It makes my heart sing when I see Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese express a love for Christ. I have been looking online for Christians songs from all across East Asia and I thought it would be nice to share some of these uplifting songs. It’s rare to see or hear good clean music anymore, so I hope that God will bless you through this music. May God move your heart for Asia and this will inspire you to pray for Asia.
Attention my Chinese Followers– If you do not have access to YouTube, please check out the Video on Youku
中国的粉丝们，请留意——如果你们无法使用YouTube，请尝试链接：Video on Youku
Recently my amazing students here in Guangzhou were asked to complete a video project. My goal was to get them thinking about camera angles, learning different ways of telling their stories and expressing their individual creativity. I am currently teaching my S2 students American History/ Culture and Journalism/ Yearbook. Here is one of the projects a group of my students put together. I am very proud of them for their hard work. The first story is a parody of a Chinese television program called Love Apartment or 爱情公寓 and the second story is a parody of the Japanese horror film, The Ring. Good work guys! I’m very proud of you!
It’s a Boy!
As most of you might know, I recently got married in June of this year. God had confirmed to me that Ms Elizabeth Kuang would be my future wife and I proposed to her shortly before June. We are happily married and God has already blessed our marriage tremendously. This has been something that I have been praying about for years, ever since I was little and God has finally brought Elizabeth and me together. Well, we found out shortly after our marriage that God has blessed our new family with a baby. We found out at the beginning of July that Elizabeth was a couple weeks pregnant. Needless to say, we were so excited to hear the news and thankful to God for all that He has blessed us with.
Elizabeth and I at a Parenting Class
Here is Elizabeth and I at a parenting class we are taking in the city centre. It is a bit of a travel from where we live, but it is a nice little school. My Chinese has kind of improved since I arrived here last year, but sometimes I still struggle with the language. Either way, the teacher is very accommodating and tries to help where she came given the fact I am not a native Chinese speaker.
I love you Mrs Howard!
This year has been full of blessings and I am so thankful to God for giving me two great gifts. He definitely is a Father, who gives good gifts to His children. In the book of James chapter 1, it says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above…”. Well, Mrs. Howard is one of those good gifts from above and pretty soon, our little baby boy will be an additional good gift from above! I cannot wait until you guys can meet my wife and my newborn son! Currently, I am praying God will give me the right name for our boy, but as of right now, I like “Conner” and “Noah” as possibilities. Maybe you can give some suggestions in the comment section below? God bless you all! Thank you for your prayers!
Tomorrow is the first day of school! I have been preparing, I’m super excited. I figured I would give you all a quick tour of my apartment. I haven’t fixed it up quite yet as I’d like. But I figured it would be a nice little project to work on. Right now I’ve only managed to store some things and clean the apartment. It was unfortunately in pretty bad shape when I first arrived. Anyway I hope I can revisit this theme in the future and show you the finished product! Enjoy!
Hey everyone! I just wanted to give an update on everything so far! I haven’t really been able to take pictures of Guangzhou yet, but I will definitely be doing more of that in the next few days! Well the first day in Guangzhou was kind of difficult for me, I have been extremely excited about this opportunity for so long. It finally hit me about really not seeing my family and friends until next year. I have been away from my family before, but on short trips (at the most almost 3 months when I last studied in China). Just keep myself and my family in your thoughts.
Well what do I think about Guangzhou?! That is a great question. First off, I thought we would be living in Guangzhou City (we are, but only kind of). My new friend Hebe helped pick me up at the GZ Intl Airport and I asked her how far away the school was from the airport. She told me almost 2 hours!!! Apparently Guangzhou is set up much like Shanghai, where Guangzhou is the major city and you have surrounding districts or villages (whatever you want to call them) that are all apart of Guangzhou. So our school is in a district of Guangzhou called Nansha 南沙。We are kinda out tucked away from most of the big city life. Its like the suburbs of Guangzhou
So far what is my favorite part about Nansha? Well I like that they speak both Cantonese and Mandarin here. A lot of the locals mostly speak Cantonese, while a lot of the upper level faculty members speak Mandarin and or Cantonese. This will give me a chance to greatly improve on both of these dialects. The second thing that I like about this place, there are not a lot of foreigners and people who speak English (besides a couple of the teachers and most of my students). This has been giving me that extra push I needed to speak Chinese more, even if I don’t say it right. The people have been very friendly and willing to put up with my mistakes. Most people I think in any culture are willing to work with non-native speakers if they honestly see that they are trying to learn the language. That’s just a good reminder for those who often forget that (including myself).
Well I just wanted to give you all an update, I hope everyone is doing well on that side of the world!
It is hard to believe that I am just two days shy of two months before I leave for Guangzhou CHINA! Last time I was in China was back in 2012 when I was studying at Fudan University in Shanghai. Well as most of you might know, China is a special country; despite their restrictions with the internet. I had to tweak my digital gear, especially for this trip. Over the past few years, I have been a huge advocator for Google and Android. Unfortunately I was fearful of using my Nexus 5X in China because so many of the services rely on Google (which is currently blocked in China). The Great Firewall of China is not the only reason why I decided to switch back to team iPhone ( BTW make sure your iPhone or other smart phone is unlocked to work in China); I was also disappointed in the app stability of some apps (mostly geared toward education). I would often have problems with certain apps like Plickers, QuickKey crashing or just acting less reliable on Android. My goal for this trip is to bring as little as I can and maximize the utility of the things that I am bringing.
Now I am sure some of you who know China are already thinking, there are ways to get around the Great Firewall of China. Yes, I am aware of these tools. My goal is to settle long term in China and I do not want to utilize these tools. Technically they are banned in China. I feel as though I am a guest in a foreign country, I should obey the laws of the country. I would expect nothing less from someone coming from another country to the USA. I am also going to be fairly close to Hong Kong, so if I desperately want to access my Google Account or Facebook, I can just wait until I arrive in HK. Apple has gained a lot of popularity across China and most of their services will continue to work in China. I believe in online backup (services like dropbox, one drive, etc are also blocked in China) and iCloud is currently not blocked in China. I also like how Apple integrates so well with everything. Before I switched back to Apple, I was using a Acer Laptop with Ubuntu and a Google Nexus 5X. I am also a photographer and would often use my Mac Mini for certain software tools not available on Ubuntu. I decided to switch back to Apple because I would rather bring one laptop as opposed to my previous setup. A lot of my friends have questioned me on why I purchased a Macbook (it only has two ports: a USB C and a headphone port). Well the simplest reason for this purchase was the size and weight. Luggage restrictions on most airliners from the USA to Asia are two luggages that can be checked in at 44pounds or 20kgs, along with one carry on. One of my goals is to fit all of my electronics into my carry on luggage.
Anyway those are the electronics I plan on bringing with me to Guangzhou. I also have some convertor plugs, because they use a different plug in China/ HK. Though I have never really had a particular problem with plugs in China/ HK. Most of the apartments or places I have stayed have convertors built into the outlets, but it is better to be on the safe side. Electronics (good quality electronics) can be quite expensive in China. Western or Japanese goods can be considerably more expensive in China as opposed to the USA.
As most of you know, I have been quite passionate about China since my first visit in 2008. I have been to China a total of four times, but unfortunately I have not been back since 2012. The closest I have been to China was when I went to the Chinatown’s in Toronto and Washington DC. Most of my efforts over the years have been to help me get back to China. I applied for a teaching job back in December 2015 and have been working through the elimination process. Many individuals have helped me through this journey and without them, I would not have been successful. As of a few weeks ago, I have signed a contract to teach in Guangzhou, Guangdong China!
I am extremely excited and it has been quite difficult keeping this a secret. I guess I just wanted to make sure that this was a done deal. The Lord has finally blessed me with one of my dearest dreams. I will be flying to Guangzhou August 26, 2016. I wanted to share with everyone some pictures that my future school sent me! I am very very excited and will be teaching American History and World History. I have been scrambling on getting some materials together; I would like to try some new methods of instruction that I have been interested in lately.
Lastly, as most of you all know, China unfortunately blocks most American social media websites. I definitely want to keep in touch with everyone, so I think the only way I could keep in touch is via email. Now I still have some time before August 26, but if you are interested in keeping in touch with me via my newsletter, please message me on Facebook or you can contact me directly if you have my phone number or email address. They haven’t changed all of these years. I would love it if you would join my newsletter, so I can keep you all posted about this exciting new journey in my life!
