|
September 1999
Dear Friends:
I happened to be visiting teachers in China last May when NATO
forces bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, and it was not
a pleasant experience. I did not feel personally threatened at
any point, and the Chinese people I interacted with during the
following week were kind and helpful as usual. In fact, few brought
the subject of the bombing up with me unless I brought it up first.
But it was impossible not to sense that Chinese people of all
walks of life were genuinely hurt and angry. To be sure, the demonstrations
that week against NATO and the United States were orchestrated
to some degree, and anger was fueled by the Chinese media, but
the sense of outrage was quite real. After all, my country had
just dropped several guided bombs on China’s embassy, and
even if it was a mistake—as I hope and pray it was (although
very few Chinese believe this)—it was certainly an insult
of the first magnitude. As I traveled from school to school that
week, all I could think of was how much damage those few bombs
had done to the already fragile bonds of trust and goodwill between
China and the United States and how much effort it would take
to repair the damage.
Obviously it was a hard week for the teachers I was visiting
as well, especially those from NATO countries. While most of their
relationships with Chinese students and colleagues survived the
bombing, not all did. A few teachers were even confronted by oral
or written denunciations of NATO and/or the United States, and
no matter how much a teacher understands and sympathizes with
the feelings from which such denunciations arose, they were not
easy to cope with.
However, during that week I quite literally thanked God for
the presence of those teachers in China. For one thing, their
presence was powerful evidence of the goodwill that many in the
West, especially Christians, bear toward the people of China.
Many students who marched in demonstrations against the United
States and NATO that week did so knowing that some Western community
of Christians cared enough to send and support volunteers who
came to China to teach, and that made it harder for students to
believe that the West was unanimously against China. In a time
of anger, the physical presence of these teachers was a silent
but powerful reminder that the
intentions of people in Western nations should not be measured
by one act.
These teachers also helped keep lines of communication open
and attempts at mutual understanding alive. As anger cooled gradually
over the ensuing weeks, the presence of these Western language
teachers made it possible for Chinese people to ask a Westerner
how he/she viewed the incident. In some cases, this meant that
Chinese could discover that many in the West were as appalled
at the bombing as they were. In other cases, it meant that Chinese
were able to hear a different perspective on why NATO felt driven
to the involvement in Yugoslavia that led to the bombing. Of course
such conversations do not necessarily result in everyone seeing
eye-to-eye,
but they go a long way toward keeping alive the efforts of two
very different cultures to make sense of each other, particularly
in times of conflict when there is a compelling emotional desire
to simply write off the other side as "the Great Satan"
or "the Red Menace."
This particular incident is a dramatic yet telling illustration
of the way in which English teachers sent abroad by Western churches
can be a vital part of God’s peacemaking mission. Many such
teachers serve in nations whose historical and current relations
with the United States and other Western countries are strained
at best, and through their presence and work these English teachers
can do much to further understanding and even reconciliation between
people of the nations in which they serve and people in the nations
from which they come. As suggested above, their presence is visible
evidence of goodwill on the part of those who send them, and it
also helps keep open the lines of communication by which people
of different cultures try to better understand each other. This
happens not only
through the teaching work of the Western English teachers, but
also through what they learn about their host country and share
with people back home. At times they also have the sad but divinely
ordained task of building reconciliation through taking criticism
for the sins of others. And it is my hope and prayer that by teaching
about the West and its culture in a way that is fair and objective,
they subtly but compellingly reflect a view of right and wrong
that is based in the universal standards of a loving God rather
than in the culture and interests of one particular nation.
As a language and culture teacher, I can’t help looking
at the Incarnation as the greatest act of inter-cultural communication
in human history, and also the ultimate act of peacemaking. In
a small but significant way, Christian teachers of language and
culture have a similar role to play in building and maintaining
bridges of understanding and reconciliation.
Sincerely,
Don (and Wei Hong) Snow
The 1999 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, page 180
|
