Journey mercies

A couple of weeks ago, when Stephen realised I was in London, he invited me to join a few of them who would be going to Leeds for Michael's baptism. Since these were mainly the Hong Kong folks, I've not actually met them for at least 4 years, since I left Newcastle, and thought it would be a great idea to see familiar faces again.

As the date for me to leave for the weekend drew closer, I was feeling the familiar reluctance to follow through with plans. I have the worse habit ever to be led by emotions, so when tiredness or moodiness hits me, I tend to distort plans at the last minute to meet my emotions. In short, I'm an FFK-er. Not going to explain that bit :P

But decided, no, I am not going to let that bad habit continue. So despite my heavy reluctance, braved the wind and rain and trudged to St Albans to stay at my aunt's place on Friday night, because Stephen actually lives very close to my aunt. On Saturday morning he and his girlfriend Sharon, came to pick me up and we were off to Birmingham to pick up another Hong Kong friend, Max.

Had lunch and then drove up to Leeds. It was in total a 5 hours drives.

I promptly decided at first sight, Birmingham wasn't a pretty city, while Leeds on the other hand, was surprisingly very interesting. We got so fascinated with the Christmas deco and lights we decided against going to Michael and Faye's place to stop and look around the city.

We promptly became fascinated tourists! We oohed and aahed at the Christmas decorations and we even stumbled upon a German Christmas market, where we tasted the woodwine which was very good, and had to resist our strong Chinese tendencies to try the different food there was in the market because we were supposed to have dinner with everyone else soon enough.

We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant for steamboat, and then proceeded back to Michael and Faye's house where 10 of us camped there overnight. The next day everyone got up late and had a good brunch meal together. Faye cooked porridge and cheong fun which was promptly devoured by everyone!

In the afternoon we went to church for Michael's baptism and when it was finished in the evening, Stephen, Max and I were the first to leave Leeds. Being a 5 hour journey drive down, we didn't want to reach back in London completely wiped out and unable to operate tomorrow for work.

Some thoughts that really struck me this weekend was how versatile I've been forced to be for the last number of years. First it was adjusting to working life, from a relatively small company to a massive MNC, from small medium businesses as customers to semi-government customers, which consist of different market demographics. Then it was adjusting to a completely different country, culture and mindsets and predominantly adjusting to English and European people. Then this weekend I found myself having to switch to Chinese people, language and mindsets and it all left me feeling quite tired.

If my identity was not so firmly entrenched as a citizen of God's kingdom, I think I would go into massive identity crisis. I am not truly Chinese and yet not fully Western in attitude and mindsets. I cannot find myself fully immersed in either cultures and reject any fixed stereotypes of either to be imposed on me.

I sometimes wish I could stop focusing on being a sponge and trying to soak things up and learn as quickly as I can. But I've learnt that even the ability to be a sponge is sometimes not easy for certain people, so I should be glad that I have to a certain degree that same ability. But behind this sponge-like lifestyle I've had to adapt to, I'm certain God has His plans and in His time will unravel its purpose.