#love asian culture and their spirituality and their food and then hate chinese people and make racist comments ab them

[pupkou]

can we come together as a community and be honest with ourselves .. because i’m tired of seeing everything turned into an egg roll. not everything needs to be an egg roll

[aimeesuzara]

How We Learn to Hate Our Skin or, a Late Blossom into Self-Love, When Growing up Brown in a World that Makes You Want to Be White (For A History of My Body Blog Series)

 In the summer of 2016, I arrived in Santiago de Cuba with a dance group, and the first thing we attended was a performance by Danza Del Caribe. There, in a dark theater, with very few people in attendance, emerged the lithe, dynamic dancers -- the music, driving and sensual, the bodies, athletic and slim —the dance, modern, though there was something distinct about the movement that was very Cuban, its expression, the undulations of their torsos and hips.  Soon, there was another dance featuring traditional drummers and singers and all in costumes, reenacting a fiesta in the streets, and now, I could see the Afro-Cuban roots, the movement beneath the movement.  The music and the dance immediately seized us, a welcome that was neither superficial nor subtle.  Outside in the night, we piled into cars where Jacob Forever's song "Hasta Que Se Seque el Malecon" blared, and I realized I was listening to this song for the first time in Cuba.  I realized: I am IN Cuba!  That I had taken Cuban dance, from folkloric to Cuban salsa, and had become nearly addicted to dancing casino to Salsa-Timba, needing to dance at least once, if not three times, a week, faithfully attending class at my gym taught by one of the leaders of this very trip -- had always seemed strange if I were never to come here. Of course, it was a privilege to travel, a privilege that is very “American.”

As a person whose culture has not quite suffered the amount of co-opting that other cultures have (what comes to mind is yoga-fied Indian, anime-ed Japanese, kitschy or cutesy Chinese, boy-band Korean, luau'd Hawaii, cigar-and-salsa Cuba – to name just a few)-- I always wonder, "when and if this happens to us, how will I feel?" for example, how would I feel if I went to a Filipino tribal dance class from, say, Mindanao, and all of the attendees were white?  Sure, they could learn the language and the gestures, but could this be right?  And what if the consumers of such traditions had never been interested in my country nor never attempted to know and understand and have true relationship with not only the symbols of, but the actual inhabitants or descendants of my islands? I always imagined entering a class like that and basically losing my mind, giving everyone a piece of my mind.  And yet I, too, have done my fair share of being fascinated by and borrowing and romanticizing cultures other than my own -- I am guilty of it, certainly -- I do not deny that living in India in college, studying Buddhism and Hinduism and an extended stay of 9 months,  then returning here to attending yoga classes where few if any people were actually Indian -- that I was participating in the consumption of culture.  I also do not claim that my fascination with Cuban culture, spirituality, history, are entirely devoid of romanticism, idealizing.  And yet, there is something here to consider.  I do not consider myself a part of the (at least racial) dominant class.  That I have grown up with economic comfort, an excellent education, and two parents who lived together and were committed, raising me with everything I needed -- that I grew up with at least some semblance of identity connected to a homeland -- I do not deny the privileges I have inherited.

But as I've gotten older, I realize that my suspicion that we were always second-class citizens in many peoples' eyes, in the system's eyes; that we are dispensable, as labor, as intelligence, as optional colors to throw into a melting pot that somehow was and should be neutral, in other words, white; that I have never nor ever will experience whatever it is to feel I was neutral or normal or the regular, that things were made and meant for me; though I strove for, and lived at times under the illusion that I could be, a part of it.  As a child, I wanted my mom to have m & m's and pizza and popcorn around like the other kids; not soy sauce, fish sauce, hot peppers and rice.  I wanted us to sit down to an “American” Thanksgiving Dinner, since that's what everyone else did.  This became instated, at my insistence at the age of eight or nine: we had turkey, canned cranberry sauce, powdered whipped potatoes.  I was content to be like the other kids, not realizing that what was being replaced was whatever Filipino we had left. For a mother who was not that into cooking, those small symbols were what we couuld and should hold onto.  My Dad's Adobo; my mom's pancit; the ginataan that I half-loved and half-was disgusted by; the odd sweets and bottles and jars filled with sugary beans and coconut jelly for making Halo-Halo.  Instead, I opted for the can-shaped gelatinous cranberry sauce, not knowing how easy it was to make fresh sauce from scratch; the microwaved dinners like Hungry Man's potatoes and gravy and meatloaf, also not realizing that these were the easiest foods to make from scratch; popcorn and eggs, likewise, easy to to make and inferior when made in our enormous microwave oven.  I fought hard to lose our culture in order to be  part of the crowd, only realizing later that I would never the part of the crowd.  I would always be different, exotic, cute.  I would always stand out, could not really hide behind my hair like I thought I could; wearing black as a teen probably made me stand out more; I could never be "goth" -- my melanin prevented this. 

The illusion of belonging to a dominant class was broken at moments of my parents being talked down to; or my mom being called "cute" --my lunchbox food called weird, and people fascinated by my hair and eyes.  At a point in fifth grade the adoration turned to a silent segregation, and I distinctly remember sitting, as though on a faraway island, looking at my increasingly distant best friend, freckles and blue eyes, and her other newer best friends, blond and red-haired, all pale like Strawberry Shortcake and Barbie and Madonna; all perfect American little girls, as they became a click and left me with Jasmine and Keisha, whom I liked and got along with but also resented because they reminded me of my darkness; somehow being with the two black girls made me feel that all together we were just this big blotch of ink; a shadow on the playground; invisible and disappearing while the rest of the world marched on. A child of ten does not invent such a feeling, and especially not in a small town like Pasco, given that race or racism was never directly talked about by my parents nor in school, that my friends were all oblivious to the subtle ways in which racism was being perpetuated and carried on by their parents.  I remember Luis and Juan and some sense about them being just weird or less-than; I remember Pedro who broke his arm doing antics on the slide; they were Mexican and were seen as the comic relief; they were the jokesters, the pranksters, and so they were loved.  But in a sort of adorable, little-brother way, not to be taken seriously, and certainly not to be the object of a crush.  There was my Indonesian friend, also adorable and smart but never to be the object of a crush; crushes would be reserved for the classically white-cute Jeff or John. (*all names have been changed)

I probably had picked up on or heard snippets of my fathers' frustration, when he was deflated or downright angry about the dynamics at the hospital.  It seemed that the Filipinos were helping the Filipinos but not enough (and what was it they need to help each other for, I wondered?) and the Indian doctors had to leave; and the white doctors all supported one other were not supporting him. We left the Tri-cities nearly losing everything, in debt and abandoning the beautiful house on the hill; I disappeared for years from the scene and moved like a nomad across the country five times before I was a sophomore in high school.

But that is another story.  Let's begin with the body here and see where it all changed.

In Houston, Texas, I learned, as abruptly as you could at the age of 11 in sixth grade, that yes, we were second class citizens, people who should go back "home" (and what home was that?) and who smelled (this being the Indian slur applied generically).  Or it was "ching chong" which really got me because immediately the sound summoned the most slanty-eyed cartoon I could imagine, someone who couldn't even see through the slits of their eyes; and I was proud to have large, almond eyes, eyes my father and others said were due to my Spanish ancestry.  Deer eyes, round eyes, eyes that were expressive.  And I loved to sing, and talk and dance, so how could anything be Ching Chong from my lips --what a bunch of gibberish; I knew nothing about Chinese culture, but I knew no one spoke like that.

I remember, too, that in Texas, my two best friends and I clung to one other, protecting one another from the harsh slurs and taunting and just plain stupidity of the typical hormonal 6th-grader.  We created a fortress by linking arms and always walked together in the narrow halls.  I remember being conscious of Shalini, our Indian third, being made fun of for her hairiness and/or her odor.  Grace was nearly perfect, I thought, but her being Vietnamese and me Filipina, still, we were Asian and this was something, apparently, bad.  Our biggest steretotype was perhaps to be too smart (how terrible). But this also had to go hand-in-hand with, or mean, not-attractive. God forbid you could be brown, smart and pretty at the same time; that idea was only a fantasy.

There is something that extends beyond the number of incidences that I may be able to name that were "racist" -- micro-aggressions, and simply systematic and historical realities that, once you are aware of them, you could not become unaware.  It was only much later, after college, that I became aware that we live in a society built upon slavery, and exploitation, and the murder of brown-skinned people who lived here before. Then I learned that in my islands there were indigenous people before came the Spaniards, and the Dutch, and the British, and the United States, before capitalism and westernized culture infected the minds and hearts and bodies; I learned that people in my islands wished to lighten their skin and go to great lengths to be light, to appear or be white, to speak white, to be Western, and to look down upon their own even before coming to the USA-- the exact process described by Fanon and Cesaire as internalized colonialism, internalized inferiority. I inherited the internalized inferiority complex: I wanted blond hair and blue eyes; I wanted a tall nose; I wanted to lose my melanin and tried to hide my shadow in the brightness of light-skinned people for much of my childhood and teenager-hood. I bought into believing my parents were less-than with their strong accents and "foreign” ways. If I did not -- how else would I ever belong?

It had to be systemic: how could a 10-year old invent the kind of complex that I recall dawning upon me like a heavy mist, a poisonous web, that I breathed into my lungs, that permeated my body.  To be ashamed of my parents' tongue, our skin color, our bone structure, our food, our culture, to be ashamed.

To be ashamed as a woman may be something very universal, and especially under Catholicism, the gift of the conquistador to the natives of our islands and the other islands they descended upon.  But to be ashamed to also be brown, to also hail from what I learned later were islands resembling, no, are actually, Paradise?  Why and how could we feel ashamed of this?  Why and how could we feel ashamed to come from Paradise, where people are warm, loving, communally-minded, resilient, culturally rich, creative, how can you possibly hate the place you came from that was Paradise?

The shame of our own bodies as brown and Filipina is a sad and shared experience.  And now there is the irony that while in most of the world, it's more superior to be light, but there is also the fascination, the desire to be darker, to nearly consume, our golden skin.  The irony that while lightness gains privilege, those same privileged envy – no, desire -- our melanin, our eyes and hair.  To be envied yet to be looked down upon at the same time.  To feel invisible in one moment, unimportant, seen as part of the help or someone who cannot speak for herself; and then in the next, seen as extremely intelligent, eloquent, and exotic.  I never really knew how to accept the "compliment" of being exotic; was I a fruit?  Was I something to eat?  Why not be beautiful, like a fully-conscious and complete and (in my mind, neutral or standard) person could be?  Couldn't I be complex and whole, too? Could we focus on normal things like ice cream flavors and what we liked to do, rather than dwell on the uncomfortable differentness of our bodies? I would have preferred to be smart, interesting and cool than to be exotic, any day.  The journey of loving this body and this skin has been many years in the making.  People are often surprised, because they see me as very Pinay proud, embracing my heritage and loving my body and brown skin.  It’s been an evolution.  For those of us who have lived outside of the liberal or progressive Bay Area, we’ve been exposed to different messages.  Even IN the liberal Bay Area, we have to fight to drown out the noise; to make our own voices of self-love even louder.

[davidjjohnston3]

It appears as if my dream is coming true without me; racial understanding and unity are being achieved.  Madison, Wisconsin these days reminds me of Rutgers and China.  The sky seems almost unreal. In the past I didn't realize how big China is; I only thought about Chinese moms and girlfriends... or spies. * When I was 14 I seem to have been offered a happiness.  At 16 I had that happiness taken away and distrusted the people broke it up.  At 17 I liked or loved one of those people but was wary of her father whom I never met and didn't dare to ask a question. Instead of taking nothing, I took something else which was offered. I was offered a second or final chance recently but was unprepared or failed to follow through  / deliver the complete ready 'suitcase.'  Today I feel beyond sadness.  I have not felt guilt in a long time either but fear of the sky and the new day.  I also sense I taught the wrong things to the wrong people at the wrong time, and they became... I don't know why I tried to be so many things, or hold so many dreams.  I never followed through on one true thing.  I never awaited or sought God's confirmation. All I see is light and beauty.  The population of the United States is increasing / has increased.  I thought my life was over; I was satisfied with my 'museum.'   I wonder whether this is a new 'classical' age a la Yeats 'Leda and the Swan' but I hate things like that. I remember my Taiwanese aunt Jamie and I am thinking of Chairman Mao. Originally my aunt's name was 'Gloria.'  I do not know her Chinese name.  I know she lives in Redlands, CA, and last I checked had a long commute in LA traffic to a Buddhist college. I just want to disappear.  In all my life only two people trusted me, and I ripped them off - one I misunderstood; the other I miscarried or betrayed. I had all these dreams that were alive or lifelike, physical, fleshly - 'carnal' as Houellebecq says in 'Liquid Birth.'  But what's the point? I used to ride the bus around Korea thinking about an old war but now I don't know why.  It was one of those 'parallel' novels with small and large: here is the war, here is someting else, a relationship, as though to say, 'And while __ also __.' I was in Delafield which I visited first in 2009 and thought about the Iraq War.  I thought about General Mattis.  Before attacking a certain Iraqi city the Marine Corps played 'Hell's Bells.'  Why were they so eager to hurl souls into Hell instead of reaching out to them some other way?  Or am I misunderstanding? I was sitting by this river in 2009, wondering about renting an apartment - 'Do you like Asian art' said the person.  In the end I gave him like 500 dollars for the rent-deposit but didn't live there or something.  'Dirtbag!' I met Zola Jesus the same year and also gave her and her brother 500 or so. The Great Recession was cozy for me.   I was happy in a way with my downsized life, as if the pressure were off. I remember the McCain v. Obama election.  At first I was happy John McCain came from behind to win the Republican primary. It occurred to me again that I and McCain are 'Japanese' in some sense of accepting failure and wanting to go down as having had the right idea. I don't know why I lobbied for so long to get fair treatment from the world when I wasn't even asking either what I meant or ultimately wanted, or what God wanted for me, or what was going on or had been going on perhaps since the Lutheran Reformation and the Reformation Wars  - one long war, perhaps since the civil wars marking the Fall of Rome.  As if everywhere is 'Germany; the Holy Roman Empire.' * In the past I read Ecclesiastes a lot - 'and the ocean is not filled.'  I don't know why in some sense I thought I could fill the ocean, or wanted to keep sinking things in there. I remember in 2007 or so I ate buffet food with Taiwan-GF and her parents and they said, 'Why do white people eat Jell-O?'   We also ate some rice with raisins and nuts or something. I don't know why I was eating everything with everyone, trying to be cultured in small ways instead of 'made,' 'made for a purpose.' Nowadays everything seems like Rutgers with these modded cars and people 'expressing themselves.'  I don't want to critique others anymore 'cause I am not a teacher or social critic or columnist or whatever.  I wish I wrote a column for the Joongang but I don't understand their 'angle' or 'cropping' either.  I always just want to make giant arguments and if my organized argument doesn't work I tend to take a 'Red Army' approach as with pedagogy; cf. Kruschev in 'Enemy at the Gates,' saying 'Lose the other half [of your troops].'   People gave me all kinds of 'sign' advices and I don't know what I was thinking experimenting with their advice. I wish I were just working at a gas-station or something with my wife like my boss's Korean parents who became millionaires but the world is bigger now.  These country road I used to yearn to have one of to myself; my grandfather's house at the foot of the San Bernardino's, somehow reminding me of Belgium(?) or Alsace-Lorraine.  I guess in retrospect my happiness place was my apartment in Korea with its fire-door or suicide-door or whatever it was, feeling like a coffin of safe-deposit box; and 'office-tel.' I used to get mad at people for not doing what they talked about.  'My dream school; I'm offering you an idea...' No you're not.  'I want to start a kongbubang' - then he made a Smoothie King instead.   I don't know what anyone is trying anymore or what they dream.  Everyone seems to be trying everything; relationships are what they would have.   I thought of 'a small personal voice,' Chekhov, or something Nabokov said about Chekhov, about people confessing things in quiet voices.  I wanted to scream and yell at people when I was younger but I couldn't in my family and then the moment passed; I wanted to teach HS but was corrupt by then.  Nowadays people can't guess my height; they said I look 6'1 or somtehing but it's really like 5'10 5'11.  All kinds of failures and people I nuked and feeding toxic chemicals to people who love chemical-warfare. I remember in a way the person I wanted to be or the one person I tried to be was in 2002-2003 at the South Mountain Arena ice-skating with HK-ex-girlfriend.  I just liked that image of myself with my nose.  But why?   I keep trying to make a self.  There is this Korean poem, 'I made a self; like peeling an apple; like running off with a woman who was my social superior.'   I never ran away with anyone that I know of; I went to 'Taiwan and Its Contexts' Yale Conference with TW-1, ate some rice and shellfish and the guy said, 'Many of my white students become lawyers.'  I thought about IP and wrote some stuff about teaching HS civics after making money when in the back of my mind I thought, 'If a BigLaw associate makes 160K first year, in 10 years how much money can I have so I can retire and write.'  then at UW-Madison the average starting was like 90K, so... then I remmebreed S'hai's letter about not wasting your 20's and was like what if I just made a ittle deal with myself, my parents, a semi-noncomittall offering to S'hai-1?  What is the point of such gambits(?). I miss 'Maria.'  I like her sunny voice and wish I met her mom or knew more about her.  I taught 'process-writing' which in retrospect was a mistake b/c 'process-writing' is 'German, socialist, patching, bit-by-bit.'  It also mixes past and future, admits failure, and denies individuality or rather implies that individuality comes from other people or something.  Like if Chairman Mao kisses me here, KJU kisses me here, Rose-Apple kisses me here, overall, I'm the Blarney Stone of David Johnston, 'the glass man without external reference.'  Why?   The Bible says, 'God will establish you' or something... I remember all these Democrats saying stuff like, 'In my day we took our neighbors' kids aside and blah blah...'  Communists... My uncle 'Uncle Hammer' once told my dad, 'Discipline your kid.'  My dad walked out and never entered that house for years.  Years later he said, 'Actually Uncle Hammer is right DAvid is a terrible arrogant person etc...'  at the same time Dad was stealing my IP like, 'Let's figure out all DJJ's pornographic adventures, eat his brain and live vicariously...' Everyone was like, 'When everyone says something about you it's probably true...' I don't know if I have anything to say fairly about any of this.  People supposedly derive their impression of God from their parents / father but I've had more than enough time and spiritual 'invasions,' really, to have more direct knowledge of God.  I just had all other affections and dependencies and side-projects and assumed 'trying this would be good enough' without asking. I just wanted my 'little life' and later felt done.  I thought I was sincerely schizophrenic.  I was glad the pressure was off b/c everyone seemed to blow up in my face or doors closed; or I didn't know.  I looked all these Edu. programs but never determined in my heart or mind or prayed for the right to join. All these psychopaths... My dad studied Economics - my family are 'Chinese' - and now his dreams are coming true.  I wanted to be 'RCCP Mediator.'  I studied nuclear weapons but never wanted to drop them.  I was interested in 'nuclear sublime' an idea about Japanese cinema / anime.  'God gave us nuclear weapons to _ _ _.'  I wasn't there to hear His voice so I wouldn't know.  Truman said, 'The power of the sun, something something...'   Later I became intent on 'petite culture' and 'the feminine' and so on.  'I am not gonna think about this.'  I don't work for the Pentagon.  I should've applied to Cornell Hotel Management.  In the summer of 2003 I ate the hearts of burnt-outside oatmeal-cookies and thought / didn't think about Korean-Presbyterian.   * Xi Jinping is going to visit Korea after Covid.  'What's his angle?'  I didn't dislike Xi; I believed in 'Rule of Law,' questioned the Cultural Revolution.  My 'apologetics' for all this were / was flawed in that I argued about weapons-systems killing everyone and how that's why we should love each other, love / obey God.  'OMG weapons-systems?!'   I thought today of my Ukrainian old friend Stan.   I once wrote or started, 'Everything Is Spies.' I think it was about Jiheon Fromis_9(?).   Today I thought about, 'Brides.'  I wanted to say, 'You were like this, that, Korean, Black - just be someone's wife or rather you could be a bride, w/ covered hair.'  I admire the aesthetics of the Catholic Church and their talking about demons and stuff but what if... I feel like I was always reading to lose everything and I gave everything to the wrong people who just eat and eat and eat, then examine the excretions too.  I saw this picture of LOONA Yves and thought, 'My daughter, hold her.'  A beautiful hand, neither boneless nor bony like it has many purposes.  'A wifely smile.'  None of these people care what I say; they don't see what I see.   I remember being happy listening to Wonder Girls' 'Draw Me' and writing stuff.  Most of these people will never care.  Glee, glee, glee.  'Spend my life-savings!'   I wish I could offer myself as a resource to someone but no one's got questions for me anymore.   Everyone figured out what I had to say and what I was right about; those who didn't are determined to be wrong or evil anyway.  And I was evil in trying to make everyone 'right.'   I thought about 'character.'  I pretended to have good character but never stuck to it. I wasn't manly either and never studied manliness.  I didn't think about offering myself to a woman or loving a wife as Christ loved the Church; only 'making deals.'  Later I thought investing in the younger generation would be better; and I was happy to 'downsize' myself. I do not know either why I believed everything was suddenly going to change after Covid Alpha.  People still have secrets, holdings, ambitions, relationships, things which made them special, records, fellowship or lackthereof.  I thought the Millennium was upon us; foolishly as well 'engaged every target' in job-hunting and wasn't ready and I didn't understand journalism either or things like whether NK, TW is a legitimate government in terms of God ordaining a government.  I also didn't know how much of news was propaganda or not; I used to believe everything was lies or disblief was smart then believed everything in books.  I didn't understand 'the game.'  I loved Creation.  'Classic garden.'  Why not train people well?  All these well-made Koreans.  Before KR I hated others and in KR 2012 hated myself or felt alone or IDK.  It's a big country.  These AmKor Twitter ppl, Korea small blah blah.  IDK if they are even being sincere or just peddling cliches. I thought today, 'I am a failed Korean' - or 'failed to be a Korean.'  For a while I thought everybody in the future wanted to be a Korean but I guess they wanted to watch the Olympics. The Midwest is full of farmland more than ever. Man is continuing to subdue the Earth, to be fruitful and multiply. I have no excuse for myself.  What is the future? I didn't go to China so perhaps I do not know. I wonder whether people in the Midwest are still thinking, 'Sth's going to happen.' I have had too many options.   I always thought that I could 'parlay this in to that.'  I considered my CV as a series of changes or mutations.   'Seek thee first the Kingdom of God / and His righteousness'

[shineyourlight80]

Food For Thought.

As someone with different background I could to enjoy different types of food Brazilian food is in a meat eating, Indonesia food which I encourage my encourage everyone to try and Chinese food, which is similar to Indonesian food but still very different.

I was talking to someone at church regarding the subject and somehow we got to talking at tofu when people think of tofu they think of the cold wet and is consistency. also, people eat tofu as a meat alternative. She was surprised when I told her that Asians eat tofu with their meat then she remembered that tofu Absorbs the flavour that it’s in. I started telling her they’re also different types of tofu which almost out of bread-like consistency and also the different ways you can use tofu. She told me that she would like to try the type of but I was talking about it because she went to a vegetarian restaurant I had a vegetarian breakfast or instead of eggs they used tofu. She didn’t like it because it was bland so I ended up taking her to a Chinese restaurant I haven’t been to since I was a child and I took her to a Chinese bakery. she loved it and I got to bless her I told her next time I’ll take her to dim sum.

Living in Toronto, we have so many options regarding Chinese food. I live in Markham, which is regarded the largest and the most recent Chinatown.

Now what does this have to do with spirituality?

I am talking about food but I am also talking about food that I grew up with, that people might not necessarily like. There are foods that people in my culture would eat that I am not particularly fond of, like hot and spicy food, durian, but I am more open to it. I discovered that I like kimchi.

ANNOUNCEMENT: I like durian. I used to hate it. One day, my mom and I were in the basement, when she offered durian to me, knowing I was going to say no, which I did. I remembered when Alicia told me that after the second bite, it isn't so bad, so I told my Mom that. To which she asked, ’so do you want to try it?’ and I said, ’ok’. I tried the first bite, it was the same as I remembered it, but then, I ate the second bite. as I chewed slowly, swallowed it, I realized that the taste that was in the first bite, wasn't in the second. I told my Mom that it wasn't so bad. My mom laughed.

You’re probably wondering what does THIS have to do with spirituality?

THIS, and it's also the reason why I decided to blog about this on one of our most important days, a day that we do not celebrate it but I feel that we should.

I grew up in a Christian family. I was talking to someone about this on my way, and they’re like, you’re so blessed to be able to have that. Maybe but there are a lot of things that we were asked to do, that it became an obligation. That's why I did not like reading the Bible growing up. During the School of Ministry, I loved journaling but when it came to reading the Bible for class, I do it because it’s a part of my assignment. The same thing in Oroville, although, there was a time that I didn't do my homework and I got confronted. For some reason, I decided to be honest about it and I told Stefanie that I didn't like reading the Bible. She said I still had to my homework. There were times where I was like, ok, I will read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation but I would give up because I always got stuck in Leviticus or Numbers. I am sorry God but it’s boring.

At Central, they encouraged us to sign up for the Bible in a year, which helped me a bit more because they broke it down. I wasn't as consistent as I wanted to be but I started reading it. This year came and I thought, I will try to be more disciplined but no...but then I got back into it, again.

At the end of August, Central announced that they were doing a weekly Bible study, which seemed interesting. I have been other Bible studies before, so I wanted to know how they were going to do this one. When Mom found out, she told me not to go just because it was a program - which I admit was part of the reason I went. I am glad I went.

When Chris Long, our pastor started the session, he showed us how to read it using SOAP (Scripture, Observation, Application and Personalize). I decided to use for when I did my devotion. You know, what? It was very effective. It revolutionized the way I did my devotion. I also decided to follow Dad's advice by reading the scriptures out loud. Although, a few weeks ago, I was reading and I wasn't getting anything. It was also one of the scriptures that was really popular and that I have known for a while. Since I wasn't getting anything, I decided to ask God about it. Normally, when I don't get anything, I think ’whatever’ and I move on. When I journal and ask God, he told me that it's because when I read/ hear something like a passage or Scripture more than once, after a while, I feel like I don't need to learn it anymore

Sigh....that’s true.

Then He went on to tell me that when my parents asked me about my Bible reading when I was younger, it’s because it’s important. I need to read the Bible. Then He gave me an example: when it’s dinnertime, do I say ’I already ate lunch, therefore I don't need to eat dinner’? No, reading our Bible is our spiritual meal. Our spirit needs to eat and also, we can always learn something new from the same verse, especially now with SOAP. This is a great way to read the Bible. As I am writing this, I am reminded of what happens when I don't drink. I get dehydrated. That's what happens when you read your Bible without involving the Holy Spirit, like journaling or praying, it gets boring and dry.

Also part of the reason I decided to release this blog around this time, is because Reformation Day is coming up. I thank God for using Martin Luther as a person who helped us gain access to the Bible. We are blessed with to live in country that allows us to practice our faith, worship and fellowship as the Body of Christ in a building. In Toronto, I have access to a variety of Chinese food, like I have access to the different translation of the Bible. Like my pastor said, if it gets you to read the Bible, then get it because just like your body needs nourishment, so does your Spirit.