http://www.realnightmare.com]]> General http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=60 Wed, 2 May 2007 01:17:57 -0400 http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=59 When my family came to the US my parents intentionally decided to avoid areas where they were high amounts of Asians – they wanted to assimilate into the culture instead of trying to hold on to Chinese or Singaporean culture. That decision did a lot to shape the rest of my life – I grew up in Redford, it’s a town that borders the west side of Detroit and at that point seemed to have an Asian population of four – my family. When it came to choosing a church my parents also decided to try to assimilate, they chose a small white church near where we lived and to this day they are still the only Asians in attendance. These factors had a huge significance on my life, throughout my entire childhood I was the only Asian in my peer group, everyone around me was white.

For those of you who don’t know what cultural rejection is, its defined as “self-hatred and negative chauvinism, quality of ethnic experience and rejection of religious experience” and I was a shining example of it. I would do everything in my power to minimize the ‘asianness’ in myself, anything that came as a result of my cultural background I rejected, in essence I tried to do everything I could to make myself white The cultural rejection would show up in various forms – one example I can remember of it is in my attitude towards Chinese food. I’ve always enjoyed Chinese food, but anytime that the subject came up, like when my family would go to a Chinese restaurant, I would go kicking an screaming – I remember that one time when my family was in Toledo I absolutely refused to go into a Chinese restaurant and instead stayed in the car, waiting for the burgers that my parents finally agreed to let me have. As I grew older my cultural rejection ebbed although it was never truly eliminated – I would still try to pretend that I was the same as everyone around me, that I was white.

You see, growing up I was completely unable to accept the person that God made and I chose to try to hide and suppress a large part of who I was; as a result of that I refused to let God use all of who I am and I was unable to accept anyone or anything with the same traits that I was actively rejecting. Instead of seeing value in God’s creation I saw something different and wanted to be something different, so that’s what I placed value on – hiding. I refused to let Christ redeem all of me and tried to limit him to small areas of my life.

The pattern of cultural rejection continued until my sophomore year of college; at Urbana ’03 God did an amazing work in my life and completely changed my view of myself and the world, for the first time I was able to accept myself. During one of the afternoons I was basically wandering, I wasn’t sure what seminar I was going to go to; for some reason I ended up going to one by Greg Jao on being a Chinese American – I know that I never intended to go to it, all I remember is that I ended up there. During that seminar time I heard things that I had never heard about before in my life, and for the first time I heard that it was alright, and in fact a good thing to be different – to be Chinese and American, that it was possible to reconcile the two cultures and the two aspects of who I was. Right after the seminar I went to the Urbana bookstore and bought a couple of books that InterVarsity Press publishes on being Chinese American, and I finished them within a day. Each word that I read rocked my world – it gave me the license to finally accept myself, to finally accept a person that God created and to finally allow him to work in that entire area of my life.

At that point God began really molding me for the ministry that He’s called me to, I was at a place to finally accept the changes and lessons that God wanted to teach me; later at Urbana I remember asking Ann Beyerlein, my staff worker, if there were any trips to China because I felt called to go there, a year and a half later I went to Xining, China as a part of a Global Project – something that directly led to me coming on InterVarsity staff. Since Urbana '03 God's pointed out areas of natural strengths and natural weaknesses in me which has come as a result of being Chinese American and has truly worked in those areas. Now I work with the Chinese Christian Fellowship – a group of mainly Chinese American students on the campus of Michigan State University. All of these things would never have happened without my finally being able to accept myself.]]> General http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=59 Thu, 15 Feb 2007 16:32:47 -0500 http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=58 photography.benjaminlow.net]]> General http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=58 Wed, 3 Jan 2007 02:03:52 -0500 http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=57

]]> General http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=57 Sat, 9 Dec 2006 21:21:47 -0500 http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=56
"Early Saturday morning (read: I'm more likely to stay up until 5:30am than to wake up then), I took my first road trip from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur. Add all of my mother's sisters, assorted wives and brothers, and my cousin and I, and we had a grand total of 15 people caravaning in three vehicles. What can I say—my mom's the seventh of 10 children.

The five hours on the road gave me a chance to accomplish one of my goals for this trip to Singapore: I wanted to have a conversation with my non-English speaking grandmother and find out about her life and the family history. She's 86 years old, so I don't know how many more opportunities I'll have to do this—and she's an incredible woman. Since I don't speak Cantonese—a byproduct of growing up surrounded by Caucasians in the US—I asked the aunt sitting next to me to serve as translator. In the end, I had three translators (i.e. everyone else in the car) and discovered that the family history is rather complicated. So complicated, in fact, that I ended up diagramming the genealogy going three generations on each side (my grandmother, her mother, and her mother's mother, and ditto for my deceased grandfather) just so we wouldn't get confused about which relative we were talking about (though we did at points anyway).

When she was three months old, my grandmother was brought to Singapore to be sold (then, as now, girl babies were not always worth much in China); my great-grandmother intended her to be a daughter for one of her other daughters, but in the end adopted her herself. My great-grandparents were born in China, but moved to Singapore—for what reason, we don't know—and had four natural children, one of whom died at birth. They only had one son, but since my great-grandfather was a lawyer and my great-grandmother had a kind heart, they adopted a staggering 10 daughters and gave them homes.

My grandfather's family was much more convoluted. You'll see why I got out the pen and paper: My great-great-grandfather lived in China and had two wives. The first wife gave birth to my great-grandfather, but he was also adopted by the second wife, who had no children of her own and adopted two daughters as well. She brought my great-grandfather and his wife to Singapore; I believe all four of their children were born here, and my grandfather was the eldest. However, one of his brothers kept getting into trouble in Singapore, so my great-great-grandmother (the second wife) got angry and sent everyone back to China. Everyone, that is, except my grandfather, who was her favorite.

Genealogy aside, hearing stories about these people and how they interacted was fascinating. My grandmother was quite the firebrand in her youth. She had five nicknames, most of which were unflattering: Tigress, Thunder Voice, Shit Bag (because as a baby she would defecate on tables), Urine Bag (similar), and Crybaby. Somehow she managed to raise 10 children on a washerwoman's salary, taught herself how to sew because she wasn't allowed to take lessons and became good enough that she made one of my aunt's wedding gowns, needlework and all, and picked up a substantial amount about herbs and medicine from Chinese doctors because she needed to know how to care for her children when they were sick. And she only had around two years of formal education. She lived through the Japanese occupation of Singapore and her house getting bombed, but today she jokes that she doesn't have one bank, but 10: who needs a retirement fund when you have 10 children who would do anything for you?"

taken from http://dawnxianamoon.com/randomness.shtml]]> General http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=56 Mon, 4 Dec 2006 13:35:47 -0500 http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=55

Please be praying - its really frustrating for me right now, especially since it was when I was helping out at a homeless shelter. While I know that God has his hand in everything its difficult to really see it right now.]]> General http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=55 Fri, 24 Nov 2006 00:44:26 -0500 http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=54 taffy stuck, and tongue tied...]]> General http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=54 Tue, 21 Nov 2006 13:22:46 -0500 http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=53
So three months after we started at Michigan State Matt, Krista, and I finally went and did something fun outside of 'the Compound' (there're three houses in a row with staff living in each) - it was a lot of fun... and we actually cut loose a little. It really does show the need for each of us (or at least me) to really take the time to find a life outside of work (though I do love the work... else I wouldn't be doing it).

I'm excited for Urbana.]]> General http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=53 Mon, 13 Nov 2006 13:10:29 -0500 http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=52
Cross Training was a good conference - it was nice actually working with other staff (while at the same time strange to see myself in that role... I was a student for four years and so far only staff for a few months) and seeing students responding to the training. God really does great things through those conferences.

Today was an interesting day - definitely not something I would have seen myself doing at all prior to Urbana '03, but since Urbana really grew me in ways I never imagined its not that surprising - there was a 'China Shareholders' meeting, basically staff from around the region that have been invested in the China Global Projects where we talked about the future of the projects. It was strange being in a meeting with people that on average were 10-15 years older than I was (not to mention people from the NSC) and also being more of a voice for the minorities that go on the GPs and watching out for pitfalls for them. It just makes you think that you really don't know where God'll take you... I went from having a serious case of cultural rejection to working with Asian students and being invested in the work thats going on in China.

Now here's a question - what should I do for Thanksgiving? My mom and my sister'll be out of the country, in Singapore, during that time... and the last I talked to my dad about it he was just thinking about going to someone's house from his church for Thanksgiving. I don't really want to be in that awkward social situation where you're spending a holiday around people you don't really know (heck, I'm enough of an introvert that casual conversation just isn't natural... which is funny when you look at the things that I have to do every day), but I'm not really wanting to spend the holiday in Lansing.

And in other news... Xining ('07) or Bust! (If you're thinking about going fill out one of those red cards and send it in (or get it from your staff worker if you don't have one) and if you're not thinking about going... pray about it.)]]> General http://benjaminlow.net/index.php?itemid=52 Tue, 7 Nov 2006 18:33:22 -0500