The Great [Fire]Wall of China

Well, it has been a month since my last entry. My access to contraband web sites has steadily decreased to almost zero [my blog is contraband].

First, I had to use a VPN to connect securely. Then that was found and blocked by the good ol CCP firewall.

Then I had to use my roommates computer and connect through Hong Kong and then use the VPN to connect securely. Then that was ended.

Now I can only get on here when I spend the night at my friend Whit’s way on the north side of Shanghai using his special VPN.

I am being a little dramatic, I could pay money for an heavy duty VPN to be able to write on the blog. If anyone wants to donates money to keep the blog going, feel free. But considering the VPN would give me access to facebook and youtube, I am probably better with out it.

A brief update:

School is going. Chinese is straight up hard and a very slow process. I get impatient with it because the teaching style is heavily rooted in confucianism. This means that there is a lot of mindless repeating of the teacher and not a lot of structured use or active learning. I do not have a lot of guidance and very little homework so I feel a bit unsupervised and on my own with my study. Generally in my free afternoons, I think back to learning Spanish and pick something to study like, “Um, today I will learn the parts of the body.” It’s not bad and my schedule is very conducive to studying since I do not work that much and class is only in the mornings. I got a tutor to help with some practical things.

I am having a ton of fun living the city here. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I have been so blessed with friends here. Lots of fun friends, friends that I connect with well and friends that I feel like I know especially well despite only knowing them for a month or so. The city is great and cheap. There have been a lot of surreal nights on roof top patios and fun restaurants and swanky clubs.

There is a fun mix of people from all over the world in my class. I have been hanging out with a lot of Columbians and Argentineans and speaking a lot of Spanish which is really trippy in to be doing in China.

The drama recently has been trying to figure out what to do after this stint China. Do I come back? How do I come back? – Do I get a job here or figure out some other way? I have also been feeling weird things about the US while I was here – things like I might be going back to live there. In Argentina, I completely fell for the country and culture and didn’t really miss the US except for my family. Plus I saw a lot of the problems with the US in a new light and this greatly supplied my rant arsenal. China, on the other hand, has made me more patriotic than I have probably ever been before. I have such a heightened appreciation for home right now.

Bottom line, I am trying seek God and make decisions out of a life lived with him. I don’t want to quit doing stuff in China just because the language is hard. But I don’t want to stay just because I can have a sweet 24th story apartment with a balcony and a view for the price of a crappy apartment on Shrock Rd and live a fun city life. I want to be intentional and disciplined in my life decisions. I would appreciate prayers and insight.

That is a very brief synopses. When ever I visit Whit up here on the North side, I will try to put something [Unless I get funding]. My email does still work so please email me for an update if you have time, I would love to hear from you all!

Cheers

Happy 60th Birthday P.R.C.

Today begins the festivities for China, similar to the 4^th of July for us. The only real meaning this has for me is that I get 10 days off from school. I will probably go on a little camping trip next weekend but nothing major. Everyone travels during the holiday so it is said to be chaos out there. Plus, Shanghai has a lot to offer so I can still explore the city. Plus, there is something about my balcony that makes me want to read and write and think. Plus, the free google music here has all of Bob Dylan’s albums from 1970 on so I have begun my education in works of BD.  Plus, due to my exposure to different views of God held by my friends here, I have a sense of urgency in studying and searching for more of God – looking at what scripture says some big issues like election and God’s love and sovereignty.

My initial visa expired yesterday, so at the last minute I got my paperwork turned into get it switched over into the long-term visa. I was required to surrender my passport to the Chinese government, which is a little unsettling, but hopefully I will not get deported or, even worse, fined. I would much rather have to flee to Japan than pay money to the government. At least that way I would get to see Japan.

It has been raining a lot here which means I get wet when I ride my bike. They make these large bike riding ponchos that cover most everything. I bought one that I swear looked blue in the store but looks a lot more purple outside. So I look like a huge Barney-like ghost when I ride in the rain.

I don’t really care though, I love riding my bike. Some of my happiest moments in Shanghai have been on my bike.

As a whole, things are going great. I am starting to figure out what is going on in class and expand my vocabulary.  Shanghai is a tricky city to figure out because it is very un-grid like, so streets are always veering and changing names and ending with out reason, but I am starting to know my way around.

I have been so blessed to have connections here and I have been working on building friendships and finding community. It is a slow process but a rewarding one.

Please pray for discernment and wisdom as I decide what to get involved in here and seek to understand my specific calling. I have an idea of what I hope to be involved in in the future, I am just trying to figure out how to reverse engineer my life to get there. Whether that means getting a job here and begin to make connections in the business world as a means to get more experience in the country or other opportunities to learn the language and connect with Chinese people, I am not sure and, honestly, it is a bit overwhelming. I feel very ignorant about China and, well, again being honest, life in general and I feel a bit stranded with out Godly council or insight. So pray that I would cling to God during all this and that he would put godly, wise, experienced people to give insight.

There is my attempt to make a blog post out of nothing super newsworthy. My way of accessing my blog [which is blocked by the Chinese government] has recently failed so it is a bit more difficult to post but I do want to keep you all updated. I greatly appreciate your interest and prayers. Cheers

It’s a boy!

Hopefully soon, I will get over the drag that the Chinese government is on my life. But not today. Part of getting a resident permit here is a physical examination. My school arranged for a team of people to come to the school and do all of that there at the school for us. Unfortunately, it was on a Saturday, I was moving, and I forgot to go. This is incredibly annoying, that one mistake on my part is costing me so much time. So I had to go to the clinic way out on the west side of the city. There they had me and the other potential disease carrying immigrants strip down and put on white robs and footies and pad from one room to the other. The scene looked very much like a mental institution. On one side of the hallway were the rooms, the other side was a big window. So we all kind of sat there, waiting for our turn to go into the various stations of the exam, staring out the window. To make it even more insane asylum-esque, there was this American guy there trying to make people laugh so he was talking really loud, asking the Asian girls weird questions and over reacting to every test with yells and moans. It sounds like I am joking but, I am serious. It was quite surreal. I sat next to someone from Grove City. What a small world.

The exam included a chest x-ray, blood test, EKG, breathing test, check for hernia [since those are contagious and fun to check for], eye test, ear test, a question about surgery on my nose, and… wait for it…. an ultra sound. The full experience: I got a cold squirt of jelly on my tummy and then it was smeared around with the little wand thingie. And this guy was actually looking for something. It wasn’t just a cursory glance, he was jabbing all around. It was a weird moment for my masculinity. The good news is, it’s a boy!  I will call him Ignatius until I find the Chinese equivalent in a name.

Though it makes perfect sense, it is sad that so much time and so many resources go in to checking generally healthy foreigners for health problems when so much of China is in poverty and doesn’t have healthcare. The reason is simple, they can make foreigners pay. It cost me about 60 bucks for the exam. I did, however, take the white rob.

As I have sat around, waiting to go through all of the hoops that the government wants me to pay to leap through, I think about the part of China’s population that is bigger than the entire US’ population and what they go with out.  Daily, I am blown away by how incredibly blessed I am to have been born in the US, have the parents that I do, to have gone to the schools that I have, to have the my health, and so much more.

In Praise of Off Sides

Things move quick here in Shanghai. Both the constant buzz of activity on the street and in networking. Sunday, I mentioned to a guy named Alan that I wanted to find a place to play soccer, he brought over a guy named Kenny who took my number. Friday I was sitting in class and Kenny texted me about an all day soccer tournament happening the next day. His team needed players and I wanted “a run out” as my british teammates called it.

I went to the store and bought some soccer shoes for $15 dollars and showed up at the bus stop they told me to be at. We were playing at a country club outside the city. I assumed that it was a bunch of young guys in an easy going rec league. The team director showed up at the bus stop with 3 bags full of jerseys and balls. He also showed up with his private driver. The bus was late so the two of us were driven to the club by his Chinese driver named “Roger”. On the way out there I find out that we were sponsored by a local pub and that the team trains every week and people get cut if they aren’t fit. It was much more intense than I thought.

The league is an international one here and teams are, more or less, broken up by country. I was on the New Zealand team, but there were some Brits on it as well. I took crap all day about my accent, as they tried to make me feel bad about bastardizing the English language. Most of the team members are pretty well off. Basically, men with extra income and a love for soccer wanted something to take seriously.  The season is essentially the same as the EPL seasons, running from September to June. We had home and away jersey’s, shorts with matching numbers, our sponsor across the front and on the back like the pros.

It was a little odd, since it was just the season kick off tournament. We played full sided games for 15 minutes. Generally, when games are that short, it is just 6 v 6 or something. But we were playing all 11 players on a full sized field. This is pretty rough because it would make it tough to score and quite a bit of running. To make things worse, there was no offsides. I never really thought about it, but this radically changed the game, making it the sadistic, impatient younger brother of real soccer. Forwards would linger up top keeping the defenders there. This stretched the midfield huge and made an insane amount of sprinting back and forth for the midfielders [me]. Since games were so quick and the forwards so far up, there was little need or value in working the ball through midfield and attacking with momentum and possession. The strategy was to clear the ball out to the forwards 20 yards north of midfield and try to score.

So I love offsides.  I know it stings when goals get called back and when it is miscalled and changes an outcome, but soccer is not soccer with out it. It keeps the game sane, it makes strategy, skill, and teamwork a necessity. It keeps bad teams from spending all of their money to get a faster than fast forward to sneak in goals. Otherwise it would look like the NBA [cough, Lebron, cough].

I have become a student of how cultures affirm a good play. In Argentina, it was a boisterous, “Esssooo”, which is short for  ”eso es” or “that’s it”.  Apparently in England, affirmation is serious and conversational. After I made a good play, my british teammate Mike called my name until I turned around and said, “what” [apparently they have conversations during the game in England] He said, “That’s a f**king top class ball, mate.”

In the team bus [that's right, the team bus] on the way back to the city, things were really fun. It was fun to see middle aged men from a different culture love the beautiful game and hear all their insight and bull crap. The bus automatically goes to the sponsoring pub after games and apparently it is a team fine if you ask the bus to drop you anywhere else.

They asked me to have a run out at their training session on Wednesday, so I may have a go at that. My $15 quid boots left some bloody awful blisters on the back of me heels so I might have to wait til I get a bit of skin back there first.

The Return of the Wheels!

After coming to grips with the loss of my bike, I was prepared to move forward. I started browsing bikes to see if I could find a decent one cheap. This only made me appreciate my first one all the more. I was a very nice bike that already had a basket and locks and it didn’t look new which I really liked. It looked normal but was really nice where it counted, namely the chain and wheels. Plus, I bought it from John so I didn’t have to go shop around and haggle for price.

As I walked into the apartment complex in the rain, the security guard motioned over to the side and my bike with sitting there looking all shiny and awesome! I started giggling uncontrollably, much to the confusion of the guard. I think what happened was after a load of stuff from the old apartment, I got caught up in everything I was carrying and forgot to put a lock on it and the guards noticed and took it to keep it safe.  It’s pretty amazing that they recognized it as my bike considering I have been living here two days.

Last night, my friend Anna and I wandered around the older part of Shanghai. We walked down small alleys and streets lined with little shops and carts. It was a highly successful wandering, we saw sort of the real, oringinal part of Shanghai. It is crazy how many people live in such a small area. We also did some praying as we walked, praying for the city, the people, the area, the believers already there, etc.

I am enjoying learning the language, as maddening as it is. I am enjoying the experience of living here and all the challenges that come with it. How humbling it is! It has shown me with new clarity how infinitesimal I am. But I am still very much confused as to why I am here. I feel God has called me here, from there I am not sure. I am continuing to just sit be for God in surrender, seeking him first and going from there. Please pray that he would reveal my idols and pride and other things that could keep me from seeing and hearing him clearly. Pray that I would get chances to network here and meet people that could open opportunities for the future. Thank you so much for your prayers and do let me know how I can be praying for you.

Growing pains

If you are a tough, unsympathetic type of person who knows the real world and revels in it and thinks that adolescence is a cultural excuse for immaturity and a conspiracy of guidance counselors, then you probably shouldn’t read this entry. It is just going to be me thinking out loud [some may call it whining] about adjusting from U.S. to China and from adolescence to adulthood.

This weekend, I moved from the first apartment which I loved to a new one that I am not so thrilled about. One of the guys I was living with  [John], a guy I had gotten really close to, moved back to the states for a few months for some training. So the other guy [Timon] and I moved into a smaller apartment, one that he had picked out before I got here.  It is very nice of him to let me stay with him, it saves me a lot of time looking for another place and he is a good guy.

There was a lot of work to be done in the moving process and it took most of the weekend.

Technically I didn’t move until Tuesday, but I was running loads of stuff on my bike from one apartment to the other. I was getting pretty good at strapping large objects to my bike. I felt very Chinese. But then I got behind a guy who had strapped a mini fridge, microwave, and a TV to his little scooter and felt like a whimp.

Monday was pretty tense. Class was really difficult. There was a different teacher and I barely caught what was going on. After Class my brain was completely fried and I had to get my stuff ready to move. Getting the new key from Timon who is in Beijing for the week turned out to be a problem and then John needed help putting his stuff in storage so I ended up missing my Bible study and being out late. Tuesday I woke up early to get John and his stuff into a taxi. Then when I got back to the apartment the landlord’s wife was in the apartment and started yelling at me, I got the hint that we were supposed to be out by Monday so I spent the morning getting stuff out. Most of my stuff was out but then Timon had left some valuable stuff so I had to get that for him and I missed class and was all around beat.

I recuperated yesterday with a lot of studying and scripture. I found a great software program that is great for flash cards which will very, very helpful and I continued in Romans which is becoming more and more a comfort and is deepening my understanding of the gospel and God. This is very exciting. Also I am reading Let the Nations Be Glad by John Piper which is also very exciting – about God’s glory in missions and the extreme, risky, adventurous sacrificial life that being a missional, biblical Christian is.

This morning tragedy struck and my bike got stolen. The ache in my heart is so deep. It was not that expensive of a bike but it was mine and it was perfect. In pure abjection, I walked to class and was late.

The idea of class had sat in my head as a bit of a dark cloud because Monday’s class went so poorly. I was considering dropping down a level but we had the good teacher back and he was great at explaining new words, not mocking me, and explaining grammatical things that I was thinking but didn’t really know to ask. It was like he was in my head and knew what I would be asking next.

I realize that all this is not that exciting. That is kind of my point. I am here living, and just doing real, unglamorous life. Big person life with rent and landlords and budgets and cooking. Big person life where people don’t really care about you and it is up to you to make friends and find community. This weekend I was having a hardcore longing for childhood. I was telling John, who is 34, “Dude, I am having one of those days where I just don’t want to be an adult.” He looked at me weird and was like, “Everyday, man. That is everyday for me.” So apparently, this mourning of the simplicity of childhood sticks around.

I destroyed my teapot because it didn’t whistle and the handle melted all over it. No mate [a tea I like from Argentina] for now. I did meet a girl from Argentina in my class today. We had a good talk in castellano [argentina spanish] and then I had a really hard to switching back to Chinese, both the language and the culture. I really miss all things Argentinean.

The solitude of moving to a new place is beginning to get to me. Maybe solitude is not the right word because I can find people to hang out with, I think it is the lack intimacy. Not in the sexual or physical sense of the word, but in the emotional sense. Knowing and being known. This dynamic of relationship cannot be forced or accelerated, but can only come with time. Between guys this process can be impossibly slow.

Please pray that this will come. Pray that until it does, I would use this time of low human intimacy to better understand that element in my relationship with God, the source of that element [and every other element]. Who knows me more? No one.

My Shanghai Wheels

I have obtained some wheels here in Shanghai. It’s a bike, a pretty nice one actually that has been spray painted so it doesn’t look nice and get stolen.

I rode it to my first day of class today. On the way, I listened to Damien Rice’s 9 album. It gave the ride the effect of Amelie mixed with Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift because it is a upright cruising bike with a basket and a bell and I rolled down the smaller, tree lined streets and felt so quaint as I listened to beautifully, tragic folk songs about fleeting romance and waved to the shoemaker and lady with the vegetable cart. Then I turned on to the main roads and had to dodge busses, cars, motorcycles, scooters, and people. None of whom would hesitate to take my life if it would save them a second off their commute. Traveling on wheels here is very much like swimming with sharks or hiking near bears. They can smell fear and timidity. So you have to boldly assert yourself in the intersection, play chicken with other bikes, and always keep a hard scowl on your face. Aviators that hide your eyes give you a Terminator look compliment the scowl.

Class was great. I was not as lost as I thought I would be. My reading teacher is very goofy and friendly but yells sometimes. It sounds like he will be pretty strict which is good. It was is so nice to get started. I was starting to go crazy piddling around. The difference between Chinese class here and the states [from what I could gather after one day] is that vocab and things are learned with the characters which is very helpful.

There are some people from Spain and Columbia in my class that I spoke some Spanish with and it was weird. It was Spaniese that came out.

The muck and filth of the city is starting to get to me. I went for a bike ride late last night sorta in the heart of the city and felt trapped by the stench and dust and dirt.  In my limited experience, I have a two week honeymoon period with cities, then start to hate them, then love them. So I am in the hate phase right now but it will pass.

I made the cut to get a spot at the BSF [bible study fellowship] mens group here in Shanghai. It is a very Asian, older crowd that is all business. It will be good, I think, to learn the method of bible study and get some fellowship from older guys – guys that are a little outside the Mark Driscoll/ Matt Chandler circle.

In Limbo

Well I am officially adjusted here. I can now sleep in past 6 which is nice. Now I am getting antsy. Monday and Tuesday were just registration days. Wednesday was a tour of campus, tomorrow is a ceremony and finally on Friday classes start.

The desire to learn a language is very acute when you are surrounded by it. I am really ready to get going.

This week has been tough because while I am meeting people, they all have jobs and lives so I have spent a lot of time alone. Initially, I started pouting but then realized the uniqueness of the situation. I had this great apartment essentially to myself with a balcony to read on and a big office for studying and writing and literally nothing that I needed to do.

Yesterday I had a good 10 hours to myself and got a lot of reading done. I spent a lot of time in Romans and some quality meditating and digesting it. With so much swirling around me, so many distractions, God has really given me a strong desire for himself lately. How sweet it has been to be with him and getting more of Him. Clinging to truth and scripture right now has been crucial in dealing with some of the thoughts and temptations.

I am living with John. He is leaving for the states next week. Poor guy. He comes home around 9 or 10 and I have been trapped inside my head all day with all of these thoughts and they tend to erupt. He has been gracious and listened patiently and offered insight.

Please pray for the living situation. It would be very easy to just live with English speakers and never really hang out with Chinese. I have applied to a homestay here where I will live with a Chinese family and teach them English for 5 hours a week and in turn I can live with them very cheaply and get a taste of culture and practice mandarin.  This could be very good for my language skills but it is pretty intimidating. Pray that it would come together and God would prepare a family.

Why do they care?

The weekend was very good. Friday I went to a small group and was very encouraged the conversation the people I met. On Saturday I met with some Chinese guys that want me to help them with their conversation English and will pay me.

Sunday was beach day. A group of about 15 of us from the international fellowship went to a beach an hour outside of Shanghai. The beach was much nicer than I expected. There were good conversations, intense volleyball games, and only a little sunburn. It is fun to meet people here and  hear their story of how they ended up here. It is also nice to meet people I might actually see again because they are living and working and not wandering around.

An amazing thing about China is the free, legal and licensed music downloads from Google China. This is very exciting. Google wanted an edge in the China market so they worked deals with most of the big record labels to provide free music downloads only in China. Since there was so much piracy to begin with, the record companies can make some money from the adds. I have been loading up on some great stuff including but not limited to the complete works of Radiohead, Fabolous, Rush Greatest Hits, both of John Legend’s CDs, the older Red Hot Chillpepper stuff etc. It’s like Christmas. Some of you might be thinking, “Why, I do that here in the states.” You are stealing and you need to repent. Just kidding. But seriously.

Today was the first day of school, I thought. But as it turns it was just a registration day. I am pretty excited to start studying again. But no. There is a ton of paperwork involved. China can be a maddening place. Why do they care about little me and where I am staying and how long? I am staying with Timon for a while and then I might move. Does the government need to bother itself with that? Maybe it should work on the bigger problems like hunger, orphans, natural disasters, and the sex slave industry.  It is just stressful for everyone, me, the police station, the school, the visa place, etc. I mean, there are a lot of people here and they need jobs so I guess pointless paper work is a way to keep them busy, but dang. It makes me want to do something highly illegal and disruptive. Stay tuned.

The adjustment pains are hitting this week more than they were last week. I am working on not getting frustrated with the little things, spending time with the Big man and keeping my thoughts positive and grace filled. There are so many little people here – ones that come up to my elbows and like to walk impossibly slow in a line across the sidewalk. People who charge me so much more for taxi rides and vegetables and teapots. These are the people I came to love but cannot unless Big Man changes my weak, selfish, human heart and gives me his love.

Please pray that I will feel the Big Man here and not get to bogged down with all the junk and distractions. Pray for protection from spiritual warfare I feel pressing in on me.

Please pray for

Baby Steps.

Week 1 has been very successful. I finally got registered with the police department after a lot of running around, so it’s good to be legal. The week has been about dividing and conquering.

Day one: get some money and buy food.

Day two: get some more money, buy cell phone, find contact solution, and a teapot for mate.

Day three: get some more money, figure out subway, locate school and check out campus; put paperwork in for possible homestay.

They have a very low cash withdrawl limit on the ATMs here so I have to max out the limit every day so I will have enough for tuition on Monday.