September 8, 2009

Pre-60 Year Chinese Liberation Extravaganza


Greetings:

As Labor Day passes in the USA and the End of Summer Fun concludes and School revs up, the Chinese are all focused on October 1, the 60th Celebration of the Liberation!  Naturally, the powers-to-be want everything to go smoothly, so there is a lot of work to maintain the 'Peace.'  This can be seen in what is happening in the West and much closer home here in Kunming.

Some of you may have heard of the Kokang Refugee crisis.  About 37,000 Kokang, Han Chinese who fled the Ming Dynasty in the 1600's and just kept going into Burma, well, now the Burmese Military Junta is driving them back into Yunnan, China. The Junta is concerned about creating a 'peaceful' atmosphere for next year's elections, which they will invariably win, but this 'consolidation' will ensure no 'ugly' heads will rear up at the last moment.

These Kokang are in the middle of Junta 'consolidation' and Chinese 'maintaining the peace.' Apparently, things are starting to calm down, which means someone was successful. Anyway, having traveled to this area and personally knowing people who have relatives in this area, has made everything more personal. So, we do think of these people and those, including ourselves that are affected by this.

More Info can found on the following sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokang

http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=16723

http://www..irrawaddy.org/multimedia2.php?art_id=441

All place names that start with Meng signifies a Dai Speaking township.

Facebook:  In the past month, several people have been asking about getting connected with our Facebook.  Well, this site has been blocked for a few months and probably will continue to be so until after the week long 60 year celebration. The celebration and the difficulties in the Western China and here in Yunnan also add to the situation. There are other sites that are blocked or cannot be downloaded. Fortunately, it has not affected the School connection, which happened in March 2008, when the Tibetan Area was in an uproar! Yunnan borders Tibet, so things can get a little exciting at times.

Singaporean Bathroom:  About a month ago, we were watching a TV special on Singapore. Interestingly, about 15 minutes of the program focused on the Bathrooms of Singapore.  According to the show, Singaporeans like their Bathrooms nicely painted and at times just plain fun!  Well, a couple of days later, I was talking with a Malaysian friend of ours, who is doing some relational and physical development in the Dai-Jingpo Autonmous region, told me how he got our mutual Singaporean colleague to bring in an Architect with the purpose of building, what else, a bathroom!  It is what the village needed and they had skill and the money to make it happen!!

Please keep these Malaysian and Singaporean folks in mind. They are very creative and aggressive, but wise enough not to push things too far too fast.  They are doing excellent work!

Western Cuisine English Day: This coming Saturday is another English Club at the local Public Library. The topic is Western Cuisine. Afterwards, we will go an Italian Restaurant owned and operated by Rocco who is from Napoli, Italy, the Birthplace of the Pizza.  It will cost Elaine and I about $10 to get authentic Neopolitan Food!

Woman's Getaway: Elaine has signed up with about 80 other woman from Yunnan and Greater China to attend a weekend Woman's Getaway.  The will be at a Spa and will have speakers from the USA there.  It has been a long time, since she has done anything like this, but she is looking forward to it!  She has been to only one conference since 2004, so it may take her a while to get into the flow of things.  She may even experience some "Cultural Re-entry" issues since it will be very Western in flavor.

Shadow the Husky, the Neighborhood Terror:  A young couple has returned to the States for 10 days to attend a wedding and we are watching their 7 month mostly housebroken, 45 pound Husky.  Since, we have a nice area for Dogs to run-around, I let him go.  On a typical morning walk, he will tree about 3 cats and scatter a few more and inflict fear on all the other smaller dogs! At his age, he has no fear, although a couple of cats have stood their ground and nearly clipped him with their claws!

Marx?:  I have been growing Beard for about 6 weeks now.  It is the first time I have grown one while in China.  The response of the Chinese has been interesting.  A few of the responses have been, "You look like Karl Marx!" Of course, if in the USA, I highly doubt Marx would be the first person off the lips of who I look like!

Musings: This past Saturday, we went shopping at our favorite supermarket called Metro, the German version of Sam's Club. On the way, the taxi driver, a woman in her 40's asked me if I was Christian. Since she was, we rambled on about the various local Pastor's we knew at the 3-Self Church. She added on that the local 'Trinity Church' now has a 'Daughter Church' near the Supermarket and she would show it to us.  They are vigorously looking for land to build a new one on for the current facilities are overflowing and it has only been there 3 years! She also gave me her testimony and we discussed on how best to communicate the message to those we care about.

I present her as a typical face of those attending the local 3-self Church.

Thanks for thinking of us!

Doug, Elaine, Clara and Colman (Who just turned 14 this past Sunday!) Culver