China Trip Day 8 - When in China, do as the Koreans do . . .
Note: Now that we are in Beijing, our hotel Internet isn't as consistent. It isn't easy at this particular point to put the pictures of the day right into this blog. If you would like to look at them, they should be visible here:
All the vehicles and bicycles in the photo album are from the walking we did from the hotel to the school. I saw all of those vehicles in the 10 minute walk between those two locations.
One interesting thing about the city of Hunchun is the diversity within it. It is a combination of Chinese, Koreans, Russians, and Chinese-Koreans. The latter group comes from the fact that before World War II, the North Koreans were allowed to come and go freely into this area of China. After the war, North Korea cut off the ability for people to move freely between the two countries. The Chinese allowed the Koreans to stay and they have settled there for a long time since. Russians can move freely from this area of the country as well.
This is the reason why the Hope Foreign Language School conducts language courses in English, Russian, and Korean. They will also add Japanese in the future, because there are so many people doing business with Japan now and in the future.
So we went to Mrs. Hong's Korean class, where we were to experience what it was like to be in a language course that we couldn't understand. Mrs. Hong had help from Grace, Lilly, and Sarah. It was very overwhelming to see the Korean alphabet, which looks similar to Chinese, but is actually quite different when you learn how it works. It has consonants and vowels (instead of characters) and 24 letters total.
It was pretty difficult to differentiate what Mrs. Hong and Sarah were saying as they taught. Fortunately, Grace was backing them up on the white board by spelling out all the sounds phonetically. By the time we were done, we had practiced saying about 20 Korean phrases and words, including What is your name, thank you, that was delicious, and other things. I don't really want to go into a lot of detail, but there are a couple of observations. First, when we talked about saying, "I am an American," we found out their word for American literally means "beautiful country."
They also have a separate way of saying goodbye whether you are the person leaving or the one staying. You literally say "Have a nice going" or "Have a nice staying."
Here is a picture of our class:
When we were learning "That was delicious," I was talking to Lilly, and she said that dog meat is delicious. Dr. Kim had told us earlier that we needed to try "Chinese Beef," which is his term for dog, which they call Mong Mong. She told us she would like to take us out for supper, which sounded like too good of an offer to turn down. (You can read about that in another post.)
After lunch with Emma and Jamison Howe, Matt decided he wanted to get his haircut at the special school. I went along to document the experience on video. Plus, I wanted to see the special school one more time. Matt was going to let the students cut his hair, but I think they were nervous. They hadn't cut an American's hair before, so they were a bit overwhelmed. At the end, the teacher did most of the cutting, but he helped the students figure out how to do it.
Matt before:
By the time we were done, Matt no longer looked like Jesus. All the female adults in our group and at the language school were telling him how handsome he looked with his hair cut and his beard shaved (it had been over a year since his last haircut). It was like our team got a brand new leader!
Matt after:
It wasn't really our day to be at the special school, but no one told the kids. They came up to me and Matt and wanted attention. The boy I had walked around with a couple of days earlier came back to me and stuck out his hand like he wanted to walk again, so I did. It was meaningful to know that he had remembered what I with him two days earlier. It didn't fix any of his problems, but it did show him that I care and that must have made an impression.
I headed back to the hotel to do some last minute souvenir shopping for my family. A lot of what I got was treats, because I know that they like them and they don't have to take up space and collect dust for years. For myself, I found coffee flavored gum. That is something I'm looking forward to enjoying when I get back.
After the supper with dog meat (see the previous post for more explanation), Sara drove us back to the language school for conversational English. All of us were supposed to get a student to practice their English with. But Sara said their network was having some problems and she wondered if I would help out with helping her computer print on the network and get on the Internet. Ben and I worked on it and I got her computer to print.
Then Ben and I spent some time talking about Revelation, which he has been studying for his Bible study that he is leading. It was nice to talk Scripture and also good to hear how Ben studies for himself and has learned so much of the truth. Ben and Sara are doing a great job in Hunchun. I don't know how they keep up with all the things that they are responsible for. I am very proud of them as Central alumni and am excited to see how they are making an impact on the lives of Christians, non-Christians, and their fellow workers. Having both of them in class, I knew what they were capable of, but it is very fulfilling to see how they are actually living it out. This is what the trip here was all about!
Knowing that we would be getting up at 4:00 am to leave for our flight back to Beijing, I didn't stay up too late. Our time in Hunchun was almost done. As the groups said goodbye to their translators and discussed their experiences with one another, I could tell that we were leaving pieces of our hearts in the city. Whether it is with the children of the special school, the workers we had witnessed in action, or the beauty of the land and the people, we will not soon forget the time, energy, and emotion we have expended here.
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| China Trip Day 8 |
All the vehicles and bicycles in the photo album are from the walking we did from the hotel to the school. I saw all of those vehicles in the 10 minute walk between those two locations.
One interesting thing about the city of Hunchun is the diversity within it. It is a combination of Chinese, Koreans, Russians, and Chinese-Koreans. The latter group comes from the fact that before World War II, the North Koreans were allowed to come and go freely into this area of China. After the war, North Korea cut off the ability for people to move freely between the two countries. The Chinese allowed the Koreans to stay and they have settled there for a long time since. Russians can move freely from this area of the country as well.
This is the reason why the Hope Foreign Language School conducts language courses in English, Russian, and Korean. They will also add Japanese in the future, because there are so many people doing business with Japan now and in the future.
So we went to Mrs. Hong's Korean class, where we were to experience what it was like to be in a language course that we couldn't understand. Mrs. Hong had help from Grace, Lilly, and Sarah. It was very overwhelming to see the Korean alphabet, which looks similar to Chinese, but is actually quite different when you learn how it works. It has consonants and vowels (instead of characters) and 24 letters total.
It was pretty difficult to differentiate what Mrs. Hong and Sarah were saying as they taught. Fortunately, Grace was backing them up on the white board by spelling out all the sounds phonetically. By the time we were done, we had practiced saying about 20 Korean phrases and words, including What is your name, thank you, that was delicious, and other things. I don't really want to go into a lot of detail, but there are a couple of observations. First, when we talked about saying, "I am an American," we found out their word for American literally means "beautiful country."
They also have a separate way of saying goodbye whether you are the person leaving or the one staying. You literally say "Have a nice going" or "Have a nice staying."
Here is a picture of our class:
 |
| From China Trip Day 8 |
When we were learning "That was delicious," I was talking to Lilly, and she said that dog meat is delicious. Dr. Kim had told us earlier that we needed to try "Chinese Beef," which is his term for dog, which they call Mong Mong. She told us she would like to take us out for supper, which sounded like too good of an offer to turn down. (You can read about that in another post.)
After lunch with Emma and Jamison Howe, Matt decided he wanted to get his haircut at the special school. I went along to document the experience on video. Plus, I wanted to see the special school one more time. Matt was going to let the students cut his hair, but I think they were nervous. They hadn't cut an American's hair before, so they were a bit overwhelmed. At the end, the teacher did most of the cutting, but he helped the students figure out how to do it.
Matt before:
 |
| From China Trip Day 8 |
By the time we were done, Matt no longer looked like Jesus. All the female adults in our group and at the language school were telling him how handsome he looked with his hair cut and his beard shaved (it had been over a year since his last haircut). It was like our team got a brand new leader!
Matt after:
 |
| From China Trip Day 8 |
It wasn't really our day to be at the special school, but no one told the kids. They came up to me and Matt and wanted attention. The boy I had walked around with a couple of days earlier came back to me and stuck out his hand like he wanted to walk again, so I did. It was meaningful to know that he had remembered what I with him two days earlier. It didn't fix any of his problems, but it did show him that I care and that must have made an impression.
I headed back to the hotel to do some last minute souvenir shopping for my family. A lot of what I got was treats, because I know that they like them and they don't have to take up space and collect dust for years. For myself, I found coffee flavored gum. That is something I'm looking forward to enjoying when I get back.
After the supper with dog meat (see the previous post for more explanation), Sara drove us back to the language school for conversational English. All of us were supposed to get a student to practice their English with. But Sara said their network was having some problems and she wondered if I would help out with helping her computer print on the network and get on the Internet. Ben and I worked on it and I got her computer to print.
Then Ben and I spent some time talking about Revelation, which he has been studying for his Bible study that he is leading. It was nice to talk Scripture and also good to hear how Ben studies for himself and has learned so much of the truth. Ben and Sara are doing a great job in Hunchun. I don't know how they keep up with all the things that they are responsible for. I am very proud of them as Central alumni and am excited to see how they are making an impact on the lives of Christians, non-Christians, and their fellow workers. Having both of them in class, I knew what they were capable of, but it is very fulfilling to see how they are actually living it out. This is what the trip here was all about!
Knowing that we would be getting up at 4:00 am to leave for our flight back to Beijing, I didn't stay up too late. Our time in Hunchun was almost done. As the groups said goodbye to their translators and discussed their experiences with one another, I could tell that we were leaving pieces of our hearts in the city. Whether it is with the children of the special school, the workers we had witnessed in action, or the beauty of the land and the people, we will not soon forget the time, energy, and emotion we have expended here.
posted by Central Christian College of the Bible at
10:56 PM
