Posted in reflections, tagged culture, family, inheritance on July 4, 2017| 1 Comment »
Photo by Dhinal Chheda
By Liz Chang
One of my favorite things about growing up in a Korean immigrant church was that the church community was my family’s extended family in America. As a kid, this meant that I could count on collecting gifts of money at church on Christmas, New Year’s Day, and Lunar New Year’s Day. At first, I would feel shy and grateful when receiving the gifts. Then, as a teenager, I would feel awkward but secretly happy to receive them. (more…)
Posted in reflections, tagged culture, familiarity, foreign on May 26, 2015| Leave a Comment »
Photo by neiljs
By Chloe Sun
Most of us like the familiar and feel ambivalent about the foreign. When we experience something new, our brain tends to search our database to see if there is anything familiar about these new experiences. The new experiences are being interpreted in light of the old familiar experiences. Our brain seems to do this automatically as a way to process and to make sense with the foreign.
Having lived in China, Hong Kong and the US for decades and having visited a few other places, London is both a familiar and a foreign place to me. I have been visiting London for about two weeks now. There are many familiar scenes and experiences. (more…)
Posted in reflections, tagged context, culture, ethnicity on July 1, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Photo by hobvias sudoneighm
By Vivian Mabuni
I push the grocery cart fast, breezing through the aisles. Places to go, errands to run, lots of this and that on my mind. And out of the corner of my eye I see the yellow tray. It doesn’t register until after I push past the glass case.
I’m brought to a complete stop. And then I back up my cart and peer in. (more…)
Posted in reflections, tagged conflict, culture, ethnicity, personality, saving face on April 16, 2013| Leave a Comment »
Photo by SodanieChea
By Tina Teng-Henson
I wonder if there’s a season in ethnic identity development where you feel like “your” ethnicity has the corner on all the tough stuff: Asian Americans have toxic shame…why can’t we communicate more directly?…Chinese immigrants are frugal to a fault (“cheap!”)…notoriously conflict-avoidant…always saving face.
Recently, I mediated a conflict between an Asian friend and a Latina friend – both dear to me, both unique and beautiful in their own right. Somehow, they’d become the best of friends in the fall – but then by December, something had shifted, and their friendship ended as unexpectedly as it began. (more…)
Posted in reflections, tagged culture, identity, insecurities on July 31, 2012| Leave a Comment »
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“Growing up in a traditional Chinese family, I was told I could do better than a 99%, while I should be humble about a 100%. As a result, I always felt that there was no safe ground for me to stand on. I was either not good enough, or I had to hide whatever good that I thought I had achieved. (more…)
Posted in reflections, tagged culture, diversity, exclusion on April 10, 2012| 4 Comments »
Photo by Claudio .Ar
By Chloe Sun
Last week, I had the opportunity to teach a class of Taiwanese-Brazilians at a Chinese-Portuguese seminary in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The trip also included visits to speak at two different immigrant churches. The makeup of those churches in Brazil was similar to the immigrant churches in North America (more…)
Posted in reflections, tagged community, culture, identity, integrity, shifting self on February 28, 2012| 5 Comments »
By visualdensity
By Debbie Gin
You may have heard the saying, “Integrity is how you carry yourself when no one is looking.” While I mostly agree with this view, I have recently wondered whether it is enough. What I mean is, I wonder whether it is too self-directed, too individualistic, and perhaps too short-term. Let me explain with an anecdote.
Recently, I guest-lectured for a class on leadership, and I was specifically asked to exegete a biblical passage about a woman character through the lens of leadership. In the session, I proceeded to show how skillfully Ruth “shifted self” in order to meet the needs of the specific communities she entered (more…)
Posted in reflections, tagged culture, identity, traditions on January 24, 2012| Leave a Comment »
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By Melanie Mar Chow
My goal at a recent 106-year-old church leader’s funeral was to listen carefully to what would be shared about a full life lived well and an example for others. A grandson shared that any time a family dinner was called, he knew it would be a three-hour commitment for their immediate family (more…)
Posted in shared insights, tagged culture, family, identity, self-love, shame on March 22, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Photo by seyed mostafa zamani
Shared by Yonnie Cheng
What have you been learning lately?
I’ve been in Taiwan this past year as a missionary, and it’s only very recently that I’ve realized that for most of my life until now, I didn’t like Taiwan; I didn’t like “Asianness.” Without realizing it, I had always judged how my parents and grandparents lived in Taiwan (more…)
Posted in spotlight, tagged acculturation, assimilation, Confucianism, culture, expectations, family, filial piety, finding one's voice, guilt, healing, parents, shame, submission, women's roles on March 15, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Jessica Chen is a full-time doctoral student at Loma Linda in Marital & Family Therapy. She has an MFT degree from Fuller Theological Seminary as well as a BA in Design Media Arts from UCLA. Her favorite food is “niu rou mien” (translation: beef noodle soup), and her favorite hobbies include calligraphy and spending time with Madeleine, her miniature schnauzer.
What are your ministry passions? How did you discern these passions in your life?
While growing up in a Taiwanese American church, I started mentoring sisters and seeing a lot of things I didn’t know how to address from a purely biblical point of view. (more…)
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