Well, I haven't posted here in two weeks and some change. After a lot of big things happening, here I am in Beijing once again on a rainy Sunday afternoon. This will be a long post, so brace yourself. There is just no way to recap all that's happened in a short way. Because there's so much to say, I won't have pictures on this blog, but I'll post them on my Facebook.
Since my last post, we had a couple big tournaments at school. The first one was the big Mama of them all. WABX to the Max. The school I work at is WAB- Western Academy of Beijing. The 'X' is short for 'extracurricular,' so basically all of our season 1 stuff was going. I got to run the volleyball tournament as a site director, so that was a lot of fun! I love having stuff where you have to troubleshoot a lot and solve problems. Tournaments are like that because you've got players and teams wandering around from game to game not sure of where they're going, referees that need help calming down an angry coach, etc. It was a multi-day tournament with volleyball, rugby, tennis, and jazz. We went to the airport to pick up teams on Friday (there were several teams from Shanghai and other parts of the country), and then the games started later that day. It was hectic but very fun! The referees and scorekeepers were all Chinese, so it was pretty fun to deal with them. Funny cultural miscommunications were happening left and right. Here's a funny difference between Chinese and American thinking. If the schedule says the game starts at 2:00, we start warm-ups at 1:45 so that the game starts at 2:00. The Chinese referees thought that they should start warm-ups at 2:00. When you're running a tournament, you've got to keep stuff nice and tight so that things are seamless. Between keeping teams moving and making sure the referees were doing they're jobs properly, my hands were pretty full. It took some patience over the course of 3 days, but it was still a lot of fun.
The following week was pretty dull actually because after WABX to the Max we just took a little break. Chinese National Holiday started the following week, so everyone just wanted it to be here already because there's a work holiday for the whole week! So a few weeks ago, I bought tickets to Burma (most people call it Myanmar today). The holiday worked out to the 60-day mark since I've been here, which is when I had to renew my visa by leaving the country, so it was perfect timing! I had a couple days "off" between school getting out and leaving for Burma, so I took that time to go for a few runs, hang out with some people from church and catch up on stuff. On Thursday at 4:00am, I woke up, got ready, got a cab, went to the airport, flew to Kunming, flew to Yangon, and was in my hotel ready for some adventure by 2:00 that afternoon.
It was such a great experience. The Burmese people are about as nice as you can imagine. They live under a military regime, and there's not much that they ALL hate other than the government. The country has only been open to tourism for a few years, and those few years, there's been sporadic violence in remote parts. It's been in the news for it's sectarian violence, and there was even a travel warning to US citizens until fairly recently I believe. I know this isn't true by any stretch, but because of all this, I really felt like a pioneer of Western civilization going into Burma. They haven't experienced much tourism and you can tell. Often, you get gawked at and everybody wants to talk to you, but it's very different than any other country I've been to or heard of. I've heard of similar countries, but Burma is just such a virgin tourist country in many ways. 8 or 9 different times, people came up and asked me questions about the English language. Most of them know a bit of it (they were colonized by Britain) but they want to know how to interact with the rise in tourism. Several of them talked to me with notepads and pens in their hands trying to write down every word that I sad. One man in particular had a full notebook of English words that he had learned. They talk to tourists and really soak it up because they're so not used to getting tourists.
Another thing is that there's no tourist traps. Maybe this has happened to you: "Oh you want to see this historical site? Here, come with me." After the tour, which you didn't ask for, the guide says, "ok, $20 please." Huh? You volunteered your services, and I never agreed to anything. No money for you, punk. That situation NEVER ONCE happened in Burma. Ever. That was a really strange feeling. I felt like I could take people at their word. If they tried to sell me something and I said no, then they would smile and say "have a great day!" That's rare, and for those who haven't travelled much, it makes a tourist smile when they're not followed and harassed for not buying something. They're also very open to talking about religion. I started off in the former capital of Rangoon (the anglicized version of Yangon). There's a big pagoda there, which is basically a religious structure that serves as a place of worship. Hindus and Buddhists have many of them in Southeast Asia. I went to see the Shwedagon Pagoda in Rangoon, and I was waiting for the lights to turn on at night, because the pictures of the Shwedagon at night looked amazing, and this Buddhist monk came over to me. He was fairly young, and very talkative. His name was Kyuk Do, and he asked me lots of questions and answered a lot of my own. We talked about Buddhist doctrine and the certainty of salvation after death. It was good dialoguing openly about it with someone. In America, "openness" has become so desired in our relationships (particularly in our relationships with people who believe differently than we do) that it hasn't happened. Openness in America means that you talk about it as little as you can to avoid arguments and you just mentally accept what the other believes. In the East, openness means that it's up for friendly debate and discussion, and they love it. It was that way in Israel as well.
Rangoon was a lot of pagodas, really nice people, great and easy-to-understand culture, great food, and a legitimately fun time. I got to witness of Christ to several people while I wandered the streets. The people who came to me to speak English involuntarily learned several biblical words and Christian concepts, and they loved every minute of it! They love learning and the Burmese are a very curious people. They prize wisdom, and what they lack in riches and assets they make up for in character. They had a very honest and genuine attitude and a demeanor that showed they were proud to be Burmese and confident in all that they did. That's one thing that's been key to me ever since Marine OCS the last few years: confidence is key. If you don't have confidence, everyone can tell because it comes out in the way you speak, dress, move. They have confidence. As a Christian, I've always tried to find how we can have confidence without being man-centered. If we affirm that we all are sinners in need, there's not much to confident in, let's face it. How do you do it? I think what we call a lack of confidence today in reality is a lack of knowing how to deal with the shame we all have as humans. What we call confidence in our culture is saying "I may not be perfect but I don't even care. I'll establish my own standard to live by." Biblical confidence is the ability to say "yes I am a sinner, yes I make mistakes almost by the minute, but because of Christ, I am not ashamed of those mistakes. It's not just a spiritual confidence. It goes into the confidence we have in our work, whether "spiritual" or "secular." If you have no sin to be ashamed of because Christ took your sin for you, then you are able to carry yourself confidently. Man-centered confidence is fake confidence. It's conjured up; you don't want people to see that you're ashamed of anything that you do. The Burmese people, nice as they are on the outside, struggle with this. They have a low crime rate, but that's because so little of it is reported, and those crimes that are reported are reported to government police, who do a very poor job at enforcement generally. Some of them were very honest about things that they had done in their poverty, like stealing, lying, rape, etc. They have nought and desire much.
From Rangoon I took a train to Bagan, the big temple grounds to the north. Bagan is becoming legendary as an archaeological site. Though what's there today isn't particularly old (800 A.D. is the oldest that I saw), what they're uncovering underneath it is. As we speak, they get further and further with Bagan. Within a few years, Bagan will be a very different place from a tourism perspective than it is now. It is just a little country town with old dirt roads and straw huts. Not many people live there at all. All of the hotels and stores are on a plateau, and the temple grounds are just a few hundred yards down the hill, but they sure are gorgeous. There were several times when I'd climb to the top of a temple or pagoda and there would be no one as far as the eye could see. This place as 2,000 temples and pagodas crammed into an area of just a few square miles. Some are out in the middle of nowhere, but the majority of them are very densely packed. On the train (which by the way was an amazing experience), a man sat across from me who spoke very good English. He asked to practice with me, and asked me about where I worked and what I do. When I told him I coached Cross Country, his eyebrows lifted and he asked "have you ever run a marathon?" Why yes, I have. He told me about the Bagan Temple Marathon, which I already knew about, and I was bummed that it's in November because I was there in mid-October and I'd have to miss it. Bummer. "I have good news! A guy who organizes the race is in town this week for a training run with a few others. It's at 2:00 today and it only costs $7! That includes the run, water, food afterwards, and a bike rental afterwards for a short tour after the race!" So I looked at him in awe and signed up. It was a 15-hour train ride, and Burmese trains don't allow for much sleep, but I got off at 11:00am, got my stuff to the hotel, ate, and met the group at 2:00. We ran the race through the green grass, crops, temples, and pagodas in the heat of the day, and not only did I set a new personal record by a significant amount of time, but it was also the coolest way to see this great place. A wise running sage told me once that the key to fast recovery after a marathon and avoiding joint pain was to walk a TON after the race. It's counterintuitive because you've already gone so far, but if you don't walk a lot, then your muscles and joints tighten up and the blood doesn't have a chance to cool down slowly. Keeping blood moving easily through the joints is key, he said. So going for a couple miles of bike riding and a little bit of walking and climbing the temple stairs was just what I needed. That night, I had no pain at all other than sore muscles. I'd be a little disappointed in myself if I didn't have sore muscles, so that was a good thing. I ate a 2nd dinner after the first post-race meal, drank a beer just to put me fast asleep, read some of a book and went to bed at about 8:30!
Next morning, it rained, which was ok with me because my bus didn't leave until late that night anyway and I had all day to see the sights again. It let up around 10:30, so off I went! I met a few other travelers and walked around with them. One was from Italy, one from Spain, and another from Austria. Crazy huh? They were all great though. They had been wanderers for 2 years and had a lot of great stories to tell. Bagan, they said, was one of the more extraordinary places they had been. At the top of one of the big temples, a little Burmese boy came up to me and asked me if I wanted to buy a postcard. When I said no, he was a little bit distraught, but he asked me something that really showed true Burmese character: "can you come eat dinner with my family?" Hm....yes. Absolutely. So I took him to the store with me to get gifts for his family, went to my hotel and packed up all my stuff so I'd be ready for the bus, and went to his house. They live right next to the Irrawaddy River, so their house is built up on stilts in case the river floods. Beneath the house they have HUGE pigs with their piglets, and a ladder that leads up to the house. Meeting this family was so cool. The father was educated in the Netherlands as a doctor, so he spoke great English, and his wife did as well. The 3 younger siblings understood it all, but they couldn't speak it just yet. We talked while I helped the mother cook dinner about politics, religion, the future of Burma in the big picture of Asia, and it was just so cool to learn about the way they all live. The two older kids go to school with the other village kids in a little schoolhouse taught by another mom, and the mom takes care of the two youngest at home. The father is a "village doctor" who doesn't make much money, but the family was a truly contented one in all areas but one: religion, oddly enough. It's always hard to distinguish between a culture and a religion, because often the two are tied. For this man and his wife, they are tied. Studying abroad and away from home, he said, opened his eyes to what Buddhism really teaches, and he said that though he has a great family and an ideal situation, he knows that the culture that he is a part of is being led astray. I was amazed at how honest he was about it. It was almost like he knew exactly what was wrong with his life because then he said "it's as if there's no certainty in Buddhism. I don't know where anybody, myself included, is going after death." Boom. He hit the nail on the head. I got to share the gospel with him and his family, and I wish I had my Bible with me or the name of a church nearby or something, but I felt that I did all I could really do. They left the conversation extremely thankful that I had come. The privilege was honestly all mine. What a hospitable thing to do. The average joe on the street would never be allowed into my house, but they took me right in and listened to all that I had to say as if it was the most valuable stuff they'd ever heard. That was a theme in Burma, not just in spiritual things, but with all things, they were so attentive and focused. At times it felt like their eyeballs were grazing my very soul. They are a very intense people, and they sure do love foreigners. For years, the West has had sanctions against doing trade with the Burmese government, so they continue in poverty because business with the world is cut off. When a white person comes, I am told, it offers the Burmese people hope that one day democracy will come and sanctions will lift. Aung San Suu Kyi, the pro-democracy leader and Burmese icon, is their only hope. They all wear shirts with her face on them. Elections are in 2015, and they all are as antsy as can be. They all hate the government and adore her. As diverse as Burma is, they have these two things in common.
At 7:00 on Tuesday night, I left Bagan for Rangoon again, because my flight left on Thursday morning. We arrived at 4:00am on Wednesday, and because nothing was open, I went to the independence monument in Rangoon, Mahabandoola Garden, and just sat and read and reflected. Elderly people were doing yoga and relaxing, and I got to sit there and watch Rangoon wake up. The sun came up, the breeze started blowing from the sea over the Irrawaddy delta, and it was just gorgeous. I was so thankful to be there with these people. The sights were phenomenal, don't get me wrong. The people are what make Burma; to me at least. Wednesday I met more travelers at a Singaporean coffee shop, and talked with them for a few hours and then went out on my last full day in country. There's a ferry going over the Irrawaddy from Rangoon to Dalla, so I took that and it really is a different place, though the Irrawaddy is only a few hundred yards wide. It is a majority Muslim village I believe, and my tour guides were a young Muslim girl and her two teenage male relatives (brother and cousin I think?). They took me on a motorcycle ride for an hour or so for just a couple dollars and Dalla is a very beautiful place that looks much like the Burmese countryside to the north. Even Rangoon is very green, but Dalla and the countryside both look like endless plains of grass blowing in the wind and all kinds of leafy crops.
When I got to Burma, I logged onto the wi-fi to check something about my hotel, and realized that I had access to youtube for the first time in 2 months. A girl from our youth group sang a song a while ago called "Lord, I need you" and I really enjoyed it. I looked it up on youtube and probably played it about 20 times throughout the week. It is a modernized version of "I need thee every hour," and it was a good reminder that even in prosperous countries like China and the US, we still need God. In Burma I was reminded that I live my own life too much. I use the word "I" a lot. Sometimes that's ok. The word "I" is needed, but it doesn't have to come up that much. We think about ourselves a lot. That just was very convicting. People don't need to hear about me. They know enough about me because I'm nothing new under the sun. I'm not so different from anybody else. They need to to heard and they need to hear about Christ. Burma, godless as it is, served to make me think about God a lot. I want to go back one day, because there's so much of the country that needs to be seen. There's a lot of backwater places in Burma that would not only be interesting to see but if they are anything like the rest of the Burmese people, they would be a great target group to share the gospel with. The people in the northern Shan hills and those on the borders of India and China have been insurgents and rebels for far too long. There isn't any peace there at all because of how diverse it is, but it really is a great area that is ripe for the harvest. I'll keep my eye on Burma. Many places have caught my eye, but Burma caught it in a very special way. Go, if you can, before it gets too touristy. Observe the culture. People-watch. Go into back alleyways and buy street food. Drink hot soup for breakfast with the old men in the park or by Inya Lake. Ask them about their lives. Share the gospel with them. I'd go so far as to say that they'd like that.
