It was a joyful morning of training with over 60 in attendance plus 2 young adults helping with 5 kids. Thank God for all volunteers who love God and love children ministry.
I’ve always struggled with my ethnic identity. Usually I don’t “feel” like I’m Chinese. I grew up with white people and tried hard to fit in, tried hard “not be Chinese”. While I know I’ve never been accepted as “white”, I generally identify more as white than Chinese. But today I felt Chinese.
Today my husband and I took our training speakers to have a Chinese cultural experience. The husband is Nigerian and wife is white from the Valley, Simi Valley that is. We took them to authentic Canto food at the Noodle – “there’s no Panda Express in Rowland Heights”. Through their eyes I discovered, and appreciated, my Chineseness. We took them shopping at the Chinese market. Everything from hanging roast duck in the deli, stew beef with tendons, the variety of chinese vegetables (not just one kind of bok choy), the choices of fresh noodle – it was fun for them, and it was fun for me too to be the host.
We had them over for dinner a few months ago for hot pot, and since then, they’ve been wanting to do their own hot pot meal. Today at the Chinese market, they bought the whole set up and all the food items, planning to have it with her parents and sisters tomorrow. I walked them through everything they need, as if I know what I’m doing. I guess I do know something about Chinese culture…
And he showed us how to pick a good coconut. He used to climb up coconut trees, without a harness, and ax coconuts! To me that’s pretty amazing. I guess the Chinese market was pretty amazing to them in the same way.