Tov Meod- the return of the Red Pool

The Red Pool has returned, albeit in its eastern incarnation. I like blogging more than I like email updates, simply because if the random masses want to read my stuff, it's a much better vehicle for them to do so with bated breath. Plus, it gratifies my ego immensely when you comment on my site. So sue me. I have a pride problem.

I type this freshly arrived at my home after a wretched bear of a day. I started at 2:00 PM and I traveled all around Kunshan, teaching assorted companies and offices English for their everyday use. In one day, I did two classes at a five-star hotel (one of which can barely read- I conducted it mostly in Chinese), one class of Korean high school students and one class of Taiwanese manufacturing managers who talked about KTV for two hours (KTV is the Chinese manifestation of the Karaoke bar, but, as I learned second-hand from these men, it is decidedly less wholesome. Imagine a bar, with bad singing, slimy clients and a brothel upstairs, and you will begin to get the idea. I am rather glad I have never personally had the pleasure of frequenting such an establishment). Not only that, but the only food I had all day was KFC, that ever glorious staple of Kunshanese cuisine. Simply put, today sucked.

At least that's what I thought. One the way home, right as I am a few blocks in the direction of my house, I get a craving for Ba Bai Wan (800 Bowls)- a noodle place right near work. I was going to go home and try to cook or eat cereal, but I didn't have a whole lot of food in the house (because I have been rather too busy to go shopping) and I wanted something warm because of the cold weather (none of these companies are magnanimous enough to turn on their heat) so I caved in.

The great thing about Ba Bai Wan is that they serve this really marvelous fresh veggie beef stir-fry. Most Chinese home-style places have enough MSG to give you cancer at 50 paces, but not Ba Bai Wan. The veggies actually taste like they are real, cut up veggies from the supermarket, not the pirated, hyper-fried, street-stew crap (Yes, you read that correctly- the Chinese do pirate veggies, don't ask me how they do it, but they do it). The beef is possessed of a consistency much greater than that of the chewing gum fat strip counterparts at your local hot-pot. Ba Bai Wan is probably the best Chinese place I can find in Kunshan. Plus, this place is open late. I love all-night places, because they drip travel and nomadism and a kind of pleasing recklessness that causes you to wonder with a smile "why would anybody eat this late?" Even down to the staff making jokes to try to make the best of a bad situation, (wouldn't you if you had to work till 1 every night?), everything about a place like this screams a provisional, family-style, home-away-from-home. Simply put, I went to the Chinese version of IHOP (without the magic coffee that only tastes good at 2:00 AM, of course).

At this point, I took out my Bible to pass the time and I read the first part of the creation account in Genesis 1. The first paragraph is really great when read in Hebrew because it uses all these words that come from ancient Babylonian creation epics. All the words for "deep" and "formless and void" sound like the ancient names for the Babylonian gods of chaos. It's a really cool text to read, because I feel like the writer is taking the names of the pagan gods and using them to say, "That's not how it happened, it really happened like this- God makes order out of chaos, not the cronies of some over-venerated guilded, stump." God, not Marduk or Tiamet, rules the day, and don't you forget it!

Over and over, the text talks about how God takes chaos and turns it into order, with the result being "tov" (good) or in the case of mankind "tov meod" (very good). While I was sitting there in the middle of this Chinese diner, God spoke all this to me. If He can use fresh veggies and the names of Babylonian deities to bless His people, then there is nothing that is not subject to the creative power of his word, especially at those times at which it chooses to give life. When God's word orders a situation, everything becomes good, even my busy days full of creepy Taiwanese managers.

Paul said it best when he admonished the Corinthians to not let any possible influence from God go untapped. He admonishes, saying,

So let no one glory in men; for all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours, and you are Christ's, and Christ is God's.
(1Co 3:21-23)

Even fresh veggies, and especially busy days.

HTGR

Daniel