When Doubts Attack: Attack Back

                 Or, the Irrationality of Doubt when God's Presence is with Us.

As I continue on in my walk with God and journey of faith through this life, I find that I often have questions. I don't mean questions about the basic tenets and principles of the faith, although I do have those kinds of questions from time to time, usually in a curious way. I am relentlessly curious, so I will investigate nearly anything from different perspectives to see what it looks like.

But with regard to those more basic questions, over and over again I've tested the core tenets of Christianity, based on my ongoing experiences and taking into account criticisms both new and old that I've encountered, and found that they hold together without budging. Given the existence of a Creator God, the faith set forth in Scripture follows, and no other religion or holy writings could stand up to the rigorous assaults withstood by the Church for centuries now.

As Christians we can be reluctant to talk about doubt, since to acknowledge that sometimes we consider the truth of what we believe as something that could potentially be untrue sounds like we're denying our faith.
But doubt is not the same as denial, doubt is a testing of our faith, and such tests are necessary to strengthen it. The question is whether we will pass the test with stronger faith, or become doubters, our faith weak, remaining mired in uncertainty. James had strong words for people who chose the second option...

The questioning and uncertain thought or feeling that pops into your mind is not yet sin; what you do with it might be sin, or might instead be a glorious victory. If we need more faith, God is willing to provide it, but the biblical conception of faith is an active reaching out to God, not a passive hunger strike. Sometimes we must find ourselves crying out to God along with the man in Mark 9: "Lord I believe, help my unbelief!"

The Irrationality of Doubt

When I do get those doubting sorts of moments, lately they are of that vaguely anxious "but what if 'all this' isn't true?" variety. Interestingly, that sort of doubt is the least able to stand up to logical inquiry. Nonbelievers (in the world of Western thought) would have you believe that Christianity is not rational or logical, and, recently and irrelevantly, that is has been made unnecessary by "Science," as if the laws of physics would be a challenge to or replacement for the One who set them up and provided the energy to have any matter to begin with.  ("Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools...")

It's the opposite, actually: given the presuppositions from which Christianity begins, everything proceeds in quite a logical and orderly fashion. So for these vaguely anxious sorts of doubts, simply asking "Can you be more specific? Which part isn't true exactly? What alternative truth claim is being suggested here?" often dispels it outright without it even bothering to explain itself. Very, very few doubts stand up to any vigourous inquiries about a) content, and b) motive.

So for me at this point, I can say that doubt is inherently irrational. I know the depth and truth of scripture more than I did earlier in my life, and have a more clear understanding of how Christianity all holds together, and perceive that the reality of the world as understood through Scripture is indeed the inevitable conclusion to which an honest and informed look at reality would drive one (what Paul is talking about in Romans 1). Yes, the more I've learned about Scripture and the history of doctrine and our faith the more questions I have had, but my curiosity has been joyously satisfied by the truth of God's word and the miracle of His church and His presence.

Also, my faith has been extended over any question marks that remain for me (and there always are, for now we see in a mirror dimly), not primarily due to answered questions, but because I have experienced over and over again God's gracious intervention in my life. Lack of total knowledge about the story can't make me doubt the author when I've met Him, and He is not passive. I have some pretty cool stories... crazy things have happened exactly when they need to happen.

And that is where a believer and a non-believer go in totally opposite directions: when some crazy, unlikely thing that seems like supernatural intervention occurs, the believer states that given God, the simplest explanation is that He did this, since this sort of thing doesn't happen by accident. The non-believer states that given no God, the only possible explanation is that sometimes crazy coincidences happen by accident, or maybe that there's no such thing as 'accident' or 'miracle,' everything just happens, and it's your own confirmation bias making you think it's for your own benefit or some other purpose.

But they're the ones that are trapped. While we can look a crazy, wonderful miracle in the face and say "This cannot happen naturally, God did this," they must always either deny that it occurred, concoct an explanation so unlikely that the only excuse for it is "well it happened, and there's no God, so this must be how it happened," or pull out the tiresome confirmation bias hammer, for which to those who wield it everything seems to look like a nail.

And often they misunderstand us. When met with something they do not understand, people may simply say "God did it." Then along come scientists and say "Ah, not so: this is caused by energy transferred in X way by Y methods. See, your so-called god is vanishing one explanation at a time." (Then we ask them where energy came from originally, and they vow to have the answer to that too, someday. There are theories. Just have faith.) This is the 'god of the gaps' idea, that "God" is merely the answer to things for which science has not yet provided a purely natural explanation. Some Christians do use this argument, and I think they should stop. We don't believe God hides in the inexplicable; we believe He created the explicable. As Paul reminds us, God's invisible attributes can be observed clearly from the things that are made. His existence need not be only inferred from the things that are mysterious. That would be weak faith indeed.

In the end, however, it's not even a necessary conflict. One can say that lightning is a transfer of energy and one can say that lightning shows the power of God, and those two statements are in no way contradictory. If God created this universe, then "God did it," applies to everything that follows, it doesn't matter by what means He was pleased to arrange things to occur. "Friction kept your tires on the road" is not a rebuttal to the claim that you drove to work this morning, it's one piece of evidence that your claim is a rational one.

The Experience of Doubt

I certainly do experience feelings of doubt from time to time. It's a strong temptation on the missions field in general, and for me in this place specifically where people hear of Jesus and say neither "Lord" nor "silly myth" but "Wonderful, you've got your god, we've got ours.. lots of them actually."

But I had strong feelings of pain when I stubbed my toe the other day too, and I did not throw out my preexisting conception of the universe based on those feelings. ("I've been wrong all this time.. all is pain! There is nothing in life but all-consuming pain and that blasted metaphorical chair leg, whatever it represents!") The example is obviously absurd, but in more serious situations that's more or less what occurs. Some pain does not pass so quickly, and its intensity can weaken our convictions and make us question our assumptions, even when it shouldn't.

I often have the weird situation here on the mission field where I get 'attacks' of very strong feelings to doubt, as I mentioned earlier, without even much content to speak of, only force. It's much like someone sitting beside you screaming at you "doubt! doubt! doubt!" without ever saying what it is you should doubt.

Now here's the fun part: The fact that you already know what it is you're 'supposed' to be doubting, and the force with which this demand to doubt comes into your mind, all plays into exactly how the Bible describes the world. I'm being tempted to doubt by whom? The existence of a tempter is a pretty good confirmation of scripture, no? And you want me to doubt who? Precisely the God of Scripture, as it turns out? So it turns out that by turning the tables on a doubt, and making it answer the questions, typically you destroy it. (Caution: Don't be prideful about that, that's just trading one sin for an equally dangerous one. Doubts often fade away after a little while, pride typically does not.)

After that realization, doubt began to no longer feel like potential ulcer wanting to crop up inside me, but more like a wind trying to buffet me from the outside. Sometimes buttoning up my jacket is sufficient; sometimes I call to the One who calmed the winds with a word.

In both cases, I am able to bring to mind numerous moments in my life where I intentionally set up a remembrance stone in my memory, to say "here is where God did something amazing." I've experienced so many of those moments; of students coming to Christ and my seeing the immediate, inexplicable change in them, of situations that seemed impossible right up until we prayed, of the joy and peace and love I feel in His very real presence. The evidence of God, once seen in faith, is unending and wonderful.
But one doesn't get to see it much inside one's comfort zone, I should add.

Conclusion

Doubts may attack sometimes, but my faith is never in doubt. Even when assailed by a gale of doubt and feeling neither faithful nor logical, I have my remembrance stones, and the wind can't push those around. And it obeys the voice of the One who died for me, who offered Thomas the proof he asked for, yet blessed us who believe without yet having seen it. But we will see it. Let us continue in faith.

God cannot be 'proved' in the way people demand proof, but by faith He can certainly be experienced, proof enough to the we who experience Him, and faith in His existence and presence explains everything else in a perfectly sensible way. As C.S.Lewis famously said, "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."

In the end, so many times it turns out like this:
Scripture says there is an invisible ladder in this spot, so in faith I begin to climb here, and after considerable effort I find that miraculously I am fifty feet up in the air, just as Scripture said. The scoffer's mocking reaction that I am merely imagining myself to be fifty feet off the ground would carry more weight if he wasn't shouting into the sky to let me hear him.

            I hope reading this strengthens your faith as well.

Half a Year in Taiwan - Some Serious Thoughts

As of 4 days ago, I marked 6 months of long-term service here. It's been an interesting time, with some surprising struggles, and unexpected encouragements.

Since in about a week I will be busy and travelling for summer camps until sometime in the latter half of July, this week seems like a good chance to reflect on lessons I've learned and am learning.

 

Reflections on these six months...

 

1. Expectations might be your enemy, but you can't ever quite succeed in not having them.

I tried not too have too many expectations coming back to Taiwan, but the very experience that made it a more feasible task to swap continents, lifestyles, and environments also inevitably meant that I would have some expectations based on that experience. Much of the experience that gave rise to those expectations was valuable, crucial even, to working effectively here this time, but the hardest thing coming back has been the frustration of some of those expectations.

I imagine most of you know what culture shock is; well reverse culture shock is the (often unexpected, and sometimes more difficult) shock one experiences when returning to one's home culture and realizing that your perspective has been changed as a result of your experiences in a new culture, and that you now view your home culture in a slightly different way. Sometimes your eyes are opened to negative things you never noticed before, sometimes your priorities have simply be rearranged, but either way it can be difficult to experience and nearly impossible for anyone who hasn't experienced it themselves to sympathize with you.

The blessing of my prior experience of living in Taiwan for a year affected my coming here this time in nearly every possible way, basically letting me hit the ground running. I was actively doing ministry within a few days of arriving while my brain was doing overtime trying to get used to being in constant Chinese mode. At the same time I was caught unprepared for the painful realization that Taiwan, and more specifically my acquaintances in Taiwan, had not been static and unchanging in the 5+ years in between last time I lived here and now. Kids who were in middle school my first few trips to Taiwan, and only early highschool when I lived here that year, are now getting into their early 20's. Being still in my 20's until next year, that means we're all in our 20's together, which is fun and meaningful in some ways and rather odd at the same time!

At the same time, old friends have moved on with their lives, with those fundamental changes that creep in between your mid 20's and your late 20's. I discovered some friendships have survived, many haven't, and the warmth with which I was welcomed back to Taiwan before my actual arrival turned out to be more or less unrelated to the eagerness of the welcomers to actually meet with me once I was here. Some former acquaintances are now friends, some friends are now more like old acquaintances, and I find myself not starting with anything like the social circle I thought I had coming in.

You could call it reverse-reverse culture shock, perhaps; learning to dodge the jab of culture shock only to be hit with a left hook when moving back into reach of the same culture again. But I think a more accurate term would be simply time shock; regardless of culture, it hits all of us sooner or later.

2. Yes I Still Love Taiwan!

The process of getting over here nearly gave me ulcers again. ("Let go and let God" sounds lovely and serene, but my experience is more like "Hold on tight and ask God to keep your fingers from getting broken if this thing comes to a quick stop") Having finally made it, though, it is such a tremendous blessing to have been given a love for the place to which you are called. And love is the right term, because the like gets stretched at times, but in the end I wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

My work here is varied; I am not just here to "do ministry," though there's plenty of that, I am here to be a living representative of Christ. That calling leads to everything from teaching songs to 2nd graders and English to 80+ year old seniors using DIY bingo cards, to having late night Skype meetings with American short-term mission teams because of the time difference, to discussing concepts of Christianity and Taiwanese culture in mandarin with my young professional friends in elaborately-ambianced cafes, to turning the tables on pairs of Mormon missionaries and witnessing to them instead.

I'm not sure where Taiwan lies on the scale of comfort in terms of mission fields. It's really a false question because how comfortable you are depends on a lot of factors, and the overall environment and modernity of your surroundings is merely one of those. One could get along quite happily with a great ministry team planting churches in jungles, slums, or even a city dump, or push through day after discouraging day with no visible progress in your lonely coffee shop gospel outreach in a posh, comfortable neighborhood of a global city.
For my part, I tend to feel lucky that I get to live here. Sometimes when a short term team visits, though, I'm reminded that not everyone shares my enthusiasm for the details of life here. Living in Taiwan comes with all the benefits and drawbacks of living in/right next to the tropics:

There's intense humidity (hanging one's clothes out to dry may result in their mildewing instead), the insect life is diversely sized and numerous (from air-thickening mosquitoes to flying cockroaches to spiders that are like skinny tarantulas), nothing lasts more than a couple of hours without being refrigerated, garbage disposal becomes a serious endeavor that requires planning and multiple types of garbage bags, one is typically soaked in either rain or sweat within 90 seconds of going out the front door, I could go on. Most expats actually flee Taiwan after the school year ends to spend the relentlessly muggy summer elsewhere.

On the other hand one can drink inexpensive fresh papaya milk between waving palm trees under a glowing blue sky and feel that all that is not so bad. And since it's Taiwan, you might just as easily be doing that in front of a 3-story, Times Square-style LED billboard that's advertising cough syrup with Chinese medicinal herbs, or next to a quaint country train station built in the old Japanese colonial style with summer breezes playing through the flooded rice fields. There could be a garbage truck playing Fur Elise, or a guy beatboxing Mario bros. across from the barbecued squid stand.

Really, you never know what you'll see...

A Rubber Ducky bigger than a Starbucks floating in the harbor? Yeah, you might see that.

3. Things Never Stop Changing Anywhere in the World.

Taiwan in 2014 is a little more tired, a little less affluent. Taiwan's overall cultural worldview is even more heavily centered around almighty Success than America's is, so the lack of it (worse, due to global economic conditions and Taiwan's rather unique situation, the creeping realization of the inevitable future lack of it) affects people and society in general here even more deeply.

So the "cheerfulness" factor in general is noticeably down for someone who's only been back on a few short trips between 2008 and the end of last year. The glory days were just ending then, and there was happy inertia. Not so much now.
Of course all this is compared to the 'Taiwanese miracle' days of being one of the 4 Asian Tiger economies. So having come down several notches from that doesn't qualify as "hard times" yet here, but it's harder than many students now have ever known. Up until the middle of that decade people had been throwing out old stuff and buying new, now they're holding onto what was new in 2008 and it's not so shiny anymore. Graduating students don't find jobs waiting for them. It's a similar situation to what America faces now, really, except America has far more power, resources, and potential options.Taiwan is in a difficult political situation, and their friends are few and not willing to challenge China. In the past, the US was a guarantee that China would not unilaterally move to change the situation, but nowadays that's looking less and less like a surety.

Of course, while obviously no one enjoys a decline in prosperity, we have to ask the most important question: What does this mean for the gospel in Taiwan?
Honestly, it will probably result in people being more open to listen. People accuse Christianity of being a crutch for the weak, but it's far more the case that success is a crutch for the mortal; a means to pretend to control his own fate. Once the idols one worshipped in exchange for hope of worldly success seem ineffective, people will be more willing to listen to those who claim there is a God whose hope is not of this world. (They'll also be less willing to tolerate missionaries who don't seem to be contributing to Taiwan's economy, so we'll see how that situation progresses.)

4. I Need More of God

I am increasingly aware that my own relationship to God is more relaxed than fervent. The focus in American Evangelicalism on sound Biblical doctrine is very important, but it should serve as the rails on which our train runs, not the station we're headed to. God seeks to know us, and our path in life is to walk with Him, not only have very scripturally sound ideas about Him.

My time in seminary was glorious and blessed, but my lifestyle over those 3+ years was totally exhausting physically, mentally, and spiritually. My faith was strengthened and not weakened, praise God, by the fearless and intimate look at His word "behind the scenes" that my seminary offered. It was not confusion and dismay at some of the Sunday School Answers being challenged so much as relief that for some topics there were more complicated and grown-up answers that were much more satisfactory while not challenging scriptural authority whatsoever. (Sometimes the original text even leaves room for more than one interpretation! What a relief to find that we can disagree with each other on non-doctrine level questions and still all be equally convinced of the truth of Scripture.)

But by the time it was over, I needed rest and recovery. The time in Alabama was mostly an unstable "between time," with several months of "oh, you're still here?" It was valuable time spent with family and old friends, which I am grateful for, but also stressful in that I was neither here nor there.

After finally arriving in Taiwan and after the initial few months of transition, my life began to assume some kind of normal routine. I began to realize the lack of normal routine or stable life situation had seriously affected my daily walk. I'd been praying and working through so many big, one-time issues both as I left the US and upon arriving here that I'd gotten entirely out of the habit of setting aside daily time with God.

In America that's wrong, it's spiritual laziness, and being actively involved in church isn't sufficient to make up for it.
But Taiwan is not America. This is not Christendom, and never was; idolatry has never been seriously challenged until these few decades, and the real breakthrough hasn't happened yet. Here, under spiritual warfare and without a consistent church home, trying to plant a church in a spiritually resistant community where no steeples rise but the chimneys of many daoist sacrificial furnaces do, where the air is often thick with the smoke of burnt paper money and joss incense, what was detrimental to my spiritual health in the US is here an imminent danger.

(By way of analogy, imagine back when they had the smoking sections and non-smoking sections in restaurants. Sure, you could still smell dangerous second-hand smoke sometimes drifting over from the smoking section, but spiritually speaking this is like sitting at the table full of people smoking)

So if I don't hold onto time in God's presence on a personal level, actively seeking after Him, I will be dragged away from Him. Not from salvation, the enemy can't touch that. But your spiritual health can be chipped away bit by bit, and here I see how that can happen. Missionaries need your prayer for more than just the success of their ministry, when they go into the enemy's territory with the gospel they get the enemy's poisonous attention.

Sacrificial pig on display during Ghost Month, a plea to ancestral spirits to not harass the living

 

5. Taiwan Needs Prayer, More Than Ever Before

Even without this special kind of spiritual pressure, being on the mission field our reliance on God is made more obvious. I submit that this should not only be the case on the mission field, but it can be more difficult to leave our comfort zone when it's the default and you have to work to get out of it, whereas on the mission field being out of your comfort zone is the default and you have to work to fine one, if it's even possible.

In any case, we pray a lot! We know that any success in this kind of spiritual endeavor (and in the face of this warfare) will come through God's work, not our plans. We are all ambassadors for Christ here, and that role is made glaringly obvious in a land where most people's reaction to Christ is neither acceptance nor denial, but a shrug. He's great for you westerners, but what has He go to do with Taiwanese?

Missionaries have been in Taiwan for a long time, but the gospel has only reached certain sections of the population. The church that does exist cannot be described as consistently healthy either. I've noticed that some people think that while the church in America is sometimes sadly described as a mile wide and an inch deep, in countries with only a small church presence it must be the opposite; small gatherings of passionate and fearless believers. Taiwan is more or less neither, to be honest. In terms of Protestant Christians, there are a few dozen very large churches on the island, several thousand in total (most having fewer than 50 people on an island of 23 million people), and most of them are similar to American churches. People come on Sunday, maybe participate in a weekday night service or maybe not, and in small churches the "80-20 rule" (80% of the work done by 20% of the church) might even be more like 90-10. Or frighteningly often, only the pastor, because he's the "professional Christian," and it's his job to do the spiritual stuff, right?

I have noticed even more strongly this time living here that the prosperity gospel is also rampant in Taiwan. Joel Osteen is in literally almost every church bookstore. When you worship idols, it's a very natural transition. Idols (and the gods they represent) don't love you, but they can help you get stuff you want if you worship them. How much better to change your allegiance from a bunch of small gods to one big God who loves you -and- will help you get the stuff you want if you worship Him?

Please continue to pray for Taiwan.

6. Seeking My Place in Taiwan

"Doing" ministry in Taiwan is not always easy but it at least consists of relatively clearly defined tasks with goals you can write down. "Being" in Taiwan is what has presented me with the most difficulties so far, and it's something I want to work on. Who am I, here?

As a westerner in Taiwan, I'm not under any illusions that I'll ever be Taiwanese in the strict sense. If I spoke absolutely fluent and brilliant Mandarin, Taiwanese, and Hakka too, was a Taiwanese citizen, wrote famous historical novels about Taiwan in Chinese, had a seat in the Taiwanese legislature, whatever.. to a random person on the street I would be a white tourist. That's just how it is.

In a way, though, that takes some pressure off. If I was in Germany, say, for lifelong ministry, I might be tempted to set the goal to basically become German. This would be impossible in one sense (I didn't and now can never grow up Germany), but it would seem much more attemptable, as being ethnically Northern European, after some years, in dress, posture, and maybe even language, it's conceivable that I could appear to be and come across as a native German. That's an extremely difficult thing to do, and arguably you lose out on some benefits that you bring to the table as a foreigner in terms of ministry. It also leads to interesting identity issues.

In Taiwan, since this is impossible, I don't have the temptation to try. I am not content, however, to remain solely on the sidelines. My goal is to be fluent in at least Mandarin, and find a place in Taiwan's society, an accepted role among my friends and acquaintances and coworkers, so I can have an identity here other than "guest who doesn't leave." Some have suggested that's impossible. Maybe so. At this stage I think it's too early to say, so I will forge ahead and see what happens. It's true that it would have been more of a feasible option had I gotten here 9 years ago and spent all my 20's here, making friends long before those friends started families. So I know I'm arriving late in the game, but it's also a game without clearly defined rules, so maybe I can write a few myself. Only time and God's providence will tell.

So please keep praying for me too; it's been a long road but my journey is only beginning...

Photo Essay Post: A Day Trip to Neiwan (內灣)

Yesterday some of the missionaries and I took a trip to Neiwan, in the mountains near Hsinchu.
It's an old Hakka town that has been partially preserved, in the foothills of Taiwan's beautiful mountains.

Come with me for a brief look around...

Arrived in Hsinchu. I can see blue sky! (It's been almost two weeks of rain in Taipei)

A really nice day to at this train station for 45min because there's only one train to Neiwan per hour.

Arrived in Neiwan!

Old town street, lots of traditional snacks

We found an interesting restaurant which used to be an old theater

Very cool place...

Old equipment. A couple props, but most of it is real.

I'm guessing back in the day the more important people got to watch from upstairs.

They showed old movies too. This one seemed to be a comedy of the slapstick variety.

So many Tatung Boy dolls.. (the mascot of an almost-100-year-old Taiwanese manufacturing firm)

An old abandoned church, signs in both Chinese and Japanese

Christianity in Taiwan declined from the 50's and 60's until the turn of the century.

Going down to the river

Beautiful river valley

The water was very clear and greener than it's showing up here

Misty mountains

We spent a while relaxing by the water

The hidden ninja village-uh, I mean, town.. of Neiwan.

In Taiwan, even potting soil is delicious!

If it's actually chocolate crumbs covering strawberry ice cream, that is...

Heading back

The Taiwanese countryside (no filter)

Heading back to Xinzhu and then Taipei. I love Taiwan!

10 Things I will Miss about America while in Taiwan - 6 Months In

So before leaving for Taiwan, I wrote a post about things I expected to miss about American while living in Taiwan. (Things, not people, so they're not on the list. I assume friends and family are a given) Now that I'm coming up on half a year over here, I want to take a look at those expectations and see what I got right, what I got wrong, and what I didn't find out until I got over here again.

So without further ado, let's check out my 10 previous things:

1. Driving (Confirmed)

Yes, I do miss driving. Living in this part of Taiwan a car would be more trouble than use (I don't need to haul things and people around much, and finding a parking space takes longer than getting to your destination), and I don't really need a scooter, though I'll probably want to learn how to ride one just to have that option.

But driving does other things too. It gives you time to yourself (valuable for introverts), and you can listen to your music turned up without earbuds and it doesn't bother your neighbors (and their neighbors, and their neighbors...). I also used to do a lot of praying and thinking while driving, and miss those quiet times.

2. Spring and Autumn (Partially confirmed)

We'll see. Being in the East Asian monsoon cycle, things don't exactly follow the traditional Western four seasons; Chinese culture observes more or less the same solar cycle but we're way farther south than where the traditional ideas about the seasons were developed, and also an island in the Pacific, so things get a little... tropical. Autumn remains to be seen, but since this winter was unusually cold it seemed quite Spring-like when it warmed up and the cherry trees blossomed. We've gotten unbelievable amounts of rain since I got here (which is semi-normal but it's definitely more than last time I lived here), both when it was colder early in the year and for nearly the entire month of May, with the arrival of the Plum Rains (梅雨).

Seattle gets 37" (950mm) of rain per year; Taipei gets 95" (2,400mm)
Could be worse.. nearby Keelung gets an incredible 144" of rain per year. (3755mm)

So far the jury's out on this one, given that Spring was pretty normal. I know from experience that there's not really a proper Autumn, however, so we're calling this partially confirmed until proven otherwise.

3. Being able to wear Dark Colored Shirts in the Summer (Mostly Busted)

(This one was kind of random. I wonder why I included this in the original post)... Having just passed Dragon Boat Festival it's only now considered early summer, but according to my weather app with the humidity it felt like 100F here (38C) a couple Saturdays ago. I haven't replaced my clothing to the extent I'd expected before getting over here. I should get on that, actually...some of these are pre-seminary shirts, they're getting to that really comfortable stage that wives/girlfriends seem to dislike. The good news is that as long as I don't need to carry a backpack, a dark-colored shirt does just fine hiding the sweat and I rarely get the serious salt mine action I mentioned in the original article.

4. Being able to Make Jokes (Partially confirmed)

Mostly right. My Taiwanese coworker is rather fond of what they call "cold" jokes in Mandarin (what we'd call a bad pun, the ones that make people groan and leave), and as I've knocked the rust off my Chinese and improved it here and there, I'm able to make some forays into Chinese punning. The tricky thing is to make sure you're not saying something inappropriate by accident (there are lots and lots of homophones in Mandarin), as your listeners usually remember to give you the benefit of the doubt, but not always..

5. Real Southern Food and Tex/Mex Food. (Confirmed, but it's ok)

Yes. I do miss both of these, but am encouraged that there are a couple new Mexican places to check out, and also very excited to have belatedly discovered the Taiwanese pork BBQ sandwich:

Guabao! In Chinese the name means "glory in a rice flour bun"
(Ok not really, but it could)

It doesn't look like what you're used to, and it's not hickory-smoked pulled-pork (nor sliced beef brisket) but believe me, it's amazing on its own merits, and somehow fills that dietary niche quite well.

Still miss the Southern food, but as I said in the original post, that doesn't even exist much in the rest of the States, so there's not exactly a sense of deprivation.

6. References (Allusions to things in wider pop culture) (Confirmed)

For sure on this one. Even more common references get missed, sometimes due to not knowing the Chinese name of something (which is not necessary just the translation of the English name), and sometimes just due to different growing up experiences.

It's always fun to discover when you have something in common with a Taiwanese friend, however, and can both appreciate the reference. And there are always the more recent references, things that happened after I moved here, of which I now have a growing stock and have used successfully a few times.

7. Arguing about Politics (Busted)

Well.. I had good intentions about staying 100% out of political discussions, I really did... then there was a historical first in Taiwan when protesting students took over the Taiwanese legislative chamber for three weeks, accompanied by the biggest protest rally in Taiwanese history. With near-heroic levels of self-control (I argued about politics with my second grade teacher when Bill Clinton was elected and she made us watch his inauguration, no joke), I managed to make (mostly) indirect references to it online and mostly post news stories so my American friends would be aware of the situation without interjecting too many of my own thoughts. I also took the opportunity to learn a lot about Taiwan politics in general.

What I said in the first post was true; I need to avoid this as much as possible. It's not worth losing a chance to witness over. But it's also very difficult to sit on the fence in these situations, especially when many of my friends feel passionately about these issues. (Once or twice I felt that it would have been less offensive just to go ahead and say what I thought, rather than claiming I didn't think I should say what I thought) I will keep praying for discernment in knowing who to share my thoughts with, and knowing if/when the appropriate time to do that would be.

8. No Garbage Cans (Confirmed)

Yes, it's a constant thing you have to work around here that you don't in America, and it's annoying to have to be home at 9:05PM when the trucks come rolling in (Blasting Fur Elise to let you know they're on their way) for just a couple of minutes, and keep food trash in your freezer in the mean time. But I don't generate all that much non-recyclable trash, and I can haul that down to the street and give it to an old lady who gets money for turning it in, so it's all good.

9. Not Wondering about Water Quality (Busted)

 

This one hasn't really been an issue, as I suspected at the time it might not be. It's better not to drink out of random faucets, but bottled water is slightly cheaper than in the US when needed, and I have a Brita filter to use in my apartment. (Hey, come to think of it, my filter needs changing...)

10. Blending In (Confirmed)

Yeah. I get stared at (or very conspicuously not stared at, which is kind of the same thing) every day. Goes with the territory, won't change during my whole life over here, so I wouldn't expect it to be any different. And no it doesn't make people racist, it would be the same if I were super tall or super short or super-whatever. I'm just easier to notice, and so people do.

 Some parts of Taipei actually have a lot of foreigners, though interestingly, (white) foreigners tend to not be American or Canadian this time around. I hear a lot of French and German, as much or more than English.

11. UPDATED: New entry

Ok, so in summary I think I did reasonably well in guessing which things I'd miss. But I forgot one of the biggest small things that I miss about the US:

Being able to flush toilet paper.

 

There's always a can beside the toilet... optimally it gets emptied often

I've heard various reasons: the water pressure isn't good enough to get it through the pipes; there are chemicals in the paper that aren't supposed to go into the plumbing system; perhaps there's no way to get rid of the paper once it collects wherever it collects. All I know is, the general rule is that you can't flush toilet paper here.

This may seem like a small thing (or maybe not), but put that together with no central A/C, a tropical climate, interesting changes in your diet, and the fact that the only legal way to get garbage out of your house is to coordinate disposal with the nightly garbage trucks, and it's one of the bigger small annoyances one deals with.

(Note: One of the biggest 'things' I miss about living in America is the churches and church families I've grown close to, both my sending and supporting churches, in Alabama and Texas. But I mentioned at the beginning that this list was for things, not people, and a church is not a thing, it's people)

Conclusion:

I love Taiwan, and any of these things I miss are very much balanced out by great things about being able to live here. (The most difficult things are mostly the same things as I'd deal with at this stage of my life doing full time ministry in the US) I'm very blessed to see God at work, and our ministries have progressed slowly but steadily over the past half year. It will be interesting to take another look at this once it's been a full year and see if my perspective has changed at all.