Testing a conspiracy theory
Living in Hong Kong gives us the unique advantage of seeing China in a different light. In my almost twelve years here, the changes and approaches the Chinese government takes to sensitive situations swings back and forth. As the Olympics approach, the government has been super-sensitive to the handling of controversial issues. There is no lack of planning or forethought at the moment. Also during the course of the last thirteen years (one of those being a year of graduate school study of Asia while living in Vancouver) I have come to know of the anti-China lobbyists around the world. Some of the white papers I have read from and about these groups are as extreme and appalling as some of the very things they use to attack China. Almost like the pot calling the kettle black, in a philosophical sense.
The point is, I find it extraordinary that all of a sudden, and very conveniently as the Olympics are only a few months away, the current turmoil erupted in Tibet. The situation and response is completely contrary to the Chinese government’s preparation for the Olympics: cautious. Call me a conspiracist, but this makes me wonder if the eruption of violence has been engineered, provoked and triggered by anti-China lobbyists from outside China. I am not saying China’s handing of the situation is appropriate, but I can’t help but sense their Achilles heel has been perfectly played by those who know how to provoke them. Isn’t that convenient? What is the worse of the two evils? Thanks a lot everyone – now the athletes will pay for it. Even The Straits Times (Singapore-based) wrote, "The precise cause of the violence remains a mystery."
There seem to be many people with views similar to mine. While the West claims Chinese are brainwashed, those in China (and parts of Asia) accuse the West of being brainwashed! Another blogger wrote: "We are trapped by the western countries. US firstly put us out of the list of human right violators and praised our progress, and then in 48 hours they reported the unrest in Tibet! It’s a mean plot to first drive the attention upon China and then threw us into a gaffe."
The Washington Post printed this story entitled, "Chinese seethe on Web over rare riots in Tibet."
And furthermore, do you think my kids will EVER learn to speak with an inside voice?
The Burn-Out Zone
Citrix has a very aggressive Pacific PR manager (Regina Tan) who is always pushing the edge of the PR envelope… in a good way. Lately, as part of our “employee branding efforts” she has me interviewing with Asia IT publications. The above article covers off one of our internal HR programs designed to prevent people from burning-out. Click here to read the entire article.
A spendthrift lover…
About once a month, as part of my responsibilities of being on the Union Church Committee Of Management, I say an Offertory Prayer at either the 9:30 AM or 11:00 AM service at Union Church. The Offertory Prayer is said in appreciation for the many blessings bestowed upon the congregation (like, uh, your triplets surviving being born 14 weeks premature, or having a decent job and income while only paying 15% taxes) and also to ask the Lord to bless and accept the offering. I always try to bring something new and different to this time of prayer. This is what I said today:
Good morning. As I was preparing for today’s Offertory Prayer I stumbled upon the words to a hymn. Don’t worry, I am not going to sing the hymn, but the words caught my attention. They were written by Thomas Troeger (born 1945), a pastor, and professor of preaching and communications at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. Troeger paralleled the Lord’s love for us with that of a spendthrift lover. I will read the first verse and end with the offertory prayer.
"A spendthrift lover is the Lord
who never counts the cost
or asks if heaven can afford to woo a world that’s lost.
Our lover tosses coins of gold across the midnight skies
and stokes the sun against the cold
to warm us when we rise."
My prayer today, Lord, as we ask You to bless these offerings, is that we never count the costs of our blessings as if we can’t let go, but instead are generous with service and purse strings, with hearts like Christ, forever bold. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.
By the way, the above image was taken from the t-shirt I wore all day (I wore a casual blazer overtop for the Offertory Prayer)… the white specs are from when Carys stirred the melting butter (for the Kraft Dinner) a little too vigilantly. But we had a great time together and she did almost all the work! We’ve all had a great weekend – taxing and tiring – but still great.
Four Years Old Today
Four years ago to the minute, Tess was in the hospital as were the triplets. I was at home. I had just posted the first pics of them in the NICU, while polishing off a part bottle of wine – or maybe all of it, can’t remember – and half a block of cheddar cheese. As I worked at the computer I listened to Dido’s songs "Life For Rent" and "White Flag" and "Here With Me" over and over and over, thinking that Lita must have thought I was crazy. (Ironic, because that was the start of a season when I waved a white flag to the Lord.) It was a rough night. As I went to bed, I recall praying that the triplets would live. My words fell on silence. There was no experience of grace from God, but I knew He was there, and I knew He knew that I knew He was there… odd, but just one of those things. Call it "expectant silence." Four years later as we held the triplets’ birthday party on the playground, my mind continued to emerge out of the long fog of four years, bewildered at where the triplets have come from, what they have accomplished, the incredible story of their survival and progress. The crowd sang each one of them "Happy Birthday." as each one took a turn blowing out the candle. During each song I choked up… unable to make my way through the moment. Just too overwhelming. On a lighter note you probably are all wondering, "what about the cake?" The cake… something very different: in keeping with the spiritual season that I find myself in these days, I made a cake of a Christian monastery atop of a mountain. Simple. Symbolic. Spiritual. Do you believe me?
Another weekend, Tess returns…
Tess returned from Toronto on Friday afternoon. She stayed an extra few days to visit with friends and family… she even bought a surprise care package of groceries for my niece, Carly, while in London, dropping it off with a housemate when Carly was out at a class. Do I have a great and thoughtful wife or what? Tess & I missed Valentine’s Day together but in addition to arranging for a card to be given to Tess in Toronto, I also did my annual collage. I have posted a copy of it here… click on the pic to see the large version. Yes, that’s Sela sleeping on the floor… she fell out of bed while Tess was away but was so tired she didn’t even wake-up! Oh and by the way, Jasper has started sleep walking.
While Tess was away, Sebastian had a Fairy Tale Day at school. Apparently the Primary 1 classes have all been working on fairy tale stories. Seb’s story was Peter Pan. Wednesday night we pulled out all his green clothes and belt to select the most appropriate items for him to wear. I also gave him brand new wellies. I bought the boots last year but was waiting to give them to Seb only after he outgrew his last pair of rainboots. Sure enough, the old boots no longer fit him, so he received real welly boots just like his cousin Galen. (Even I am jealous – they are pretty cool boots!) I also made a hat ~ complete with a red feather ~ and the next morning when Seb was all dressed up I took the accompanying picture! The sword was a sponge nerf-type item that I brought back from my business trip… I had an armload of them. A great way for the kids to play fight without taking each others limbs off. (I know, I know, real swords would only cause flesh wounds.)
Today Tess had the brilliant idea of taking the kids and her parents out to City Hall for Dim Sum. We got there right as the restaurant opened and lucked out by securing a table right by the window, overlooking the harbour… uh, where a major land reclamation project is underway. Okay, not the prettiest of views. The kids did pretty well, experimenting rather tentatively on various dim sum delicacies with encouragement. We do know they love Singapore noodles and chicken fried rice – an ample supply of that was consumed. And what a miracle… all of the kids sampled the garlic pak choy. The real hero was Carys, who had seconds of the chinese veggies and used chop sticks to eat her Singapore noodles. Great fun and food was had by all. Many thanks to Grandad Blake who insisted on picking up the tab.
A Peak of an Adventure!
From our guest blogger, MoZiLLa…
Below is a rendition of our great time with the kids yesterday:
I who never ever gets colds (well, almost never) got a cold upon arriving in HK. I did this last year and I wonder if there is a little something that affects me here. Yesterday I said to Blake, "I am so glad as my cold is almost 100% gone." Whereupon……. a left sided sore throat began which by day’s end was one of those that cause you to scrunch when you swallow. Salt gargles, swollen tonsils, hmmmm – praying for healing as there just is not time for this type of silliness. My greatest concern is Blake as he is not a good candidate for this type of thing and woke up this morning with a clogged head. Again, hmmmm.
Yesterday was a day! We got ready and took the gang over to the Queen Mary Hospital to pick up the #54 bus, after having checked with Tess’ friends as to what buses we catch to go to the Peak. Off we tore and for a while were the only passengers on the bus and what a ride! We were all seated at the back of the bus and I now know why kids race to the back – we were FLYING as we hit bumps at ridiculous speeds. The driver seemed quite a nice normal man but had no concept of safety for his passengers!! Fortunately there were seat belts. The kids loved it and I only let my mind wander once to the eventuality of this crazy ride causing little stomachs to erupt. Fortunately, none of that.
Reached our destination and the ‘normal’ driver was very helpful and showed us exactly where we could connect with the next bus. But! … there is always a ‘but’!… by this time I was already up with three of the kids in the aisle thinking that he had stopped to let us off.
Oh no, he decided to floor it and take us to the connecting point. Very nice but I was desperately holding onto these kids and furiously doing physics in my head trying to position my body so that when the next screeching stop came I wouldn’t fly down the stairwell with my charges in tow. Thankfully, during a short lull, I threw all four of us into a seat and we held onto each other. All six of us came off the bus alive and I kept remembering the now famous words – "If you deliver them back alive you have done your job." Phew.
Next bus – waited quite a while but the kids were great and the sights were interesting as this was also the Star Ferry terminal. (Blake was having the most trouble at this point as taxis were whizzing by beside us and he was understandably worried about the small gang stepping off the edge at the wrong time). Finally got into the next bus with only one lady jumping the queue ahead of us. She was carrying such a cute baby that it softened the blow! We even sat on the open upper deck – great fun, great view and only Sela was in a funk because she couldn’t sit at the inner edge of the seat. Then, big surprise! We had been told the wrong bus to get onto so were unceremoniously tossed off the bus at the Peak Tram Station where as little as 775,000 other tourists and Chinese New Years’ travelers lined up. It was pretty awful as the crowding was huge and keeping track of the four so that they did not put a toe on the road was a challenge.
We decided to cab it to the Peak from there but of course that was more easily said than done. We flagged down a cab and just as we approached the cab another party jumped in. I looked at Blake and was so proud of him as he was cool and not losing it. We eventually got to the Peak by cab, wandered a bit along with many, many others and then tackled lunch at McDonalds – again, another difficult challenge as most of HK’s population was doing the same thing. Grandad Blake braved the ordering… and reordering…. the trips and I sat and sang songs and miraculously it all came together and we munched through our lunch with me eating an Egg McMuffin at 2 in the afternoon, which should have been a cheeseburger. 🙂 Had visions of it having been made at 8 that morning and ptomaine poisoning having set in!
Our coup de grace was the walk home – we walked the whole gang down from the Peak to 122 Pokfulam and of course the kids ran the whole way. It was a treat as the wide path is surrounded by the wonderful foliage, birds sang, the sun was out quite often AND we were using up their energy – YIPPEEE. Jasper was an artist at attempts to be carried – "Mo, I don’t feel well. I need to be carried." The best quote of the day was when he said, "Mo, I need a piggy back." My reply was, "Gosh, JJ, I would love to give you a piggy back but there is problem because I have only one back and there are four children who would like a piggy back." His reply to me, "No, Mo. You have one back and I am one children." He is a hoot. We collected walking sticks and impalings came close but fortunately nothing extreme happened. Everyone was fed, watered and in bed by 7 pm and 7:40 respectively.
I was in bed by 7:50 and Blake shortly thereafter 🙂
It is now 2:12 p.m. Sunday afternoon; had a great time at church with amazing and good behaviour from the kids; home and lunched; Blake walking to Chi Fu; and in 48 minutes a birthday party for one of the kids’ friends starts downstairs on the playground. Chuck just phoned and has landed!
Much love, M xox
