Custas

The Diplomacy Academy of Vietnam's turn to Ring the Golden Bell (a game show for college students) has come and gone for another year.

The format has changed from last year. Gone are the graduation robes, sitting on the floor, and the opposing team. Now students compete to see how far they can get before giving a wrong answer. The winners get a cash prize.

More interesting this year than the game itself was the Custas commercial from the show's sponsor. Custas are a popular snack cake around here. Though the commercial is probably a "you had to see it" kind of thing, I'll try to describe it anyway.

Opening scene: A little girl, about 5-6 years old is fishing in a green plastic bucket.

Next scene: A mom comes home with a bag of groceries that has a box of Custas poking out of the top.

Next scene: The little girl is fishing with her grandfather at a small pond, sitting next to the same green plastic bucket. They are laughing. The grandpa hands her a Custas.

Next scene: Back in the kitchen the mom calls to her daughter, who shouts with excitement when she sees the box. She grabs it and runs off shouting, "Ong oi! Ong oi!" ("Grandpa! Grandpa!")

Final scene: The little girl places the box of cakes on the family altar in front of the picture of her deceased grandpa.

Very touching. Very sad.

(Click here for an explanation of the family altar written by one of Doug Young's students back in 2005.)

Back From Beijing

Last week Nancy and I traveled to China for 3 days of meetings with the China Teaching Fellowship (CTF) team leaders. Nancy and I are the old people among them; the others are all young women in their 20's. Once again, I came away impressed at sense of purpose and depth of spirituality and commitment of these team leaders. You would be too.

I also came away amazed that anyone would want to live in Beijing. It's a sprawling mass of concrete and the air is as bad as they say. The funny thing is that it feels less crowded and less hectic than Hanoi because, even though it contains 5-6 times as many people, it's much more spread out so it's less densely populated.

Of course, I'm not much of a big city person anyway. Hanoi's a struggle for me until I remember a George MacDonald poem I came across years ago.

I said, "Let me walk in the fields."
He said, "No, walk in the town."
I said, "There are no flowers there."
He said, "No flowers, but a crown."