (middle right), and Allison's friend, Samantha (far right) graciously came to the camp and counseled for junior high girls. Even though they were WB rookies, and even with a tough group of girls (who would have thought 6th grade girls would have so many issues), Samantha and Ali came through strong - talk about WB being blessed to have some anointed women onboard.

Despite it all, I hope they decide to help out again next year! We're always hurting for Godly women leaders in the Asian American Christian community.





Leaders know how to have fun...

God really brought in some great people this year... David directed high school, Ryan directed junior high, and the staff they managed to find covered the other specifics, everything from counseling, bringing hot sauce (good job Chris, my tongue still has scars), and busting the ill poetry for family night (rock that mic, Jeff).

Jim MC'd (don't lose your stuff, or you'll dance to get it back) again. Funny guy, that Jim Lee... water bottle accident or bad bladder? You make the call.





Stay away from airports, kid

Meeting new kids like Jon Kim is always great at WB. I get to introduce them to the tradition of "punishments" - lose a bet, lose a game of cards to me, or misbehave, and I'm bound to make you do something silly.

Lauren and Laura... someday all the male counselors will get your name straight! =)






Preach on, preacher man

What's a camp without good speakers? This year we had two of the best, men who follow God passionately and love to care for others.

Tung (first pic) is finishing up school at Multnomah and is from the church called SCAC (Seattle Chinese Alliance Church) down the hill from my CBC. He's a great guy, hilarious sense of humor and a genuine attitude of compassion for other people. My friend Ray (who I served on AACF Core with) was mentored by him. He spoke at the high school side of the camp.

Kenji is a great guy as well, a very gifted storyteller - his messages really caught my attention, because he often illustrates his points with stories from history or personal experiences. I first met him actually 3 years ago, because he was friends with an old roommate of mine. He also happens to be the older brother of Dan Yokoy, a junior higher I had in the cabin I led last year at WB.





Call me the Masta of (Dis)Organized Chaos...

So what did I do? Besides being on the staff prayer team, which prayed for all the cabins/small groups while they met, my main responsibility was creating and organizing the games for the kids. Of course, we played one of my favorites... the ice cream cone game. Imagine Braveheart, but instead of swords and blood, you got people swinging around rolls of newspaper taped together to smash ice cream cones tied to the backs of their opponents... it was a four team melee. And even the girls got into it... =)

There were also some "spectator sport" contests where 6 kids would be randomly chosen from the audience to play a game, 3 boys and 3 girls since throughout camp, I kept track of the scores for a "Battle of the Sexes" type thing. They watched in awe (and horror) at another one of my favorites... the flour tower of power.

It's like Jenga, but instead of removing blocks, players must slice away pieces of a tower made of flour that has a penny on top. If a player causes the tower to fall, they must retrieve the penny... using only their mouth. It can be a little messy... heh heh.

An original game of my creation: a combination of sumo and kendo I dubbed "oshiri-do", which translated from Japanese in ghetto English means "Way of the Booty". The object of the game, like sumo, is to either force your opponent out of the ring, or knock them down (knee or hands touch the ground). Like kendo, the matches are to 2 points. The catch?

The only weapons players have are their butts and a pillow... heh. As another added bonus: it was 3 guy counselors versus 3 girl counselors, with ladies' choice of who they would match up with. Some cool action shots:







At that time the disciples came to Jesus and asked, "Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?" He called a little child and had him stand among them. And he said: "I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me." Matthew 18:1-4

It's fun to be a kid. And it's definitely fun to hang out with kids.

They say there's something therapeutic about working with kids, but I think the real therapy comes only when you're working with kids with the intention of showing them God's love. Going as counselors, there's always the intention of going to bless the kids... but the process in which God works through both those who minister and those who are ministered to causes us to get blessed as well.

In truth, I wonder if the kids know how much it encourages the counselors and staff people like myself when we interact with them, to see them grow and mature as people, the happiness I have when I see that God is changing their character to be more like His.

I had a lot of chance to mediate really on just praying for the kids, since I was on staff this year and not a counselor. I was a bit worried at first that not being a counselor would make me enjoy the camp less, but I was wrong - spending time praying with Jim, Dave, Ryan, Abe, Joey, Kenji, and Tung was inspiring. Some of their prayers really moved all of us to the point where I was too choked up to speak any more prayers verbally - and other times, we would be filled with so much joy while praying, we could laugh aloud and feel completely comfortable.

God really opened my eyes this past weekend to the greatness in the way He works throughout the generations - one of the great milestones in my own spiritual journey came at a CoHi camp held in 1997 at this same retreat center that this year's JEMS Warm Beach was at. In the same way as I was ministered to then, and now I'm a camp counselor, I'm sure that someday 10 - 15 years from now, God will work through these same kids to impact another generation of junior high and high schoolers with the reality of Christ. To have the privilege of being a part of that, of something eternal... the deepness of it boggles my mind.

We can only point toward heaven and thank God for caring enough about those who trust Him to work personally in their lives.




On a personal note: I remember at lunchtime, one of the 6th grade girls, Erin, talked to me and commented, "I always see you walking around with a smile on your face, looking so happy. Don't you ever get angry? Or sad?"

I think I gave her this amused expression.

Really... I wanted to laugh right there, hand her a napkin with the address of this blog, and say "Angry? Sad? Yeah, all the time." I guess at the retreat, Erin saw the "good" me, the me that is filled with passion for doing God's work - which at this camp was to simply care about these kids and be their friend. When I have that drive, that mission... my eyes are fixed on God and my smile springs only from my hope in Him. I'm at my best when I've been given a specific battle to fight or a particular task to do. Directionless, uninstructed... away from serving God, away from a spiritual purpose... I have a cynicism that brings me back to that angry and sad state.

And of course, being surrounded and supported by a strong group of brothers and sisters also definitely keeps me more focused, more upbeat.

I wish I could have talked to Erin more, especially because I think she was non-Christian, but that's OK. The only person that causes people to trust and place faith in God is God Himself, and I'm sure Erin's on His list of people to keep working on... anything I could say or do would be small by comparison. I hope that when she interacted with me, she saw could see something in my smile that showed a piece of Heaven and the Truth. One can always hope so.

The last time I talked with her, she walked by me and I braced myself for the possibility of a deeply spiritual conversation.

"Can you spell your name with your butt?"

I laughed, and shook my head as she smiled and kept walking. That's when I thought in my head, It's all you, God. And don't ever let me fool myself into thinking otherwise.





Watchout for the bull... toro, toro!

All in all, it was a great weekend, a blessing like which I haven't had in a long time. I'm a bit sad that it's over, because I know this time next year, I'll be in Japan and I'll be missing the camp. It'll be tough not seeing the kids next year, but my confidence is that God will care for them and continue to guide them far better than I or anyone else could guide them until I come back to Seattle.

Take care, you crazy kids... I better be seeing most of you again in 2 years. =)

UPDATE:

All the pics and a few more are up (like... 70) on Snapfish... wh00t.

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Monday, August 18, 2003
I'm at Ryan's birthday party right now... wheeee.

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Sunday, August 17, 2003
Back. Just about an hour and a half ago... been checking e-mail from the past weekend and catching up on the "real" world.

Nap time.

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Wednesday, August 13, 2003
So the Warm Beach Retreat is coming up this weekend... it'll be fun to hang out with the little kids (OK, jr high and HS... not so little).

I guess it feels a bit odd too that the retreat is finally happening, maybe because it's another marker that August is ticking away and in about a month and a half, I'll soon be off to Japan. Hrmm, better book my air fare tomorrow before I go to work and then drive to them camp.

Tick tock, tick tock... 'round and 'round go the hands of the clock.

oh boy.

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People always ask me if Michael Sullivan was a good man, or if there was just no good in him at all. And I always give the same answer, I tell them... 'He was my father.' -"Road to Perdition"



Been meaning to write about something.

This past Saturday, before all the busy-ness, I had to drop up the food for the Seniors' dinner at night at my church's kitchen... I had to leave the raw chicken and vegetables in the walk-in fridge and I had to drop off the ice cream into the freezer.

The backdoor was locked, so I walked through the front of the church, through the fellowship hall to get to the kitchen. I had to sneak through the fellowship hall because the Womens' Missionary Society was having one of their biweekly meetings... they meet twice a month, Saturday mornings for brunch. Imagine a collection of about three dozen sweet and elderly Chinese pau-pau (grandmas), most of them, 60+ and 70+ years old - that's the WMS.

Luckily, they were all praying, so I quietly went into the kitchen without them noticing me.. I didn't want to bother them. I dropped off the food and then exited the kitchen back the way I came to find that they had finished praying.

I smiled at all the familar faces and waved as I started walking through the fellowship hall. As I walked through, my nose caught the fragrant smells of freshly cooked Chinese food, already laid out for serving family style.

Those perceptive Chinese grannies most have caught me inhaling the smell as I walked by, because before I knew it, they had ambushed me, thrusting a plate, fork, and napkin in my hand. I tried to politely refuse, being that I was already late to a planning meeting in a different part of the church, but the onslaught had already pushed me to the front of the line. Wrinkled, smiling faces and hands with serving spoons materialized from thin air, heaping food onto my plate... watermelon, grapes, chicken, chow mein, hom bao, and jin doi...

As I stood in line, one of the ladies I didn't recognize asked another who I was and even though my Cantonese sucks, I could barely hear her whisper the words in Chinese...

He's Pastor Chan's son...

It's hard to describe the feeling I had when I heard her say that... a mixture of pride, melancholy, and but most of all... humility. These ladies, many of whom have witnessed almost a century of life at my church, still remember and honor my father even though he's been gone for almost 14 years. I could be the most repulsive, obnoxious kid in the world, and those pau-pau would still be piling mounds of food onto my plate just out of love and obligation to my father. There's something very humbling about being in the presence of that kind of love and affection.

Even in a Westernized environment, I think there's something particular about the (Chinese Christian) culture at my church in that people always have great respect for the past. People at my church have never forgotten my father and sometimes I wonder, if I were to die someday and leave behind children, would it be the same for me?

Could I live a life so worthwhile that even death, others will remember me and care for my own, simply because they bear my name?

It's quite daunting. I don't think I'm up to the task. Not yet.


Random:

Speaking of children and parents, The Seattle Times has a story on adoptions of Chinese orphans, post-SARS hysteria. Last year, 5,000 immigration visas were issued for Chinese orphan adoptees. I always wonder what sort of impact all those adoptees will have someday. It's like one gigantic, bizarre cultural experiment. Children of Asian descent being raised in an American culture that marginalizes people of Asian descent, and its tendency to nourish Asian American self-hatred.

Even today, I guess it's still an experiment in progress... there's a ton of Korean and Vietnamese adoptees now of adult age in the US today, thanks partially to two different wars in Asia. Obviously as adults, they'll be exerting a larger influence on America... what kind, it's hard to say.

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Monday, August 11, 2003
Ah, the angst of job-hunting... I still remember it well.

On the job-tip, I've heard back from my Japanese company again. They sent me the first of three packages filled with documents about my trip and the job I'll be doing in Japan. My departure has been confirmed for the end of September to Kansai International Airport, but I still don't know what city I'll be in exactly... I could be flying to anywhere in southern Japan, so we'll see.

Sucks... I'll be missing David & Chris' wedding. =(

As for the paperwork, some of the brochures included: basic hiragana & katakana (I'm surprised I remember all my hiragana and most of my katakana from HS); Japanese culture (basic stuff on group identity, cultural emphasis on politeness and harmony... mostly stereotypical stuff); English grammatical terms; money management...

Fun, fun. Especially the English grammar stuff... that's some diehard stuff I haven't dug into since my days in Mr. Spear's 9th grade Honors English class... reflexive pronouns, subordinating conjunctions, infinitive phrases... oh my!

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Sunday, August 10, 2003
Pictures from the weekend...


Sunset at Golden Gardens park on Friday.


The birthday girl Cora and one-eyed me... arrr, Imma pirate


Cooking on Saturday for my high schoolers...


Chop the veggies...


Hannah and Mei Ying posing mid-hula.


Lisa, Mary, Jada, and Kristie.


Appetizers.


Dinner time!


Shiv and creative lei wearing.


The senior dinner table... Mei, Gary, Ray, and Hannah


The seniors again... notice they get to wear the grass skirts, heh...

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Saturday, August 09, 2003
So I got off to a late start today... bleh.

Everything else went fine, though. I should post pictures later...

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all i want is 8 hours of peaceful sleep...



...and that's what happens when you forget to make sure your alarm clock is set right.

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Friday, August 08, 2003
It's 8:00 AM. I'm awake. What the hell...

It's gonna be a busy weekend... I think I'm in denial about all the things going on before next weekend's youth retreat. This year, I'm in charge of all the organized recreation, so I gotta come up with different ways to amuse about 50+ kids. Wh00t.

The line-up of events for today:

1. Cora's birthday party / BBQ at Golden Gardens park. She's 21... uh oh... booze & the beach.
2. Kristie's birthday party / shindig at Leilani Lanes. I suck at bowling, but that's OK.

Not to mention I still have to go to work too.

Tomorrow:

1. Training / Planning meeting in the morning for next weekend's retreat.
2. Senior dinner for my high school kids at CBC. I'm cooking.

Aiyah. Too many things going on.

At least I already picked up the food for tomorrow's dinner. I was going to go buy it all at Costco, but as I was browsing the ads for Safeway, I found some great deals. Why is finding a deal such an exciting thing, anyways? It must be all that thrifty Chinese conditioning... it's irresistible. Maybe I should go grocery shopping more in the mornings around 7:00 AM...

...nah. O_o

Back to sleep.

Random note:

This shirt is dope. There's something funny and insightful about parodies of Mao-era Chinese propaganda. The irony of atheist communists deifying their leader and his ideals...

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Thursday, August 07, 2003
I tied my wishes to a string so I wouldn't lose them when I sent them to the sky





Words borrowed from someone else:


It's not a good feeling to have things eating up at you so much but finding no place, person, manner of disposing of it. Helpless to help yourself. Or so you like to say. Sometimes I want to isolate myself from everyone. I don't want to hear anything you have to say, anything you are doing, anything you are thinking. It just makes me think less of myself. It makes me angry with myself. With what I'm doing what I'm not doing, what I'm thinking what I'm not thinking, and a whole slew of other s#!t.


I think I've heard it said once that only 3 kinds of people talk to God: the faithful, the desperate, and the crazy - and not necessarily in that order in terms of frequency... nor are all 3 groups mutually exclusive.

The above pictures were from this weekend's youth workers retreat from my church. Saturday morning we were given a couple of hours to sort of collect our thoughts and pray in solitude, so I went out to the beach to stare at the Pacific and fly a kite I had brought with me.

The nice thing about getting out of the city during a retreat is getting away from the masses of people and having some quiet. It's in enjoying nature that I feel better able to connect with God, sort of in the same way as viewing a work of art gives you insight into the artist. Standing out there, in the cold morning air, feeling the wind on my face, and smelling the sea breeze... it was nice.

Meditating on this past year though, my mind seemed to generate an entire monologue addressed to God about the events of this past year - a few praises drowned out by a multitude of questions, those doubts that have always persisted from the discontent that I always carry buried inside of me.

I'm not a moody person, yet at times, that feeling of discontent washes over me and I don't how to resist it. It's a harsh bitterness that chills me to my core, and the echo is my own self-loathing for having it. When it comes, I just want to be alone, as if the despicable feeling floats around me, an infectious predator waiting to pounce on an unlucky passerby, like some sort of spiritual SARS.

There's a self-righteous part of me that like Job, wants to call out God, a part that wants to call Him down from Heaven to deliver a deposition about the meaning of events X, Y, and Z in my life. The Job in me wants a detailed map of the blind path I've been given to follow or at least an explanation. But as personal as God can be, to me, He's still like the ocean. I know He's there, but He's unfathomable, inconceivable, and beyond the edges of my ability to fully comprehend how He operates. It's all veiled in the fog, depths I can never see or learn.

Deep calls to deep at the sound of Thy waterfalls; All Thy breakers and Thy waves have rolled over me. .:Psalm 42:7

It's hard to have a long distance conversation when the person you dial never returns your calls. So at the moment, I'm still just another kite, resigned to flying on borrowed wind.

Thanks to Dave for the kite pic. It's not the same as La Jolla burning, but it's nice.

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Wednesday, August 06, 2003
Things aren't too crazy at work today, so I've done my usual blog browsing and noticed that my boy Akito has some dope CDs for sale... just $6 a CD!

Some of the albums still for sale:

De la Soul - Stakes is High
Warren G - Regulate.. G Funk Era
Cali Agents - How the West was Won
Atmosphere - God Loves Ugly
Common - Like Water for Chocolate
The Alkaholiks - Liquidation
Dj Krush - Zen
Dj Krush - Code 0419
Dj Krush - Meiso

If my own roll wasn't so small, I'd probably pick some up myself...

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Tuesday, August 05, 2003
Finally uploaded some pics from this past weekend's youth workers retreat and the Maplewood reunion BBQ.

Retreat pics:


David examines the "ministry" camera. "Hmmm"...


Kristie likes her fake cheese and chips. A lot.


I'm oh-so-beautiful in the morning. Right.


Making breakfast in the morning...


Ryan playing "The Incredible Hulk" on his phone. HULK SMASH!


Dinnertime at a local diner.


Food art by David: A Modern Prometheus, dinner scraps


Maplewood BBQ pics:


When men are hungry, they do strange things to take their minds off food.


Noah, Naomi, and Ryan


Cora workin' the grill

The fun of a digcam. wh00t.

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Monday, August 04, 2003
I just saw Pirates of the Carribean... fun movie. Not very intellectual at all, but hey... it's a pirate movie. The requirements for good pirate movie:

-lots of sword fighting... yep
-lots of guns / cannons... yep
-big ships... yep
-treasure AKA "booty"... yep
-adventure... yep
-token parrot / monkey... yep
-wench(es)... yep

POTC had it all... nice! Johnny Depp was a kooky pirate, but he kept me laughing. Good job, Johnny boy... you still got skillz.

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Sunday, August 03, 2003
It's been a long weekend. Lots of good times, fellowship, food, fun, etc. I'm beat... need... s l e e p.

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Friday, August 01, 2003
I try to block it out with a bed sheet the moonlight's as a curtain
'Cause I'm not comforted by red and blue lights when I'm hurtin'/
"Mommy loves you" yeah I knew but I wasn't certain
'Cause the lenses through which she views life wasn't workin'/
As a boy she told me "wait till' your father to come home"
I'm 24 still waitin' for my father to come home/

(from "Room with a View" by Brother Ali)

So I saw Antwone Fisher last night with Shiv, Kristie, Dennis, Helen, and Steph. Great movie, definitely something to add to my future DVD collection. I can't think of much to write, except I identified with the main character a lot... not that I've ever been physically or sexually abused as a child, but I identified with his feelings, his anger, his loneliness, and his abandonment.

There was a great line in the movie where the actor who plays Fisher is talking to Denzel Washington, trying to describe his feelings, and he says, "You feel angry, but nobody else can understand why because they've never lived the life you have. They don't want to understand why you're angry, all they can see is how you act and they're never interested in anything more than that."

Definitely worth a re-watching. The streak of great movie watching continues.

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News round-up...


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in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33

the facts.
name. Gar AKA "that Chinese guy" "Sleepy.McSleeping"
ethnicity/nationality. Chinese/American, 4th gen.
location. Sea-Town, WA, USA Kawanishi, JAPAN
occupation. less-cynical poor grad student
age. younger than you think, older than you know

 



 

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UnseenGC @ AIM
(myname) @ gmail.com

 

 

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