I'll be rich

For me, “to be rich or not to be rich” is not a question. I will be rich. And of course, I am talking about being financially rich, or, have a lot of income. The idea seems perfectly fine, so many people working every single seconds just for that. The only problem is, oddly enough, I am a Christian.

Mrs. Chapman (in case you don’t know her, she is a great person) has discussed with me about the matter of being rich. She says that we Christians don’t need to have a lot of money. What we need is being wealthy in love and some other noble characteristics. She talks about her husband, how he doesn’t have a lot of money and she has to eat a lot of beans, but she feels extremely happy living with him. I think it is great to be like that. Awesome story indeed.

Then last week, I went to the church and the pastor mentioned a verse. It’s Matt. 6:24,

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

So basically a person has to choose either God or money, and a Christian should be rich in his/her soul and mind instead. It’s funny how such a common sense like this is not so easy for me to accept. What I have in mind is different.

I think money is really useful. I don’t have to tell how many physical things we can buy with it (in case we have enough, yeah), but money can really help us to archive those other things also. For example, love. Money can’t buy love, true. But money helps maintain it. I have seen quite a number of couples have their loves given up because of financial issues. Money can’t buy life, sure, but it provides the access to be healthy, as one can pay to go to the gym and hire a professional trainer. Then can money do anything about faith?!! Tell you what, if I didn’t have enough money to go to Montana, then how could I know Christianity? How long would it take for some American missioners to get to see me and convince me somehow? I do not say that I believe in God because of money. But at the very least, I think money has helped me to get to Him faster.

I am sure there are many Christians think like this some time: “If I don’t have to work until (whatever) o’clock, I would go and help some people with something.” What I see here is that if people don’t have to work for money, they can work for other things, to be better Christians. But then, the lack of money keeps them from all of the opportunities and they get busy all day making money. I believe that if a person doesn’t have to worry about money, he/she can think and do something else. That’s it, I learn business and learn about money, not so that I will think about money all the time, but to be able to not worry about money and be able think about other things. This is my way to be free from money and to serve God wholeheartedly.

Besides, with a lot of income, I can provide a good life for myself and the people I love. For me, it is really sad if my wife wants to buy something so badly and I just can’t get it for her. It’s also sad if my son needs $300 to join the basketball team and I can’t afford it. And I feel bad every time I go to church, because I cannot put more than $10 into the plate as I am still a poor college student. I don’t think money can make people nicer, but it really can help nice people to do all the good deeds that he otherwise cannot.

So bare with me if you find this post offensive or inappropriate. Share your thoughts with me and I may learn something good from you. Once again it’s me, Anh the exchange student.

Twenty dollars

It’s easy to drop some money. A couple dollars is irrelevant to talk about. A huge amount of money is just unlikely. Therefore, if a person drops some money, it ought to be about twenty dollars.

The elders are so careful that they won’t drop money, and children shouldn’t carry that much money around. People have jobs to do will be too busy to drop twenty dollars, even if you ask them to do it sincerely. So if someone drops some money, he/she should be a college student, and college students tend to do unwise things on campus. So if there is someone ever drops some money, it’s really likely to be a college student drops twenty dollars on campus.

Either a twenty dollar-worth pile of coins or a twenty dollar bill, it’d be noticeable, so a college student will see it. Let’s say this person is a “he”, just because it’s shorter and therefore more convenient to type than “she”. So he sees this money, and because he is in college, he is clever enough to stop and think. Do you see now why I have to spend a whole paragraph to make sure that he is a college student? If he is anyone else – think about it – he’d be either too busy or too ignorant to deal with this situation, and I’d have no incentive to talk about such insignificant incident. Now what this college guy thinks and decides is the matter. It’s simple enough: to ignore, to take it and use it, or to return it.

If that college student ignores the money, he can be either too rich, or he doesn’t know how to read, or he doesn’t know what money is, which are extremely unlikely. He wouldn’t have to be a college student, would he? College students are really special people, mostly because they would stop in front of twenty dollars, instead of ignoring it and join the rest of the world.

Then what should he do with this money? Of course he should return it, and I want him to return it, or else this blog of mine would be more inappropriate than it already is. Since kindergarten we all learned to return dropped stuffs, because “stealing is bad”, and it’s bad indeed. One can even relate to the Commandment of not coveting neighbor’s twenty dollars. So this decent college guy, after awhile hesitating, decides to give up his desires of music and movies and turns the money in at a front desk of the nearest dorm. The front desk person happens to be another college student, because who else would want to do such a job? So this person goes through all the process of thinking and because this world is perfectly good, this college student finally chooses to put the money there, waiting for the owner to come and take it. How great is that?

Talking about the owner of this money, after about three weeks he will realize of the loss (it’s “he” again, sorry for my laziness). He then will think and know that it’s unlikely for his money to be untouched until now. But because people are nice so he still has his hope. Now when he wants to find it, he has no idea where to get to. Should he go and ask every single front desk in all of the buildings on campus? Because he is a college student, his rational thinking will undoubtedly tell him, “No!”

So what’s the result? The money will stay at a desk forever, untouched, forgotten forever. A romantic middle school girl will consider it as a proof for the goodness of human beings. A college student studying business like me will say it’s a waste of asset of society, especially in this economic depression. So should the guy who saw the money have really returned it?

What if we return back to the time he saw the money and have him change his decision. Now he is standing there, taking twenty dollars and then goes to a CD store. He chooses and buys the album that he has been staring at for weeks. He’ll feel so happy and lucky; he’ll work harder and study better: his life can be changed! The store manager will also be happy, and he will be nicer to his wife and children when he gets home at night. The author of the album will be happy even more, because his/her work is paid off and he/she knows that there are people out there appreciate his/her music. There can be many other people whose lives will be better but I’ll stop here because you already get the idea and I am bored.

If you really read this post until here, then I’m surprised and grateful. But really, if you see twenty dollars dropped somewhere on campus, then just keep it and use it. I already did a whole statistical, philosophical explanation for you to defend yourselves from being guilty. Remember though, twenty-one dollars is a different story, and I won’t talk about it.

Why would the Gospel kill people?

I have recently read Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, which has proved to me the fact that African literature can be so wonderful. Indeed, among many world masterpieces contented in the 3052-page book I have been reading this semester for my English class, this African novel turns out to be my favorite.

It’d take me much more time to discuss about how the style of this story is much easy for me to follow, and still worth-reading because of its richness. For now I am talking about the story itself, what I think about these African tribe people, how the Europeans came and messed their life up.

This paragraph is a SPOILER, so if you really want to read this novel (which I highly recommended), skip to the next paragraph or to be even better, stop reading this post. Here it goes: The story is about a strong man, who is the greatest man of his village. He truly is a warrior, the man of action. Then some white men come, build up churches, then new government. These “civilized” people spread Christianity and conflicts take place, as far as they lock up the six leaders of the village, shave their head and stave them for days until they agree to pay money. Okonkwo – the main character, the hero – can’t bear with all of that and kills one white man. Then he hangs himself before these men can come and catch him.

As a Christian myself, I am supposed to agree with the European missioners, and I should have kept thinking, “Oh yeah! Christians rule!” or something. But I felt a strong sympathy toward Okonkwo and his people. Leaving them alone, they would live perfectly fine with their traditions and their beliefs. Now the Europeans come and this peaceful life gets all crewed up. The African people have to see their holy masks got tore badly, their hero is forced to die “like a dog” and cannot do anything because they are scared of the guns.

I am not sure what God’s opinion about this, but I think these European commissioners are evil! I don’t know what price it should take to spread the Gospel but destroying traditions, bugling money, and killing some ignorant people then enslaving the rest are not acceptable. And when people do such things using the name of God, then I say it’s more heretic than worshiping a piece of wood. Isn’t God Love? Isn’t He Hope?

To be honest, I didn’t know this was an African story because I skipped the intro. I thought it was Native American. It shows how similar the situations are: uncivilized people everywhere in this world were living happily, then Europeans came and “things fall apart”. It makes me wonder what the French and the Americans did to my country, what pains they caused to my fathers, my uncles. Notice what those Europeans came to Okonkwo’s village for: for spreading the Gospel. So the purpose of saving a country from Communism seems to be quite inferior.

Of course I hold no grudge toward French or Americans, and my faith of Christ is still in me somewhere. But I think at least we Christians really should think twice before going for a mission trip. Would that mess up their cultural in a bad way? Would that not a part of invading other countries that we just don’t unconsciously know? Of course such things don’t seem to be likely to happen, but it won’t hurt to think about that.

I've lost a girl again

I’ve lost a girl again. I knew it when I woke up and found myself alone in the room. I couldn’t help but thought, “Damn, not again!” She’s gone for good. I couldn’t do anything. I was deeply sad. I missed her a lot.

I saw her while walking on the street with my backpack like a college student (I am not sure what I was at that time, maybe highschooler). I looked at her and she looked at me back. Good thing I was smiling. Now I can’t remember her face. I know she looked Asian, and her short dark hair was so adorable.

She was on the train with me (why the train, I don’t know. It might be a huge bus with a lot of people). She came to me and asked how I spelled my name. I told her while she wrote it down, her handwriting was pretty neat. I saw that and suddenly realized that I had met her before and knew her name. It sounded Japanese I don’t know why. I also remembered distinctively that I had written down some where on my note something like this:

Ts…, I wonder how gorgeous you will be when you grow up like a blossomed flower

“Ts-some-thing” was her name and that’s all I can remember now. My memories are fading really quickly, I need to type faster.

After a while she came back to her sit at the other end of this huge truck/bus thing. Next to her was a gigantic old man just sat there unenergetically. As soon as I wondered who he was, Dang – a Vietnamese guy I knew and know – jumped from that old man to before me, saying, “That’s her grandpa”. So it was her grandfather, who was constantly coughing. She was taking care of him, sometimes looked at me passionately. I know that I felt peacefully happy; I don’t know why I didn’t just come there to her.

What happened next, I can’t remember. Even my emotions for her are leaving me mercilessly. Why did you leave me, girl? Why did you appear only to vanish forever? I would come to you, you know, with all my might and my strength, only so that you’d stay with me a bit longer.

But the alarm clock rang, and I knew it was only a dream. Nothing had ever happened; there never was the huge train/bus thing, or the huge man at the other end coughing. There was no her, no “Tsu-some-thing”.

She is gone for good. I can’t do anything. I am deeply sad. I miss her a lot.

What the Bible means to me

At the service I went to last Wednesday, a question was raised: What does the Bible mean to your life? Really simple and hard to answer.

The Bible is long, that’s for sure. And what people can tell about it is not any shorter than it is. All of those sophisticated stuffs are great to read sometimes, but sometimes only, and there’s no way what I’m telling you is sophisticated. I am gonna write down whatever I think of, and then I’ll try not to even read it again until I have posted it.

The Bible contains a lot of stories, but it’s definitely not an ordinary book. It’s not an epic, a novel, a romance, or anything as such. Why? Because it’d be so uncool for me to tell Holden something like, “Last night I’ve read five books in the Bible”. Since every single verse can be a long and passionate lecture of Mr. V, reading them intensively and quickly can only tell me the plots. I would know how David became a king but not how great he was, and what God did to his life. I would have missed a lot.

The Bible is certainly not a documentary book either, since it’s full of enthusiasm and emotions that normal documentary books lack. But to me it’s quite similar to a textbook sometimes because I tend to feel so sleepy after awhile reading it (May God forgive me!). There were times when I couldn’t get anything after reading two pages. Then a person told me that reading the Bible was also to communicate with God. The idea makes me excited, not (only) because that I don’t have to understand the verses all the time, but because… oh come on, it’s to COMMUNICATE with God! I am not too confident in being able to pray sincerely and compassionately enough to reach God, but I CAN read the Bible. Yes, even I can communicate with Him!

So what can I say? To me the Bible is extremely long and hard to understand. But guess what? When I read it I talk to God!

…

Am I being inappropriate… again?

Another Performance

We Vietnamese Student Organization (VSO) in UCM (University of Central Missouri) had our first debut in this year’s Cultural Night. This was our second performance (you can watch the one from last year HERE), and it was definitely harder to make. Hope you’ll enjoy it.

VSO 2009 Performance

Choreographer: me

Performers: Chi Pham, Phat Hoang, Dang Nguyen, Cuong Duong, Vuong Nguyen, Son Bui, and me

Music: Thuong Qua Viet Nam – Pham The My

I am screwed

This post here is nothing beautiful, sophisticated, appropriate, or something like that. For some people, this may even be offensive or even heretic. If you still want to read a thought of mine then here we go.

So yeah, I am screwed indeed. Recently I realized that since I became a Christian, I seemingly have no chance to get a wife who really is for me. This does sound ridiculous but not too unrealistic.

Here is the deal: After all of these years, I have reckoned that a good wife for me should match me (be like me). I surely know a horde of movies which are about love-without-border and Hollywood does a great job convincing people that we can get married with alligators if we have our “true love”. But what I think is: two totally different people just cannot share their lives with each other. Different backgrounds make the two experience different things, cause them to love, hate, appreciate, despite, believe… differently from each other. An American and a Vietnamese wouldn’t be a right couple since one believes in capitalism and likes Bart Simson, and the other in communism and Thanh Giong (What the heck is “Thanh Giong”? Exactly!). So even though I can easily have a crush with a lot of American girls (and actually I get several new crushes every day), I know none of them are for me.

Vietnamese then! I can just fall in love with a nice Vietnamese girl, get married, convinced her to believe in God, then live happily together forever after or whatever. Oh, if only it’s just that simple!

Actually I used to believe in that until a month ago. I attended a Bible study class and learned how a wife and a husband ought to treat each other (by some verses in Corinthians that I am sure if you ask Richard he’ll know) and so it just doesn’t make sense for a Christian to get married with a non-believer. At the same time, I was discussing with my mother about God (who wasn’t a Christian and hardly knew anything about Christianity), and I realized just how hard to share my belief with someone. My faith and knowledge was only sufficient to convince myself and strengthen my belief. To help another person to know God and follow Him is next to impossible. I won’t be able to do that to my non-Christian wife.

So I will stick with either someone who won’t be truly for me, or a non-Christian wife who will end up being in hell. And trust me, it’s not funny at all.

I know I am wrong thinking like this – to be hopeless because of believing in God/Hope. I just don’t know what is wrong.

Like the outside let it snow

So here so are

Another pretty girl

I’m not gonna fall for that

Pretty girls are everywhere.

You like my glasses, you say

That’s good, and I like them too.

But you are all beautiful

So I cannot choose

Which I like best

To tell you.

And we smile to each other

Though we each belong to someone else

It sucks, I know

But oh well, at least

We feel a bit happy right now

Like the outside let it snow.

The class is over

Like the bubbles of the sea which drop

Then splendidly fly forever

Let me keep myself the joys and the sorrows

Like the outside let it snow.

Present

Anything we love, and we hate

Rest in here, the heart of the sky.

When the world is nothing accurate,

Endlessly strive,

Not to cry.

If rain comes now, with wind blows up

Million teardrops’d happily fall

If ice melts now to snow enough

So blue and sweet, the goodness of all!

Should I forget, and carry on,

Yearning to live, forever alone?

Or I’ll come back, to have you mine,

Until we’re dead, together we’ll shine…!

Break-dancing in the gym

When I came back to Bozeman for the 2008 Graduation, I promised to Holden that I’d have a break-dance show for the Cultural Night and would record it to show him. Sadly that they didn’t let me do it since it wasn’t really “cultural”, we ended up with another thing that I’ve post previously.

But a promise is a promise, so I still recorded what I had last summer. It was intended to be posted on Holden’s birthday but, well, you know, uhm… so I am going to post it this time.

This was recorded in a gym, soon after that the gym was closed in order to be renovated as a new recreation center in the campus. So I was apparently the last person who danced there, pretty historical isn’t it?

Performer: Anh Tran

Choreographer: Anh Tran

Filmer: Anh Tran (put it auto)

Music list: 1. Moments in love - The art of noise; 2. Cameo - Word Up; 3. Cali Life Style - Freakin (Remix).

Non-believer vs. Atheist

Note: it's 12:37 in the morning, so my mind gets messed up. "Non-believer" or "Unbeliever"? I know not anymore... T_T

I recently have realized that many people seem to be confused between “non-believer” and “atheist”. This happens to both Americans and Vietnamese and possibly people from other countries. I believe that the unlikeness of the two should be clarified better, since the notions of “non-believer” and “atheist” are hugely different.

It would take more time, effort, and wisdom to discuss about such thing sufficiently, and I currently don’t have enough incentive to be “devoted” to this topic, so I will just give whatever I have.

I personally feel that in the eyes of many Christian, we tend to consider simply whether a person believes in God or not, and consequently, we tend to treat those who don’t the same way – whatever the way is. However, as a former non-believer myself, I see a big difference here. Non-believers, like I was, don’t usually have much clue about what God is, who Jesus really is, or what He has done. This type of people is somewhat innocent – like a blank paper (and no, I am not praising my old self or whatever). If they get their chance to know God, they tend to be able to receive Him rather easily (although, yeah, not too easily as we all know). To talk about Jesus to these people, a good attitude and an additional level of Christian knowledge should be good. He will do the rest.

Atheist people are a different story. They have knowledge about Christianity either some bit or a great due. Some of them also possess a high level skill of philosophy and rhetoric and usually form their own belief. These include those who are anti-Christians who are really scary for me. (I was really close to be beaten up by some, ask my brother, he may know the story). Regardless of whoever atheists are, discussing with them requires a really good Christian knowledge, conversational skills and also experiences. (I am still way to far from this level and have been trying to improve myself to be a better Christian).

That’s all I have for this time. I feel really sleepy and tired right now (“sleepy” and “tired” are different also, maybe I’ll write about them later), so I stop here. At a glance I know that this post is full of incompleteness, ignorance, and other errors. Please feel free to add and fix stuff, saying “You are wrong, stupid!” or whatever. I love comments and may someday I will marry one. No, I should go to bed now, okay.