Art District

A few days ago, some of my friends and I went to the "art district" in the city. It definitely had a very different vibe to it compared to the rest of the city. First of all, many of the galleries have been built in old government buildings or factories that were used during a certain "revolution" at the end of the 60's and during the early 70's. (Think Badger Ammunition Plant in Baraboo if they decided to redo it and turn it into an art district!)



Along with works from renowned artists all over the world, different forms of art like drawings, paintings, sculptures, open areas with seemingly random collections of junk, animated videos, and interactive art, there was also a......Lebron James gallery. It was pretty lame. It was basically a basketball court and contained some of his different shoes and videos of him playing. Does he even know that he has an ART GALLERY in his name in ASIA!? The American girls I was with didn't even know who he is...

Aside from the amazing hot ham and cheese sandwich I had for lunch at one of the cafes there, by far my most memorable part of the day was walking into what seemed to be a store that was selling postcards, notebooks, etc. When I rounded the corner there turned out to be a pretty small gallery with some different paintings hanging on the walls. But what caught my attention was a wall with just a few framed collections of photographs.

Contained in each of the 10 picture frames were six 3x5 photographs of impoverished families in a small village in East Asia. I can't even begin to describe to you the living conditions that these pictures showed. I don't think I saw a single bed, bathroom, any kind of living area, etc. Only very small, gutted, concrete structures with mud for a roof. Here's some of what I wrote in my journal a couple hours later:

"But what stood out to me from the day was one small wall with just 3x5 pictures in frames of poor children/families in East Asia along with a sentence or two on their story and who they were. The buildings they were living in looked more like abandoned cement cubicles than homes. Most children were orphans or living with one parent who had either a mental or physical disability and couldn't work, and whose other parent had left long ago. Many of the families were being 'supported' by the government, probably living on less than a dollar a day.

My heart just broke for these people and I turned away in the middle of the room with tears welling up in my eyes and just being frustrated because I know that you could fill up thousands of art galleries with similar pictures from all over the world, yet I don't know what I can practically do for them. I'm not rich and I can't help much by just going to them.

There HAS TO be an easier way to allow people to see these needs and then DO SOMETHING to meet them."

A few days removed from writing this, I realize that in the moment, I may have exaggerated my inability to help. I CAN help. Relative to the rest of the world, I AM rich and I have the Best News they could ever hear. But in the moment, seeing how great their need was, I was completely overwhelmed and frustrated by all the needs in the world and my inability to even make a dent no matter how hard I try.

There are EXCELLENT organizations like World Vision and countless others that directly meet the needs of people like this. You can choose to buy a goat for a family, or clean water, or medical supplies for people in refugee camps - you KNOW where your money is going. (www.worldvision.org)

But I've still gotta believe that more can be done - better ways of allowing people to see the needs in the world, ways of allowing people to contribute to causes like these and see with their own eyes how THEIR time and money was able to save lives. Because when you get even a glimpse into the disparity of these kinds of conditions, it hardly seems like enough to just open the checkbook and cut a check to some organization and hope that the money makes it there and has some sort of impact.

I'll be brainstorming.

-CK

Snow!!!

Most of you will probably be envious, but we FINALLY had our first snow a few days ago. Until then, we hadn't had ANY form of precipitation since September. This particular city is always very dry, but even moreso this year with a severe drought happening in the northern part of the country. The government even got so desperate to try and help farmers that they used "cloud seeding" to produce rain.

It didn't last very long and we only got about an inch, but here it is:

Grocery shopping

Just got back from grocery shopping and spent $16. This should last me for a little while. Mostly snacks and stuff:



-Box of orange juice
-"Steak" Cheetos (yeah...that was an accident)
-2 packages of "Donitas" (little chocolate donuts)
-Sliced ham
-Peppers
-Small Package of Bacon
-Just over a dozen eggs
-Pack of Ritz crackers
-Pack of Oreos
-Two pineapples (already peeled!)
-Bottle of Minute Maid OJ

-CK

Culinary Adventures in East Asia

Being in this part of the world, I've had opportunities to experience a lot of different kinds of foods...and places that serve food. I do not, however, always take "advantage" of those opportunities, but I have still expanded my culinary horizons regardless.

In the past 6 months, I have tried several kinds of ethnic foods for the first time. Indian food (loved it!), Malaysian food (terrible...though Malaysia as a whole does food in general very well), Korean food, Thai food, "Middle Eastern" food, and have maintained a pretty steady diet of "street food."

Not that it's ethnic food, but I also bought peppers for the first time ever to make pasta and omelets last week. As part of our Valentine's Day date, Amy and I "made dinner together." (See picture below). Even while in a different country, she's also done a good job of helping to expand my horizons! Don't get me wrong, I'm still a meat and potatoes kind of guy, but there's not a lot of that here, so you do what you have to in order to get by! (Coincidentally, by my calculations, I've lost in the area of about 15 pounds since the end of August.)

Despite losing 15 pounds, a fairly regular staple in my diet first semester was my pack of 8 mini-chocolate donuts, or "Donettes," if you'd prefer. They don't have much for breakfast here, so it's a quick and easy solution and I could benefit from fattening myself up a little. The culinary highlight of the first semester for most of us was the opening of likely the only donut shop in the city, "Daylight Donuts." Apparently it originated in Tulsa in the 50's and has stores all over the world now, and praise the Lord, one of them is a three minute bike-ride down our street. :) Tom and I celebrated Christmas Eve in the best way we could think of...coffee and donuts at Daylight Donuts. There were tons of good donut and coffee shops in Malaysia, Western food chains (KFC's that actually had potato wedges and good chicken!), many different types of foods, etc, so it was a little depressing to come back to a country whose food is pretty monotonous in comparison.

But sometimes more interesting than the food here are the restaurants you go to. The last two times I've been to a place called "The Tube Station" that makes great subs and pizzas and is right across the street from us, I've seen a mouse running around. Unless its name is Ratatouille, it's probably not a good thing (which may or may not have contributed to my digestive issues lately).

We awarded the name "Cockroach Place" to another place we went to fairly often for their Kung Po Chicken. It was very good, cheap, and quick, but one day, one of my roommates found...you guessed it...a dead cockroach in his food. He had nearly finished by this point, but he pointed it out to one of the waitresses and she reluctantly gave him his money back. But did that stop us from going back? No. Especially not Tom. The reality is, that sort of thing probably happens a lot more often than we think here. Even so, when we returned home from Malaysia, we went to go get dinner at Cockroach Place and discovered a pile of bricks in its place. In a cruel twist of fate, Cockroach Place and the building that it was located in had been demolished.

I'll leave it at that. Go enjoy your steak and potatoes...

-CK

Adventures at the Gym

Sorry for the long absence, but I'm back from the break and am hoping to post somewhat more frequently this semester, post more pictures, and include more fun, random stories. In that spirit, let's jump right in.

At the beginning of September, we bought a membership to a gym that was in the process of remodeling but claimed it would open the first week in October. Obviously I use the word "claim," because after pushing back the opening date at least five times, the gym finally opened just before Thanksgiving.

The wait turned out to be worth it. It's actually a really nice gym, it was very cheap to become a member, and working out is something that I love doing for a number of reasons.

Maybe my favorite thing about the gym, however, is the people that work there. None of them speak a lick of English, so it's up to my Mandorin skills to carry on conversations with them, but nonetheless, it's been a lot of fun to get to know them a little bit. As is typical with this country, they always have about double the people working there as are necessary, and I'm not actually sure what one of my better friends there actually does when he works. I'm 90% sure his only job is to walk around, being friendly, and helping people to feel welcome.

One day he invited me to play basketball with the other trainers, so I showed up one Saturday afternoon to play basketball with 10 of the biggest, most athletic guys you'll ever find here! It was a great opportunity to spend time with them and get to know more of them a little bit, though I occasionally made a fool of myself by continuing to play on longer after someone had apparently called a timeout or something. I would get really excited that I had just stolen the ball and would be ready to go on the attack when I would realize that they had all stopped and were looking at me with their hands on their hips, probably thinking, "What in the world is this foreigner doing!?" Still, it's great to be able to have some kind of ministry outside of my "job" and to have some friends outside of my job - even if I can't understand them very well. It's really made me want to learn the language better as we always seem to discuss the same five things every time we see each other and then stare at each other, wishing we were better able to communicate with one another.

The best part of my day of basketball with them was getting to talk to the HUGE, head trainer from the gym. I taught him how to throw a football for awhile and we talked a bit. Previous to this, as men have a tendency to do, we would always just size each other up in the gym and never say a word to each other! He now comes over every time I'm there to see how I'm doing.

One day I made the mistake of telling him I wanted to work on strengthening a particular part of my body. I was already through 3/4 of my workout, but that didn't matter. He proceeded to put me through an intense, hour-long workout. And let's just say they do weightlifting a little different here...you don't lift a certain number of reps and sets, you just keep adding weight and doing a set number of reps over and over until you can't do anymore. And when the trainer tells you to do 8 reps, you WILL do 8 reps, even if you only have the strength to do 2 on your own and he helps with the rest! I was extremely sore for a LONG time and it was hard to even sit up for about a week! Needless to say, I try to look busy whenever he comes around from now on so he doesn't try to put me through another unorthodox workout!

I realize this is an awkward picture. Let me explain...The other day after working out, I asked my friend, the head trainer at the gym I've been talking about, if I could get a picture with him. As we prepared for the picture, he had his arms crossed and was looking as tough as possible, so I figured, "Okay...tough picture it is." Apparently he changed his mind at the last second and neglected to tell me he was going to do so. So as a result, he's smiling, and I look extremely angry. And just for the record, I have lost some weight this year, but I promise it's not as much as it looks like. This guy's just huge! And don't worry Jordan, my muscles haven't gotten any smaller and I could still take you! -CK