Four days in Suzhou

It's 5:00 AM here in Shanghai, and surprisingly, the sun is up. Ordinarily, being woken up by this would be a bad thing, but since I have to get up in 45 minutes anyways to catch my next flight, I now have plenty of time to update my blog. These last four days have been spent staying with family friends Mark and Karen, who live in a very comfortable American-style house with other ex-pats in Suzhou. While it may not be the most authentic cultural experience, it was certainly a nice break from small apartments and smaller hotel rooms with hard beds (and in case you didn't know, all Chinese beds are extremely firm).

I arrived in Suzhou (via Shenzhen and Shanghai) on Sunday night, which gave me some time to get settled in. On Monday, Mark had a day off, so the three of us went to the Nanshan Bamboo Forest, about 2 hours west of Suzhou. I'm still not quite sure what to think of the park. On one hand, it came across as somewhat inauthentic and contrived, like it was fabricated to appeal to Chinese tourists (but clearly not to Western tourists, as no employees spoke English). It seemed like half the buildings in the park were gift shops. Still, despite the cheesiness, it was still in a scenic bamboo-forested mountainous area, and it did have some interesting things, such as the huge museum of bamboo products, colorful ski lift, and walk-in aviary. The best part of the day was the pandas. The two pandas were fully awake (a rare sight) and were wrestling with and chasing each other, and making panda noises, and generally being very cute. Though I'm not sure if I would have enjoyed the park alone, it was nice to go to with friends.



On Tuesday and Wednesday, I spent most of the day relaxing at home, but I did do a few fun things. On Tuesday, it was extremely rainy, so I focused on indoor activities: I visited the silk museum (interesting, but you probably wouldn't need more than 30 minutes to see everything there) and the Suzhou Museum, which has a large collection of Chinese artwork and artifacts (as it turns out, there are a lot of Chinese things in China). On Wednesday, Karen and I went to Tiger Hill, the most famous attraction in Suzhou. At Tiger Hill, there is a large garden, with many old Chinese-style buildings, surrounding a hill. Atop the hill is a huge pagoda, about seven stories tall. Most notably, it has a slight tilt to it, leading some to call it the “Leaning Tower of China.”



Yesterday, I spent the day in Shanghai. It's a very beautiful city and the largest in China. I arrived about noon at the Shanghai Museum, which is similar to the Suzhou museum but much larger. I was able to view most of the exhibits, and my favorites were the jade, the seals, and the paintings, though all of the exhibits were interesting. For lunch, I walked around for awhile before finding a food court to an underground shopping mall. I bought six Xiaolongbao dumplings (classic eastern Chinese food) for 8 yuan and a can of Coke for 2.5, adding up to about $1.70, a pretty cheap lunch in my opinion (a nice thing about China is that the restaurants are much cheaper than those in the US). Next, I visited the Shanghai Urban Planning Museum, which I found fascinating. The biggest thing there is a massive, 1:500 scale model of Shanghai. The model fills a whole floor and is quite impressively done. There is also a round room in which a 360º video is projected onto the wall which simulates flying through Shanghai. At 5, when both museums were closed, I walked a few blocks north to Nanjing Road, a major pedestrian mall flanked with many high-end shops. Not wanting to shop, or to walk the entire distance (and carrying a heavy backpack didn't help), I took the trolley from one end to the other. I then walked to The Bund, perhaps the most well-known feature of Shanghai, a huge promenade overlooking the river. I had a delicious dinner of “Beef with Rice Noodles,” which also has green onions and a sauce similar to soy sauce. I think that may be my new favorite Chinese dish. After taking an hour to watch the river on one side and the European-style buildings on the other, I took the subway to the airport to catch up with the rest of the i5 group.



Today I'm flying to Wuhan to catch the Yangtze River cruise with the rest of the i5 group. I doubt I will have internet access during that time, so I'll be out of the loop for a while. Please pray for safe travels and that the rest of the group will get over their jet lag.

On Macau and Hong Kong

Right now I'm writing from the Shenzhen airport, where I am very hungry. Unfortunately, despite being surrounded by food, I have only Hong Kong dollars and no way to change to Chinese money. None of the merchants I asked accept credit cards, and I see no ATMs. C'est la vie.

Before I say too much more, let me say that some friends and I have set up a Photobucket so that you can see trip pictures. A picture is truly worth a thousand words, so I suggest you check it out. http://photobucket.com/fbcmacau (I've password-protected it for safety, please email or FB-message me for the password)

I just left Hong Kong, and before that, Macau. Both cities were quite nice, in different ways. Hong Kong's downtown is slightly more dense than Macau, but both are very vertical, with hundreds of high-rise buildings. The most notable thing about Macau is how small it is; you could feasibly walk from one side to another. Not that you would need to, because the bus network is quite extensive and frequent. We still ended up doing quite a bit of walking though. Because of its Portuguese heritage, Macau has an interesting blend of Chinese and European architecture, so there's lots to look at while walking or riding the bus.

Another great thing about Macau is the abundance of high-quality bakeries. There is one on just about every corner, and they sell (quite cheaply) some of the best pastries, muffins, and other baked goods I've ever had. Most famous is the egg tart, which is, as the name might imply, a tart filled with egg custard. Delicious and filling, they make a great breakfast.

Where Macau has historical colonial buildings (and casinos), Hong Kong has dazzling, massive, and cutting-edge skyscrapers. A popular way to take in these architectural marvels, which we did on Thursday night, is to take the tram to the top of Victoria Peak, where on a pleasant day you can see Hong Kong in its entirety. Even more impressive, in my opinion, is to see the Symphony of Lights, a nightly 15-minute light show which is view from the north side of Hong Kong's harbor. The building lights, as well as lasers and spotlights on top of each building, produce a light show which is choreographed to dramatic music. If you can't see it in person, I'd recommend watching a video to get an idea of what it is like.

In both Macau and Hong Kong, we went to Cantonese restaurants and were served dim sum, which consists of a wide variety of Cantonese dishes served family-style. Some of these dishes include dumplings, spring rolls, noodles, and fried rice. On one occasion, I actually ate chicken feet (the only “weird” food I've had during my stay here), and though they weren't disgusting, I didn't think they were that great, although others liked them. There's also a wide variety of other Asian cuisines-- we've had Vietnamese, Thai (several times), Indian, Korean, and others I'm probably forgetting. Overall, I really liked both cities. I'm looking forward to returning to Hong Kong on July 3-15.

Update: Got some much-needed grub on the plane, made it to Shanghai (only 90 minutes late), and now I'm sitting contently at a family friend's house in Suzhou.

On Casinos

After spending 10 days in Macau, it would be hard not to talk about the casinos. From what I am told, Macau, which is only 11 square miles, has 36 casinos within its borders, and those casinos employ 14% of the local workforce. So it's no surprise that Macau has earned the nickname “The Las Vegas of Asia” (in fact, Macau casinos take in over five times as much money as those in Vegas). The casinos, by offering very high salaries, attract many young Macanese people who would otherwise go to university or pursue other careers, but many of these employees become dissatisfied with the menial nature of the work after a few months. One of our hosts told us about how she has been ministering to the casino employees, and also to the sex workers who hang around casinos looking for “work.”

Surprisingly, and despite popular reputation, casinos are not the main draw for tourists to Macau. According to a survey, the most popular reason to come to Macau is for the historical attractions, followed by shopping. Macau has many interesting historical sites which show how its people have blended eastern and western cultures. There is a lot of interesting and colorful Portuguese architecture in Macau, and for many tourists, it is a way to see European culture without leaving Asia. Macau also draws many wealthy Chinese people who desire high-quality, authentic, name-brand products. Although counterfeits abound in China, they are virtually non-existent in Macau, driving Chinese people desiring non-counterfeit products to Macau's many outlet stores.

But even if Macau did not have historical sites and shopping, and even if you did not wish to gamble, it would still be worth visiting Macau just to marvel at the opulence and grandeur of the casinos. We walked through six casinos: Grand Lisboa, MGM, Wynn, the Venetian, City of Dreams, and Grand Emperor. All of these are furnished with gold, ivory, crystal chandeliers, and fine wood, and each contains an extensive collection of fine art and sculpture. In addition, they generally contain a wide selection of name-brand stores (as I said, upscale shopping is big in Macau), many restaurants (of all price levels), and a five-star hotel. In addition to dozens of breath-taking statues and artwork, they often have other interesting attractions: one casino had a walk-in butterfly enclosure, where you might have two or three large butterflies land on you, and another had a well-choreographed musical fountain. The Venetian, an Italian-themed casino, designed its corridors to resemble European streets, with colorful facades of buildings lining the walls and a canal running through the center of the corridor. You could travel through the casino either by foot or on a gondola, with a red-and-white-striped gondolier serenading you with Italian opera.

It's hard to describe the casinos without using pictures, so I will soon be uploading them and posting a link here to see all of my photos from the trip.

Onward and forward

Funny story from our trip: last Tuesday night, our second night in Macau, we decided to have dinner at the NOW Cafe, about a 10 minute walk from our apartment (for the record, the service was good, but the food was mediocre). Kim had olives in her Portuguese chicken, and since she doesn't care for olives, she offered them to Billy. Billy very calmly reached for the olive, and right before grabbing it, he quickly jerked his hand back, knocking several drinks onto the floor and creating a huge commotion. You know how being tired makes you giggly? It was late at night, and we were all still very jet-lagged, so right after this happened, we all burst out laughing for quite a while. Billy tried to explain that his arm had jerked back because he touched a hot glass of tea, but he had a hard time explaining it through the laughter. So since then, we've been joking about how we need to keep Billy away from olives and hot cups of tea.

I just got off the phone with my parents, and my dad pointed out that I have not updated for a week. This is true, and I do apologize. I'd like to write more, but I'm quite busy actually doing things, and when I'm not doing anything, I'm usually too tired to actually write. Most of our mornings have been filled with distributions, the last of which was yesterday morning. June is usually a pretty slow month for Macau tourism, because students are still in school and non-students prefer to go when it's not so hot and humid. But surprisingly, God brought a lot of tourists to us, and these tourists were quite thirsty for the Word. Over the past 9 days, we've distributed 7490 Chinese-language copies of the good book, which is about twice what the organization is usually able to distribute this time of year. So PTL for this great opportunity.

The mission portion of our trip wrapped up yesterday. Last night, we had our debriefing dinner in a very nice restaurant in the Wynn casino. Everyone said that they were quite contented after the trip and that they really felt like God was doing great things through us. Billy said that he was “so excited” to carry these 40-pound boxes (not a typical response!) because he knew what was in them and how much good would come out of it. We thanked our hosts (who I won't mention by name for privacy reasons) for going out of their way to make this a very comfortable and rewarding trip for us.

While our morning activities have been very consistent, our afternoons have been all over the place. Some of the places we have been include a children's ministry, a factory worker's ministry, and prayer walks through various temples and casinos. We've also visited the local ex-pat (English-speaking) church and met some nice people there. On Father's Day, we watched the movie Courageous and listened to a Canadian man speak about how to be a godly father. It reminded me of what a great father I have, which I am very thankful for.

More updates are coming soon, including details on how it feels to live in the city of Macau, and a description of the opulence and grandeur of the casinos here.

Macau!

The long wait is over. I've finally arrived in Macau! Truthfully, I arrived in Macau about a day and a half ago. However, between the tiredness and business, I haven't been able to update you on what I've been doing. I'm still tired, but now that the day is over I'm no longer busy, so I finally have time to post an update.

First, let me tell you about the trip. On Saturday morning, I woke up at the lovely hour of 4:30 to pack the last few items and head to the airport with my parents (thanks Mom and Dad!) for a 7:10 flight to DFW, followed by another flight to Toronto. I arrived at YYZ at about two in the afternoon and my flight to Hong Kong didn't leave until 1:40 AM, so I had plenty of time to leave the airport and do some sightseeing: walking around, looking at buildings, and checking out the botanical gardens. My last flight was from Toronto to Hong Kong, on Cathay Pacific Airlines. I was expecting the worst, since at 15 hours, it is a very long flight. Instead, it was one of the best flights I've been on. Very good service, comfortable seats, good food, and a personal entertainment system with all the movies, TV shows, and music you could possibly want. Furthermore, I slept very well, partly due to the comfortable seats but mostly because I had been awake for about 24 straight hours before the flight. I finally arrived at Hong Kong International Airport at about 5:00 AM local time, feeling quite well rested. After about an hour, the rest of the team showed up in Hong Kong (they had taken a different flight, connecting in San Francisco), and we caught the 10:00 ferry to Taipa, Macau, finally arriving at our destination at 11:00 Monday morning. After traveling for about 40 consecutive hours, I had finally reached Macau.

Our first day, Monday, was spent getting acclimated, walking around Macau, meeting our local contacts, holding an orientation meeting (no pun intended), and most importantly, trying to stay awake for as long as possible. We actually managed to stay up until 8PM, which I consider a success. Some impressions of Macau from the walk: it is hilly, hot, humid, and you have to do a lot of walking. However, it is also very pretty, with lots of greenery, fountains, gardens, and European architecture (which comes from being a former Portuguese colony). One of the locals explained that Macau is very safe, with violent crime almost non-existent, which I find reassuring (however, there is still a fair amount of pickpocketing). Also, the drivers here are not nearly as crazy as those in mainland China.

This morning, we did our first distribution from 9 to 12, near the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral. As the oldest surviving example of European architecture in the far east, it is the most popular tourist destination in Macau, attracting thousands of visitors from the mainland every day. We distributed 900 Chinese-language packets today, each one holding a Blibe and several tracts, and many of the recipients expressed to us how happy they were to receive it. I could go on and on, but let me be brief and say that it was quite a blessing to me and the rest of the team to be a part of this. Please pray that the Chinese people we met would be receptive to the information in the packets.

For lunch, we went to a very fancy dim sum restaurant, where we gorged ourselves on delicious Chinese food. Afterwards, we went on a prayer walk through the Grand Lisboa, a Macau casino. Gambling is a huge industry for Macau, with 34 casinos employing 14.5% of Macau's working population. While walking through the casino, it was clear that many of the people there, both employees and gamblers, had a lot of bad things going on, so it was great to be able to pray for them.

Which brings me to now. It's about 7pm here and we're about to head out to dinner. So that's all I have to say for now (well, I could probably say more if I wasn't so tired and hungry). I'll post some pictures soon. Please pray for me and the rest of the team that we'll get good rest tonight and be ready to "sow more seeds" among the Chinese people we meet. Also, if you'd like more info or a different perspective, check out my teammate Kim's blog:  http://worldfacemissions.blogspot.com/