why I care about the remake of FF7

This week it was announced there will be a remake of video game called "Final Fantasy 7". It is an old RPG (role-playing game) that came out on PlayStation 1 in 1997.  The announcement of the remake of this classic game has a deep impact on many of the fans of this series. People were shouting and screaming of joy when they saw the trailer. My housemate was also screaming too, and when I saw the trailer I was also yelling.

The announcement actually increased the stocks of Square Enix by 2.9% (highest since 2008). This is insane.

Final Fantasy 7 is the first game I played from this series, and I proudly own an original copy of the PS 1 game. The game is highly excellent, a great story, very likeable characters, awesome soundtrack, and unexpected twists on the plot, a classic. There is huge debate among FF fans between which game is the greatest, and it is usually between 6 or 7. FF6 is a very solid game, but 7 is always my personal favorite as it was the first game I played, and it has influenced me to play various subsequent games from the series.

Why is this such a big deal? Mainly because many of the people from my generation grew up with this game. This was the first pseudo-3D RPG that came out and it was revolutionary, plus the story is so compelling. Also the recent installments of the series have been fairly mediocre, so this remake of the classic series is definitely a big deal.

The reason why I like RPG quite a bit is because it involves a journey, where a character goes about on the following activities:

1. there is some sort of evil, and the main character can get involved to save the world
2. saving a damsel in distress or helping dear friends
3. collect a bunch of weapons important items that are useful in the journey
4. made comrades who join in the journey
• each party member has a special set of skills, each member's strengths make up for other's weaknesses, and when all combined it is very effective in battles
5. explore the world and find information to figure out what to do next in the journey
6. fight battles to acquire more level and skills
7. use a super flashy final move to finish off the main battles

Gaming usually tend to have a negative connotation as many people use it as a way for escapism or it can be a stumbling block for time stewardship. I think some of the elements from gaming that attract us to it, tells us about certain longings we have as human. And I think we should try to satisfy these longings and bring the battles into real life (and not just fight them in the game). Each of us have a journey of faith, that involves:

1. there is much evil in the world, be proactive in getting involved to bring good (participate in furthering God's kingdom)
2. serve in your local community
3. collect knowledge from Word of God that will equip you for every work
4. get to know solid comrades in your journey, comrades who will pray for you, will encourage you,  whose strengths make up for your weaknesses, especially in serving
5. life is not always certain, trust God as you explore different possibilities
6. as you go through challenges and trials, your faith is strengthen each time, and your character is molded to be more like Christ
7. as you matured in the faith, God will enable you to do more than you can ask or imagine, and bring great victories in big struggles

champion's thirst

Recent weekend, the UEFA Champion League Final took place, between Barcelona (Spanish champion of La Liga) and Juventus (Italian champion of the Serie A).

I read various comments about the game and saw highlights multiple times, and I can conclude it was an excellent game. I was not able to watch it, because I chose to spend time with friends in Toronto, which is also very precious.

Barcelona won the game 3-1, and for many that was an expected outcome due to their formidable world class strikers and of course, the best player of the world, Lionel Messi. But Juventus did put a good fight, and had its chances as well. The Italian press have commended the Juventus team, and stated that they lost but they have nothing to regret from.

Barcelona won its 4th UEFA Champion League in last 10 years, which is a great accomplishment, and it has shown the dominance of the Barcelona team in Europe.

It is also worth mentioning that one of the symbol player and captain of Barcelona, Xavi (who is close to the end of his career) played the last game with the team. He is considered to be one of the best Spanish player ever, and he is a very classy midfielder who can direct the pace of the game with his precise and accurate passes.

There is a usual saying that it is hard to reach the top, but it is harder to maintain at the top. Barcelona has been in the top of club level soccer for a while. It is challenging because once you have conquered a trophy, the thirst for such victory might be quenched. And it is hard to find ways to refueled this thirst that will drive the players to give 110% of what they got to win the same trophy again tomorrow.

Analogous to Xavi, there is also a very classy midfielder in Juventus, Andrea Pirlo. He is good, like really good. Also near the end of his career, but he can still play at a very high level, building crazy passes, and he is considered one of the best free kick shooter in the world. After the game, there were pictures and video showing Pirlo crying. One would said this is normal, as they just lost the final, and they are disappointed. But one has to understand that Pirlo have a very successful career already; he won the World Cup with Italy on 2006, and he won the Champions League twice with his former team Milan. He had already experienced this type of victories. But in the end he cried, that shows that he is a winner, and still thirst for more.

I think both Xavi and Pirlo are great champions, who have a steadfast thirst for more.

Similarly, I remembered clearly the thirst I had for God when I first believed. But as I grew, due to struggles and busy-ness, it is easy to not have the same level of thirst for God, and one can easily become complacent. This is always a constant battle for me. 

I pray that the Spirit will cause me to thirst for God more and more.

"You, God, are my God,

    earnestly I seek you;

I thirst for you,

    my whole being longs for you,

in a dry and parched land

    where there is no water." - Psalm 63:1

breakfast of champions

Breakfast is such an enjoyable meal!

And there are many types of breakfast that I enjoy:

Traditional Chinese - congee with deep fried dough rolls:

HK style - very runny eggs with milk tea

Another HK style - Pineapple bun with a "thin" layer of butter and milk tea

Classic - McDonald's Sausage McMuffin with double hash browns and coffee

The picture from McDonald's breakfast was taken recently, as I was a groomsman of a good brother of mine, and we decided to eat this on the wedding day. Actually, McDonald's breakfast has always been a choice in my experience as a groomsman. Meaning my friends are real champions as they select the best breakfast possible!

I have been groomsman six times (one for a cousin, and five for brothers who I have met in university). And I will be a groomsman again in September. Some friends were joking that I am now a professional groomsman, and some work colleagues were telling me that I will be bankrupt soon. 

(Having a hard time coming up with right words here on how I feel...)

I feel very honored that these men of God considers me a close brother and I feel very privileged that I can witness their very wedding day as a groomsman. I am very blessed that I have met many brothers who I can just be myself and enjoy fun moments together, go to challenges and struggles together, study the bible together, serve together, confide in them whatever is on my heart, and pray together. We are all appreciative of each other in this "brotherhood". Now that we  are spread around different parts of Canada, we don't get to see each other that often, but still it is very easy for us to pick up from where we left.

Life is a difficult thing, and God has placed these brothers in my life to make it easier for me. 

I have quoted this verse many times, but will do it again:

"I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." - Philippians 1:3-6

- I thank my God every time I remember my brothers

- I always pray with joy when I pray for them because we shared a special bond on partnering together in the gospel

- I am confident that God will continue working powerfully in their lives even they live far away and I don't get to see them often

i am gundam

This is a Gundam.

It refers to a very famous mecha (huge robots) series in the Japanese anime universe. It's such a huge symbol, that there is a mall on Tokyo located at Odaiba (a bit far from the main area) that have a gigantic 1-to-1 model of the Gundam RX78 of the original series (late 70s).

Yes, on my travel in Tokyo, I took the public transportation (subway + some over-the-sea electric train) for 45 minutes to go there just to see the gundam (the mall was average). And yes, I did buy a gundam model (1/144 scale).

There are many Gundam series (I am definitely not a subject matter expert), and a gundam is a big deal. Gundam refers to the specific robot model that is usually faster and powerful that the average robot. In some cases, it has some sort of a special weapon or ability, and the people chosen to pilot it are usually an enhanced human being that has special mental and psychological abilities.

Gundams can easily determine the fate of wars, and it often represents as a symbol of overwhelming power (Gundam Seed), a symbol of peace (Gundam Unicorn), a symbol of  hope, symbol of insanity y (G Gundam)....regardless, it is a big deal.

On a show Gundam 00, there is was a discussion among gundam pilots (they were a group that "enforces" peacekeeping) about what gundam meant to them, and the main character said the famous "I am gundam". That guy is a bit crazy, but I think he meant that his identify and sense of fulfillment is based on the gundam.

So the topic of fulfillment is an interesting one... I don't have much answers regarding this topic, so I am merely writing my current thoughts.

God has blessed me and many of my friends with the opportunity to choose what to study and what career to pursue. This can be daunting too because with more options, I find it hard to figure out which brings more fulfillment. My parents did not have the luxury to choose this, as none of them have an undergraduate degree, and their options were limited. My grandparents had even more limited options. So I wonder if they even had the idea of fulfillment when they were at work.

I am not saying that fulfillment has to come from work directly, but it is a place where we spend 40+ hours  a week, and I have experienced (both negatively and positively) how a day of work can affect my mood for the week. I understand that for my parents, it is likely the fulfillment came from been able to provide and have fun with the family.

Many of my friends and I are struggling with this question, because up to to finishing undergrad, the path of life was very scripted for most of us. We are told to finish high school, then choose a decent undergrad program, finish school, and then get a stable job. But from there on, it is harder to find clear answers that dictate the choices of life.

After many talks, I have got to known a few options that I could pursue the sense of fulfillment:

1. Work itself is fulfilling
• The work you do is something you enjoy, and you find satisfaction in been excellent at your job
2. Work is a means to fulfillment
• The work you do is fairly neutral, but work allows you to be an active witness of Christ, and as well allows you to provide for your family. Also, it enables you to support missionaries or charity organizations. These are very noble pursuits in life.
3. Fulfillment outside of work
• Work can be a life-sucking entity. You try to find fulfillment on activities after work. This could include leaning a new skill, further studying, volunteering, church ministry.

They are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

I personally think option 1 is very challenging. It is probably my goal to understand how option 1 will look in my life. I know about that God has created us in His image, and He did work during creation and that He entrusted us with the earth, so this should include the aspect of working, cultivating the environment positively, and doing it with excellent as this brings glory to God. In trying to apply this, I  struggle.

I can definitely relate to options 2 and 3.

So what then?

I am still figuring out answers. But there are 2 things I need to keep in mind:

• Don't waste your life, gotta live it as much as possible to glorify God, so if I am on the wrong track, I need to redirect
• Worship God. I am currently reading a book about apologetics, and one encouragement I found is to focus on worshiping God. Paul writes a wonderful book called "Romans" with great exposition on what the gospel is, and on chapter 12, the "therefore" signals how we should respond in light of great theology from previous chapters, and the first thing is to offer ourselves to God as a living sacrifice, as an act of worship. 

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship." - Romans 12:1

family

So last week was family day, and since my family is not here I got to hangout with a few friends. But then this made me think about my family in general...

I have been living away from my family for a long time, since I came to Waterloo for University. Of course, the first few months were tough, very homesick, but I got used to it and by God's grace I was able to find a very good community.

As well I was thinking on the several issues that both my parent's families have to deal with throughout the years. A lot of these issues are caused by money, pride or selfishness. Being away from home has its benefit as it "shielded" me from all the family drama that happening. But at the same time, it is unfortunate that I am not present to make some sort of difference.

On a recent family day, I went to hangout with a group of friends, and they decided to ask from a series of 36 questions that will lead you to fall in love with a person ( http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/11/fashion/no-37-big-wedding-or-small.html?_r=0 ), of course we were discussing it just for fun as we wanted to make some sort of interesting conversation on the car. One of the questions chosen was "if you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?"

This is interesting, because I am pretty sure that there are many things on how I was raised by my parents that could have been better. But at the same time, I don't know if I would change anything. Because even if there are many imperfect factors on how I was raised, this "environment" has shaped me in some way on who I am now, and I also believe that God has used certain aspects of my "turbulent" childhood to teach me how important relationships are, how much should I care for them, how important it is to be gracious and generous towards others.

God is very gracious as He will situations that we think are bad for a good purpose.

In a Christian community, conflicts among members are bound to happen because we are all sinful. I don't think we can more conflict-free when comparing ourselves to a non-Christian community. But I think a key difference is that we as Christians are called to love one another, even if the other party offend us, and that's when we need to be extra gracious and generous towards others. And that cannot be done alone, but only by God's Spirit that live in us.

the best service

In the middle of my trip to Hong Kong, I took a side trip to Tokyo with my dad. At first I really didn't feel like going to a country that did not speak a language I am comfortable with, as I just wanted to chill comfortably without having to plan much. But discussing it with my dad, we decided that Japan was a good option due to the fact that its currency value is low now. So I spent quite a bit of time planning and ensuring I could get around despite the language barrier. It was kinda stressful actually.

But this trip to Tokyo was actually much more fun that I expected, and now I wish I could spent more time there. There are many fascinating things there, like this is the place where anime is originated from, this is also the place of consumer electronics, and the food is really amazing, like intensely amazing (it seems that every restaurant you go to, you are guaranteed to get good food). One thing that caught my eye was how clean the streets were, especially since I did not see trash cans on the streets (so people would just carry his/her own trash and dump it after).

One thing that I actually enjoyed was to take subway trains because it is very convenient to go from one place to another. At first I was quite intimidated by the subway system as the map looks pretty chaotic, but once I understood the system it was actually pretty easy. I really appreciate the "efficiency" of the system.

Perhaps one of the things that amazed me the most was the service that I received in Japan. It's just outrageous, people are super nice and polite, There was a lot of bowing, I was pretty overwhelmed. 

The quality of service was just spectacular. I took the train from airport to the hotel, and I decided to order coffee (bit expensive) during the train ride. And when the train hostess was giving me the cup of coffee, she gently said with a smile (with very decent English) "be careful, it is hot", and then she bowed. I never been treat as nice in Tim Hortons or McDonald's.

This type of good service is very common in Japan as it is part of their culture, they are brought up and taught to treat customers like this.

Two thoughts came in mind when I think about this.

One is, are they genuinely bowing to you out of gratitude, or they just do it because they get paid and it is so ingrained in their culture? This is hard to tell, but I do think some do this genuinely. This does makes me reflect on how my attitude should be when I serve at the church. Sometimes, it is easy to get caught by the "routine" of things, and do things mechanically instead of genuinely wanting to serve out of gratitude to God.

Second thought is, I felt very welcome on the establishments I went to due to this warm service. Often I find it hard to feel welcomed when I visit a church. Many times I have seen that people who already know each other will congregate in their own, making it hard for newcomers to feel welcomed. But I also  have seen churches where the welcoming is quite good, like even the pastor will spend some time with the newcomers, and that is nice. My thought here is that, if a worldly establishment can make someone feel so welcomed, shouldn't a church make people feel even more welcomed as we are broken people coming together with joy to worship our gracious God. 

These thoughts seems slightly random, but yeah.

best cha chaan teng

There is a type of restaurant that are common in Hong Kong named "cha chaan teng" (usually known as HK cafe) that offers a variety of Hong Kong style western food and other pearls at a very affordable price. The Hong Kong style milk tea is one of the staple drinks. The egg-sandwich with the milk tea is one affordable and excellent breakfast that it is offered.

There is a very famous restaurant in Hong Kong called "Australian Dairy Company" and it is famous for the superb smoothness of its eggs dishes: scrambled eggs, egg-sandwich, steam eggs.

There are probably many (a couple of thousands of them) that serves this type of food in Hong Kong (most of them probably pretty decent) but this restaurant is considered by many the best in Hong Kong. During peak hours, there is usually a line to get in.

Though the food is intensely good, the service is bad and sometimes rude. Though this is a typical characteristic of Hong Kong cha chaan tengs, this restaurant seems to have worse service overall.

The reason for such bad service is because its workers are very efficient and focused on getting work done. Since the lines are long, and environment is chaotic, all the workers (waiters and kitchen staff) are non-stop working to ensure food is made and served fast, and that people are eating (no idle waiting).  So they have no reason to provide good service. There is definitely an atmosphere of pressure to eat fast and order more food or leave right away before getting scolded haha. Despite this, people go eat there and it is a great experience.

In my small group, we have been studying the book of Nehemiah, one great book about Christian leadership! And recently we covered Nehemiah 5, where we see him dealing with some serious internal affairs. Many of the Israelites during that time were poor and had to mortgaged their property and even sell their children for food. It was pretty tough times, and to make it worse some rich Israelites were taking advantage of them by charging them interest in loans. Nehemiah was angry and had to rebuked them, and led by example by caring for the needy. This is on top of his main responsibility, which was to lead the task of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.

What I learned from that chapter is that Nehemiah truly a leader who cares for those under him, despite having to deal with many other issues (external enemies) and logistics (takes a lot of planning to coordinate effort to rebuild the walls, to put guards, etc). I am often in charge of planning activities because I like logistical work, and like being efficient at it. But one of the struggles I have is that when I am very submerged in my planning mode, I tend to not care about the people (who are part of the event I am planning) causing leadership to be planning-focused and not people-focused, very similar to the restaurant above.

Definitely, the book of Nehemiah challenges me to know that leadership involves impacting people to challenge them to move towards the direction of Christ.