Living in Kunming
Living in Kunming
by Peter Y. Woo, May,2002
Dear Friends and Loved Ones,
We had a great time visiting Shilin National Park, about 1.5 hours from KM by train. It is just the Bryce Canyon of China.
Here is a virtual interview with Peter Woo:
Q: What is life like in Kunming?
Ans. Can be quite enjoyable. Right now we are renting an apartment belonging to SIL people, 3 bedrooms, 17’ by 17’ living room, 1 bathroom, for 100 quire per day. (1 quire is about 12 cents US, 8 quire = $1 US) So that would be 3000 quire or $450 US per month. It has washing machine (cold water, no dryer), hot water heater, a large refrigerator, gas-burning stoves, even microwave ovens, beds, tables, sofas, cabinets. The only thing we were not happy with is: its floors are bare concrete, with black splotches here and there due to shoe marks, etc. By divine grace a lovely sister who is an apartment owner took us to places where we bought linoleum and some thin carpet, in very good quality, for about 1 quire per square foot, i.e., $1.10 US per square yard, so with $40 US, we covered the living room, hallways, dining room, and some parts of our bedroom. We put glue under them only at a few vital spots. Now our apartment is very comfortable.
Q: I am surprised that such remote places in China is so well-equipped with gas and electricity and sewage. How about the rest of China?
Ans. I think in the Northwest where the land is like Afghanistan with no water, no trees, little grass, things can be very primitive. However, they told me in little towns in Yunnan, such as Zhongdian (11000 ft. above sea level) or JingHoong (near Laos border) or other little towns in unheard of counties, hotels and apartments are just as new and well-equipped as here in Kunming.
Q: What about food there?
Ans. Just like Sichuan, foods on street side always have chili. For 3 quire (40 cents US) you can pick a big bowl of rice or noodles plus 2 varieties of meat and 2 varieties of veggies. But meat is only skin and bones. A cubic centimeter of pure meat, whether pork or beef or chicken, is never seen at such places. Veggies often have chili pieces or chopped chili mixed into them. Typical country people are thin, malnutrition, so eating chili is a way to get warm. So they feel unsatisfied if food is not burningly hot to their palate.
However, there is Kentucky Fried Chicken and Walmart and a few restaurants that are either Texan style or Australian style. They always have paper napkins, a washbasin right in the dining area where you wash hands, before and after eating. Hamburgers, big drumsticks, chunks of meat, are just like in US. We go there from time to time like the Israelites craving for the quails.
Veggies on street side are very fresh. We buy cobs of corn in boiling water for 1 quire a piece, 1 lb. of fresh Chinese veggies or spinach for only 2 quire, 1 lb of grape-sized tomatoes for 1.5 quire. Canned tuna in oil and sardines are our favorites. They are 5 quire each, and we save the oil to use for frying eggs. A 12 ounce can of coke is 5 quire, but the same coke in plastic bottle is 3 quire or more at tourists spots. At a clean restaurant, Cantonese style (hence little chili), is 5 quire for a dish of veggie plus meat, or a dish of fried rice, etc. No tips and no sales tax. How convenient. However, apples and oranges on street side are from America or Australia, hence more expensive than in US. Delicious apples for 13 quires a kilogram, i.e., 80 cents US per lb. Oranges are a bit cheaper. But Asian pears are very cheap here.
Q: I see why you prefer to live in apartments rather than in hotels.
Ans. We are still thinking of renting an apartment for about $70 US a month. We can equip it with some used furniture, washing machine, refrigerator, stove, two beds, for perhaps $1000 at most. At places like Dali and Stone Forest apartments are larger, easily over 1000 sq. feet, and renting for $40 a month. So quite a few Americans rent for a whole year, even when they may come and go. We began to see why it is much better to live in apartments than in hotels. Because in hotels you have to eat outside 3 meals a day, and there is no refrigerator. Also the Internet connexion in hotels are awful. The reason is too technical for me to explain.
Q: It seems wasteful to rent for a whole year a place where you visit only for a month or two each year.
Ans. When the apartment is empty, we can rent it out to visitors. Visitors from America are here every week. It is like a revival here. People from YWAM, MSI, SIL, YFC, CCC, Navigators, etc. etc. all come because there are opportunities to do things here beneficial to the social and other needs here. So we are surprised to meet people from US whom we have not met for a few years. So many names of organizations here that I have not heard of in US, are well known in Asia and Australia. I feel so uninformed just because I was in Calif.
Q: How about your health?
Ans. My digestive system requires me to avoid pepper and chili and spicy food at all costs. Even so, an occasional bite or two hurts me only little. Herbal shops sell only prepackaged pills and capsules, and I cannot tell if they are frauds. They told me there are herb shops with 200 drawers, but they are very rare. Recently I found some prepackaged herbal pills which meet our needs. The master is wonderful in supplying all our needs in timely manner. He is so real.
Q: Tell us about other pleasantries there.
Ans. Temperature is like Calif. Even plants are like Calif. But it rains in summer. When it rains, the streets are full of filthy water that we cannot avoid staining our pants. It is no worse than my childhood memories of going to open air markets.
If you want to lose weight, come live here. Rent is cheap, and meals have so little meat you just will lose weight. You will walk so much you don’t need other exercises.
Taxis are cheaper than in Beijing. Typical ride to downtown is 10 quire. Bus ride, even as far as 6 miles to the lake DianChi, is only one quire. Gloria just had a “facial” treatment for 10 quire. You can have a good massage by a master of acupressure, for 10 quire. I had a hair cut for 3 quire, then stained it and cook it under steam, for 10 quire.
Where we live, we meet a lot of friends, Americans or locals, whenever we walk on the streets. It is so enjoyable. The locals are honest, friendly, not quite like in Shenzhen where you worry about being robbed and cheated. It touches our hearts to hear some pouring out stories of their lives.
Q: What about frustrations in life?
Ans. Plenty. But we experience grace for every need. Examples:
1. Language. Local dialect is like Shanghai dialect, totally different from Mandarin, dropping N’s and Ng’s from end of syllables. What sounds like “cafe” turns out to be “kai whay”, which means attending a meeting. We went to a church one Sunday, totally frustrated because the pastor preached in authentic local dialect. I understood him only when he was quoting scriptures. Next week was better, another church, where 600 gathered and we had to sit on little plastic stools. Preacher preached in standard Putonghua, which we could understand.
2. Crossing streets. It is an art of valor and nimble dancing. Once, we crossed half a street and stood at the center line, waiting for the traffic coming from our right hand to pass by. Well, some on coming car is crossing the center line to pass all the other cars. So we had to step back from the line to avoid being hit head on, but then traffic from our left is also coming behind us, so we were caught in the middle gap of 2 feet space between a bus and another vehicle in opposite direction. So cars crossing over the center line is not a crime. Again, at another intersection with red lights, we waited till a special green light indicated pedestrians to cross. As we crossed, we discovered that cars in our direction or opposite direction still continues to make left turns, right into us. I realized that frequently there are no left turn signals. So cars make left turns whenever they feel like it, cutting across oncoming traffic. HOWEVER, cars do slow down to 20 mph or so at intersections, and courteously make room for each other, as well as make room for bicycles and pedestrians. Not so in HK. Busses in HK do rush within inches in front of your toes at 30 miles an hour when it is their green light. At first we were discouraged even to go to shop anywhere except when we don’t have to cross any street. Now we are a bit more nimble, living like 40 year olds instead of 60 year olds.
3. I don’t mind people spitting or blowing their noses on to the streets, but others do. Little boys can suddenly pull down their pants and deliver a jet stream, sometimes wetting your shoes. Adults would sit on a stool on the side walks, holding a toddler by his legs, toilet training it on the sidewalk, even when the gutter is only 2 feet away. So from times immemorial, streets are the gutter of the city. This is a human right that America does not have. So I was clipping my nails while I walked, but Gloria did not like it. If you sit behind a taxi driver, close the windows, because he spits out of his.
4. Cash: my ATM card worked in HK ATM machines, but not here. I asked my brother to send me money from HK via the Bank of Communications because I just opened an account here in KM at that bank. He thought any other bank would do. It so happened his bank and my bank at KM are not friendly to one another. So the money got sent to Bank of China, which was not very friendly to me. Eventually we got it. Today is the first time in 4 weeks that the bank successfully get some cash with my ATM card and Visa card.
5. I was almost shouting at a taxi driver, because he did not know the way, and tried to ask me where to turn! I pointed him to turn in a wrong direction, and so it was a while before I found out we were on wrong direction. Today the same thing happened, but the driver confessed this was only the third day he was on the job. There are no street signs except at a traffic signal. A few shops have their street number and name put on a little tag. So in general there is no easy way to tell what street you are in when you are riding a taxi. Also traffic lights sometimes have a digital counter counting down to zero, both for green and red. Clever! But then I found out some intersections take 3 minutes to wait for a green light.
6. Public bathrooms. This topic has been sufficiently discoursed upon in great degree of amusement, in other literature, so I hold my peace.
Q: How do you overcome fears of dirty food, hepatitis, tuberculosis, even leprosy?
Ans. 1. Think of how Hudson Taylor and J.O. Fraser would cope with it. They had no hot water heater, no refrigerator, no washing machines. Some, such as Raymond Frame, buried ALL their children in China. Think of how come they still love the Chinese people.
2. Let us extinguish the idea that living long on earth is a bliss. Not so. The other side is more real, and far better place. People like D.L. Moody and Ruth Hitchcock and Sadhu Sundar Singh had experienced joyful, indescribable glimpses of the other side. So if our life is to be cut short under the master’s plan, should we not be like a soldier ready to die for his course? To be a disciple means to bear one’s own cross, which means we must put living long on a lower priority than letting him be glorified. Otherwise we are only a nominal, or fake disciple.
3. There is a quotable quote from a middle aged lady from Missouri, who just came for a few months: “When you go on the streets, just pray that you will not see the unpleasant things.” She had so much love for the people. “For centuries, they do not know our good news.” She has no complaint when she had to bring two pails of water from downstairs to 5th floor during a time when there was no water. We found that most other Americans are not as complaining as we are. They dare to dash across the highways like nothing, even on bicycles with their toddlers sitting behind. I said, “How come you are so different from those people in the mid-west who eat nothing but steak and potatoes?”
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by Peter Y. Woo, 3/24/2002
Dear Loved Ones and Friends, 3/23/2002
We have been in KM (Kunming, YN province) for 3 days, and we have met so many fascinating people here that I wish to tell all of you, Come, visit here and see what the master has done, and your life will never be the same.
It is almost like a revival has happened here, because so many things are happening. The project I shall call LUV, but people are individually supported by various sending agencies from many places worldwide. Here are some examples:
(1) The founder is a very remarkable person who invited us for a great dinner, and we had good sharing over things. He is such a good role model for many doctors who want to serve. He is the one that personally invited us to come.
(2) Dr Lytani wrote a heart moving article on the web, I left my heart at Shangri-La . He is from SE Asia, and has been in KM for a few years. He started the village medical service at the northwest corner of YN, where elevation is over 10000 ft. He said after being there for a few months, his own hemoglobin count increased, and after coming back to SE Asia, he could jog with more vigor. So this is one side-benefit of going to the front and minister to people in poverty and need ---- you get more healthy.
(3) LUV used some buildings behind a school for handicapped young people. It is touching to see a high school girl, in long sleeves, which were empty. Some friend held on to her waist, and they walked happily towards the school gate. I also took a picture of two men, one young, one older, walking, and one had a wooden leg, the other in crutches. I asked why so many articles in street-side magazines deal with medicine, treatment of horrible diseases, etc. I was told that out of 40 million population of YN province, 2.4 million are handicapped and 460000 of them are school age. Yet there is just only one public school for the handicapped. I notice that there is not a single wheelchair anywhere on the streets or in public places. The answer is sad: handicapped people just don't have a chance to make it in life, so they languish at home.
Why so many? The answer is sadder: most were injured at childhood, few were born blind or deaf. Some parents leave their youngsters at home while they work at the field. The child overturned a pot of boiling water . . . . Some children were treated with overdose injection of Western antibiotics, which, if improperly done or with bad needles, caused deafness. It is tragic to hear that so many such accidents could have been prevented with better education. Another sad thing: many people in the mountains have leprosy. It can be cured, but many lost their sensitivities of hands and feet, which got easily injured with burns or infections, yet without pains. Unforgettable photos of LUV doctors going to the villages and wash the feet of the lepers. It made the story of the master laying his hand on the lepers saying "I am willing, be thou cleansed" very poignant.
Remember Bob Pierce's famous quote? "Lord, break my heart, with those things that broke Yours."
(4) On the Web, someone wrote two articles about Craig William who had a heart for these people, who is not a doctor, yet developed such a love for the handicapped, he acquired much mechanical engineering skills to make prostheses, as well as directed the whole project at LUV for the handicapped. He self-learned much computer stuff, so that he is now the most knowledgeable of how to do webpages at LUV. But he needs help, and I, though so out-of-date in my knowledge, try my best to help their needs.
(5) Craig helped to train up another remarkable man from Asia, whom I shall call Lytani . He is over 50, having been in Los Angeles, then Midwest for 20 years, looks like a typical Asian immigrant who had labored much in life. He was a mechanical engineer. When he first came to LUV, he knew nothing about making artificial limbs. Now, practically all self-taught, he made casts of the stumps of human leg, then fiberglass artificial limb that is flesh-colored and can fit on a kneeless thigh perfectly. I saw him at a sewing machine sewing some clasps and leather belts together to fasten the artificial limb to some one. "Are there other helpers to make these limbs?" "No, I am the only one." "How do you know all these skills?" "Not at first, I did not even know what is prostheses , but I looked up above for wisdom, and was taught much. . . . " "Are you coming to the workers retreat next weekend?" "No, every year at this time of year I go, sometimes alone, sometimes with friends, to some mountain to fast and meditate."
I can feel his tremendous sense of joy when he sees such a thing being fitted on some poor man's leg. You know why? Because this artificial leg will enable the man to start a new career which he could not conceive of before.
(6) Dr B is another blond doctor. Just yesterday I saw him, totally exhausted after a long day, exclaiming, "The child has a 30 percent chance of not surviving the heart surgery."
He had just seen another patient successfully operated on, and this child's parents then insisted he would help get their child to be operated too (usually one child by decree). Heart surgeons in China were pretty good, I was told. (Likewise our Father sees us being so desperate, that he was willing to pay the ultimate price, that of sending his own son to help.) Then they told me some minority tribeswoman (I forget whether she is Miao or Yi or Bai or Lisu) who listened to the flawless Mandarin of Dr B, and exclaimed, "This doctor's English I can understand!"
He is not only fluent in Chinese (I wonder where can he find time to study the language), he often would attract a crowd of patients or parents around him, chatting with him eagerly. Isn't that a picture of one at the hillside of Galilee, attracting a great crowd? Or at Jairus's street, or where the four man carried the paraplegic? Suddenly I began to see such a life being re-lived in this man.
(7) Then there are stories of several wretched tragic lives who were changed, because they saw the light. Stories of handicapped people who finally met a helping hand to take them out of misery. Gloria now begins to interview one remarkable lady. I hope we have time to get through at least 5 more. We shall try to write their stories. Stories of victory, of deliverance, of finding love in the old old good news, which is still powerful enough to change our lives to infinite potentials, but only if you are willing. Too bad too many people in Western Europe have rejected this old, but effective cure for their lives.
(8) It is exciting to know that the librarian at Biola who had a great marvelous experience, is here at KM. Another medical couple from MSI whom we had known for years and admire, will also be coming here long term, in Sept.
Q: What is KM like?
Ans. It has 2.5 million people. Many are minorities, but they all dress alike on the streets. There was some International Expo held here 3 years ago, that generated a lot of international acclaim, plus new, Western style apartments with colorful roofs and walls. YN has a lot of tourist attractions. One of them is the Stone Forest, another a village of buildings and performers showing off the 26 minorities here in YN. That attracts me. The streets here are just like Chongqing or the outskirts of Beijing or some small town we visited before in the south. We ate at a streetside restaurant with only 3 tables seating 4 each. Half of the shop are the stoves, cutting table, bundles of very fresh veggies, basins of water, a few pots of boiling rice and boiling water, a few shelves and cabinets of wines and seasonings, a refrigerator, and some friendly man and woman doing the whole show. On the streets are people selling delicious looking fresh veggies, and some stalls serving noodles in boiling water, plus several pots of cooked veggies and cooked meat, very tempting, yet always amply mixed with red chilis, which unfortunately my digestive system cannot take. A sign says "any two veggies plus any two meats in a bowl of noodles, for 3 quai" (1 quai = 12 cents US). Apartments with good views can be rented at 1 quai per square foot per month. But typical local salaries are 800 quais per month.
Folks on the street are very friendly, not as rash and blunt as in the streets of some modern big city where materialism and affluence only generate self-centered competitive society.
Sunday, 3/24/2002. We went this morning by a long bus ride to downtown. KM is a city as big as Long Beach, with 2.6 million people. We went to a big iglesia called Zion with gothic architecture. The people were doing the closing invocation for the 1st session, and people overflowed outside the gates. Then the whole congregation dispersed, and we English speaking folks swam in. We had to mount the stairs to 4th floor. At the middle I saw two girls invoking very hard. Finally we got into a 20 by 40 room where all kinds of people came, mostly Americans, but also Canadians, Dutch, etc. All with children, crowding like a HK bus, with 5 people squeezing into our pew chair only 6' wide. Over 100 people came. Foreign children in China are very well disciplined. The pastor and his wife are Talbot Biolan graduates. Yay! I met a couple from YWAM that came from HK. We met another leprosy expert lady that served in HayLing Id. Leprosarium in HK in 1963-66, but now come out of retirement. The speaker was from Holland, speaking about the palm Sunday events with a deep conviction. He and wife and daughter dressed just like in the Little House in the Prarie.
Afternoon we went to a picnic. 4 busses took some 60 of us: 10 are deaf students with their sign language teachers, 34 are the students coming from the villages, 10 more from a visiting group from some church in Singapore, a few teachers from LUV, and us. We went south for some 10 miles to a public park on the banks of Dian Lake. It had big waves and we did not see the opposite shore beyond the horizon.
We took photos with a girl from my admired tribe, the Lisu, from the western edge of the province. She is married to a local pastor. Many Lisus were martyred, beaten, for years, until finally they are recognized as a tribe whose major religion is . . . This wife came to learn medical basic skills. We asked her to sing and dance. She did, but the song is a happy song of praise. I asked her to sing some 5 or 6 more times, and copied down the whole melody and words. Want to teach you sing it when we get back to US.
There was another girl who teaches "morals and ethics" to these students. She wore Tibetan dress and headdress. She sang some beautiful songs popular with the Chinese congregations. I carefully copied down another. She also sang a sweet song from the Canaan collection of some 800 songs all written by one young woman from north China. Some of these songs we sing back home. Moved me to tears to see how the sheep kept growing and breeding in spite of all the troubles and bad weathers.
I met a jolly fellow from SIL working with one of the tribes I know. He is from HK, and the first Chinese fellow I ve ever met interested in ethnic linguistics. He and wife and children are living here. Another Chinese fellow also of SIL had much sweet dialogue with me. Another businessman from Singapore is joining MSI and going to teach a management class at a very remote city. One man from Singapore looks exactly like Tom Yee, but with a tenor voice. Some of them know Albert Ting in SBC. So many folks dedicating their lives for a meaningful investment in helping this place . . . It surely feels like that great reunion some day we all will be at. We can openly chat about things that encourage our souls right there on the grass around Dian lake. It feels like, looked like, we are just on the seashore of Long Beach, with a lot of local tourists all around. Our father is so kind and gave us so much happiness. Another friend told me of some HK girl going to a tribe for linguistic work, but she is the only child of an old mother, who tried to live here for a while, but finally had to go back to HK. Imagine how it feels. Someone told me of an AfroAmerican MD who also got some degree here learning all the herbal medicine and acupuncture. Sounds like a World Expo here.
Finally I talked with one of the students. He looked like a man on the street, thin, black clothes, brown face. He was from a village on the border with Tibet. He belongs to the Nu tribe, which has 20,000 in YN. In that area there are the Dulong tribe, which has only 4000 in China. Classified like an endangered species and urged to breed. So he grew up speaking 4 languages: Lisu, Nu, Dulong, and Tibetan. Wow!. That area is 10000 feet above sea level.
There are even more exciting news which I would tell you only after I get back. Hope you can come to see the master's hand so evidently at work here.
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Peter Y. Woo 5/2007
This article will not be exhaustive, but it is from my own experiences. My wife Gloria and I were in Beijing 1997 summer where she taught ESL.
(1) (Omitted).
(2) Clothing and Weather:
(a) Ladies should dress modestly, we want to be as inconspicuous as foreigners as possible. The locals will jack up the price 300 percent instead of 100 percent if he think you are a rich American. You need hot weather clothing, plus one thin jacket, may be one sweater to be safe against too much air conditioning in hotels. You need to dress up a bit, like going to church, when we are at welcoming or farewell parties with the School officials. So men need to bring a tie, but you don't need a suit, I think. Try to buy disposable underwear from K-Mart or even some Oriental markets.
Why do you need a thin jacket? To guard against pockets-pickers, of course. You put your passport and cash in your inner chest pocket. You put only a little cash (say up to 300 yuan) in your wallet in your pants. Credit cards should be only in your inner pocket. You really should keep them in the hotel.
Clothes are half the price there than here, but you may not have time to go shopping, except on weekends.
The hotel should have laundry service. They can even iron them for you. At some price, of course. You may want to bring a small amount of clothes wash detergents.
Weather will be between 80 and 90 Fahrenheit, like Texas or New York in summer, but humidity will be as bad as Florida, somewhat suffocating. You will get used to being wet with sweat all day, perspiration flowing freely on your face. You need good handkerchief and plenty of kleenex. You can buy them anywhere on the streets there. One thing good about so much sweating is: you will no longer smell like rancid cheese. Sometimes I hang my shirt on a chair and next morning it does smell good enough for another day. But to be safe, you bring along some antiperspirant and/or deodorant spray.
Another frustration: On a hot sunny day, being in the shade of a tree will be 10 degrees cooler, it seems. Only one snag: while you are enjoying the cooler air, suddenly you may discover you have 10 lumpy mosquito bites. They are not as big as in Amazon or Singapore, but bad enough to cause a swelling as big as a ping pong ball, on some girls. So bring some insect repellent, ointments, stop-itch, prickly-heat powder, etc., or else you can buy some on the streets in China.
(3) Money. For expenses of travel and hotel, you can write a cheque to Bro. Gus, and he can get local cash for you. For us old timers, the banks honor American Express Card. Some banks have ATMs so you can get cash on your Bank of America Platinum Card. Banks do not give you cash charged to your Visa Card or Mastercard. Some westernized shops, large bookstores, do take Visa Card for purchase. That is why pickpockets love to grab those from you. Eventually I got some guy who tried to charge a few thousand yuans on my Visa card, I dunno how he got my card number. Chinese people have brains to devise ways to get at things.
Of course you can bring travel cheques, but Banks here in US charge you 1 percent for those things. Exchange into yuans there at banks will cost you another 2 percent, etc.
HK (Hong Kong) is nice, shops understand English, and at the Airport, all shops take US cash for purchases, at some exchange rate that will be 2 to 5 percent less than the official rate. That is OK for a meal or two. But in China you really need to change for the yuan. 1 dollar = 7.6 yuan these days. HK dollar is about the same rate.
(4) Foods. Avoid getting sick: Have typhoid and cholera shots here in US, if you can. Once you are there, don't buy pre-cut fruits on the streets, don't eat oily or chili-peppered food, don't even eat ice cream, don't eat uncooked salad, unless it is a 5 star restaurant. Why? because the water there have different chemicals, and germs are everywhere. What are safe foods on the street? Bottled water, bottled or canned soft drinks and juice drinks (they are quite delightful), uncut fruits, like whole cantaloupes, watermelons, oranges, pears, apples. Oranges and apples are typically imported, and will be more expensive than even in America. But pears will be 6 times cheaper, being native grown in China. Grapes you have to be careful, peal them before you eat. There are cleansing detergents that kills germs on veggies and fruits, but you may not have time to look for them in the local markets.
One wonderful thing we did in 1997 when we went to Beijing was: we bought a small electric coffee pot from the street there, for about $5 US. (I did bring along my US coffee pot plus a transformer to convert the 220 volts there to 110 volts, but somehow water does not even boil, because the hotel wall outlets did not permit my gadget to run at 400 watts. They are smarter than we.) This local coffee pot consumed only 200 watts or less, and so it worked!. With this thing we made hot drinks in our room, bought pastries from the street and had breakfast with hot chocolate drinks. We made Chinese herbal drinks with it too. This way we were kept healthy while other young adults came to me for acupressure and cures for flus and upset stomach. At the last day the coffee pot fell on the floor, broke, and worked no more. It was as if He was saying, "I won't let you bring home this thing and brag. It is My grace, plainly so."
If you get sick, it will be either flu, stomach flu, or diarrhea.
You of course have faith in American pills. Someone told me that "Airborne" is a good food supplement that buttress you up against colds and flu. Some people like Imodium AD for diarrhea. Make sure you bring along your necessary medicine.
I, for one, is for herbal stuff, and can buy them easily in China. Some herbal pills are excellent for both flu and diarrhea. For flu, you can buy Gan Mao Ching (cantonese: Gum Mo Ching) capsules from Chinese herbal stores here in US. For diarrhoea, HuoXiang ZhengQi Wan (cantonese: Fock Heung Jing Hay Yuen) really works better than western drugs, and can save your life. I have stories from our experiences and others' to testify to it. You can buy them from Chinese herbal stores here or there.
Try to see whether you can buy frozen bottled water, like an icicle. It saved my life. We were at a tourist site in Beijing, waiting in the long lines. No wind, just pure humid heat. We felt we are about to have a heat stroke. We prayed. Then we saw a tricycle man selling popsicles. At this moment we don't worry about catching diarrhea. Survival for the moment is more vital. We got the popsicles, and saved our lives. Next morning we learned to buy and carry a plastic bottle of frozen water in our bag everywhere we went.
Keep a little Tiger balm. They relieve any stuffy nose, stop the itch of mosquito bites, relieve car sickness, etc. Gloria can teach you where on your arms is an acupressure point where you can press to relieve car-sickness. That can wait.
There is almost no need for a sweater or jacket, but do bring a thin jacket. Sometimes they invite you to a nice restaurant where the temperature drops to 70 degrees, while outside is 90 degrees. Well, your clothes wet with sweat will stick to your back, get cold, but won't dry up, and soon "Arr-chooo", you begin to catch a cold which may turn into a flu. You may be one of those lucky people that never had a cold or flu for the last 10 years in US. Well, who knows, the germs in China are different. So be prepared. It is a good idea for us men to bring an extra thin underwear in your briefcase or bag. A small towel instead of handkerchief can wipe your sweat better.
For us who go to China for a few months, the first week or two we have to be this careful. Afterwards the body develops some resistance and getting used to the foods, and eventually we can safely buy cakes and bread and cookies from small shops, and eat at cheap restaurants, but still dare not buy foods exposed to dust and flies on the street.
(5) Gifts that they like.
(a) Any handmade thing from American Indians or Mexican, scarfs, little small dolls. Typical coins, even one-dollar bills. Explain why a dime is smaller than a nickel, yet is worth more. A cousin of mine would bring a stack of brand new 5-dollar bills, and used them as gifts to the officials. To us, $5 buys a good meal at McDonald's in USA, but to them it can buy 10 bowls of noodles on the street.
(b) Small sausages are unavailable in China. There are hot dogs in McDonald restaurants, but typical meal on the street is 5 times cheaper, on the streets, so many poor college kids may never have set foot into such western restaurants in their lives.
(c) Greeting cards. They never heard of greeting cards for Mothers Day or Graduation or Thank-you cards. In Hong Kong they have greeting cards in Chinese, but their artistic style is totally un-American. So you can bring some such cards as gifts or trophies during your games in ESL classes. Also American candies and dried fruits. Our raisins are different from theirs, and prunes I've never seen in China. Even knifes and forks are hard to buy, except in western shops. Can openers were almost not yet invented in Yunnan province, but plenty of sophisticated gadgets for opening wine bottles. But I don't drink.
Cheese and Snapple drinks are twice the price in America !!! Coffee? Most students there do not like its bitter taste. Even Earl Grey tea and Ceylon tea are unheard of there. So you can bring along these, just for the purpose of "cultural exchange", you see.
(d) Remember those postcards packets that you can get at drugstores? They can serve as presents to the officials, as well as good materials for ESL class. China is a walking country. When they see a picture postcard of Hollywood or Monterey beach, they will think it is Heaven on earth, until you tell them there are very few pedestrians, everybody has to drive, then they begin to wonder how to survive in America without a car.
(e) Another good thing is to bring an American newspaper, or real-estate magazine that you pick up in front of supermarkets. Or advertisement from CompUSA or Fry's Electronics or Sporting Goods, etc. These things are excellent introduction to American living. They will say Ooohs and Ahhhs when they see the real estate ads, until they see the prices. This is for the purpose of "cultural exchange". They would think we live in heaven on earth, until you tell them a typical high school teacher cannot support a wife and two children and a house and a car on his salary alone. Tell them the price of a typical meal in a Chinese restaurant in America. .
(f) Learn to sing a few American folk songs. They love Spirituals, where we don't have to apologize for mentioning Jesus in all these spirituals. Teaching them to sing such songs help their ESL, as well as share our spiritual values. If you are musical, be prepared to play a guitar or piano when available.
(6) High Tech Stuff. I have never been cheated when I bought computer stuff in China, like memory sticks, MP3 recording sticks, computer printer, ink, CDs. Their batteries are horrible. If your digital camera runs out of juice, you must buy Duracell alkaline batteries only, otherwise typical batteries are gone after taking 4 flash pictures.
For years, China forbids its citizens to print books or documents. Now Xerox shops are everywhere on the street, using crummy laser printers. But people work hard to gain your business. You give them a 30 page document, ask them to Xerox 100 copies, they will stand there for hours, cranking out 6 pages per minute, at 4 cents US per page, etc. You get them several hours later. If you pay them enough, they will be willing to stay up all night for you so you get them the next morning. Typical workers at restaurants, schools, printshops make only several hundred yuans a month. Your heart will go to them in sympathy. Chat with typical shopkeepers, they know you are from America, and they will pour out their problems of life to you, hoping you will give them some ideas how to improve their lives, economically. Of course you and I think in terms of their spiritual needs.
I am not a great photographer. I found my cheap US digital camera which I got for less than $200 US is good enough. I typically will download the pictures into my laptop, compress them to 1000 pixels wide. If I display them on my double column web pages, I would even compress them to 360 pixels wide. People read my web pages for info and atmosphere ("ambients"?), not to see your eyelashes and pimples. So I really do not need expensive cameras. However, I do envy folks whose digital cameras can also take videos up to an hour long !. So it is up to your taste.
Cell phones are more sophisticated over there. You need a cellphone with "triband", i.e., 3 radio frequencies. Typical T-mobile phones in US need to be "unlocked" so that you can buy a SIM card there in China. Buying a SIM card on the street is good, because it is unlikely that they will report the fact that you are a foreigner, and so your phone is less likely to be eavesdropped. A SIM card costs $5 US or so, but you need to pay more, it works like a debit card. You can add 100 yuan to it from time to time, at the shop. You then tell all your friends in America your number. Calling to America is horrible. It costs you 60 cents US per minute. Calling Hong Kong is 40 cents US per minute. Yipes! So use Skype in your computer, if there is Broadband (DSL, called "kwaan peen" in Mandarin) in the hotel.
Internet Bars on the streets are crummy places, costing 25 cents US per hour. Each computer is full of pornographic stuff, and absolutely NO CD, NO floppy, NO USB port, NO printer. You use it strictly to surf, to answer emails. You cannot even save a document on your Flash memory stick. Some Internet bars may have one or two computers that have USB ports and CD unit and printers. However, the School should have computers for us to use that have all the conveniences.
Just a funny story: I shopped for a scanner. I used the term "Sao Miao Ji" which I thought is the translation, meaning "scanning machine". "Nope", they said. After a little stroll, I said, "Hey, isn't that thing there a scanner?" They said, "It is a Sao Miao Yi, not a Sao Miao Ji" (i.e., it is a "scanning apparatus", not a "scanning machine"). Eventually I bought one. They even have scanners that can scan 3-dimensions. You put your face to it, it will capture it like a portrait camera. I have yet to see one in America. Such scanners can even be hung on the wall, instead of lying flat.
(7) Learn some Mandarin now. Just go to Borders or Barnes & Noble and grab a tourist booklet on Chinese language. Try to learn 50 common sentences: "Hello, how are you?" "I am Peter Woo, I am a retired professor at Biola Univ." "I love it here. People are so friendly." "Can you tell me how to go to a bank?" "How much this book cost?" "What? Too expensive." (Then you turn away as if to go to another shop. They call you back, and reduce the price 70 percent.) Then you say "I will pay only 100 yuan." (Then turn away again. They call you back, and you got the sale. You go home and boast to the locals, they laugh at you. They could get it for 10 percent of the price.) "Where can I get a taxi?", etc. Moral: Don't buy jewelry or gems. You surely will be cheated. Don't buy tea at a tourist attraction place, say 3 cans for $40 US . Buy it on the little streets, at about $3 per can.
(8) Learn to convert inches and feet into centimeters and meters. Learn to convert pounds and ounces into kilograms. 1 litre is about one quart. 1 mile = 1.6 kilometers. 1 meter is 1 yard plus 3 inches. The kids at International School laughed at me when I said "How come this yardstick looks longer?" "This is a meter stick. This is China. (Stupid!)"
(9) Electric appliances. You ladies can bring hair blower and men your electric razors and cellphone chargers, digital camera chargers, etc. Make sure they can use 220 volts there (both HK and China). The wall sockets are different from US. Go to Internet and look. You can buy adapters there, or in HK airport.
Warning. Wall sockets are different in China, in Hong Kong, in UK and in US, and they all use 220 volts. There is something called a universal adapter that you can buy at streets of Hong Kong. If you plug a 110 volt device from US into the wall there, it may go poof! No more.
(10) Hygiene: I can write pages of humorous stuff on the public bathrooms and the absence of handkerchiefs. Just remember to carry some small kleenex packets all the time. They are available everywhere on the street, for something like 25 cents US. No toilet paper in public bathrooms, not even a nail or cupboard to hang your coat or put your precious briefcase. So always go out with friends. They guard your jacket with passport, while you go to the bathroom. My good friend Dr P dropped his passport into the gunk. I forgot to ask how he scooped it out and clean it and dried it. That is a very humorous nightmare.
Learn to squat ! Wear pants that can facilitate you squatting in public bathrooms.
When you go into a restaurant, you can carry some alcohol wipes from America to clean the bowls and chopsticks, just to pacify your conscience. It may keep you from flu and diarrhea longer.
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Peter Y. Woo, 2007/7/3
Under the eaves of our house often are hornets nests or birds nests. 3 weeks ago I found lots of bird's dung on the pavement under our eaves, which are 20 feet high. I got impatient, got a double length pole that can stretch to 16 feet, and poked at it.
It fell down. As before, I expected some mess with the broken eggs and the twigs. Well, as I used a broom to brush the stuff onto a dust bin, something moved. A newborn birdie! In fact, three!. They have black feathers, and 4 inch long scrawny legs, and looked like dirty brown balls of fuzz. I expected them to be dead soon, but I placed them on top of a tree stump.
Well they were still not dead the next morning, and then I heard an unusually loud chirp from some birds.
For the first time in my life, I felt guilty about killing the birdlings. I began to think how the parents had felt. I began to feel myself a murderer, of innocent children of two birds.
The next day I told my wife. She never cared much for birds. She took a look at those things, they were still alive. Night came, I finally put some paper towels into a bowl, put the 3 little things in it, put the bowl on a little stand outside the house.
The next morning, two sparrows chirped loudly. They must be the parents. They have dabbled breasts, a little bit of a black cap over the heads, bigger than ordinary sparrows, otherwise quite undistinguished in shape and color, but sang almost like parakeets. I still don't know what they are, definitely not swallows, but I just call them "sparrows".
I moved the bowl into a flower pot shelf outside our front window facing east, under our avocado tree that protects them from the sun during the mornings. The parents knew, and soon they began to drop down on the birdlings from time to time. They fed them with little spurts of toothpaste like black and white stuff. At first I thought they were messy dung, but the way they were smeared on the paper towel very close to the birdlings, I think it is food.
Now it began to move my heart. This is how the parents labored so hard to feed their children, who could not chirp, could only squeak a little, squirm a little, but they have bright yellow rimmed wide beaks. These parents, like my picture of the old man holding his granddaughter, are uneducated, dirt poor, yet all they have, all they know, they bestowed on the little ones. That old man of Guizhou patted the screaming child, and said, "Oh it hurts no more, it hurts no more" (bu toong ler, bu toong ler . . ) Scientifically, such words are futile to reduce any of her pain, yet this is all, all that he could say, from his heart, with all that he did have ----- love.
Well, these parent birds do the same.
Soon my wife began to get hooked on these birdlings. She tried to shield them from the cold nights, or from the hot day. I told her not to regard their "food" as dung.
We crossed our fingers to see whether they survive. After 3 days, they seemed to grow stronger, and bigger. The parents chirped around, morning and evening.
We went to a pet shop to look for a cage. We want to keep the birds and make them our pets. But a small cage costs $30 USD !!! Well, too bad, my love for the birds is real, my contrite heart is real, but still too selfish to sacrifice that much money.
Then I left for Hong Kong.
After 36 hours, this morning in Hong Kong, She called and told me the birdlings have flown away.
I was glad they survived, but she was sad they flew away. Now there are no chirps in the morning around that avocado tree. She wished they won't fly away like that. I said it is better for them to be free and healthy, and perhaps, if we put some food out there, they may still come back.
A thought came: Our Father knows someone is filled with apprehension and sadness because the husband leaving for HK and China for a few weeks, and so He sent her a little adventure. An adventure of falling in love with these fuzzy things that came into her life just for a few days, to show how He cares for us, just like these chirping parents cared for their young. Oh it brought so much warm feelings to us, and I was almost in tears. The Chinese say He loved us "mow may butt jee", taking care of the most minute details.
My wife often wondered where is God while she suffered so many uncertainties and setbacks in health during the past 12 months, but once I left, God sent her 3 gifts of comfort. 1, these birds; 2, a sister who is in great need that she can minister to; 3, the Editor of the popular Chinese Christian monthly newspaper called, encouraging her to write for them again. These in addition to our daughter R coming with husband and son to live with us a while.
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Peter Y. Woo 2007/7
0. A new Woo girl. The Lord seems to confirm my trip is in His will, by seating a Chinese girl next to me on Cathay Airlines flying to HK. She spoke Mandarin on her cellphone before the plane started, so I asked her where she is from. "Shanghai". I thought she is in college in US. No, she has graduated from Biology in MIT, then went to med school, then went through intern and residence, finished, now a lower GI specialist doctor. Wow. Her parents were professors of biology in a very famous univ. in China, and had been working in US for 10 years. She herself just married another man from China.
I notice she came to US after junior high in China. Yet through all these years she seems to have no rebellion against her old culture and became totally American. I asked her whether I am right that our DNA, with 4 billion alphabets, is more ingenious than Microsoft Windows, because it can reproduce itself when a cell splits into two, and some enzyme oversee the process and check if the new cell is healthy. If not, the enzyme will abort and kill the new cell. She said it is all true. Then I told her mathematically how impossible such a DNA can come by just shaking 4 million bytes of the four types, A, C, G, T for 4 billion years, in a pool of nutritious protein soup at warm temperature, etc. She was very receptive. Later on I gave her my email address, she gave me hers. I told her I am a Woo. She said, "I am a Woo too" I said, "you are my niece then. Perhaps we were related 40 generations ago." She was a very intelligent girl.
I never evangelize on airplane flights. I am too self-obsessed with my comfort, trying to sleep, worried about my feet getting swollen. But this time I am so grateful that God puts a great person next for me for me to feel comfortable.
1. Comfortable Kunming. I arrived at KM (Kunming) Sunday 7/8, together with Yellow Grandpa, after spending 3 nights in hot, humid HK (Hong Kong) where I began to develop blisters under my foot.
Kunming is so much more comfortable, at 25 degrees C at night and 30 C at day. It rains a bit, quite often, but not showers like HK.
I was in awful physical shape. Walking from my apt (apartment) to the bus stop at Jinhuapu Rd. was quite terrible for my blisters.
2. Comfortable Home. However, the apt. looked so nice and clean. The feeling of rediscovering all the good shirts I left at KM is joy unspeakable. It feels like coming to a forgotten fuzzy (not fussy) abode. All the herbal pills, the computer printer and equipment performed well. I could inject black ink into my printer cartridge just like 1 year ago. There is no DSL (broadband) this time, so internet access is via phone modem, and it will cost me a bundle.
First order of things is to go with Caleb to buy SIM card and phone number for our cell phones. This we did smoothly.
The next thing is to enjoy food. It feels so good to see meatless dishes for 75 cents, and meet dishes at $1.50 or $2.50 USD. We went to a good restaurant, Rice Fragrance, had 3 great dishes, for $4 USD, no tips.
of all, is to meet our "children", the 3 young adults Rosa, Horace, Viola. They have grown mature through much spiritual temptations and tough trials. I told them "Now you are ready to be trained to become Bible Study leaders, and then you can start Bible Study groups." Back in the 1960's, we who have received blessings from IVF (in USA called IVCF) had the vision and dream of begetting small BibStud groups as a means of spreading the Revival fires that changed the life of many HK school students during the 1950's and 1960's. In those days, "church growth", "church planting", "small groups" are still unheard of terms. I think the IVF approach beats them all.
I also went with them to a Sunday service that met in a hotel room. About 50 people, mostly young professionals. They have a "worship team" of 5 ladies and 3 men. Ladies led songs, prayers, guitar. They like to pray with much sighs and "hallelujahs" and sometimes simultaneous prayers. Preacher seems to be a seminary grad who insisted on preaching several sermons on the Holy Spirit, but he quoted too many verses without proper exposition of the meanings of each, and his comments on things are sometimes wrong. He acknowledged each believer has the Holy Spirit, but his tongue sometimes slipped and said all of us need to pray for the Spirit to come into us. Luckily he did not emphasize tongues and rolling on the floor.
I took all this with sadness. However, at lunch time Rosa and Horace said they know this is not an ideal congregation, but they had hopped around from one to another quite a bit, and they thought this one is good to stay on for a while.
I had no desire to tell them to quit this and look for another congregation. But the burden in my heart suddenly became a vision, perhaps a real calling from the Master: There is great need for discipleship training, via small groups. Suddenly, for me, this looms over all other projects that others may be called to do, and are much needed too: such as (1) English corner evangelism, (2) mobile seminaries, (3) college outreach (which I could have gone into by teaching some courses), (4) medical ministries, (5) village community developments.
I then started to make several lectures on the Holy Spirit, as part of a Basic Faith project. I set up an outline, then recorded 2 one-hour lectures in MP3 mode, about 11 megabytes per lecture. I still have to do 2 more on the topic. I don't want to make a full 45 hour 3-unit course on the Spirit, because I want the lectures to be just foundational, for the laymen, without going through all the arguments and theology stuff that one teaches at seminaries.
4. Sparrows. Gloria had her frustrations of life and burdens to bear, alone, while I am gone. As she heard me telling all these things, she felt the same excitement and "calling" from Above, that we must come back to spend time nurturing these precious young people, so they can become great vessels for the Master. We shall wait in the immediate future to see how He will guide our steps.
One of the first news she told me was, "The Sparrows are gone, flew away." There is a feeling of loss, but also joy that they survived the ordeal of me poking at their nest under our eaves. They flew away, their wings were finally strong. Could this be a figure of the future, when hopefully we can train up other birdlings, to stand on their own feet, and eventually fly off to become spiritual parents ? What a lesson, besides the assurance that God takes care of you and I when we feel lonely, just like He does with the Sparrows.
5. English Corner. We finally went to an English Corner where our friends Ron and Bonnie has rented a big room where there were 6 tables each with a teacher and up to 6 adult students, usually college students or professionals. The teachers had dinner at their home, and their prayers were so loving and ardent, like that of our IVF old days.
There I met Mimie !!!. She pointed her finger at me, and said "Aren't you Woo . . . and your wife . . . ?" (She had perfect memory of our names.) I said, "Aren't you Mimie ?" "Yes". Then I grabbed her, "I have sought for news about you for 5 years, since I last saw you in 2002". She and her sisters are now professional doctors. She is so intelligent, telling me how to treat the bleeding on the cornea of one of my eyes, with great confidence, like an experienced doctor. I told everybody, "This is my 'niece'. She is one of the few people with our family name." Isn't it strange now I have met two young ladies all being such "nieces", all being physicians? I remember the awful conditions of the housing they two were in while studying for medicine at KM University, in 2002. Now she still kept her faith.
It was the Lord's confirmation.
She kept telling me about the "private" university she is now helping, with 5000 students and 500 teachers. "They need leadership and administrators", she said again. I said, "I am none". I promised to give a guest lecture on "How to teach math and make it interesting", if they are interested. She liked it. Well, let us see whether that is part of our Master's plan too.
Then I met N and J, two British retired ladies, full of joy, that we missed very much after we last left KM. Here each has a table at the English corner. As I played some hymns on the piano, that Gwen Wong suggested, J. would sing it all from memory, such songs as "Thou will keep him in perfect peace", "I'd rather have J.", and other old songs that we sang at IVF in the sixties.
Yellow Grandpa also had a table, and 3 local smart ladies and 2 men came. They were so intent to learn conversational English. One young man, still in college, asked me whether he should say "Do you play the piano?" instead of "Do you play piano?". I said the British may insist on the former, but we Americans like the latter. As long as you get ideas across, don't worry about grammar. Such as 'Long time no see' " Then he said, "But 'Long time no see' is proper, correct English." I laughed. "No, the correct English is: It has been a long time since I last met you." He is not convinced, he insisted that 'Long time no see' is proper. One girl said something about me making learning English not that serious and hard. Soon they began to lament me and Yellow Grandpa could not stay on and teach them more.
Then came recess. Ron printed a copy of "I'm dreaming of a White Christmas" in English, with Chinese musical notation for everybody, and soon Gwen Wong was playing her Ukelele, I sang the melody in C, and Grandpa Yellow sang a high alto that he made up impromptu. That delighted everybody, and soon they sang enthusiastically, three times.
6. God takes care of things. It is remarkable how He took care of little things.
Example 1: When I left US, I wondered whether I should bring my old US passport as well as the renewed passport. I brought them both. Then one day I needed cash. I went to the Bank of China in KM with my bank book, but they want my old passport to verify my passport ID number on their record. The new US passport has a different ID number, and no statement about my old passport ID number. Thank God I got them both.
Example 2: I decided to hurry back. So on Wednesday morning I took a taxi to go to the ticket agent in mid town. I asked the driver to take a fast route. He took a slow route, exactly the same as the bus route which I could have taken at 20 yuan less. When I got to the agency, the sweet girl with a pleasant smile was there to pacify me. She moved my flight from KM to HK to that very day, 2 pm. I had to pay $40 US more, of course. Then she ordered a courier to take my money and stuff to the Hong Kong Airline office and get my ticket. It was 10:30 a.m. I was worried. "No worry", she said with a smile, "he will be back in 20 minutes. It is only at the South Station." (I do not know where that is.) I prayed and prayed, and indeed, the boy came back (on a bike, I guess) in 20 minutes. I got my ticket, thanked her profusely, and ran. I grabbed a taxi.
This time the driver knew how to drive through the small streets, and got me home by 11:30. Thank God Yellow Grandpa was there. I had one hour to pack. I gave him things to do that I could not have time to, like packing my computer stuff, the drawers, the books, music scores, put my bedsheets into laundry, etc.
At 12:30 sharp he and I went down to the street, with my luggages, and I tried to call a taxi. Argh! It was raining moderately, and I could not spot empty taxis for 15 minutes. I prayed and prayed, and a taxi carried some Americans into our tract. Amen, but he did not come out of the same entrance. Thankfully I still got him, asked him to drive me to Yellow Grandpa, got my luggages, and then it was 12:45.
"Go to the Airport, quickly". The driver said roads are crowded in this rain. So I prayed and prayed. Then he said, "If you pay 9 yuan more (1.20 USD) I can take a turn to the finished portion of the freeway." I was willing to pay even 90 yuan. So he did, and I arrived at the Airport at 1:15. Whew !!!
My plan was to be literally standing by the counter of Cathay Pacific Airways in HK Airport for the next few days, hopefully getting on one of the 3 flights each day to LAX. Indeed, for 50 years now, July and August flights from HK to US are always fully booked, because so many youths want to come to US for college.
As I was at KM airport, my cellphone received its last call (the SIM card goes down once I leave YN): it was from Polly in Irvine. She told me I just acquired a seat on a flight the next day, Thursday, from HK to LAX. Isn't the Lord great, crowning the day with special grace?
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Peter Woo, 2008/9/30
Q. We've had no news from you for months. What is happening? Are you still thinking about China?
A. I went to KM (Kunming) for 2 weeks in July 2007, then with Gloria Nov. 2007and also Mar. 2008. We also visited QY (QingYuan) where our friends supported 15 new high school kids plus 6 college kids.
Q. What about the recent months?
A. Gloria got busy teaching 2 afternoons ESL (English as second language) for elderly immigrants each week, throughout summer. Her boss likes her so much she wants her keep teaching till next summer.
I got busy doing several things:
1. Put my geometry lecture notes into web pages, to be used this semester, when I teach just one course on geometry.
2. Start writing an article once a month, and Gloria too, for Evangel Light magazine, in Chinese, about unforgettable people we met in China. Gloria wrote 3 articles, called Love Stories. If you go to evangellite.org you can read them in Chinese.
3. I was teaching Cantonese Adults SSch, on some episodes on the life of St. Paul. I shall do more on "Secrets of power in the early disciples in Bk of Acts" from Nov. 2008 to Feb. 2009, but only twice a month.
4. I have become an occasional tutor for Jeremiah, who still in 6th grade, is taking Algebra I for 9th grade students. He is languishing a bit. One day the teacher wanted him to do 40 problems. He was in tears. They live about 30 miles from us.
Q. So you are busy being grandparents?
A. Not as much as other folks of our age, but of course I enjoy spending some time with the little guy. He looks a bit like me at his age, with crew cut, and eye glasses, a bit shy to talk, but eyes sparkling when I talk to him about chemistry, about physics, about Archimedes running to the king's palace forgetting his pants, about life of famous mathematicians.
Q. Why are you writing Chinese articles?
A. I dunno whether our health would permit us to go to KM for more than a month or two at a time. Of course we would love to. Gloria seems to have been depleted of some nutrients when we lived there for 9 months, and had some health troubles after we came back. I guess there is too much magnesium in the drinking water there. But I lost 7 lbs or more there, gladly.
So we think at our age we should write on things that we feel passionate about, while we are still able. I have written quite an amount of emails and webpages in English about living in HK or China, that I can compile a 200 page book, no counting the 1000+ photos for the last 10 years.
Of course we write much faster in English than in Chinese, but writing in Chinese help me pass on my dreams to Chinese friends in HK and in US, to catch on the vision.
Q. Do you communicate with the students in China?
A. Yes, we are burdened with the young adults that meet in our apartment in KM back then. They have great spiritual temptations and trials.
However, interestingly, I got to love to write to some of the students in QY. Those we supported in GMSS (Brightness Secondary Sch) from 1999 to 2002, had finished college in 2005 and are now working. They are now mature, and loved to write emails to me. Then the QY8 (Eight talented kids) that we supported from 2004 to 2007 in GMSS are mostly now in college, and they also write emails to me and our HK friends. One by one they came to love the Master, and we love them. Then among the recent 15 chatterly kids some also write emails to me too. None of them are on the High Way yet, but they know we are. Please pr for them. Many of them have broken families.
Q. What about the horrifying earthquake?
A. Angela, the girl with one arm, has become a spiritual seasoned lady. She got associated with some fellow online seminary students, and they went with her to her home village, where 20 people decided to walk the High way. Wow. Now she had to find ways to do follow up. She went to the earthquake area, where she ministered as nobody could to some youths who got an arm or leg amputated. One boy was the most miserable in the hospital because he lost his right hand. Then he noticed Angela has no right hand either, and got encouraged seeing how Angela coped with life with only a left hand. We are supporting her 100% now, for her living and traveling costs, but not for any friends that go with her.
Q. Any financial needs?
A. Just a week ago they told us the cost of supporting a high school student increased from $700 USD to $1100 USD per year, including room and board and tuition. It was only $330 back in 2002. Reason: falling American dollar, and inflation in China. So supporting 23 students in QY plus 22 orphans in Angela's contact plus Angela's sister Julia's tuition, would amount to more than $30,000 US per year. We need to pay some tuition fees by end of January.
Q. Are you scared if American banks melt down, and all of you in US lose assets and mammon?
A. Thanks be to Him, I was reading a short biography of D.L. Moody these days. He got so filled with power and thrilled with joy through sharing the Savior with so many, and the presence of Him was so real in his life, that asking Him to supply our daily needs in health, finance, is something he has been experiencing for days and months and years. Our Boss loves to see us living all out for Him, and He of course will provide for all our needs, in His ways beyond our imaginations. So don't fear. In fact, I guess that this financial meltdown will be one of the "plagues of Egypt" that will turn American back to its Maker, as nothing else can. Let us be ready to share the goodness of knowing Him.
Q. How can we pr for you?
A. Ask our Boss to clearly open a way for me and Gloria to go to HK and KM again next March. We need His guidance on giving us a non hectic schedule.
A Chinese Ch which I went often, back 10 years ago, now again generously gave me an opport to teach SSch in Mandarin. These sessions I can record, and send to our friends in KM.
Our health is better than a few months ago. We are thankful.
Q. You seem to like D.L. Moody, why?
A. I like to recapture the sermons and personalities that my late father would look up to and like to learn from. (This is my own way of remembrance of his days.) D.L. Moody was his model, in love for souls, in love for J.C. I just got a used book on Moody's life that my father would have loved to see, A Full History of the Wonderful Career of D.L. Moody and Ira Sankey in US and England. 1876 Edition. My father's favorite book was the bio of Moody by his son which he kept in his shelf for 80 years. Biola Univ. has a 800+ pages volume of the best sermons of Moody, which I Xeroxed back 20 years ago. (No scanners in those days). Some day when I meet my father again, up There, I will have good things to tell him, "See, I went to QY and YN and saw all these . . . Plus I read more stories of Moody . . . Now I can tell you."
But he would say, "I met so many great people here already. I talked with Moody himself, and we chat for many hours here . . . ." How blessed it is to be up There.
There are so many stories of Moody that would move me to tears, as if I can hear my father's own voice telling them. One was: someone passed by a street at night, in Chicago. There, under a street lamp, amidst the shadows, over the snow, was Moody, reading some verses from the Book to a black boy about the Savior's love. He had great difficulty, because he could hardly make out every word of the King James English. I don't know how much that black kid got from Moody, but I almost have an artist's picture of Moody in a big coat covering the boy in rags, huddled together in the snow, in the shadows, under the lamp, trying to pore through the Book. And Love propelled him, and flowed thru him, despite his poor English. My father eagerly sought for such love, and often would share with strangers on the street, too.
Well, I hope you can share with us your experiencing His care these days. I have some good photos and stories to share with you all later. Good bye for now.
Peter Y. Woo, 2009/4/22
Q: You've been in KM almost 3 weeks now. How do you feel?
A. The first 2 weeks were hectic, we were helping our dauntless, fearless, ladies "the Four Musketeers", 3 from Escondido and knowing no Chinese, plus Vida Wong from San Dimas. Vida's husband Daniel is an elder of the SGVCAC (San Gabriel Valley Chi. Alliance Ch), and a nephew of my piano teacher Jennie Wong. She speaks Putonghua, and is a big help.
Thank God, we got them a nice clean 3 bdrm apt. within walking distance from our apt., with internet access. The apt. belongs to a local Christian lady familiar with the cleanliness habits of westerners, who make a living by charging them $9 US per person per night.
Q: Where did you take them to see things?
A. For 2 afternoons they met the folks Gloria described in chapter 1 and 3 of her Love Stories . We sometimes eat at the Wacky Restaurant, whose owner couple are in town. They set it up as a place where the folks who erstwhile suffered from leprosy learn bread baking and other kitchen skills, and soon they can be reassimalated into society.
Our friend DN who worked with languages for years, now has a shop close by, and he soon had a Sunday lunch with us at a quaint 300 yr. old house, 2 stories high, with a yard in the middle of it. He chose some very pungent hot foods, representative of the Dai and Hani people. Workers at the Master's Vineyard usually have strong personalities and plenty of good stories. I love his 2 sons and a daughter. They love me because I taught the sons trigonometry, cramming 2 semesters into 2 weeks, and they were forever grateful.
Then another friend took them to visit some ethnic group not far from KM. They got impressed by the son of a martyr who somehow had a statue in UK, I was told. However, it is sad to know that 80 years after translating the NT, after a spiritual revival happened around 1915, the translating team for the OT today is still bickering among themselves, and cannot come to a consensus how to go about it. Every day of delay, I think, is a grievous sin, allowing darkness to linker on one more day in the hearts several million of this lovely people. Unless the Lord give them some spanking, I bet that the OT won't be published for another 20 years.
Then the 4 Musketeers visited the Ethnic Village in KM. It was completely refurbished after 2 years. Now every one of the 23 tribes of YN each has an ache of land among many small lakes, and so the Lisu finally has 3 cottages. The girls there are very sweet. I can almost tell who are believers. One such hut belongs to the Nu tribe who lives on the Nujiang River, mixed with the Lisu. But as I went in besides the Nu young man entertaining us tourists, there was also a Lisu Bible, translated by J.O. Fraser and Allyn Cooke and others. Apparently J.O. Fraser's alphabet is so successful, that the Nu and may be other neighboring tribes all used it to spell their own tribal language. How wonderful and timeless is such talent of linguistics. The Lisu girls cooked for us a pancake of corn, because hand-ground corn is the main stable of these folks living on 45-degree slopes too steep for wheat or barley or rice.
Finally on Thursday 4/9, we took a van driven by a Christian young man, taking us to the Nujiang (Salween) River Canyon to see the Lisu's at their Good Friday and Easter services. Unfortunately the van was very bumpy, and after 4 hours we decided to pass the night at Middle City, where we know two American couples there. We visited one, and prayed with them. We feel awed to see them getting aged, perhaps after much labors these years, but they were as dauntless as ever. Every day the wife had to go to an elementary school 4 times, taking her child there in the morning, then take him home for lunch and nap, then take him back to school, and finally take him back late afternoon. Why don't they get a maid to help such mundane work? I dunno. But it really touched my heart to see their sacrifice of comfortable living in US, in exchange for life among their beloved people.
Next day, the 4 hours winding drive stretched to 7, because some highway exit was closed and the winding mountain roads often were unpaved and re-done. The bumpy ride was really tough. Somehow we got thru to the River in time to go to the Lisu chapel, where 30 people already lined up singing a welcome song in 4-part harmony, shaking each one of us, and we learned to say "Wha' Wha'" to them, i.e., welcome. This was Good Friday service.
They don't do communion, but sang some very good hymns, translated perhaps 70 years ago by Allyn Cooke. From the face of the singers on the platform, you know they sang with their hearts, sometimes coupled with body motions to indicate "our hearts belong to Thee O Lord" or similar sentiments.
Next day we went to a training center, where the 50 adult Lisu students sang Handel's Hallelujah Chorus and other songs. I shall share with you an audio CD some day. They told me many teachers are there by faith. To support a teacher would take perhaps $2000 US a year, to support a full time student would be $1000 a year. Many students are husbands or even wives leaving their children and farm behind.
Saturday afternoon, the church leader used his van to take us some 50 km north, along the beautiful canyon, and half way there were two steel cables for you to cross the river, if you dare. Vida offered herself. The Lisu young men tied a canvas belt on her, then hung her on a big hook under a pulley to glide over the cable. He went with her, so in 5 seconds they were 20 yards away, and soon became a little dot on my camera. After crossing it, they had to climb the slop some 10 yards high to the other cable to glide all the way back. This is the famous way for the Lisu to cross the river. Some teenagers would cross it every day to go to school.
Sunday morning was Easter service. Unfortunately my MP3 recorder went out of juice. After the service they had a baptism on a 15' by 7' by 4' pool, with only 2' of icy cold water, outside the church. It is fun to see them ask the new believer something, perhaps "Do you have any regret, or unconfessed sins?", and the communicant would shake his head vigorously, and then splash, they push him backwards into the water.
That afternoon we drove over the same bumpy road to Halfway City, and Gloria and I remained there, while they drove back to KM. But, the expected 4 hour from there to KM turned out to be 9, because the van broke down in some city half-way to KM. The driver also had a dead cellphone, so he had to walk in the middle of the night to find a gas station to call his buddy to drive 3 hours from KM to pick up the ladies. We are sorry we were not with them in this ordeal, but such incidents are quite common in our previous experiences on Chinese highways. So they got to KM at daybreak instead of at midnight.
Q: That seems to be 2 weeks packed with excitement.
A. True, they have seen a lot of things, especially how people come from many places to this land and each found a project commissioned by the Master.
I felt so touched by some of the difficulties these western workers faced in this new country and culture, that I wrote an article about some possible ways to make learning the difficult Chinese language a bit more pleasant.
Q: Did you take them to some "English corners"?
A. Yes we did on Tues. 4/7 and Wed. 4/8 Of course the locals were delighted to chat with Americans that cannot speak Putonghua. I was too tired, but I was quite impressed so many of these college kids are new believers, within the last year. My heart became touched, I wanted to share some basics of our heavenly pilgrimage to these lovely young people
This is something new for us this year, compared with previous years. We met several new laborers, all ladies, from HK, and found some kindred spirits.
Our special friend Angela has moved from way south to KM here, and she was mightily used by the Master to bring several students from the college where her sister is attending, to Yellow Grandpa for their first steps upon the pilgrim way. Also, through the online courses she is engaged in, she found some classmates willing to come to her home village, and soon 10 people are on the pilgrim way. I can taste a bit of the joy of Paul and Silas, after all kinds of roads are closed in Asia, suddenly this lady Lydia began to invite them, and soon started off a revival in her home, resulting in the congregation in the Book of Philippians.
Next time I'll tell you more about Angela.
Good bye for now.
Peter Y. Woo, 2009/5/3
Q. How have you been these last 2 weeks?
A. Floundering, like relearning how to cross a street, how to mail flu-pills or CDs back to US. (air parcels starts with 8 oz. and costs $25 USD !!! ) Of course we learned ways get through such hurdles. There were days of boredom and worries about what we were here for. Many old friends from US have moved away from KM, and some gave us even a cold shoulder when we sought to have fellowship. Some have lost contact.
Q. So did you ever think that this is the last time you would visit KM?
A. The thought did come. Gloria said our calling is more to write than to come and do many things. But suddenly God's hand began to work.
Q. Just in the nick of time?
A. Some other friend 3 years ago agreed with me that "God seems to answer our requests so clearly, when we are in this land". Thank God our recent experiences at FCBC CAF Sunday Sch showed us He answers our requests also spectacularly back in Calif.
True. When He began to show us He cares, He began to help us see what He wanted us to do, very clearly. Yesterday was our high point of the 31 days we've been here.
Q. So what did you see His hand guiding you?
A. Instead of chiding our lack of faith, He gave us a very encouraging lunch with Dr Vance. He was just as tender hearted as he was in our visit to GJ back in 2004
This spirit of his moved my heart deeply! So many servants came to this land in the last 150 years, and some were martyred, yet without a single word of blame or resentment at anybody here. Back in the 1950's there was a Dr Bill Wallace of Tennessee who would live in a hospital's basement, leaving the nurses living in the better quarters upstairs. Eventually he was martyred, without a single bitter word.
He almost begged me to stay longer periods here, for he wanted me to help the new principal of a very poor elementary school with a few hundred kids. This principal has a Ph.D. but is willing to work here with these very poor kids.
Q. So what do you see God's guiding hand here?
A. I see that God let us see great Love through this doctor's life. It is as if God is saying, "See, I can put such Love in people". And suddenly, our discouraging problems shrunk to insignificance.
Q. How about your health problems?
A. Healthwise, we again felt weak, possibly due to the 6200 feet elevation and my suspected minerals in the water. Chicken and pork here taste as tough as elephant meat. So we suddenly had a thought: go to that "Garden of Eden" Moslem restaurant. We had a good meal of beef and mutton, and we began to sleep well. This was His grace. So now we began to eat more beef, which made us feel warm, and life feels a bit better.
Q. Without fears for cholesterol?
A. We need to free ourselves of the oppression of so much fear-mongering info from the media in America. Just walk in His will, He will take care of our safety, security, and health. We are almost at the age mentioned in Psalm 90, so why worry? In any case, cholesterol is not our immediate problem. Some herbal resources can take care of it.
By the way, I throw away any email that warns us against eating this or that. I rather be ignorant of such mental menace, and trust His care, than to succomb to the temptation to acquire more and more of this unending oppressive media info. Some friend would email me such things, and eventually I have to thank him/her and say "please, I don't need to read this stuff anymore".
Q. So what is the next action from the Hand of God?
A. Some local believers began to approach Gloria and poured out their sorrows and tears. Also at Angela's home we met the group of lovely college students that Yellow Grandpa had loved and recommended to us. We like that group. We began to see that if nothing else, helping Angela and Julia (her sister) to bring these souls to the Savior, plus the revival at their home village, is something the Lord want us to help a little bit. How often do you see in your life that a new group of disciples is being born in a poor village with folks having little education eagerly and joyfully learning to sing hymns and study the Word diligently? It is almost like Paul and Barnabas seeing a new group born from the home of the businesswoman Lydia, at Philippi. Imagine their joy, and now we are tasting a bit of it.
Q. Yes, how is Angela?
A. She is very fruitful, and very mature in her thinking. Gloria had a good hour "interviewing" her on her experiences, which we recorded. Spiritually she is becoming a leader. She lives in KM here, so as to have internet access for her online seminary study needs. If any one of you want to donate $500 US for her to get a new laptop, please let me know. My 2 lb. laptop, Acer Aspire-One thing with 160 GB disk space is made in China, so available here. It will be safer for her to get a similar thing, so she can pack and carry around in her travels. Remember she has only her left arm. With US dollar dropping its value, her rent here in KM is about $1000 per year, her Office costs (computer maintenance, ink, paper, software) , her seminary study needs, her ministry, travel expenses, would be another $1000. Her food and personal needs, would amount to another $1000 per year. The 21 kids are $50 US each per year, amount to $1050. Her sister Julia at college we would support like other college kids in GwangDoong province: $1000 per year. Total: $5050 for a year. As long as these costs are itemised well, seeing the Lord using her like an apostle to her own villages, it is worth it all.