Winter always seems to be the busiest time of the year.  Most festivals and holidays seem to fall in winter.  Just as I thought I’d have time to quiet myself down, I was totally wrong.  In fact, holidays were much busier than regular days.  There were so many things that could occupy my time: family dinner, friends gathering, movies, TV, computer games, etc…   Even those times when I took the train to work or got off work, I would carry an MP3 with me and kept myself from being quiet.  When I didn’t have it with me, I realized that I’d be constantly checking the advertisements that are posted in the train station.  Or even worse, I would be constantly occupying myself by checking on the phone, messaging people through Whatsapp, Facebook, or Twitter.  It seems to be impossible to have a time for me to truly quiet myself down and reflect on myself.

A research has found that noise can disturb our sleep, limit our learning, increase aggression, trigger impatience, suppress our immunity, increase our risk of heart disease and even stop us from helping one another!  The result of this research has certainly proven to be true in Hong Kong.  For some reasons, we just couldn’t stop noticing the noise around us, and forget about listening to one another.  We forget how important it is to listen to our friends, our families and God.

In the Bible, Jesus behaved very differently.  He would often withdraw to lonely places and pray.  Although Jesus was so busy teaching and preaching to his followers, Jesus never forgot to spend time alone and pray to God.  By spending time alone, we could often reflect on ourselves and draw closer to God.  Although March might be just another busy month for all of us, let us learn from Jesus on how to be quiet in a noisy surroundings.

PS: An article in the news letter that i wrote for my company which will be posted in March.

I haven't updated this blog for a long time.  I never wanted to give up this blog, but I just didn't have the strength to write.  As I'm graduating soon, I'm hoping to pick it up from where I left off.

A recording that I did for a good friend of my about a month ago.

Prologue

The last time I posted for this trip was Oct 17^th, 2010.  This means I didn’t put on a public post for 8 months.  I was really struggling within these 8 months.  I didn’t stop writing.  I posted a few private posts here and there.  But I was struggling to find a title for this part; struggling to find a balance in life.  Sometimes when you are working so hard into your goals, you might lose direction.  But when the 2^nd Sichuan trip arrives, it forces me to stop and think about what I was doing within the year.  So after the 2^nd trip To Sichuan, I decided to continue again, to finish all of the parts together as one.

The theme for 2^nd workshop was “memorize or someone they’d miss” and it had became pretty much of a disaster.   With the confident we build from the 1^st workshop, we thought that it would be easy for us to handle.  In fact, it did not turn out to be what we would have expected.  The night before, we planned me and Ah Sze, another member of MIFF, to share at the workshop.  As we had discussed, I was going to share how I felt for my dad’s death and Ah Sze would share about his feelings towards his parent’s sickness.  I was kind of nervous about my sharing because I had never thought about share this story of my life to anyone at all.  I didn’t even use this as my testimony for my baptism.  As we were discussed at night, I tried to tell what had happen to me to the music team and said, “My dad got kidnapped and died when I was 10.”  I was so detached and so unemotional when I said that 1 line which shocked the whole team .  I explained that it had happened for a long time ago and I’d already lost all the emotion towards it.  I wasn't sure whether I was ready to share my story with the students.  So we decided that if I really couldn't share about it, we would just skip my part of the sharing section.

I thought about it for the whole night and I digged deep into thought when I was at the age of 10.  Before the 2^nd workshop began, I asked my “star group” leader to pray for me and I told my teammates that I was ready to go.

The 2^nd workshop started with pretty much the same songs that we played at the beginning of the 1^st workshop.  We realized that everyone looks very tired and nobody looks as energize as those who were in the 1^st workshop.  We started to worry, but as most of us are experienced performer, we knew that “the show must go on”.  I started to share no matter how they react.  Although, I knew that they might not have any reaction at all, but all I was thinking was that my job was to share my life with them.  I asked someone to translate my Cantonese into Mandarin.  To my surprised, I almost cried when I shared.  I told them that for a long time after my dad's death, I thought that my dad’s death was unrealistic.  I didn’t believe that it was actually a reality.  Then after I couple of months, I told myself that it was real.  My dad really had died.   When those words came out of my mouth, I almost couldn't go on with my sharing.  I paused for a moment and hold my tears.  Then everyone clapped their hands to support me.  I told them that, we are the same.  They had been through a huge tragedy and so did I.  So I went to them, and told them that we care for them.

A student actually stood up and told me that everything had past.  As long as i live with my dream, everything would be alright.  It was ironic that those words were actually from their mouth.  I nodded.  Then I introduced a song that I wanted to share with them.  The song I choose was written my Gloria Tang.

After all the sharing, the composing part started.  I guess the topic of this workshop had made the students’ energy even lower.  However, I really appreciate the fact that every one of them were still trying their best to focus on the workshop and tried to appreciate it.  That is surely something hard to find in Hong Kong.  Just as the 1^st workshop, they were divided into groups and started to compose their own lyrics.  The groups were mostly 10 people or more.  What catches my attention was I saw a group of 2 girls and 2 boys sitting by themselves without doing anything.  So, I went to sit with them and tried my best to communicate with them.  I brought Ah Sze with me so that he could help me with some translation.  At 1^st, 4 of them were unwilling to write anything down.  I asked them why they refuse to write.  They explained that they did not want to recall anything from the earthquake.  I didn’t want to force them so I just stayed there and tried to know them a bit more.  I also asked why there were only 4 of them and they explained that most of their friends were drunk last night and were still sleeping.  Soon I realized most of their friends were actually sacrificed to the earthquake.  I was shocked when I realized that, but I keep my head down and tried to motivate them.  Finally, one of them picked up his pen and started to write.  His name was Chan Man.  I asked him who he wrote for and he told me that that line was for his younger sister who died in the earthquake.

The next step of the workshop was to select 1 line out of all the lines that everyone wrote in each group as the lyrics of the song.  I pulled Chan Man out as soon as Adrian requested for a lyrics.  I wanted to make sure that Chan Man’s lyrics could contain in the song.  Finally, after all the draining of selecting lyrics and composing the melodies, their song was born.  And I was certain that this song could become a comfort to their heart, especially for Chan Man.

Chan Man's lyrics

When the workshop ended, Chan Man’s group left behind and we talked for a while.  It was very strange that although we only met for 3 hours, but I felt that we had become really close friends.  We didn’t talk much actually, because we only met each other for 3 hours only.  So, he tried to teach me the Sichuan language, and I tried to teach them Cantonese.  Although our conversation rather empty, but the caring between us were beyond words.

PS:

After the workshop, we found out that most of the student were drunk and were having a hang over during the workshop.  All of them went out and had a huge part with their teachers.  Drinking is part of their culture in Sichuan.  It is perfectly normal for students to drink with their teachers and there were no age limit for drinking in Sichuan.

The photo at the beginning was the photo we took with the group I'd mention.  I cannot tell you who Chan Man is as I do not have permission to review their identity.

I had already start writing for the 四川 2011 trip.  So this time, I won't take that long to post another one!

On the fourth day of our trip, we went to Beichuan Highschool.  This is actually the place where we were focusing on and we would spend the last three days of our trip there holding workshops, an opening event and also a closing ceremony.  At the same time, it was also there last day of school; meaning, the seniors were about to graduate.

Our programs and services were treated like an extra curriculum in school particularly for the senior students.  So, only the seniors could join us and they weren’t required to join.  Encouragingly, the students were looking forward to it.

Because the school’s camp site has collapsed in the earth quake, a company called “Rainbow” donated one of their employees’ residences as a school campus for Beichuan Highschool.  From first sight, it was a huge beautiful campus, but as I walked deeper into the school, I started to wonder how bad the living condition in the dormitory could be.  As I entered the chapel, I saw several banners hanging outside of their dormitory.  Those banners were “fly your dreams”, “focus on the exam”, “thankful and be strong”, and “treat your parents as god”.  “WTF???” was my first reaction when I saw those banners.  Can those banners be a little encouraging but brainwashing?  I finally had a chance to see how the brilliant communist government brainwash their people when they were small.

We gathered ourselves in the chapel as we were getting ready for the opening ceremony.  When we were about to start, we had some new members from different parts of China joined us.  A couple of them were the graduates of Beichuan Highschool.  Some of them had served that place for 2 years and some of them were volunteers like us.  It was always encouraging when people from different parts of the country serving each others.

The opening started with songs and dances.  So we, the music team, played a couple of songs that we prepared for, we were also responsible for all the music throughout the ceremony.  This means, the dances, activities, and perhaps some background music.  After we finish all the songs and dances, we started to jam in a free style while the others were playing games with the students.  As we were singing and playing each of our instruments, all of us were so inspired by the beauty of the nature and we created a SONG!!!  Without lyrics, Kinson, Adrian, and Gloria humming each of their own melody, we came out of the Verse (sang by Gloria), Bridge (sang by Adrian) and Chorus (sang by Kinson).

When we got back to the hotel, we gathered in the room that I and Kinson shared with.  We were so eager to finish the song and we worked on it until 2 in the morning.  When we completed the lyrics, all of us were extremely drowsy and some of us basically lost conscious.  That was how we created the theme song for this year’s event.

After visiting the ruins, we were separated into groups of 4 or 5 and each groups were assigned to visit 2 families there. I was very nervous about the visit. First of all, I had never really visit any family like this before. Especially after paying the visit to the ruins, I would imagine that their lives would be really tough and they would be hard to approach. I guess I'm too use to the way people are in Hong Kong, I would imagine that they might be really defensive when they see us. Secondly, I am never a good comforter for anyone. There were times when my friends are sad and my therapy is usually a beer with a couple of jokes.

Visiting them wasn't the same as what I expected. After we review who we were to them, I felt really welcome by them. The first family lived in an apartment. We started talking immediately right after we went in to their house. There were 2 people in the house by that time, a mom and a daughter. The daughter's husband died in the earthquake. So, the daughter, with her 2 daughters live with her mom and dad. As we asked about their background, they were very open to us and told us about their background. It was almost like there wasn't anything sad happened to them. It was really amazing how they can recover so quickly after a huge disaster.

The second family I visit was more fortunate. They live in a "tent" (Please tell me if there is a more proper way to describe it.  The tent was build right after the earthquake as a place for them to live temporary.). When we arrived, there was only an old woman. Everyone in her family went to work except her. Her whole family which includes, her husband, 2 sons' families, and grandsons, were all survived in the earthquake. Ironically, everyone in her neighbor's family had died other than her neighbor. She and her neighbor were really close friends. I couldn't imagine, how a 70 or 80 years old woman can survive when everyone in her family died all of a sudden. Yet, with the neighbor's support, she survives;   Although language was a huge barrier between us, but still, they never stopped tell us about themselves. There was only 1 line which I could be able to understand, "After the earthquake, we met a lot of nice people." Although, we had language barrier, but I know that our love and care were delivered through our eyes and body. In a way, I felt like I could understand them even more when I couldn't listen to them.

We left them with a small gift which contain some tower and some foods. They really appreciate it and had a great smile when we left. From time to time, I wonder how much we really helped them by just paying a 20 minutes visit to those families. But the smile from that old woman had ensure me that our visit does matter.

PS: Because we promise that we cannot show the picture of the victims, I can only post the pictures where I took from the area they live;  I didn't take any picture from the 1st family that I visited.  So, the 2 pictures were taken from the place where the 2nd family was.

PPS:  Sigh... I'm a week late for posting this.  I'm sorry... I'll definitely make it on time for the next post.  I'll update again on Monday.