04.25.09
Posted in Current Events, Media at 5:16 pm by Kaihaku
Jackie Chan has lost some of my respect due to his recent comments. It is a major disappointment that Jackie is quoted as saying “I’m not sure if it’s good to have freedom or not. I’m gradually beginning to feel that we Chinese need to be controlled.” It ruins his legacy and casts a shadow over his entire career.
Unlike others, I am willing to believe that his comments were taken “out of context” and that they were directed at the entertainment industry, not society in general. However, I don’t believe that putting them in context makes a significant difference. “Out of context” his comments support totalitarianism, “in context” they are against free speech and basically mean the same thing.
I never imagined that Jackie Chan would sell out, I thought he was one of the few stars who could handle success. I still admire him as a skilled individual but I’m afraid that I’ve lost a hero. Shame on Jackie.
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04.13.09
Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 1:55 am by Crystal Graber
though I cannot find it on the internet, I clearly remember Tohru saying “Its sad, but not as sad as some things,” regarding the death of her mother. The words stick in my head as I face death in my own family.
Erland Waltner, age 94, was born on a farm in South Dakota. A simple Mennonite boy, he faced the possibility of his brother’s death at a young age. Looking at his brother, Erland promised God that if God would restore his brother’s health, he would become a pastor. His brother recovered. And Erland went to college and then seminary, counting himself lucky to have been on the farm during most of the Great Depression. During Seminary in New York, he accidentally hit a volleyball into a teammates’ head. It resulted in a date, which became a marriage of over 65 years.
His first church was in Philadelphia, at Second Mennonite, where their first daughter was born. They moved soon to Mountain Lake Minnesota, where the next two daughters were born. Then to Kansas, to be a professor at Bethel College. There, the last daughter, my mother, was born. During her early childhood, the family moved again to Elkhart Indiana, following a tractor path to a house they built out in a field. That red house was home for the next 51 years as Erland taught classes at the Seminary across the tractor path (now busy street). He would paint the house red every few years, to keep the color fresh, and the windowframes white.
My mother grew up around a dinner table of intellectuals, discussing the meaning of God and appropriate responses to justpeace issues, including the local military bases and nuclear refinery. She watched her father become president of the Seminary, and turn down raises for himself many times. She went with him and the family to Europe and South America for Mennonite World Conferences, of which her father also became the president, marking his time in office by encouraging western mennonites to hold the World Conferences in developing countries. He wrote a book on the Gospel of Peter, and continued offering spiritual direction at his office in the Seminary long after retirement.
In January, he and his wife moved into assisted living. Leaving the house, leaving the Seminary where he had walked 2 miles, every morning before breakfast for who knows how long? The move went smoothly, his health briefly improved, and his granddaughter in Europe got engaged. 12 days later, Easter evening, he died peacefully in his sleep. A gentler man I have never met.
And it is sad. But not as sad as some things. He lived a wonderful life. He had a wonderful presence, standing up to obnoxious students with quiet, transparent integrity, fielding difficult theological questions to earnest encouragement, keeping abreast of world issues and praying with his wife, every night, for the world and for their family. The thanksgiving after September 11 he sad in the family circle, in that much loved and used living room, and spoke about living through so many wars and so much grief and violence. And he spoke about fear for his loved ones and the world, that we would fall into more grief. And then he spoke about faith, quotes 1 John 4:18: there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. As a high school student, I sat with my family, looking at my grandfather, of who’s life and work I scarcely knew at that time, and I heard him say that with his 86? years, he was just beginning to understand that promise.
I am now faced with decisions. Do I go home for the funeral? The ethics of it bother me briefly, but are brushed aside. Perhaps it is a waste of money and environmentally unethical. But funerals are some of those things even the United States in its work obsessions will give time off for.
I just wish my grandpa could be at my wedding.
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04.04.09
Posted in Life and the happenings there of at 7:05 am by Kaihaku
Ideally, we would have told each of you in person but unfortunately that’s a bit hard to do from Cambodia and Germany respectively. So, I hope a note suffices and no slight is intended…
For quite awhile I have been scheming on presenting Crystal with a ring. I thought to do so last summer while I was home for my brother’s graduation. I determined then that I would commission one of the goldsmiths in Prey Veng to forge a ring for me. However, that route proved awkward and a bit perilous. So I was disappointed when I returned home without having been able to have a ring forged. Though that turned out for the best in the end, that was not the right time for either of us and I think we both vastly prefer how it turned out.
When I decided to visit Crystal in Europe it seemed like the time to resume my efforts on having a ring forged. Knowing that there would be more safeguards against scam I decided to focus my search for a trustworthy goldsmith in Phnom Penh rather than Prey Veng. First, I asked Seiha to show me the ring shop where she got her wedding bands and engagement ring. There was a wonderful selection of rings and the woman was very helpful, I very nearly bought a ring there but one thing detered me…the diamonds came from Belgium. Belgium, the Belgium Congo, blood diamonds; as the implications raced through my head, I was discouraged. I was at a complete loss at what to do next when Carrie came to my rescue, mentioning a small goldsmith in the Central Market where a couple of her friends had gotten their bands made. I was surprised and delighted to discover that the goldsmiths, Ly Meng and family, were originally from Prey Veng province. More striking, they were from Pea Reang district which is the district where most of my work has focused. The coincidence was meaningful to me. It felt like that little corner of Cambodia was thanking me somehow. The ring is Khmer gold and forged by Cambodians, though the diamond is Chinese.
After arriving in Europe, I spent most of my first day with Crystal in the city of Mainz in an attempt to ward off jetlag. I kept my wits about me though and each time we passed a jewelry shop, which was fairly often, I remarked that we should stop in and look at rings. Crystal declined each time and eventually began to become a bit exasperated, declaring that German engagement rings were different! That was when I almost slipped by telling the story of how Hon Dara asked Scott why he was not going to join in my engagement. Cambodian engagements are also different, social ceremonies involving friends and family, which incidentally also involve two rings like German engagements.
My second day was to be a lazy one spent around Wintersheim, a small village of 300 which is the location of Crystal’s placement. We wandered around the vineyards and talked about how things where going. In my mind I had envisioned a scenic overlook, positioned over the rolling hills and vineyards… Unfortunately, it did not exist, at least not in Wintersheim. The countryside was scenic but there was no place from which to take it all in. I had determined to propose on my second day there for four reasons; it was early in my visit so it would give us time to enjoy being engaged, the sooner I gave it to her the less likely I would be to lose it, the ring was burning a hole in my pocket, and it was April Fools. Yeah… My quirky sense of humor started tingling where I realized that my trip fell over April Fools. The more I entertained the idea of proposing on that day the more I was delighted by it, the joke would be that there wasn’t a joke! What can I say? I’m eccentric.
So…we spent the morning wandering around the vineyards and I learned to my dismay that there was lots of scenery but no good place to take it in. Lunch is the big meal in Germany and we had it with Crystal’s host grandmother who had just gotten back from a trip to Viet Nam and Angkor. During lunch Heiko, Crystal’s host father, invited us on a tour of the wine cellars later in the afternoon. I felt exhausted due to jetlag and Crystal told me that I should take a nap. Instead I started a long string of conversations about us and the future. I was hoping that she would set me up but instead she took each topic seriously and then seemed to think nothing more of it. In retrospect those sorts of topics are common ones for the two of us to talk about but at the time I was getting a bit anxious! Then I had a thought, I brought up my brother who had just spent a fortune on a ring and I bemoaned how expensive rings were. Crystal looked…not disappointed or surprised but resigned at this, as if she had been expecting something along these lines and made the comment, “I guess you didn’t bring a ring then.” I didn’t answer her and we went on talking for awhile. Eventually I started talking about children and she interrupted me with, “Why are we talking about kids? We’re not even engaged.” Up until this point I had been sitting on the couch and she had been sitting on the floor. At this point I stood up, picked her up and set her on the couch, then got down on my knees and presented her the ring, asking her to marry me. I can’t quite remember if she said yes first or if the first thing she said was “You actually got a ring.” But she did say yes. So, we are engaged. We talked for a long time after that and she kept on bringing up how surprised she was that I actually got a ring. Later, I told her that she couldn’t call her parents because it was April Fools and they would never believe her. But she called them anyway and they did believe her.
Yeah. So we are engaged and it’s a very happy time. Since we are both living overseas we won’t be able to set a date until we get back but we are thinking sometime next year, probably Summer or Fall. I wanted a Winter wedding but that’s a long time to wait and it’s rather quirky.
The strangest thing so far about being engaged is how natural it feels.
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