September, 2024 → Capturing Language and Photos

Awakening the World

September 16, 2024

I started teaching in China back in the Summer of 1999. I remember being told Chinese people don’t believe in God and a number of students told me that they were atheists. I just said okay. I had grown up hearing that every person has a God shaped hole in their heart that only the Lord can fill, but what could I say? It didn’t feel like there was anything I could say. Tracy and I got to go on a 6 day trip to JiuZhaiGou, China this past summer. It was amazing. Probably the icing on the cake for…

An Insiders Look at a Thai Refugee Camp

September 6, 2024

My wife and I had been hoping to go visit the Myanmar refugees in Thailand for quite some time now, but due to the political instability we didn’t know if we would be able to or not. We visited Maesot. It is one of 9 refugee camps in Thailand and it is about a 6 hour drive from Chiang Mai. Along the six hour drive there were several check points, where we were asked to stop and let officials to examine our passports. I don’t think we could have done it by ourselves. I am so glad we went. Hearing…

Buying Shrimp Without Thai

September 5, 2024

The alternative to connecting with others around language is body language, noises, acting, use of a smartphone and whatever else one might have at their disposal. Of course, people don’t bother going through all of this hassle unless they have a good reason. For us, my wife, friend Ting Ho and I that good reason was dried shrimp. We wanted 5KG of it. If you want to see the video of the trip chick here. We didn’t know exactly where we were going, but my Ting Ho was pretty familiar with the market and the process. He also had an…

Fake it Till You Make it?

September 2, 2024

Fake it till you make it? A few years back, I interviewed a friend Hubert. Hubert’s English is native. That makes sense. He grew up in Singapore and they speak English and Mandarin there, but that’s not all. Hubert speaks Cantonese. Yes, his family spoke it to him when he was growing up, but he didn’t use it a lot. Hubert’s Cantonese ability really took off when he moved to Hong Kong to go to university. I know that’s crazy; learning Cantonese at university because he had to. Of course, all of his subjects were in Cantonese. One of the…