street live

There are talents like ants - that is, everywhere- in Tokyo.

It all started when JP, a Brazilian hip hop dancer who came to us for 4 days.
He was all ready to perform on the street, for Jesus.

We took him to places where we hope there will be people who would watch, then we talked to those who stopped and watched till the end.

From there, we realised it was so much easier to talk to the other street performers than trying to attract passerby.

These street musicians have excellent voices, great guitar playing, and a lot of passion and courage.

The 2 groups that we spoke to write their own songs. Beautiful, original melodies and moving lyrics.

It makes us want to cry listening to them.

God in heaven too is listening, and he wants them to sing for him too.

Thousand Leaves

"Are there more trees in Chiba than other parts of Japan?"
My sister asked.

"Hmmm...donno."
I answered.
"Maybe last time?" (last time: "in the past" in Singapore English)

Chiba Prefecture, where we have made our new home, is just outside Tokyo city and forms part of the Greater Tokyo area. The Chinese characters for Chiba, 千葉, literary means thousand leaves. A rather poetic name, don't you think?

What's more, the city we now live in is Nagareyama City -流山市; the name suggests flowing mountain streams.

Just writing about it conjures up images of black and white Chinese brush paintings.

In reality of course, it is nothing like that. South Nagareyama, where our apartment is situated, is a quite little suburb, nothing striking, nothing outstanding and slightly sleepy.

But you only need to drive a little distance to come into huge departmental stores and bright neon lights.

At the same time, we are never far from rice and vegetable fields.

It fascinates me that in metropolitan Tokyo, by the side of busy interchanges and expressways, one can suddenly spot somebody's vegetable farm or suddenly drive into what feels like rural Japan.

Wow, how you can talk!!

Coming back to Sapporo, the city where we first started learning our Japanese, and meeting again some of the people we knew after a 3-4 year break can be an interesting experience for both sides.

"Wah~! You can say so much now!"

"Wooo~! You used to be so quiet!"

"How your Japanese has improved!"

Are some common comments.

Suddenly people with whom we had hardly exchanged more than 10 words for a whole year in the past are talking to us like long lost friends.

The laughter, the sudden sense of friendship...starting now with people we knew years ago...

It's as though there's been some sort of a time slip, almost.
It's as though all the friendliness and love that's bottled up for years can finally find release.

What a wonder language is.
When we can speak the same language, love can spread its wings!

DVD technology in Japan

Recently we started researching on DVD recorders in Japan.

The technology is AMAZING.

It's the first time, for instance, that I saw anything with a 1TB hard disk...

Plus a whole lot of interesting features:

The machine displays the TV programme schedule and makes recording super simple.

Some of them have a card reader that can read your memory stick directly allowing you to down load photos, music etc. from and to your mobile phone, camera etc.

You can also edit your photos, make slide shows etc. on the DVD players.

The DVD recorder can be linked to your personal computers.

You can preset the machine to record your programmes by sending an email to it from your mobile phone.

You can set the machine to record a whole series and not have to miss any episode.

You can set the machine to record the first episode of every new season's drama and it will then ask if you want to record the rest of the series after you have watched the first episode.

The machine can automatically detect a delayed telecast or extra-time of a football/baseball match and record accordingly.

You can even key in keyword and the machine will record all programmes with this keyword -e.g. keyword: "Tom Cruise" and all programmes in which Tom Cruise appear will be recorded.

AND...some machines will even analyse the programmes you have been recording and automatically record the programmes that you might like!

What else will appear next? It's exciting to see how human innovation and imagination can come up with all sorts of possibilities we never dreamt of in the past.

Japanese service

I am clearing the snow on the steps of our apartment.

The sound of engine tells me that someone is here, and glancing up I see that it's the postman delivering letters to the downstairs apartment.

He then comes up the stairs I am in the process of clearing.

Is he going to us or the neighbour next door...I think idly to myself as I continue to throw snow from the stairs over the railing to the snow pile below.

He is right outside our door. Ah he will be down in a second. It doesn't take more time than that to slip a couple of letters through the slot in the door. So I am surprised when after a minute or so, he is still not coming down the stairs.

This time I look up and watch more closely. His finger is on our bell. I start to call out to him but Stanley has come to the door.

10 seconds later, the postman is down the stairs and gone.

Registered mail? Parcel delivery? What was that? I ask.

O no, just ordinary mail. Stanley replies. He just wanted to confirm that we are the right recipients since he has never delivered a mail with this name to this address before.

No wonder Japanese service ranks no. 1 in the world.

Of Snow

Even from Singapore, we heard news that Japan is having very little snow over the past winter.

"It hasn't snowed at all!" Everyone told us. Most are grateful for the relatively snow-free winter but some are concerned about what the environment is trying to tell us.

But 2 days after we arrive in Sapporo, it started to snow.

At first only slightly, then heavily and then even all day long for a couple of days.

People started clearing snow again.

Even Tokyo had its first snow this winter - in March, when everyone there is already celebrating the coming of Spring!

We were told it's all our fault, we brought the snow with us from.....Tropical Singapore!

chopping up garlic in winter?

It wasn't quite such a sudden switch from 31 degree C in tropical Singapore to sub-zero in Sapporo in Japan.

After all, we drove up from Narita Airport in the south, so had time to slowly get cold in the car...

And even in Sapporo, the temperature only dropped to below freezing on our third day there.

It was the dryness in the air that got us more. Despite almost drowning in moisturizer, our fingers are still cracking up like desert ground. Long deep lines of flesh peak from beneath the white dry skin. It's painful to wash one's hand or hold an apple, let alone chop up the garlic....

But it's great to be in Japan. Especially when Japanese friends say "Welcome back!"

Yes, we are happy, despite the dry skin and cracks in the fingers!

singapore

One Year Back Home

2006 Chinese New Year to 2007 Chinese New Year has been our one year back in Singapore.

O yes, we missed Japan - the food, the vibrant culture, the TV, movies and music scene and, more than anything else, our Japanese friends who have loved us so generously.

But wow! what a blessing it has been to be back too.

What great friends we have rediscovered, and what great friends have been made - in one short year.

We have enjoyed the informality and family atmosphere of Singapore.

We have enjoyed picking up new things and visiting new places.

We deeply appreciate our time with you -- thank you for receiving us into your midst so unreservedly.

You have made our one year back home flown by in the most enjoyable way!

A New Year, A New Place (& a few other old places)

It's time to say HELLO 2007!

2006 has been "A Year in Singapore", but 2007 will be "Back in Japan". But first we start 1 January still in Singapore in our flat. As the packing and the cleaning begin to get into the way of living, probably sometime in February before the Chinese New Year (we hope to start packing in January), we might move out to Lucy's parents' place.

We leave for Japan at the end of February 2007.

Upon arrival in Narita Airport, we'll be making our way up to Sapporo in Hokkaido, where our organization, OMF, has a Japanese Language Centre. The plan is to do a 3-month language refresher to wake up those bits of the language that had gone to sleep and to pick up more of this vast rich language.

We plan to move to Tokyo in early June 2007 to join our new church planting team there & begin a new work.

Watch this space for "Life in Exciting Tokyo - the city of dreams!"

This is us taken while we were in Japan. We were in our home in the town of Hiraka (平賀)in Aomori (青森).

Now we are in Singapore for a year, from January 2006 to February 2007.

Getting to know us

We are Stanley (宗安) & Lucy (欣恬)Ong.

We work in Japan as matchmaker between Jesus and our Japanese friends because we think that Jesus is a super cool guy and Japanese and COOL too! We want them to fall in love and have a beautiful romance with Jesus!

Please visit this blog for more stories to come!