Vignettes of the World
Nestled in the deeps of Hong Kong’s countryside, the Plover Cove Reservoir in Tai Po is the first stop along the scenic route leading to the general area of Luk Keng in Fanling. The Plover Cove Reservoir is the largest reservoir in Hong Kong by …
From what I gathered, the broad religious orientations within the Jewish communities in Israel are orthodox, reformed, messianic, and secular. Jews aside, other people of Palestinian and Arab descents also live in Israel with their own religious affiliations. Our tour guide in Israel was an …
The last stop before Jordan River was St. Peter’s home, and we also saw the ruins of a synagogue adjacent to it. The statue of Apostle Peter holds a key and a live fish swims at his feet. The key symbolizes St. Peter’s office as the leader of the Christian church (Matthew 16:19). I must have misread the Bible. I had this idea that St. Peter was the one guarding the gate to Heavens. “I thought the key was the actual key to the gate of heavens?” My father discredited my view. There was no Biblical basis for that.
The baptism at Yardenit was one of the most anticipated events in this trip for me. For this occasion I prepared a special set of clothes with slippers. I remembered Mount Hermon’s frigidity that morning, and wondered if the water would be unbearably cold.
My father explained the meaning of baptism to the group, as eight of us in total would be baptized at Jordan River that day. It was, first and foremost, a public declaration of one’s faith and to become one with Christ. We sang a hymn to prepare ourselves spiritually.
One by one, my father blessed each of us with the water of Jordan River, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. I was the last one, and I requested that my father spoke in English. “By the power of the Lord, that we may overcome the forces of Satan—” there I went, completely submerged into the river.
The water was very cold although I was under it for only a second. There was this sweet silence in my ears, for there was not even the sound of my own breathing. My thoughts stopped running. The only words that I said to myself was, “it’s very cold.” Then my father raised me from the water and I walked into a chorus celebrating my rebirth. Since I was not Jesus, heavens did not open with the flying dove and God did not speak (Matthew 3, Mark 1, Luke 3 and John 1). Yet my father on earth was with me in my spiritual birth and it was very special to me.
At the gift store I bought a pendant to commemorate my baptism. It showed the Jerusalem cross, with the heraldic cross in the middle and four smaller crosslets in the four quadrants. The Jerusalem cross was not commonly seen outside of Israel, but due to its significance as the emblem and coat of arms for the Kingdom of Jerusalem from the 1200s,[1] the spirit that it represented was well alive in Israel.
There are three interpretations of the five crosses. The first says that the five crosses represent the five wounds of Jesus Christ at his crucifixion. Secondly, it was the coat of arms for the Christian crusades. Finally, the crosslets represented the four Gospels with Christ’s salvation in the middle.
In early evening we boarded the Jesus’ boat for a tour of the Galilee. It was supposed to be the same type of boat as those in the New Testament. As touristy as it was, I enjoyed every moment of the ride. The boat flew the Israeli flag, alongside there was a PRC flag. The first music that played was the Chinese National Anthem too. I thought the operator made quite an effort to please the tourists. Those who just baptized at the Jordan River shared testimonies as the newly-christened.
Looking backward onto the shore at Tiberia, I felt all the more in love with this town. Its nightlights glimmered, absorbed into this land and this lake as dusk befell. Meanwhile, the Galilee seemed assured of its role in religion and history. Its serenity was second to none.
[1] See Wikipedia entry on the Jerusalem Cross.
Due to the historic influence by the Romans and the Greeks in this area, my Latin learning in Ovid has prepared me for this trip in unexpected ways. The Temple of Pan was one such example. Like other ruins, the Temple of Pan (Banias as …
“Shalom!” I witnessed my father’s first act in Israel, and it was brilliant. We entered Israel via a land route from Jordan. As we crossed the border over to Israel, two Israeli soldiers came on board to check the bus. The two men carried a …
“Most of the events in the Old Testament took place in Jordan,” our Jordanian tour guide said.
At dinner on my first night in Jordan I fell in love with the creamy, nutty flavored hummus and helped myself with two, three servings. By then, I knew that I had no problem eating Middle-Eastern food, especially food that was prepared with so much heart.
The Jordanian currency was the most expensive that I have come across in my life. One Jordanian dinar equaled three U.S. dollars. That means it was more expensive than the British Pound. I could not resist the small bag of chips at the hotel and it cost me $1 Jordanian dinar.
The next morning we rose and went to Mount Nebo as our first stop. Mount Nebo had much significance in the Bible. Moses looked onto the Promised Land from Mount Nebo before he died (Deuteronomy 34:1).
We arrived in a crisp winter morning. There was plenty of sunshine but the strong wind dissipated all warmth. I was keen to experience the poignancy that Moses must have felt when he viewed Canaan at that vantage point. We reached the northernmost point in the church site (a former monastery was being restored then). There was the Dead Sea, with a mountain standing between it and Jerusalem. That was Canaan in those days. It certainly looked like what would be a wilderness in the ancient times. The Israelites wandered in Jordan for forty years. There was a strong sense that it was rather history that I was seeing there.
In Madaba we were supposed to see the largest mosaic map in the world, which had taken fifty years to complete. Madaba was an abandoned site during the Turkish reign. The Christians were not allowed to build churches, so very wisely they asked to restore the ruins after an earthquake. They ended up building the Madaba Greek Orthodox Church, which stands today. We visited on a Friday, the holy day in Jordan; therefore we caught the Christian service rather than the sight of the famous map, a large part of which was destroyed by the German engineer that reconstructed the church.
We could not see the map because it was located right in the main hall where the service was held. Indeed, the Greek Orthodox service was formal and elaborate. I could not decide if the spiritual experience of being in a Greek Orthodox service for the first time in my life was more valuable to me, or if seeing the famous map would have been preferred instead. In any case, the most memorable was actually the pomegranate juice on our way back; it was $2 US a small cup and tasted heavenly.
The next stop was Moses’ Rock. This was believed to be where God told Moses to tell the rock to yield water but Moses beat the rock twice out of anger at the Israelites (Numbers 20:10-13). As a consequence he did not get to enter the Promised Land. I had doubts that anyone could have found the same rock that Moses strike in the wilderness, but all questioning aside, the water that welled next to the rock tasted sweet and cool. The water of Meribah was a spring of life in its own right.
The Petra
The Petra is one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I had no knowledge of this wonder and surely did not know what to expect. We had two choices: walk two kilometers to the city center, or take a horse carriage to get there. I chose to walk and it was a good decision. We passed through many meandering paths, seeing sandstones that morphed in different shades of sienna and different shapes of curves on our way.
The tour guide gracefully showed us the way on foot. He explained that, in order to stop the water of the valley flooding the siq leading to the Al Khazmeh, the ancient people built canals and water pipes to direct the water. We saw bas reliefs along the siq, with the image of a man leading a fleet of camels stone-carved onto the sandstones. The natural contours of these red and yellow sandstones were a wonder itself.
I became used to the light human hand prints on the way, and thus I was blown away when we reached the Al Khazmeh. There standing proudly and prominently, the city center had high pillars supporting a beautiful Romanesque façade, hewn and chiseled into the massive sandstone structure. It was the treasury of the city. In the middle an opening led into some kind of depth that was kept out of bounds to us. I was simply unprepared for this view and very much awed.
It being a typical scene at touristy places, many school-aged boys were selling souvenirs, and donkey and horse rides. They bargained in their own childish, pleasant and appealing ways. There were camels that I would have gladly patted if not for the fear of catching the new SARS. I should have ditched the group photo and walked on to see the theater at least. The tour guide said that it would take a full day to appreciate all that the ancient city could offer. That is the plan for my next visit, and hopefully soon.
I have never seen so much sand in my life. The wonderful aerial views of the United Arab Emirates greeted me in a variety of forms: first a coastline, then what seemed like ranges of barren hills. Finally it was all sands in vast …
By Paul French “Even the Albanians described North Korea as an ‘unbelievably closed society.’”[i] Famine, credit default, constant blackouts, economic collapse, failed piecemeal reforms, nuclear weapons, repression – the indicators of a failed state are no longer hidden from the world now, despite North …
By Han Kang
Ah, what a surprise.
I thought this would be a lighthearted and fun book about a Korean woman who decided to turn vegetarian in a culture where meat is consumed as much as air is breathed. As it turned out, not only was it not lighthearted, but also it was dark and disturbing.
Life as known to Yeong-hye disintegrated when she started having terrible dreams about eating meat. She turned vegetarian overnight. Her decision derailed the settled, order-driven life that she shared with her husband. Their marriage went from being thoroughly mundane to a full-blown disaster for the whole family.
Readers would be taken on the journey after Yeong-hye’s decision to turn vegetarian. It was the beginning of the end for her life. As her mind drifted into a terminal insanity, causing her to eventually refuse all food, Yeong-hye was fated to suffer a terrible end.
To be honest, this book was a difficult reading. The shocking developments confronted readers with the dark reality of the male’s exploitation of the female body. The book was certainly rife with eroticism, but it would not be lost on the readers the sexual violence that, in this book at least, has been the other side of the same coin as committed against the vulnerable body and soul of Yeong-hye.
As a woman it was difficult for me to refrain from passing moral judgment on the characters that committed such violence. Yet I read on, because the author powerfully exposed the raw emotions, objectified desires and the strong bond of sisterhood that layered the story with dilemmas and complexities. At the end of sister In-hye’s narration, I came to face with an inevitable question: if I were In-hye, what would I do?
Readers beware, for this book is a tragedy.
Note: Han Kang has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2024.
This book has been recommended by the Guardian’s World Literature Tour.
On my last full day in South Korea, I booked a 1st class room at a hotel in Incheon, as I was hoping to see the MacArthur Landing. Once I checked in the hotel, however, I realized that I would be going backward on my …