12 things I’m thankful for in 2012.

 I thought I’d express my gratitude for this last year by compiling a list of a few of the things which stand out for me, looking back on it. 12 short posts to talk about the things which have made 2012 a hard but wonderful year.

1.  Translating D. A. Carson’s book The God Who Is There into French. My first book and first great professional achievement after obtaining my master’s in 2011, I believe it will be a great resource for French people who wish to study the Bible in a fresh way, based nonetheless on rigorous scholarship. I must thank my editor Michel, who gave me this great opportunity and my corrector Dominique, for helping me reach higher levels of French expression. I’ll include translating Tim Keller’s The Meaning of Marriage here, since otherwise I won’t have enough points, and will have to over 12! It truly has been a wonderful, though tough experience translating this book, which challenged me spiritually even as I worked on it linguistically. I believe this too is going to be a wonderful resource for French speakers who are looking for something more than a nice little book about how to make your marriage better: a robust, insightful and incisive theological book, it will change people’s lives, and is a great addition to the corpus of French Christian literature, as is Carson’s book.

2.  My wonderful students. I must say that over 90% of my students have been incredibly fun to teach and it has also been heart-warming to spend time with them and hear their issues, develop friendships with them, encourage them, all the while teaching them English.

3. Improving my Japanese to the point of being able to understand conversations better and read better. I felt a huge feeling of satisfaction on three different occasions recently: a Japanese person telling me I have a beautiful pronunciation ("kirei na hatsuon"), spending 3 hours in Abu Dhabi airport speaking with a young Japanese guy who couldn't speak any English, and talking about a wide range of subjects! Finally, Kei being shocked 2 weeks ago, when I didn't ask her to repeat what she said all the time "? Did you understand what I just said? Sugoooi! (Amazing!)" HAHAHA!!!!

4.  My new family, who have accepted me without any ifs and buts. And my actual family, thanks to whom we have been able to go ahead with the wedding, and with whom we spent a wonderful Christmas.

5.  RDV 2012, where God touched my heart profoundly, challenging me and giving me great hope for the future.

6.  Giving blood, thanks to which I was warned to get back into sports, when they found I had low levels of iron in my blood, because of my lack of exercise and sedentary, computer-based work. Now I feel like a new man!

7.  Getting back into Karate, after years outside the dojo. I’ve fallen once again in love with the beauty of the art, the poetry of kata, and enjoy every training session.

8. Getting a proper initiation to Shakespeare and getting back into poetry, both of which happened through my English Literature module. This has led me once again to write, think, read more.

9. Starting teacher training, another step towards my hopes, aspirations and vision. I’m especially thankful to Holli, my teacher in English Teaching, who has made the whole semester easier to go through. 

10.  My amazing surprise birthday party, first ever in my life, so lovingly organised by my wonderful bride.

11. My friends, new and old, and old ones made new, who have made this year fun and exciting.

12. Spending this year with the woman of my life, the godly, beautiful, wise, fun-loving sister in Christ that is Nikki. I’m growing and being challenged by and through her, learning more about myself and about women.

These are but a few of the things which I can mention. This year has presented many challenges as well as disappointments, which I won’t mention, and of course, I’m thankful above all to God, who carries me through them. Thanks to him, I can look forward to 2013, a wonderful year ahead. Let me mention a few of the things I’m excited about:

1. Watching The Hobbit, which along with The Lord of The Rings marked my childhood quite powerfully.

2. Getting married, of course!!! It should be first on the list, but the movie is happening next week! :D

3. Starting teaching in secondary schools in Geneva!

4. Going to Greece for our honeymoon! I’ve wanted to go there ever since I was a kid!!!

5. Getting into more poetry and more Shakespeare! The ignoramus that I am is thirsty for more culture, more verse: I want to read Milton’s Paradise Lost and Shakespeare’s Coriolanus (and then watch the Ralph Fiennes adaptation).

Plenty more things to mention, but no need… I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself. Let’s enjoy 2013 everyone!          

Surprise for me...

15th September 2012. We're late. Again. It's Lea's 1st birthday, and Nikki is doing God knows what, making us late for the event. I hate being late, because I hate being made to wait, and therefore hate having to make people wait for me. When she finally arrives, she says 'Oh, we have to go back to my place, I forgot something important!' By this time, I'm getting really annoyed at her... What's going on here?!... Nearing Founex, I get a call from Harriet, 'Yes, we're about to arrive, I'm so sorry we're late!' 'Oh, it's okay, see you in a bit!'
We arrive and I see the 'thing' she'd forgotten was spring rolls! WTH? I'm confused and annoyed, but somehow, I don't get angry. I walk through the door and shout out 'Hello, we're here!'... There seems to be no-one at all. 'What's going on?' Nikki walks in behind me, chirpy. Suddenly, as I walk into the living room, a group of madmen with lucha libre masks and banzai bandanas jump in front of me and start thrusting their pelvises into the air, shouting "OKKEEEEEEEI!!!!" like one of my favourite inappropriate comedians... It's my mates. Why are they here for my 1-year-old niece's birthday. And why do they all look like scary rapists. Or Street Fighters. And why is everyone filming me. By now, I look like a Berlusconi when he's getting his face-lift. I can't stop smiling ear-to-ear, but somehow I'm really confused, so there's that face-lift strain. Nikki's beaming, her sister Raissa, dressed like a Muay Thai fighter who could have me in a fight is cackling, filming my silly face, Harriet's there, in on the whole thing, also smiling, with Joshua in her arms, and I get hugs all-round from my friends... A surprise birthday party for me (three days before mine). The theme? What else: Sutoriito Faitaa!
It actually took me several hours to realise that it really was my birthday party, and that poor Lea was not going to get any attention today! As more and more people came trickling in throughout the day, I kept getting surprises! My cousins from Italy, my old schoolfriend Marco, and many others showed up. Nikki, Raissa, Grace and Hannah basically spent the whole day cooking while others were having fun. Simon and Caroline had prepared a ton of sushi. We had a blast. The photobooth was pretty fun too. And Kinect spiced up the evening, especially with Seira's funny dance moves. The Japanese are always the best dancers (ehem! I hear a big 'FU' coming my way).
Days, weeks, months after this day, I still struggle to believe my fiancée did so much, put so much effort into making this party happen, just totally shocked me and rocked me off my socks! The only thing that can motivate a person to do something similar is a deep, committed, extravagant love. I have never known anything like this in my life. At 28, I get my first surprise birthday ever. And it comes from the most amazing, unique, special person in my life. How she did it, I cannot know. But I know that I want to do stuff like that for her. And I know that I don't enough.
So baby, I just want to publicly say this. I love you. There's no one else in my life who has ever made my feel the way you do, and I want to spend the rest of my life working to make you feel special everyday. You fill a void in my heart, and lighten up my days. You make me want to be a better man, and your seriousness to your commitment to me amazes me. Thank you for being who you are, and thank you for wanting to follow me, even though I'm so clueless. Mwah!

Memorial dream

Last night, I dreamt of my grandfather. My sister told me he was dead, but it turned out that he was dying. I found myself in a room with him, and others whom I do not remember. I had a nice chat with him, and cried, I cried so much, all the tears I didn't cry at his actual funeral. I was concerned for his standing before God. He told me that he was reconciled to Him, and not to worry.

Oh, the things that cheese fondue can do to you. Grandpa has been gone for 10 and a half years now. I guess it's appropriate to remember him and raise a glass to him. So here's to John Blair Dymock, aka Grandpa Blair. Hope to see you again when all things are made new, maybe share a drink.

How the mighty have fallen

There haven't been any particular press releases it seems, on the details of Tony Scott's suicide. Maybe reporters are actually being respectful of his family's wish for privacy.

This is a phenonemal story of sadness nonetheless. It is surprising to see how many people knew about Scott and his movies, and also how many didn't know he'd directed some of their faves, or that he was Ridley Scott's brother. I was having a conversation with a friend about him just a month ago. I must say, his IMDB list of movies reveals some pretty awful productions, but it also reveals his presence in a plethora of movies and series. For people older than me, he's the director of Top Gun, with that scary monkey faced woman. For me, he's the director of Man of Fire, one of my all-time favourites, just one of the best revenge movies ever, with a brilliant casting, script, music, overall production and underlying themes.

I seems to me that he intended for his death to be a parable. Indeed, for once, it's not a mixture of pills that kills a famous person, in uncertain circumstances, not to disrespect Heath Ledger, but it was all very odd. This was a clear and open statement. Indeed, it looks like an intentional declaration. He didn't take his life with a gun, didn't overdose, didn't have a weird accident. Some say he may have had an inoperable brain tumor. If this is true, he chose to go out with a bang. But whether it is or isn't true, the power of this image stays.

It speaks out: "Look at me, look at my life. Look at the people I know, look at the money I have, look at the things I've achieved. I may still have twenty years of life in me, or just 6 months, which could be well lived, but I don't see anything else worth doing. I embrace death over life. I will make my body go to where my mind is already. It will join countless others, who are just like me. I will show you how I fall."

It's a story we all know. I'm not trying to be funny here, his death is a tragedy, I can't even imagine how his close ones feel. But this is a statement he made, in a world which still doesn't GET it! There are still people who believe what this stupid R'n'B/pop culture is preaching at them: that they can be happy if they rise to the heights they can imagine for themselves. Money, fame, power, artistic achievement, adulation, sexual satsifaction, self-realisation. Ultimately, it doesn't free you from your hell, this lack of inner peace, it just makes it more evident. The problem is not in aiming high. It's that people don't aim high enough.

The only true height from which we cannot fall, the love of God, expressed in Jesus' fall for our redemption. We aim for man-made heavens instead of the true heaven. And THAT is tragic for ALL of us.

Quintessential theology

"For the essence of sin is man substituting himself for God, while the essence of salvation is God substituting himself for man. Man asserts himself against God and puts himself where only God deserves to be; God sacrifices himself for man and puts himself where only man deserves to be. Man claims prerogatives which belong to God alone; God accepts penalties which belong to man alone."¹

1	John R. W. Stott, The Cross of Christ (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1986), 160.

Lyrics that shake...

Was singing Be Thou My Vision, the great classic Irish hymn in my room last night, having a great jam (yes, I sounded great for those who were wondering), and as I reached the 4^th stanza, was particularly struck by the lyrics I was singing. As I've been trying to prepare mentally, spiritually and practically for marriage, I have caught myself thinking a lot about money, even worrying about it, thinking “Am I going to be a good provider?”. I've been trying to project my earnings, working harder to reach a higher revenue, and yet, I see that expenses just get higher, as life becomes more serious, and things I never wanted to pay for I find myself having to accept. I guess it's part of growing older and part of getting married. However, it is easier to start losing sight of things and starting to think more about material things as you dive further into the material world. Thank God I'm not marrying a material girl! Just to allay any suspicion from readers: she's real, not fake, I haven't made her up after all, just, not materialistic.

And then I pronounce these verses:

Riches I need not, nor man's empty praise (can I really say that?)

Be thou mine inheritance, now and always (is that enough?)

Be thou and thou only the first in my heart (yes, yes I get it!)

O Sovereign of heaven, my treasure Thou art. (I wanna cry...)

And this is my creed. I have never loved money greatly, but it is still such a draw. Such a tension between needing to work in order to live and needing to work in order to amass wealth. Between putting money aside wisely for the future and for enjoyment, and worrying about future needs to the point that you work yourself to death. Not that I'm remotely close to either of those cases right now, but I have seen my thoughts wander in that direction.

And then I meditate these words: Riches I need not, […] my treasure Thou art.* What can take the place of money? Love, sure. But earthly love produces needs which generate activity in order to supply those needs. The infinite, heavenly love of God fulfils needs, supplies want, eliminates fear. I believe in God's provision for me. I have to, because I know how weak and lazy and incompetent I can be. Christ gave himself for me. How can I not trust him for everything else? (Romans 8 ref.)

*: This also strikes me as to the quality of old-school worship songs. There was a true care lyrically, as well as musically, to produce songs which speak powerful biblical truth to its listeners and singers. I find it sad how nowadays, even some Christian groups seem to be worried about novelty over quality, going along with this world's musical trend. It's no conundrum as to which of these songs are going to stand the test of time. In 100 years, people are still going to be singing and touched by Be Thou My Vision, while many of today's “Get up and be cool for Jesus” tracks will be long since forgotten.

ADD society

One of the worst examples of our ADD society landed on me yesterday, as I was in the car with my brother. We're in Italy, jamming along to a Snap – I've got the power on the radio, when suddenly the song fades into ads and into a new song. Confused, we get into the next song and it suddenly changes again after a couple of minutes. Now people should know that I pretty much hate the radio and the music on it, so it was a miracle that they were playing tunes I was enjoying. But we realised that they were only playing half songs. Do you realise that some consider people's attention spans to be so bad that they can't even listen to one listenable song on the radio anymore??? That is so messed up that it almost trumps the fact that songs about oral sex make it on the radio for preteens to sing along to!

Screw that, Stu and I are beatboxing and rapping Snap in the car for the kids from now on. They love it.

Ip Man and my frustration with current Chinese cinema

Recently, Donnie Yen has once again made martial arts movies popular and attractive to international audiences after quite a lull in general, but has also managed to reach older people and those who have no general interest in martial arts, with the two Ip Man movies which have come out in the past couple of years. For those who don’t know, Ip Man is not a Chinese superhero (like He-Man, Super-Rat, Paper Man or Bible Man, to name a few of the most famous), but the name of an actual person who lived. He didn’t have an unfortunate name, since he wasn’t from an English speaking country.

The visual quality of these movies is truly spectacular. They present the events therein as historical fact, setting them in a pre- and post-Sino-Japanese War period (1930s). Ip Man is a bourgeois, and an expert of a martial art called Wing Chun, one which my sister did for a while, and which some poser told me about a few years ago, claiming it was better than karate. Funny how history repeats itself constantly (in the movie, posers are constantly doing the same). Both movies follow the same pattern. The peaceful life of the Chinese people in the first one (and the more difficult context of the second, in which the hero is penniless in Hong Kong) is disrupted by evil foreigners who abuse the Chinese. Therefore, the great master steps up to show Chinese strength and pride. The story is simple, very well done, appealing, funny at times, emotional at other times, and it presents a new way of doing martial arts movies with an old formula, which is very exciting and fun to watch. They got some pretty famous actors (for those who know Chinese cinema) to appear in them. Wonderful. The problem with them, is that they’re not true. And while the Chinese were truly downtrodden by both the Japanese and the West in the past, but let’s not forget the reality of today, and their history of the last 50 years.

Now I’m a fan of Donnie Yen's. I’ve been a fan of his since well-before his finally, well-deserved recognition as a martial arts actor. He and Jet Li performed two of the greatest fights in Chinese period martial arts dramas ever, in One Upon a Time in China 2 and Hero. I was annoyed to see his career never take off in Hollywood, as I was when his character got killed off so quickly in Blade 2 (even though he was the fight choreographer, some things, you just don’t do!). So it’s kind of annoying to have to bash these movies, when I’m so pleased that random people are saying “Oh have you watched this?” as if it were mainstream, when they would never normally have watched a movie of that kind before. It’s kinda like when one of your favourite bands gets recognised for its most popular and more average music.

Nonetheless, they frustrate me on many levels; some of them people may not care about. The most important and problematic one however, is the nationalistic spin on them. The Chinese have done great movies over the years, but recently, it has become obvious that the Chinese government wants to use cinema for propaganda. Some wonderful movies have been made in the past decade which they could use to express their metanarrative* (I’m thinking about the splendid trilogy of Zhang Yimou’s Hero, House of Flying Daggers (less relevant here) and Curse of the Golden Flower). However, recently, perhaps as a reaction to young and older people getting more and more fidgety on internet forums, they’ve decided to bring out the big guns and produce massive-budget movies which present the Chinese revolution and the battles of the Communists in very vivid and epic ways. The Beginning of the Great Revival and 1911, to name the two biggest ones, have seen all the most famous and important Chinese and Hong Kong actors alive today take a role in them. What a great way to entice audiences.

They want to do that, fine. But don’t start putting your finger in every single movie out there! True Legend, interesting and fun movie, ruined by its finale with its patriotic spin. Ip Man presents its main character as a national hero who stood up to the Japanese invaders, and Ip Man 2 makes him a double national hero for standing up to proud Westerners and becoming the spokesman for equality and respect… The problem is that nowhere do they mention that it only inspired from his life and not completely accurate.

Wikipedia tells me that Ip Man chose to leave Foshan for Hong Kong since the Communist Chinese government didn’t appreciate his politics and his wealth, not because of the Japanese.

The two movies use formulae which have already been done to death in Fist of Fury, Fist of Legend, Fearless, to name a few of the best. And it’s still enjoyable, but the last bit of Ip Man 2 just stops making logical sense, where he struggles to beat an English boxer after having taken out ten men at a time in both movies.

Another thing that frustrates and truly worries me is the presence, in both of these movies, of interpreters, who in both cases are cowardly collaborators, but in the end repent and turn to help the cause. This presents the person of the interpreter automatically as a traitor, taking the saying “traduttore traditore” absolutely literally! This just puts forth the idea that a true Chinese person should not dabble in the affairs of foreigners and should simply be happy with being part of the Chinese superstructure, not getting a linguistic education unless it is for the purpose of serving his government. That was exactly the stance of the USSR back in the cold war. Anyone who wants to translate and bring into the country a foreign concept is automatically a traitor, for why do we need any other ideas, if we’re right?

The formula has always been there and it works. There are good guys and bad guys, it’s normal in a Kung Fu movie. However, we can feel, sadly, that the simple and the moralistic nature of these movies dumbs down Chinese cinema, and Hong Kong cinema (which are two separate things, just in case you didn’t realise it). The nuanced, dark, mysterious heroes of Zhang Yimou’s movies (sometimes too ambiguous for my taste) or Johnnie To’s cinema (who can sometimes be too dark), give way to the mono-expressive, bright, unfalteringly righteous man of the people. But I’m criticising too much. I like black and white movies too. They ultimately give you a sense of truth, right and wrong, the true metanarrative that we need a saviour, an immovable man, a radical force to give us back what we’ve lost in shame and weakness. The only problem is when this is done in a way that presents untruths as true and black and white, right and wrong as depending on the colour of your flag.

*A metanarrative is a story beyond the story which explains a philosophical worldview.

Le Savetier et le Financier (de Jean de La Fontaine)

Un Savetier chantait du matin jusqu'au soir :
C'était merveilles de le voir,
Merveilles de l'ouïr ; il faisait des passages,
Plus content qu'aucun des sept sages.
Son voisin au contraire, étant tout cousu d'or,
Chantait peu, dormait moins encor.
C'était un homme de finance.
Si sur le point du jour parfois il sommeillait,
Le Savetier alors en chantant l'éveillait,
Et le Financier se plaignait,
Que les soins de la Providence
N'eussent pas au marché fait vendre le dormir,
Comme le manger et le boire.
En son hôtel il fait venir
Le chanteur, et lui dit : Or çà, sire Grégoire,
Que gagnez-vous par an ? - Par an ? Ma foi, Monsieur,
Dit avec un ton de rieur,
Le gaillard Savetier, ce n'est point ma manière
De compter de la sorte ; et je n'entasse guère
Un jour sur l'autre : il suffit qu'à la fin
J'attrape le bout de l'année :
Chaque jour amène son pain.
- Eh bien que gagnez-vous, dites-moi, par journée ?
- Tantôt plus, tantôt moins : le mal est que toujours ;
(Et sans cela nos gains seraient assez honnêtes,)
Le mal est que dans l'an s'entremêlent des jours
Qu'il faut chommer ; on nous ruine en Fêtes.
L'une fait tort à l'autre ; et Monsieur le Curé
De quelque nouveau Saint charge toujours son prône.
Le Financier riant de sa naïveté
Lui dit : Je vous veux mettre aujourd'hui sur le trône.
Prenez ces cent écus : gardez-les avec soin,
Pour vous en servir au besoin.
Le Savetier crut voir tout l'argent que la terre
Avait depuis plus de cent ans
Produit pour l'usage des gens.
Il retourne chez lui : dans sa cave il enserre
L'argent et sa joie à la fois.
Plus de chant ; il perdit la voix
Du moment qu'il gagna ce qui cause nos peines.
Le sommeil quitta son logis,
Il eut pour hôtes les soucis,
Les soupçons, les alarmes vaines.
Tout le jour il avait l'oeil au guet ; Et la nuit,
Si quelque chat faisait du bruit,
Le chat prenait l'argent : A la fin le pauvre homme
S'en courut chez celui qu'il ne réveillait plus !
Rendez-moi, lui dit-il, mes chansons et mon somme,
Et reprenez vos cent écus.