Sunday Visit in the Countryside

Our intern is working out an arrangement for his son to come down during winter vacation next week to work for a week on the cow farm where 3 children from my Saturday English Club live.  He prefers that his son learn the value of hard work rather than sit around just playing on the computer and watching TV. So this morning I went with him to check out the farm first.

My main reason for wanting to go was to see my students. They were hard at work when we arrived.

Winnie and Jane’s aunt and her parents presently have over 300 heads of cattle on their farm, which includes dozens of calves but no bulls. I  was surprised that, unlike cattle in the U.S., they are still primarily  grass and hay-fed. The owners import grass and hay (along with corn, of course) from the United States.

Each cow has two numbers on its ear- one for the company that the cow belongs to and the other for the farmers. There’s also a number on the side of their back.

The grandfather and his wife live in a separate house 50 yards or so over. The grandkids (and maybe one set of parents) live in the elevated house below right:

The large sticks are to keep the calves moving between pens, as you can see below:

More Lessons from the Birds

Following up on my last post, there are few other things we can learn from the birds about being good cross-cultural learners and workers.

First, from the clip below, we must maintain the active, inquisitive attitude of the learner. It’s important to have fun! And not just to just stay stuck up in the ivory tower (or, in this case, with your head stuck down in the feed can). Maybe you even want to get a little crazy when you’re practicing what you’re picking up!

Let’s take this reminder from two of my other birds-- Precious (Mandarin 寶貝 Bao3Bei4) and Bala (Guava): As international workers finding ourselves on the receiving end of abundant, unmerited blessings we have neither earned nor deserve, we want to rescue the perishing… to pass those blessings on. But will Precious come to the rescue of Guava?

 

Let’s shake hands with Custard-Apple to thank him for his assistance in these two posts!

Custard-Apple, the Multi-Lingual Parrot

Some people say that crossing cultures, learning other languages, etc. is for the birds. Well, let’s learn from the birds! Specifically, what an Indian Ring-Neck parrot named Sek-khia can teach us about being an effective cross-cultural/language learner.

By the way, “Sek-kia”  (釋迦 Shi4Jia1 in Mandarin) means “custard- apple” in the Taiwanese/Hoklo language. The custard-apple is a  sweet fruit here in Taiwan, Thailand, and maybe a few other places:

Now back to my Custard-Apple… Sek-khia the multi-lingual parrot’s first language, as far as I am aware, was Mandarin. He (she?) spoke it the very first day I inherited him:

你好可愛 (Ni3 Hao3 ke3ai4) means “You are very cute.”

Next, Sek-khia moved on to pick up the Taiwanese or Hoklo language:

“Mai2 Khun3” means “don’t sleep.”

Sek-khia then moved on to his third tongue, English:

 

Sek-khia can also converse in the Hmong or Miao tongue (the Miao are a indigenous people in China and elsewhere):

Tangentially, I have also been told that Sek-khia could converse in the dog tongue, but that was before I inherited him and I have never heard him utter it. With languages, if you don’t use it, you lose it, just like my three years of high school and college German! I thought that next I would work with Custard-Apple to acquire elvish, the dwarf tongue, and maybe a few words of Orcish.

Alas, you won’t have a chance in this post to hear what my other bird, Precious (Mandarin 寶貝 Bao3Bei4) can say: “stop that”, “shut Up” , “I love you” ,“Mai Khun” and especially a very funny laugh! She’s too shy to be recorded.

Lantern Festival Celebration in Chiayi

New Year’s Day I was in Chiayi in south/central Taiwan and saw  what I suppose is the giant lantern for this year’s National Lantern Festival, which rotates among locations in Taiwan every year. Too bad I won’t be in Taiwan for Chinese New Year’s this year. However, having visited the national celebration a few years in a row in in the late 90’s when I first moved to Taipei, I haven’t really had the urge to fight the crowd.

 

Pilgrim Learners

Today over lunch at McD’s (yes, sometimes I stoop this low here in Taiwan) I was reading chapter 6 of Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt, and Certainty in Christian Discipleship by the late Lesslie Newbigin. Suddenly, I happened upon the word “pilgrim”.

At this exact moment, in order to drown out the loud music in the fast food restaurant, I encountered for the very first time the song “Pilgrim” by the artist Enya stored in my mp3 player. The confluence of events caught my attention immediately. Here are the lyrics and a link to Enya’s lovely song:

 

 

Pilgrim, how you journey
On the road you chose
To find out why the winds die
And where the stories go.

All days come from one day
That much you must know,
You cannot change what's over
But only where you go.

One way leads to diamonds,
One way leads to gold,
Another leads you only
To everything you're told.

In your heart you wonder
Which of these is true;
The road that leads to nowhere,
The road that leads to you.

Will you find the answer
In all you say and do?
Will you find the answer
In you?

Each heart is a pilgrim,
Each one wants to know
The reason why the winds die
And where the stories go.

Pilgrim, in your journey
You may travel far,
For pilgrim it's a long way
To find out who you are...

Pilgrim, it's a long way
To find out who you are...
Pilgrim, it's a long way
To find out who you are...

A lovely song (I still like her theme from Lord of the Rings better), but I have to disagree with the lyrics stating that the answers lie in “the road that leads to you”. Here’s what Newbigin was saying in the very instant I simultaneously encountered the word pilgrim both in the mp3 and the book:

“If we allow the Bible to be that which we attend to above all else, we will be saved from two dangers: The first is the danger of the closed mind. The Bible leaves an enormous space open for exploration (ie. if you interpret it correctly—neither as fundamentalists nor as liberals do). If our central commitment is to Jesus, who is the Word of God incarnate in our history, we shall know that in following him we have the clue to the true understanding of all that is, seen and unseen, known and yet to be discovered. We shall therefore be confident explorers. The second is the danger of the mind open at both ends, the mind which is prepared to entertain anything but has a firm hold of nothing. We shall be saved from the clueless wandering which sometimes takes to itself the name of pilgrimage.  A pilgrim is one who turns his back on some familiar things and sets his face in the direction of the desired goal. The Christian is called to be a pilgrim, a learner to the end of her days. But she knows the Way.” (p. 91-92)

May the biblical story continue to awaken my imagination and challenge and stimulate my thinking and acting (91). May I also, while seeking to be a lifelong learner encountering different fields beyond my ability to completely comprehend, trying to understand different kinds of books, etc.  – continue to be a confident explorer yet humble, not arrogant), fighting the good fight, perservering in the quest.