25 August

Sunday 25th August 2019 marks the 150th Anniversary of the laying of the Christ Church Lavender Bay Foundation Stone. This is the church where I will be getting married at in two weeks’ time. The day began by re-enacting the steamer journey taken by clergy, government representatives, and community members on the 25th August 1869, who crossed the harbour from the Sydney side to Lavender Bay, then ascended the newly constructed steps up to the site of the new church building. However, I did not join the ferry journey because I get motion sickness on boats. I brought my friend along to join their celebration service.  

Although this is a day of celebration for Christ Church Lavender Bay, this was a day of lamentations in Taiwan 29 years ago, where the biggest boat disaster in Taiwan’s history occurred in the Sun Moon Lake.

Nicknamed the “heart of Taiwan”, the Sun Moon Lake is located at the geographic centre of Taiwan.

George Candidius (Chinese: 干治士; pinyin: Gān Zhìshì) (1597, Kirchardt, Palatinate – 30 April 1647, Batavia, Dutch East Indies), also recorded as Georgius Candidius, was a Dutch Reformed Church missionary to Dutch Formosa from 1627 to 1637. He was the first missionary to be stationed on the island. Sun-Moon Lake in central Taiwan was named Lake Candidius in his honour and is referred to thus in older English writings, although this name was not adopted by the local inhabitants and later fell into disuse.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Candidius

Lalu island is a small island in Sun Moon Lake. The island used to be much bigger, separating the lake into a part shaped like crescent moon and another part shaped like a round sun. When the island was still bigger, people used to live on it. Two events decreased the size of the island. First, construction of a dam in the 1930s raised the water level in the lake and thereby flooded almost the entire the island. In 1999 the island shrank again during the 921 earthquake which also destroyed the pavilion.

The indigenous people believed the island to be the resting place of their ancestors' spirits and called the island "wulalaluwan". "Lalu" is the abbreviation of this name. It means "the holy island in the heart". It used to house an "old man under the moon" temple, which was relocated after the 921 earthquake because the island was sinking to the point where people cannot board the island to worship this idol.

Regarding the boat disaster on 25August, 1990, it was an overloaded and unlicensed pleasure boat chartered by the Shell Oil Co. and carrying 88 vacationers. The boat capsized right after they worshipped the “old man under the moon.” More about that incident here:

https://www.upi.com/Archives/1990/08/27/More-bodies-found-in-Taiwan-lake/9296651729600/

My father’s first long distance trip was the Sun Moon Lake. My grandfather took him there when he was 4 years old. Relatives said he was especially unsettled that day and cried nonstop. I’ve been to the Sun Moon Lake twice in 2015: One time was when my paternal grandmother passed away and I went back to Taiwan and didn’t know where to go. The second time was a round island tour with my maternal grandma, and the Sun Moon Lake happened to be the first attraction site of the tour. During that round island tour, I also did a marching prayer. Four years have passed in a flash and the Taiwan presidential election is coming up again.

https://dryvonnewang.blogspot.com/2015/12/round-island-trip-taiwan-2015-2016.html

In 2017 Christmas break, I visited Taiwan and our family hired a van and van driver to take us to Yi-Lan. The driver mentioned that he was in the Sun Moon Lake for work during the time of the boat disaster. People were celebrating the birthday of a god that that time, and they had a big fast in that whole region. All the hotels had gone vegan, except the hotel where the Shell employees lived! This form of idol worship still happens once in a while at the Sun Moon Lake region, with the most recent one being in 2017.

In 1990, a seven year old kid was stuck in that boat cabin for three hours. Just before the water filled the whole cabin, his father prayed with him, and the kid suddenly got flushed out of a hole in the boat and got saved in a miraculous fashion. I will be getting married to that person in two weeks’ time.

The Sun Moon Lake Church of Christ, a church built by Chiang Kai-Shek for his personal use, which subsequently became a tourist attraction spot, have just commenced Sunday services in August 2019. Now a functional church with active worship and prayers, it is hoped that tourists will encounter the presence of God at the Sun Moon Lake.

Food for thought:

Heroes

Heroes are those people whom God has used to play a part in shaping our character or influencing our direction. Perhaps there was a pastor or teacher whose encouragement created a desire to excel in a particular area. Seidel, "Life Story and Spiritual Formation."

I have a big dilemma when it comes to the term “heroes.” Since there is no such thing as a perfect human other than Jesus, and God commands us not to worship idols, the only human I can confidently call my hero is Jesus. I believe it is more appropriate to use the term "role model" when we talk about humans. There are certainly many people who I see as role models in my life, and many ancestors who have fought so hard to survive to make the current generation possible.

Recently the Ancestry DNA has matched me up with my second cousin once removed, and I was able to get a bit more information about the ancestral background of my paternal grandfather, who became orphaned at a young age. It turns out that my grandfather’s grandfather, Ju Wang, took the boat from Quanzhou to Taipei during late Ching dynasty (so my paternal line didn’t come to Taiwan as early as we had thought). He brought along his son Cheng Wang, but left behind an elder son in China. Cheng Wang's younger brother Ding Wang was my great grandfather. Ju Wang died young, leaving behind his young children to figure out for themselves how to survive in this strange land. Ding Wang and his wife Xiao-Hu Chen also died quite young, leaving my grandfather orphaned at a young age. Luckily, Cheng Wang adopted my grandfather. These days, despite his dementia, my grandfather still mentions that if his uncle didn’t adopt him back then, he would have been doomed. So I consider Cheng Wang to be a role model, to take on an additional child in an era where resources were very limited and people die like flies.

Ever since an young age, I felt inspired by my parents. To me, the stories of how they broke out of the poverty cycle because of their high achieving abilities sounded heroic. This in turn influenced my worldview and I had been very “performance oriented.” I had the tendency to look up to people who are high achievers. However, in the last five years or so, I gradually found out there is a trap to this type of mindset. I tend to get agitated when I see myself or others being “non-productive.” I have a tendency to see those who contribute more to society as being more valuable than those who don’t. Eventually I came to realise that no matter how dysfunctional an individual is, each human being is made in the image of God, and each human life is equally valuable in God’s eyes.

There are many other role models in my life, in the work place, in church, and some people whose stories I have read about in the Bible and in biographies, eg. George Leslie Mackay. Too many to name, and I believe this learning process will continue for the rest of my life.

Heritage

Heritage is the combined influences from our past that God has used to write our stories, to mould us, and to bring us where we are today: family influences, geography, natural gifting, genetics and temperament. Seidel, "Life Story and Spiritual Formation."

I was born in Taiwan, a region some people have nicknamed as "the orphan of Asia." The population of this region is comprised of people from three major waves of migration very distinct in terms of historical origin, language, custom, and culture. Having been under the control of various rulers we did not choose, the population is in an acute multilayer identity crisis. Personally, I would consider myself Taiwanese in nationality and Chinese in ethnicity. I had done the “Ancestry DNA test” which revealed I am 100% Chinese, which was very surprising for me because my ancestors were part of the migration wave from the Ming Dynasty approximately 400 years ago, and I had expected to have some indigenous Taiwanese ancestors.

My parents are both very high achievers, being the top of their classes in elementary and junior high school, always getting into their first preferences for high school and tertiary studies. In fact, my mother was nicknamed “100%” by her maths teacher at the Taipei First Girls’ High School because she always used to get 100% in her tests. Genetically I inherited some of that cleverness, and sailed along relatively smoothly study-wise and work-wise. However, my parents had pretty frustrating careers. My mother worked as a teacher for a few years and got too bored with that job, so she sat the diplomat exam and got into the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It was a difficult exam in general and they capped the number of positions for females so it was extremely difficult for a woman to become a diplomat. However, Taiwan has not had much success at building diplomatic relationships with other countries, and even the most skilled diplomat cannot change this situation.

Meanwhile, when my father did his mandatory military service in Taiwan, one can get a position as an army officer if they did well on an IQ based exam. He did very well and became a cannon officer in Kinmen. After the military service, my father worked as an electrical engineer. It was a luxury government job where he was given a high salary with hardly any work to do. However, living a semi-retired lifestyle most of his working life seemed to have an adverse effect on his brain. In fact, he seemed rather unmotivated and depressed most of the time.

Being a diplomat’s daughter meant that I grew up under many different cultures and find it difficult to identify which culture influenced what in my mindset and values. A lot of times I feel I don’t belong anywhere, and cannot identify any group of peers with whom I have a “sense of belonging” with. I followed my mother in my elementary school and middle school years, while my father worked in Taiwan. Subsequently I went off to New Zealand alone to study high school. On top of that, I am the only child. So I had been a very independent person most of my life and find it difficult to build relationships with people. Temperament wise, I am introverted. Furthermore, there seems to be autistic spectrum traits running on my father’s side of the family. This may have influenced my EQ, and I think my EQ is lower than the average female population.

It is by grace that I even have a relationship with God, as there were no Christians in my family to begin with. I was placed in a Christian kindergarten, which made me became aware of someone named Jesus. I was placed into a Sunday school, which my parents saw as a “free day care service” for Sundays. My family was able to access these services mainly because we lived in close proximity to churches and hospitals that were established in relation to George Leslie Mackay, one of the most influential missionaries in the history of Taiwan. Then, when I went to the US, a family friend influenced me to do the sinner’s prayer. When I went to New Zealand, my mother bumped into a nice Christian family at the airport and that was when I became 100% certain that the God described in Christianity is the true God.

The past influences described above meant that I tend to see things quite differently from others. When people say things or give me information, rather than taking things in without any questions, I tend to research further into it. I can understand why people hold very different perspectives on various matters, and wonder why people engage in certain futile debates instead of accepting that diversity is a fact of life and just “agreeing to disagree” on certain matters.

In terms of giftings, the spiritual gifts questionnaire say that I am gifted in the areas of faith, prophecy, teaching, wisdom and knowledge. However, I am a bit sceptical about questionnaires. One tends to discover their gifts in a communal setting. I have a clear calling in the area of “missions in the workplace” but have difficulty in grasping the concept of how one can bring Christianity into the workplace. It is unprofessional to go off on a tangent talking about God in a busy work setting. In fact, it is seen as offensive. Sure, people might admire you if you have good character, but you don’t have to be a Christian to practice good character. I find that even though I am influencing the physical health of the community in my work as a general practitioner, I do not think I have influenced anyone with the “spiritual gifts” described above (or, at least I don’t recall anyone telling me they are influenced by me in these areas). I do not recall being able to practice any of my gifts in the church setting either (other than perhaps preventing a few people from dying from some medical emergencies). I guess I am still asking God, “which piece of the puzzle does God want me to be?”