When I was young, maybe too young to care, I’ve heard from my parents that Manchuria used to belong to Korea. I used to think, ‘oh that’s cool’ and just move on. But, I came across this article and found out the real history. Essentially, a chunk Manchuria really did belong to Korea, but Japan, when it used to occupy Korea, ceded that area to China in a treaty to gain earning rights to build railroads. The United Nations declared that treaty was null and void because the treaty was a forced one. Now, China is pouring an enormous amount of money to distort the history claiming that the area which used to belong to Korea was part of China’s ancient history in their new school text books.
http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=1009
What do you think about this? And, what do you think the resolution should be?
Over the past weekend, I took some of our girl students to the Pink Conference, a girls’ conference for the Asian Americans. Dr. Josephine Kim, a counseling education professor at Harvard, spoke to the girls and the parents (separately) about the cultural and communication differences between the first generation parents and their children and the effects it has on us physically, emotionally and spiritually. She also shared about things parents should know about their children, and I think it was an eye-opener for many parents. I think she connected with the girls (and the parents) on a deep level considering the short allotted time. I was so excited to hear her speak about an area which I’m so passionate about. I was also really impressed that she was not only highly intelligent, but she was also perfectly bilingual and was so accomplished at such a young age.
And it was cool cuz I got to have lunch with her the following day. At first, I thought that I might pick her brain about her knowledge and experience, but we ended up talking a lot about personal things. I found that she was really personable and I had fun being able to talk to someone using both fluent English and Korean, because 뭔가 통하는게 있어 and because there are many things in which there are no direct translation. Anyhoo, it was fun making a new friend and meeting a fellow counselor.
Upon reflecting over the weekend, I realized again just how many individuals are out there living with scars from current/past hurts they received from families and society and not living the kind of life God wants us to. I rediscovered my hope of bridging the gap between different generations and cultures and help bring about restoration and healing. I believe that meeting Josephine this past weekend was God-ordained. I hope that there will be opportunities to collaborate with her to do some healing work for the Asian community.
On Wednesday night, Oscar joined our family!! Yay!
The very night before that, Jason said that we should maybe wait until the Fall to get a puppy. And I agreed. We had talked about it a lot, and it was the most logical choice. We also said that would be the case unless we could find a very young westie (under 8 or 9 months) for cheap. But on Wednesday afternoon, I saw the post on craigslist and saw this little guy who is only 6 weeks old, and all the pictures of him slightly showed the end of his tongue sticking out, which is so stinkin’ cute! So after our house church meeting, we went to meet the owner. The owner’s family was from Uruguay, and they were very nice. They own both of the puppy’s parents, which was an added bonus.
Oscar is a cool puppy! He’s pretty chill, which we love but he’s also very playful at the same time. I think the name Oscar suits him. Even his initials are cute (O.J.)! 
I just want to squeeze him all the time.. sigh. Needless to say, we fell in love with the little white furball! I’m so glad we found him!
