Monday, March 2, 2009

A far distant land

The outing ended up taking most of the day. Jody, Linda and Patricia and I drove from our apartment in Kowloon Tong to the New Territories area of Hong Kong Colony. Where we walked is now covered in high rise apartments. That was 1975 and the highlight was walking through a deserted Hakka farmhouse.

The Hakka (Ke-jia "guest people") migrated hundreds of years ago from north China to the south. We had worked with a Hakka chapel in Mei Nung, Taiwan, in the late 1950s. I did some study of their language, a mix of Cantonese, Mandarin and Wu dialects. In the old days, the Hakka men took watched the fields as the women worked. Never knew when the enemy might come from over the mountain and attack. So the men let the hard-working womenfolk handle crops and the stock and cooking.

Dr. Chou Lien-hua once told me if a Shanghai woman (they are renowned for their beauty, but otherwise useless) married a Hakka man, they would starve to death.

As you can tell, today I miss our old country and friends who meant so much to us. I am sure the Apostle Paul must have felt the same way, but he wrote: "I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. (Phil. 4:11)."

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