What's your excuse?

SOCIAL MEDIA:
The Facebook photo that went viral of a mom bearing nearly all with a fit body has caused a lot of discussion.  I think the most disturbing phenomena I have seen surrounding the image of the fitness model is the way that Christians have tried to spiritualize this type of  obsession. Americans are discussing and arguing about who has best diet, the web is full of stay at home mom's who think they know more than any MD.  I understand how the world at large would consider the body to be the most important,  Hollywood is their god but why are christians getting on board?

HEAL THYSELF: 
I often meet or read about people who really think they can control their own destiny as long as they eat right exercise right and eat organic, gluten free, vegan, the list is endless.  I think I would rather eat a diet of pesticide laden food daily than deal with the stress often spewed out by some of the so-called "healthy" people-living in affluent countries who claim to have  health and financial woes of the world solved.

THE HEALTHY WOMAN
I recently was talking to a women who claimed she: "hadn't been sick in years because of healthy eating and exercise." After talking to the "healthy woman" I was feeling like a failure and also somewhat convinced. I thought, ok I can go back to no sugar, veg and meats, I have done it before I could do it again. I was exercising, and doing all the right things,  I had weather related migraines for the better part of 2 weeks while teaching full time, before you know it I was sick AGAIN after 2 more years of terrible health, the cycle was repeating. 

THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL 
Another sinus infection, more meds, I was  trying to do all the "right things" and I was beating myself up, thinking I should have spent my entire paycheck on organic food and maybe that would have cured it, but then I guess I'd have to get another job....Who needs to pay bills, anyway? Hmm maybe I could just take from the government like everyone else, I mean it isn't really stealing is it? I should "stop making excuses" it really shouldn't matter that I was exposed to black mold, Chinese drywall. My health was destroyed while on a chinese diet and eastern medicine which began a 10 year cycle of poor health, so eastern meds aren't the answer or are they? I can cure this by not "making excuses" right? Why was my recent vegetarian grain free diet and vitamin regimine, with natural cures not helping my health or weight?

SAD NEWS 
About 2 months after my conversation with the "healthy" woman, I was doing pretty well and weight was coming off, when I wasn't even following a strict diet. I was sleeping through the night, able to breathe, and was finally feeling better. It seems the heavy round of medications, had definitely made an impact for the better in every area of my health. It was during my excitement about feeling good, that I heard that the "healthy" woman was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she had to go into immediate treatment, work, and the "all natural" lifestyle were on hold as she underwent rounds of chemo. 

WHAT IS THIER EXCUSE?
After hearing the news about the "healthy woman" my brain was on overload thinking, about people. I was reminded of a wonderfully godly seemingly healthy happy christian husband who died of a health condition, a professor who was quite possibly one of the happiest most wonderful Christians I had ever met died of cancer. I thought about caretakers and of a co-worker who typically spends 1-2 weeks in ICU with her son annually. I thought about a pastor's son who was so sick, yet his mother continues to works day and night in and outside the home to provide for her son and special needs child. A Chinese national in the PRC (a personal friend) lost an 8 year old daughter to a relatively low fever while shunning Western meds. The family wanted to rely on Chinese diet, and medicine but after her death, the family changed their opinion. They recently have stated that a light round of western OTC meds would have saved the girl. Some people are caring for dying parents, or children, and those struggling with miscarriages. My head was swirling with story after story that conflicted popular notions. So what was their "excuse" for not eating raw organic and going to the gym 2 hours a day... really?!! Looking "hot" might not be a #1 life goal when facing an embarrassing,  medical condition, sexual harassment, sickness, death etc... 

INNER BEAUTY?

Christians, shouldn't we be thinking about inner beauty rather than trying to compete or be-little and judge those who don't measure up to our physical standards? Since when did looking "hot" become the most important value to teach young women?

WHAT IS YOUR EXCUSE?
Should we really want to be a women who contributes nothing more to her home and world than a "hot body?" Pretty sure the Prov. 31 woman was not sitting home taking selfies and bragging about her "hot" body, instead she was engaged in important work. How should we be encouraging future generations about inner beauty and cultivation of  mental, spiritual, and physical disciplines? 

HIS STRENGTH
His strength is made perfect in weakness, when we realize that we can't do it, we can't add a cubit to our stature, God still loves us.  He doesn't ask us what our "excuse" is for not being able to afford to stay home all day to prepare raw organic foods and be fitness models. We know that "pride cometh before a fall," so how should we react when the "what's your excuse" crowd falls flat on it's face? I don't have the answers but I know we should NOT be the ones to point the finger and ask "What is your excuse?" 

Thunder marriage and other cultural phenomena

Today I asked our student why so many Chinese live apart? I have seen this family separation throughout China. I knew that the Cultural Revolution was responsible for many split families and many children were cared for by government schools. Is family separation a carry over from the cultural revolution?

 The population in China is comprised of mostly males, 2 men for every woman is the norm in China, so I thought this might be part of the reason for living apart. So our student explained that many think divorce is bad so they live apart. What I understood from the conversation is that the term "thunder marriage" describes a marriage living apart. Victor mentioned that this phenomena can also be seen in India where societal pressure condemning divorce is stronger than a miserable marriage. 

I am always surprised how Asians often will not directly express opinions regarding their own life situation even in a family setting. Mianzi or saving face is readily understood by the Chinese but I think it is the most difficult part of Chinese culture to understand. I think often as westerners we feel honored if someone can express their needs directly and politely, but it does seem that in more formal settings in Southern sections of America we have similar practices to the Chinese "saving face tradition." 

I am trying my best to guess what our student needs but  never really know. When I  encounter the awkward pause or avoidance tactic I know that the answer is no. 

My example for today: 

Me: "Do you want to go for a walk?"

Student: "Uhhhhhhhhhhh"...runs to room door shuts immediately. 

This could be a cultural thing who knows?

It's a boy!

We heard about a Chinese exchange program and throughout it sounded like a really cool idea, since I taught in China, and for some reason China seems to follow me, and some of the biggest blessings in my life have come through some sort of connection to China, every now and then I have visions of picking up and moving but when we heard about an exchange program  we signed up immediately.

IT'S A BOY!
We were finally chosen by a student... Dennis was born in Shinjin and has lived in Hong Kong for 3 years. We set up a Skype chat and we had a lost in translation moment as we thought we knew the date that he would call us but it ended up that he called us a day early which actually ended up being the day of my grandmas funeral, fortunately the chat was a bright spot in a very sad day. Dennis was very nervous and being coached from someone off camera.

THE FIRST MONTH
We worked like mad fools to get our house moved and in order for Dennis and got his room furnished. When our student Dennis moved over it was his first trip to the US, he is 15 so one year older than Victor was when he came the the US. Before we became official "houseparents!" We had an initiation experience where "lost in translation" led to frantic sprinting around the airport looking for "3 Chinese people." We returned to the airport the next day- which was the correct day, this was the first of the many "lost in translation" experiences.

Our student's family (mom and cousin) stayed for two weeks and we tried to show them as much as we could but Victor and I were both working full time so we didn't get to do as much as I would have liked to. Before school began we got him set up with a bank account, phone, took him to get school supplies, Dr. appointments, and updated the vaccine record.

The first week of school came three days after arrival so he hit the ground running. He seemed to like American school but of course didn't really understand the spoken English. The first month we had to speak very slowly and even though we thought he understood later we realized he did not. My Mandarin came in handy the first month it was much faster than looking up things, but google images also came in handy!

So Dennis went to church for the first time ever, unfortunately I am sure he didn't understand anything, I remembered the first time I went to a 3 self- church in China I was exhausted and didn't understand a thing, I was like Dennis...falling asleep. The first month we explained a lot to him since everything is different from East to West. So many new experiences have led to interesting discussions.

MAJOR LANGUAGE DIFFERENCES
 Living in China taught me how extremely difficult it is to switch from a phonetic language to a character based linguistic system, then there are tones, ma, ma, ma and ma each said with a different inflection mean 4 different things. I learned that exclamation points and question marks are spoken in Chinese! In English if you want to ask a question, the entire sentence has can change tone, it seems to rise at the end of the sentence, not so in Chinese. Also characters are little pictures that build into concepts, but letters are sounds that make words which have meaning. Chinese is VERY direct which is why it sounds rather harsh when transliterated, so westerners often view this as being rude. A Chinese speaker learning English will sound monotone, because, in Chinese full sentence intonation doesn't exist. If you want to be emphatic in Chinese, you might speak louder but still monotone.

EXPRESSING PEOPLE IN MANDARIN
So the whole gender thing is different too: you are "ta" he is "ta" she is "ta" animals are also "ta." I also found out that when you visit China don't expect people to speak English...they read English, which is very different from speaking English. On the other hand age is noted very definitively, for example, you have older brother, older sister, younger brother, younger sister  but never just a sister, or brother. If you talk about grandparents the side of the family is indicated by what grandparents are called!

SAVING FACE
Ok so one cultural mystery is "saving face" a concept which will drive most westerners mad. It's like they are trying to be so nice that they won't tell you something directly so it ends up creating so much confusion and frustration, the phrase "killing someone with kindness" comes to mind. Personal

Real life example: The Chinese may tell the westerner to be ready for an event that starts at 4:00 pm. The foreigners rush to be ready, because there wasn't much leeway given. The westerners drag themselves down half dressed and paste on a smile and the Chinese say "we will leave in 10 minutes" this goes on for 2 hours... Even if the Chinese knew they weren't leaving until later they might still make you sit in an un-airconditioned bus with ugly wet hair because they don't want to trouble you and lose face by telling the actual time of departure...confused? Well, I am also confused, and this is the most difficult thing to contest with when communicating with the Chinese. I constantly have to say "here are the choices please tell me which one you want." Even with that caveat you still have to guess the meaning behind the words.

So anyway we have been having interesting convos and experiences comparing and contrasting cultures across the globe, our dinner table is never boring we always have lots to talk about and great opportunities for meaningful discussion.

I plan to keep better track of blogging as I keep hearing "you need to write this stuff down!" I hope that this will be a way for people to learn about exchange programs and maybe one day want to be a part of a cultural exchange.