Chinese Food (Photo Dump)

Fast food. Tofu, peaches, and eggs with tomatoes. (And rice, but in China that's not even worth mentioning.)

I think this was lamb or beef.

Pork.

Broccoli.

Western-style breakfast at a super-expensive hotel.

Oreos and vanilla ice cream. Probably too sweet for most Chinese people.

Here is a carton of milk. But what's this? The straw seems way too short! What's going on???

The straw is actually telescoping. Have you ever heard of that before? It's a disposable straw- seems way over-engineered to me.

Straw expands this far and locks.

Yay then you can drink your milk. (This type of milk doesn't have to be refrigerated, by the way. Yeah it's cow's milk. But different from US milk.)

Pizza at a western bar.

Burger and fries at a western bar.

I told them not to make the chicken too spicy, so they made it really really salty and added rice krispy treats instead. (No those are not actually rice krispy treats.)

南瓜饼(nánguā bǐng). Pumpkin biscuits.

I bought frozen 南瓜饼(nánguā bǐng) and fried them up myself. Nailed it.

Kiwi juice. Can we all just take a moment and marvel at the existence of kiwi juice?

Beef curry.

Fancy hot chocolate.

Fast food. The food's not that great, but man, that bottle of iced tea. I love that stuff.

I bought imported pasta and sauce. And yes I ate it with chopsticks.

Not pictured: cheesecake.
(It's actually a cheese muffin. China has an epidemic of things that are not cakes being translated as "cake.")

Eggplant.

So there's this really sweet ice cream place where they mix up the ice cream right there for you.

Liquid nitrogen and all that. (液氮 (yè dàn) in Chinese)

Oreo ice cream. And look at the tiny spoons! If you buy some kind of dessert thing in China I guarantee you will never ever get a "regular-sized" spoon.

Mango smoothie.

Noodles and stuff.

Potato wedges and sausages. Not very Chinese...

Delicious beef with rice and lettuce. And a side of strange tofu-y soup.

香锅(xiāng guō). This is my favorite ever! You get to pick out all the ingredients, and then they fry it up for you.

Chicken curry.

Oh my goodness, have I told you about the wonderfulness that is hot pot? So you have this pot of boiling soup stuff in the middle of your table (the table has a heating element) and then you order various foods and boil them in the hot pot. Amazing.

Foods for the hot pot: potato slices, quail eggs (hardboiled), rice sticks (??? how do we say 年糕 in English???), pork meatballs.

Foods for the hot pot: lamb, potato slices, tofu skin.

My dad brought pancake mix from America. It's almost gone- I need to find somewhere to buy more! I should go to Shanghai- they have everything in Shanghai, right?

Dad also brought syrup from America. So I guess this doesn't count as Chinese food.

And that's why I don't pray anymore

I read Libby Anne's post, Prayer That Can’t Go Wrong, and wow, that is exactly how I used to pray. In the post, Libby Anne talked about what her mother prayed as the whole family searched for missing glasses: "Lord Jesus, please show us where David’s glasses are. You know where they are, Lord, and he needs them. But if it is not your will for us to find them, we understand."

Image source.

Yep. Back in college, I used to pray so much and I TOTALLY had a relationship with God. Prayed about EVERYTHING. And I TOTALLY trusted God. God would protect me and bring good things. And even if he didn't, even if something bad happened, even if I died, it was all in his control and somehow it would be okay. He knew what was best for everyone and he would do it.

And as Libby Anne points out, this way of thinking means prayer can't fail. Yep. I always trusted God and was so happy. I was so confident that God would protect me, and everything would be okay. (Obviously you can't use it as proof that God exists, since anything that happens can be explained as "God's plan"- and I didn't try to use it as proof of that. Instead, it was the logical result of my beliefs about what God is like.)

Unfortunately, thinking like this can get kind of victim-blame-y. Because, you know, if I hear about something bad that happened to someone, I would think maybe it's because they didn't pray. If you pray, God will protect you. He wouldn't let things that are SO NOT OKAY happen.

I remember one time at a prayer meeting, we prayed for victims of a recent earthquake. My friend, who brought up the prayer request, mentioned that a lot of students were taking exams when the earthquake happened, and they were buried by it.

And I was shocked at the thought that some people just like me, college students taking exams, would die like that. That is SO NOT OKAY. How could this happen?

But they lived in a third-world country. Of course that kind of thing happens in third-world countries. They're not just like me. It's okay.

See? Blaming the victim. It's their fault for living in the third-world country. It happens. Because I couldn't bear the thought that someone like me or my friends could be killed like that.

America. Bad things don't happen here. (Full disclosure: I now live in China.) Image source.

And then, I got sick. Turned out it was my gall bladder. Every day I felt like I had to throw up. All I could do was lay on the couch and wonder how I would ever finish my masters thesis.

How could God let that happen? I had planned to graduate and move to China. Somehow that got delayed by a whole year. Turns out I can't trust God to not let my own organs bring my whole life and all my plans to a stop for an indefinite period of time. I had no idea that could happen to me.

It's not okay.

And it turns out, a lot of NOT OKAY things happen every day.

So what's the point of prayer? There is no "God will protect us and even if bad things happen, everything will be okay."

God never promised to keep this from ruining your life. Image source.

I should clarify that I do still pray, but not very much, and not about the same things I used to.

And I wish I could "have a relationship with God" like I used to, but all that certainty is gone now. I don't even know if it's possible anymore.

All the certainty is gone now.

Wrath and Justice?

Image source.

God's wrath came and went, and the writer of Psalm 85 is asking God to "restore us again" in the aftermath.

So... what's the point of "wrath"? And how does it relate to justice?

One view says that God was punishing his people for worshiping other gods. Which is bad because that's the wrong religion. It's a sin against God, and his wrath builds up, but he graciously waits and gives them chances to repent. But finally enough is enough and he punishes his people by sending an invading army or something. And then the survivors repent and get back to being the right religion and it's all good, kinda.

And all of that fits well with this psalm.

Except I don't believe that anymore. I don't think it's just to punish and kill people for believing the "wrong" religion. They're not hurting anyone, they just have some misconceptions about spiritual things. (We all do, so what does it matter?)

And now I think that God was angry about the "worshiping other gods" thing because those religions involved bad stuff like human sacrifice and forced prostitution. And also the rich weren't so nice to the poor. God's not angry about what they believe, but what they do to other people. So yes, absolutely, put that stuff to a stop!

But, umm... the whole "God, in his mercy, waits and keeps giving his people chances to repent"? In other words, God lets the human rights violations continue, he lets the powerful take advantage of the weak, in the hope that the bad people will change their ways and he won't have to punish them?

Well, that's not very feminist.

And in Psalm 85, okay, God's wrath has punished his people. (All the people? Weren't there some innocent victims in this?) The psalmist prays for restoration, but I can't help wondering if anything had changed. Would the powerful still take advantage of the weak? Would there still be human sacrifices and other horrible stuff?

What was the point of God's wrath? Was it just "God has 500 units of anger, so he's going to throw down 500 units of punishment on his people, and then all will be right with the world"? Does he care who exactly sinned against whom? Does he care about protecting those who are powerless, or is it just "this whole society has gone bad- BURN IT!!!!!!!!"

Where is the justice? Is God's wrath about justice or not?

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This post is part of a link-up on the topic of Psalm 85. To read other people's posts, click here: Sometimes The Bible is Enough.

Blogaround

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1. Stay-at-home Dad Leaves Post-Its for his Wife (posted January 13) "I don't buy a toy thinking about how much the kid will like playing with it. I buy it based on how much it will hurt when I eventually step on it in the dark."

2. Noah’s Extremely Bad Animal Husbandry Advice (posted December 5, 2013) "If I saw something like that in my neighbor’s garage, I’d call animal welfare."

3. This Nigerian doctor runs his hospital on corn cobs and used bike parts (posted January 9)

4. These kittens:

Image source.

5. Unstoppable Grace: Thoughts on the Gay Christian Network Conference (posted January 15) "I speak at dozens of Christian conferences in a given year, and I can say without hesitation that I’ve never attended a Christian conference so energized by the Spirit, so devoid of empty showmanship or preoccupation with image, so grounded in love and abounding in grace."

6. China's noisy dancing retirees have local residents up in arms (posted January 19) Posting this because it is SO TRUE. There are always groups of old people dancing outside in the evenings in China.

7. Ask an Open Theist (Greg Boyd)... Response (posted January 16) "But when events take place that God knew were improbable, it makes sense to say he experiences something like surprise."

Cain and Family (A Logic Problem)

In this post, Cain’s wife and Tubal-cain’s sonic screwdriver, Slacktivist takes a look at Genesis 4 and argues that it doesn't make sense at all to read it as something that literally happened.

And I pretty much want to quote every part of this post, because it says EXACTLY what I used to believe and then how that very obviously can't be right, and you guys, Slacktivist is my favorite blog.

Anyway. Now that I'm thinking about it, I realize every time I've read Genesis 4, I've run into some issues with the timeline and such.

At first everything is very straightforward. Adam and Eve's sons, Cain and Abel. God likes Abel's offering better than Cain's. Cain is jealous and he kills Abel. Then God shows up to give Cain a little talk and tell him he'll be punished. So far it all makes sense. But then we get to verse 14: "I will be a restless wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me."

Umm, wait, who would find him and kill him? I thought the only people were Adam and Eve and Cain. And maybe a few other siblings that aren't mentioned. Why is he worried about encountering an unfriendly stranger while wandering?

To figure this out, we must construct a massive logic problem! Oh this will be fun. There are a bunch of events we must put in order:

1. Cain kills Abel.
2. God speaks to Cain about his punishment.
3. Cain and his wife start a family and build a city.
4. Adam and Eve have another son, Seth.
5. There are enough generations of people that Cain is justified in his fear of encountering a random stranger.

And what do we know?

1 comes before 2. That's obvious. ("The bible is clear...")

2 comes before 3. The way the text is written, it seems that way. But I'm open to the idea of switching that around to get the logic problem to work...

1 comes before 4. In verse 25, Seth is born, and Eve says it's great she has a new son to replace Abel. So Seth is the first son born after Abel's death.

5 comes before 2. Because Cain says he's concerned about that.

5 cannot be between 1 and 2. That would mean Cain kills Abel, then several generations go by as the human population multiplies, then God gets around to punishing Cain.

5 cannot be between 1 and 4. Because Seth has to be the first son born to Eve after Abel's death. How could generations and generations go by, of Eve having no kids/ only daughters, and then she has a son? Even if you believe that women back then could have kids much much older than now, it's not gonna be a hundred years between sons.

Here are the possible solutions:

51423

51243

51234

In each of these, 5 is before 1. The earth already has a big population of people Cain is not acquainted with, before Cain kills Abel.

But wait! Here's another fun piece of information. Genesis 5:3 says, "After Adam had lived 130 years, he had a son in his own likeness, in his own image; and he named him Seth."

Darn. We're only allowed 130 years before event number 4. But every possible solution has 5 occurring before 4.

So, back to the drawing board...

How long does it take for a population to grow from 2 to "enough people that it's likely you'd encounter a random stranger when you're out wandering"?

Well, how many children are Adam and Eve going to have in those 130 years? Let's say 50, because Eve was superwoman.

Half of them are daughters. And they're all superwoman too. They can all have 50 kids. So let's add it up:

First generation: 2
Second generation: 50
Third generation: 1250
Total: 1302 
Hmm, okay, maybe there can be a massive population unacquainted with Cain. Then again, some people have that many Facebook friends.

And maybe Eve's older daughters would even be having grandchildren by then.

But... all of this before Cain even kills Abel?

I always thought the point of this story was "oh goodness, look at how fast sin is wreaking havoc on the world- in the first family we already have brothers killing each other!" But... if there are already a thousand people... and only one guy who kills his brother... and the majority of people don't even know Cain... then... wha?

And wait a second, why would Eve say that she's happy about Seth's birth because now she has a son in place of Abel, if she already had 1000 descendants?

"He can have Abel's old room." Image source.

You know, to be honest, to me this story reads like "Adam and Eve were the first humans. Oh but right there were a bunch of foreign people already there of course, but they don't count." Very ethnocentric, viewing foreigners only as a possible threat to Cain, not as people who need to be incorporated into this whole "this is where humans came from" story.

Chew on that for a bit.

Image source.

But anyway...

So it didn't really happen. So all this effort to try to understand the timeline misses the whole point. Well then, what is the point? If it didn't happen, why was it written down?

And seriously, what was with this bit in Genesis 4:23-24, where a dude named Lamech tells his two wives some cryptic bit of poetry about how he killed someone? I mean, if we're saying that didn't really happen, then... why would someone invent this and write it down?

This is a question about the culture back then. We can't understand the author's intention and what the stories would have meant to the original audience without knowing a bit about the culture. And, uh, I don't. I just do logic problems, you guys.

Church

How lovely is your dwelling place,
    Lord Almighty!
My soul yearns, even faints,
    for the courts of the Lord;
my heart and flesh cry out
    for the living God.

Psalm 84:1-2

I knew I would wake up early because of the jet lag, so I planned to leave my apartment at 6 am. I waited for the bus in the dark. When I got off the bus, I noticed that another woman who got off was carrying a bible. Turns out she was going to church too.

It was an hour before the service would start, and the church was about half full. This church gets totally packed- if you arrive like, on time, you probably won't be able to get a seat. I've determined that 30-45 minutes early is a good time for me to get there.

There's a guy up front, in a winter coat, leading the congregation in some songs to pass the time before church starts. It's cold in the church- because in China, there's not really an expectation that when you go inside a building, you take your coat off and you're warm and happy. Nope, in the winter people wear their winter coats everywhere.

So anyway. We sing from the hymnal, then the guy up front gives a little talk about the meaning of the song, etc, then we sing again, and finally the actual church service starts.

Just like always, there was singing and praying and a sermon. But this service was special. It was my first time having communion in China.

A ton of ushers came forward, and the pastor gave each one a tray of communion bread. They spread throughout the whole congregation- and many went outside, presumably to the overflow seating area. One by one, each pew received the bread. The usher would stand at the end of the pew, and we had to scoot down and bunch up there as he or she handed it to each person and said, "这是基督的身体，舍给你。" ("This is the body of Christ, given for you." Sorry if my Chinese grammar isn't exactly right...) The bread was a thin little wafer, pretty much the same as what I'm used to in American churches.

The pastor stood up front and asked if there was anyone who did not receive the bread (饼 (bǐng) in Chinese). Then he told the whole congregation to stand up, and said, "On the night Jesus was betrayed, he took bread..." the exact same script as my church at home, except in Chinese. And we all ate the little wafers.

Same thing with the grape juice. The ushers passed it out, in little plastic cups just like my church in America, and the pastor recited the part about Jesus giving it to his disciples, and we all drank.

Image source.

It was great. It was amazing. It was familiar, but it was Chinese. It felt like finding God.

And I love going to church, but... I haven't really connected with anyone there. I want to- I remember in college how many wonderful Christian friends I had, and how we always cared about each other and helped each other and studied the bible together. I want that, I want to get to know people from that church, but... what if they don't accept me? Because I don't believe in hell, and a bunch of other things that I always thought Christians are "supposed to" believe in.

I just want to come into church and listen and sing the songs and observe... but actual interaction with other Christians feels kinda scary.

But I want to try.

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This post is part of a link-up on the topic of Psalm 84. To read other people's posts, click here: Lovely, a Poem Inspired by Psalm 84.

Blogaround

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1. Remember the Pastor Trying Out Atheism for a Year? He Just Got Fired by His Christian Employers. Let’s Help Him Out (posted January 6) This blogger is doing an awesome thing. ^_^

2. The American Church's Absence of Lament (posted October 2013) "CCLI tracks the songs that are employed by local churches, and its list of the top 100 worship songs as of August 2012 reveals that only five of the songs would qualify as a lament."

3. Brrr! It's too cold for even a polar bear (posted January 7) "'They're in the snow,' lead animal keeper Kathy Suthard said of the tigers. 'They're rolling. They do have heated beds in their backup area. But usually when I come in e morning, they're lying in the snow. This doesn’t bother them at all.'"

4. Epiphany: Jesus wept. (posted January 6) "And then God Almighty — God who laid the foundation of the earth, who determined its measurements when the morning stars sang together, God who commands the morning and causes the dawn to know its place, God who bound the chains of the Pleiades and loosed the cords of Orion — wept."

5. I Chose the Tears (posted January 6) "And so halfway through my sermon I started to weep. Hard. I described each terror of hell with tears rolling down my face."

6. This dog and cat:

Image source.

7. R. C. Sproul's self-exalting "solidarity" with God's holiness (posted January 9) "If we just read the story at face value, what we come away with is that God is not safe to be around, not that Nadab and Abihu are inexcusably arrogant traitors who deserve to burn in hell forever."

8. How Not to Share the Gospel (posted Dec 11, 2013) "And the more you dig and presume that we must have some secret tragedy that explains why we don’t believe what you do, the angrier I am likely to get at you."

"When did we see you sick...?"

A ton of people helped me when I was sick recently. Taking me to see doctors, paying for treatment, working out logistics, contacting people who needed to be contacted- everything.

I was helpless, and they sacrificed so much of their own time and money to help me. 

When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 

I was overwhelmed and grateful. You know, American culture is so individualistic, and Chinese culture puts so much value on connections between people- maybe that's why I didn't want to ask anyone for help. I didn't want to bother anyone. But they helped me anyway.

All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

Lydia- whom I had never met before- drove in from another city an hour away to take me to the hospital. She came because my dad had contacted her- they both work for the same company. I can't even begin to express how much she did for me.

And her friend, Shen, whom I'd also never met. Driving us to one hospital after another. Buying food for me. At one point, waiting in the hospital next to him, in my sick and exhausted state, I realized I didn't even know his name. So I asked him, in Chinese, and told him my Chinese name.

I'll probably never see him again.

Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 

One of the managers from my job visited me in the morning, at the shady Chinese hospital where I spent one night. When they moved me to the actual good international hospital in Shanghai, she rode in the car with us.

And how did I get moved to the actual good international hospital in Shanghai? My dad was making tons of phone calls to colleagues that worked in China, and they kept saying "you need to get her to Shanghai or Hong Kong." One of them, we'll call him Jeff, called me and asked if I wanted him to send a car and driver to get me and take me to Shanghai. I was so tired and confused, I was just like "... I don't know..." He sent a driver. That's how I got to Shanghai.

And Lydia was in the front seat, on the phone with my workplace to get the insurance information, then on the phone with the hospital, on the phone with everybody.

'For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, 

A colleague from one of the Shanghai offices of the language school where I work met us at the hospital. He didn't know me. He called and texted a couple more times over the next few days to see if I needed anything.

'I was a stranger and you invited my in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, 

My dad's boss's boss's sister happened to live in Shanghai. She and her husband visited me at the hospital. She brought throat drops for me. And prayed for me.

'I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'

My boyfriend's mom flew in from another city to take care of me.

A friend agreed to watch my cat while I was in Shanghai.

Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 

My dad came all the way from America to see me.

And how did he get here? Jeff. Jeff helped with the paperwork for the visa. Jeff booked a hotel for him. Jeff sent a driver to pick him up at the airport. And so much more.

'When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 

And my boyfriend. He did so much. He was out of town when he heard I was getting worse and was staying at a shady Chinese hospital- and he spent the whole night on a train so he could come see me.

While Jeff's driver was taking me to Shanghai, my boyfriend was cleaning my apartment. So I wouldn't come home to a mess. I hadn't been able to clean it for maybe a whole week- and that includes my cat's litter box. And he gathered some clothes and stuff and brought them to Shanghai for me.

My boyfriend took 3 days off work to stay at the hospital and help me. He fed me pasta when I hardly had the strength to eat. He rolled the IV machine into the bathroom every time I needed it. He woke up in the night to call the nurse when my IV needed to be changed.

'When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'

He's not a Christian. We're "unequally yoked," according to the usual interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6:14. But that verse also says, "For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?"

Is he darkness?

With all he did, all the time and energy and money he spent because he loves me. Is he wickedness? Is he darkness?

Tons of people helped me. Some are Christians, some are not. Does it matter? Are they going to hell?

The King will reply, 'Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.'

I talk a lot about praying uncensored...

I talk a lot about praying uncensored, but I don't really do it. That's what I thought about this week, reading Psalm 83.

The psalmist asks God to kill his enemies. Wow, that's scary, we shouldn't really be praying that. Killing people is bad. But actually, wait. The psalmist is being honest, telling God how he genuinely feels. And that's so important. At least, I always say it is...

But I don't pray much. Why not? I don't know... maybe because I don't get the purpose? Or I don't think I have much worth saying to God? I don't know.

And I know the bible says, over and over, that we're supposed to pray. So that's my challenge for myself: For 7 days, I'll pray uncensored and write it all down in my journal. I'll tell God whatever's on my mind, even though it's not normal prayer stuff.

Well, that's all. This blog post was short, so please enjoy this picture of a pig:

Image source.

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This post is part of a link-up on the topic of Psalm 83. To read other people's posts, click here: What are you doing God?

Blogaround

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1. More Than 300 Sharks In Australia Are Now On Twitter (posted January 1)

2. January 1: Ecce Foreskin (posted January 1) "For medieval and early modern Christians, Jesus’ foreskin remained an object of peculiar veneration, with as many as eighteen different reliquary nubs of flesh competing for attention and honor."

3. A Stress Analysis of a Strapless Evening Gown (posted December 31, 2013) Physics!

4. 4 Things I Learned from the Worst Online Dating Profile Ever (posted January 4) This is hilarious. Language is NSFW.