Steve and Pam Wise

New Year’s resolutions are the province of the young. By my age we have leaned – often to our chagrin – that resolutions are much easier to make than keep. Basically you are not going to do what you are not inclined to do no matter how often you tell yourself to do it. Behaviour has to become habitual before change becomes permanent. We would save ourselves a lot of grief if we took a look at where we want the long term direction of our lives to go, rather than looking for quick fixes to sometimes intractable problems. In practical terms this means simply we need to reinforce our strengths and moderate our weaknesses.

My strength has always been my love of learning. God has made a marvellously complex and beautiful world. Mankind will never come to the end of discovering about it if we last a million years. I love discovering that world, either through literature, art, science, music, travel, or social interaction. An easy and productive resolution for me is to continue to learn throughout the coming year. I don’t need to worry about the specifics of that learning, since often that growth is organic rather than pre-planned. I might set out to learn Mandarin and find myself reading French instead. I might plan on developing music and find it is computer functions I spend most of my time with. I can’t really control all the specifics, since I have no idea what this year will bring. But I do intend to continue to learn at every available opportunity, and to continue to give deference to the One who enables that understanding. My resolution then is to spend less time in the coming year consuming, and more time creating, for that is the essence of learning.

My second resolution has to do with my weakness. I have a tendency to laziness. Nobody looking at me from the outside would suspect this, as I keep it well under control; but I assure you it is there. In order to moderate this weakness I need to more consistent in self-discipline. Again it really doesn’t matter how I discipline myself, only that I do so. I could say that I will get up at such a time and do this number of sit-ups to trim my flabby gut and strengthen my wimpy back, but that isn’t the measure of self-discipline. The measure is that I discipline myself in every aspect of my life from watching television to pausing for ten minutes every hour to stretch and unwind; to reading literature instead of pulp fiction; to leaving my room tidy instead of a disorganized mess. All of these things rebuke my sloth and train me to give a more careful account of my time to my Maker.

Now for the final resolution. As a Christian I understand that mankind in made in the image of God; that is to say he/she has mind, flesh and spirit. My first two resolutions speak to the mind and the flesh; the third must address the spiritual side of my nature. Again it is useful to look at the long term direction of your life; where you want to be at the end of it. Clearly, for a Christian, that goal is to be more like Christ. For me that means I need to be kinder and gentler; not just on others, but on myself as well. For this I need to call upon the Holy Spirit, for this is a deep work of the soul and will not be accomplished through human effort alone. Only God the Spirit can bring about spiritual change. For this I need to spend more time meditating on His word and praying in the spirit, which is what I plan to do in the coming year. And that is by far the most important resolution of all.

We are back in Hanoi, just briefly in order to catch a plane back to KL. This morning we caught a bus to ride across the island to the ferry on the north end of Cat Ba. The road was under construction, so it was touch and go for a while if we would even get through. But our driver had nerves of steel and powered through the gravel without slipping into the ravine that was mere inches away. When we got to the dock we discovered that our boat was much larger than the one we were on yesterday, and both smoother and quieter with a nice sitting area out of the wind, which was blustery and cold across the bay.

But we didn’t sit inside. The ferry cut across a stretch of Ha Long Bay we hadn’t seen before, and it was too lovely to leave just because of a contrary wind. So we sat huddled up on our deck chairs, bundled in all the warm clothes we could muster, and watched the glorious scenery go majestically by. Eventually we arrived in Ha Long City where we transferred to a vehicle for the next leg of the trip. There was the usual delay while they sorted out the hundreds of tourists onto their various busses and ferries. We were fortunate to get placed on a van that cut the travel time to Hanoi, and arrived just before the rush hour. A quick taxi ride with a very hostile driver brought us to the pleasant staff at the hotel we stayed at on our arrival in Vietnam, where we were treated like old friends. We had a nice meal at a little café overlooking the street, the kind of place that is not easy to find in this overwhelmingly utilitarian city. Then it was back to our hotel for an early evening before our 5 am wake up call.

During a chat with our tour group yesterday we discussed our impressions of the Vietnamese people. The reactions ranged from “hostile” and “aggressive” to “sullen” and “indifferent.” Nobody seemed overly impressed. But when I posted something similar a few days, a number of respondents disagreed. They are indeed a hard people, tough enough to have driven the Chinese out of their country and keep them out for a thousand years. Tough enough to have defeated both the French and the Americans within two decades in the last fifty years; no mean feat in any country’s history. That toughness and aggression is shown in their response to foreigners. During a motorcycle trip around Cat Ba on Sunday we stopped for a moment to get our bearings. A young girl passing by, no more than 6 or 7, contemptuously slapped my helmet visor in a random act of aggression that caught me completely by surprise. This is not the kind of response that we have encountered anywhere else in Asia. Someone is indoctrinating the young of this country in their xenophobia.

However we have also been met with consideration and courtesy on our trip to Ha Long Bay. We chatted with a young Vietnamese student on the van who was studying tourism. Everyone of her friends is studying tourism. Her English was excellent, and so was her attitude. This bodes well for a future of greater openness to outsiders. We also have to note that although the streets are narrow and the infrastructure is crumbling and decayed, the people here work hard at keeping their country clean; not something that you see in Malaysia, Cambodia or Sri Lanka. Construction is happening everywhere; streets are being improved, shoplots are being rebuilt.

These are an industrious and resilient people. Hardship has toughened them throughout their history, and their history has also taught them to be suspicious and resentful of foreigners. They have enough drive and resourcefulness to be an economic powerhouse in this part of the world; to rebuild their cities and develop their industries. They have a physically beautiful country, and it could well become a tourist mecca. They also have enough aggression and xenophobia to rule out any significant progress as a nation. The blocking of the social networking site, Facbook, is evidence of their paranoia. In short, they could go either way in the future, and Vietnam will be an interesting country to watch.

Ha Long Bay in North Vietnam is a World Heritage site and was recently selected as one of the seven new natural wonders of the world. There are nearly two thousand limestone islands in the 600 square miles of the bay. They are what are called karsts, tectonic uplifts of what was formerly sedimentary rock. From the look of the layers, some of that uplift was nearly vertical. Erosion by wind and water has then shaped these rocks into strange outcroppings; some looking like Sugarloaf Mountain in Rio, some looking like the ‘flowerpots’ of the Bruce Peninsula.

Today we took a cruise out into Ha Lan Bay, off the southern coast of Cat Ba island where we are staying, and around to the east and north of the island into Ha Long Bay itself. We shared the cruise with a dozen others, all young backpackers, from San Francisco, Vancouver, England, India and Germany. It was a wondrous journey, and pictures simply do not do the site justice. These scenic wonders spring from the water in dazzling variety; some looking like humpbacked dragons – ha long means descending dragon – some teetering precariously on thin stalks eroded to the point of collapse by the water. Our little boat wove its way through this water wonderland, every turn in the bay yielding a new vista. We were entranced.

After a couple of hours of this we dropped anchor in a secluded part of the bay and loaded into kayaks for a closer look. Erosion has carved caves and arches in the islands, making them ideal for exploration in kayaks. Pam and I were happy to be a craft we ourselves could manage, and spent a happy hour in our own little tour before returning to the boat for lunch. We were expecting noodle soup or some greasy fried rice. Instead we have steamed rice and vegetables, Vietnamese spring rolls and mackerel steaks. Another hour of cruising brought us to Bo Hon Island, site of the Sung Sot cave. We had heard nothing of this in any guide book and quite frankly we were not expecting to see much more than a few scruffy stalagmites and a tourist vendor. We were totally blown away by the most vast and massive cave we had ever seen. The cave was beautifully laid out with clear and clean flagstones quarried from the surrounding limestone, and with a minimum of artificial light to bring out the cave’s natural beauty. The view from the outer reach of the cave overlooking the harbor is the one that you see of Ha Long Bay on the Wikipedia site.

We had a brief spell of anxiety on the way home as the engine quite literally blew a gasket. It must be a fairly regular occurrence because the crew had a spare gasket on hand and managed the repair in forty-five minutes. Fortunately we were in a fairly open and protected part of the bay, and drifted peacefully along while the repairs took place. Half an hour later we were out into the open waters of the bay with their two metre swells. We stopped briefly on Monkey Island to feed the local residents who were happy to ‘steal’ our lunch leftovers and pose for pictures. Aside from them and a lone sea eagle, there was not much other wildlife to be seen.

It was a fantastic day of sights and experiences, and it was nice to have some fellow travelers to share the experience with and to talk about our various travels through South-East Asia. We finished our day with a decent meal at the Green Mango, recommended by our Aussie friend Jim, and not to be missed if you ever find yourself on Cat Ba Island. The weather may not have been the best at this time of year, but with no tourist crowds to contend with, we got to see some pretty amazing sights today. For my money the karsts looked even more mysterious and impressive arising from the mists as they came into view. We were glad we came.

If you are wondering why you haven’t seen us on Facebook lately, look again at the heading on this post. North Vietnam is not North Korea, but it does share a similar cult devotion to its dead leaders and a similar paranoia about opening up to the world. We did manage to squeak by and post just once on Facebook, but that must have been a fluke, because the page has been unavailable to us the rest of the time.

So if you found us here on our weblog we would like to wish you a very Happy New Year. May the coming year be filled with adventure and blessing. Happy 2012!

 
Cat Ba Island is the largest of an archipelago of islands in Ha Long Bay, recently selected as one of the world’s seven new natural wonders. I don’t know what criteria was used in this selection, but it is a truly beautiful place. It is winter in Vietnam, and it is far enough north of the equator here to be cool even in the mid-afternoon. It is not the time of year to go swimming, although we did wade in the water. But we didn’t come here to swim, we came to walk and take a boat ride out into the islands. This afternoon we contented ourselves with a walk around the edge of the bay from our hotel into town. It was a spectacular vista.

Ha Long Bay is dotted with karsts; formations of limestone thrust upward by ancient tectonic movements and then eroded by wind and water into unusual and sometimes lovely shapes, made more dramatic by the scenic bay itself, tranquil and serene, and dotted by fishermen plying the waters in their tiny, ancient boats. The boats themselves are made of rattan, woven bamboo, and sealed with pitch. They are flat and gently rounded and are rowed either forward or backward, as there is no discernible bow or stern. There are larger boats as well, of course, and houseboats which serve either as living accommodation or as floating restaurants, specializing in seafood entrees of dazzling variety.

After walking into town for a lunch of noodle soup, we booked a motorcycle for tomorrow from a young Aussie entrepreneur who seems to have a corner on the expat market. He doesn’t have a lot of competition, as he is the only one who had sufficient English to actually negotiate a deal. I do understand that I am in a foreign country and the locals have every right to their language. However, we have never encountered such a lack of English in any of the countries we have travelled to and it does make negotiating travel details difficult. The young lady in the tourist office had no English whatsoever.

Tonight we have bought a ticket to a local New Year’s Eve party from our new Aussie friend and we are going to use the occasion to celebrate a fulfilling year. Pam has seen her ministry efforts in Cambodia turn into on the ground training. She returned to Canada in time to see the birth of her new grand-daughter and help to nurse our son following his unfortunate accident. We met together in England for a memorable and emotionally uplifting visit with family and then we celebrated our daughter’s truly touching wedding to her fine young fiancé, Greg. This year also saw the end of my previous contract and the purchase of an older vehicle with the bonus due on its conclusion. The car has allowed us a new freedom to see Malaysia, and a new ability to minister to our colleagues. It has been a full year.

We trust that you will have a fun and safe New Year wherever you are. May the Lord direct your path in the coming year; either to a closer walk in His presence if you know Him, or a closer walk toward Him, if you do not. Blessings, gentle reader.

The tiny little baby that we left behind with such heavy hearts

Has grown so quickly into a:

Soccer Playing

School going

Travelling

Adventurous

Creative

Gentleman

And a Tender Hearted

Big Brother

Grandma and Grandpa love you, little guy, and wish you all the best on your special day!

Our Canadian Christian friends have recently been expressing their concerns regarding the erosion of civil liberties in Canada in regards to the celebration of Christmas. Their concern is understandable. The birth of Christ is the central event in the Christian worldview. Not to be allowed to recognize this in a society that is purportedly tolerant of all faiths is quite simply intolerable. A pluralistic society surely can not mean that all beliefs are suppressed, but rather that all are celebrated in a spirit of inclusion and, dare I say it, tolerance! Fortunately for us we live in a Muslim country. Muslims recognize that faith is an important aspect of humanity. They would of course argue that their faith is the most important, but this is not the place to quibble about theology. It is tolerance of faith that is at issue in this post.

The Muslims that we have met in Malaysia not only tolerate Christmas, they celebrate it with us! My email inbox is full of Christmas wishes from my Muslim colleagues. Buddhists and Hindus as well wish us a Merry Christmas. The malls are filled with Christmas decorations and the mall music invariably features Christmas tunes. (Our senior readers may be interested to know that we often hear the warm baritone voice of Jim Reeves; talk about a blast from the past!). Of course Christians return the favour at Muslim Eids and Hindu festivals.

The difference could not be more clearly seen than in Singapore, where we have spent the last two days. Orchard Road – the Fifth Avenue of Asia – was aglow in a blaze of glorious Christmas lights hung from every tree and lamp post. Christmas carolers competed with dancers and mimes in using their own particular art to convey the Christmas message. Nativity scenes lined the sidewalks and spectacular Christmas trees adorned every mall concourse and public plaza. It was a glorious explosion of Christmas cheer, and yes it certainly did cheer our hearts to be part of it; to soak it all in.

And what on earth is the harm? And why have we lost this liberty in Canada? The stores in Singapore were packed with shoppers, the restaurants and pubs were alive with people. Every businessman in town was making an absolute bundle, regardless of whether he were Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Sikh. The atmosphere was happy and celebratory. In a month from now they will all be back celebrating Chinese New Year and no one will be offended by that either. We will all offer each other Gong Xi Fa Chai in our best Mandarin and enjoy the week off. When the Mooncake Festival comes around we will give each other mooncakes and money. During Ramadan we will all go to the evening bazaars and buy dates and satay. And during none of these celebrations would anyone ever dream of saying to the other that they had no right to celebrate what was important to them. And if you did not want to celebrate, then no one would be offended either. That is what liberty means, isn’t it?

Well, for the moment we have such liberty in Asia, and we are going to use it to wish you happiness and joy at this most joyous event in the Christian calendar. The birth of the Christ child is not just good news for Christians, but for all of mankind. So a joyous Christmas to all, wherever you are, and in whatever circumstances you find yourself. The gift of Christ is the evidence that God loves mankind beyond all that He has created. There can be no better news than this. Joy to the world!

I came home from work one Friday evening some years ago and collapsed on my bed exhausted from a trying week of teaching. An hour or so later, somewhat rejuvenated, I got up, showered and changed, and headed out for the evening. My destination was the Blue Boot, a little bar on the corner of King and Richmond in London, Ontario, that occasionally had some good live blues. There was no music – I was too early – just some cantankerous Canadian aboriginals in a heated dispute that led to some broken glass flying in my direction, cutting my hand and driving me in search of another nightspot. I wandered further down King until I got to Kelly’s, an Irish-themed club that featured canned music and dancing; not my usual venue in those days. But the evening was still young and the blood oozing from my hand was not enough to put a damper on the night.

I got in line behind three young ladies engaged in a lively and excited conversation about the evening ahead. Two of them had no interest in the world around them; they were much too self-engaged. But one of them turned around to see who had come in line behind them and I found myself staring into the most compelling eyes I had ever seen. There was something about that gaze – steady, unflinching, unafraid, curious and compassionate all at the same time – that pierced me to the core. I was 27 at the time and I had dated and met dozens of young women since I was 13. As a sidebar, my first serious grirlfriend, Lillian Wauthier, recently ‘friended’ me on Facebook, and remembers me for my kindness and sincerity. I mention this to point out that I was not a superficial dating jerk; I had just never met the person I was looking for. I can tell you that without exception all the women I met carried some degree of conflict in their eyes; some mistrust, some hurt, some qualifier of one kind or another. But here was someone whose eyes had nothing to hide and nothing to fear. I felt I just must meet her.

I mumbled something about being cut by broken glass to explain my napkin-bandaged hand, and when we were let in to Kelly’s, followed her over to the bar and offered to buy her a drink. The place was crowded with people, and of course this young lady – Pam Carter, as I found out that evening – had friends with her as well. But I had eyes and interest for no one else for the remainder of the evening. We talked for possibly three hours about everything imaginable. I found out that she was a psychiatric nurse, which fascinated me, and that she was totally dedicated to her profession and the care of the people she looked after and worked with, which resonated with my own commitment to teaching. I also found out that she was a devout Christian and had been her entire life. As someone who had only just recently accepted Christ as Saviour and Lord, I was excited about meeting a real Christian and seeing how this new faith of mine interacted with the world around me as she told me of her own struggles with her faith, and her relationship with a church that had recently condemned her for how her commitment to her career had impacted her church attendance and ministry.

Throughout the evening I just couldn’t suppress the thought that this was the one I had been looking for; someone with whom I felt a bond of connection that transcended the moment. It was as if I was standing at the threshold of my future. This feeling coalesced when she allowed me just one dance. I found out much later that as a lifelong Baptist, Pam had never danced before. It didn’t matter. What mattered was that I got to hold this strange, wonderful young woman in my arms, gaze into those steady grey eyes, and feel her hand trembling slightly in mine as we moved across the floor. I struggled to stifle the wild joy in my heart that just kept saying, “This is the one, you idiot, Don’t you get it? This is the one!”

That night, November 19, 1976, was thirty-five years ago. This year we had a quiet dinner in celebration as we made plans for the Christmas season. November is always such a busy time for a teacher, which is why it has taken me so long to get this post up. But it would be remiss of me not to mark this moment in our personal calendar; the night we met. For years we kept the details of this meeting quiet, not wishing to offend our Christian friends who might question the sanctity of a marriage that started in a bar. Others who are more mature will recognize that God can speak to any human heart in any circumstance, and He is not offended by where He finds us. Certainly God was in that meeting, and we are so grateful to Him that He not only brought us together, but that He has been in a our marriage throughout the long years we have been together. We can say without question that our marriage was His plan, and that furthermore He is not finished with His plans for us as we seek to be ministers of His love and grace is the country where He has called us. The certainty of God’s purpose for the two of us as a couple have seen us through all the difficulties of our lives. After all, if God is for us, who are we to quibble?

When we want to get away for a weekend there are dozens of choices in this part of the world; from Bali to Bangkok, Langkawi to Koh Samui, Phuket to Redang. All of them are beautiful, and all of them are reasonably priced if you know where to stay and can get there in an hour on Air Asia. But where do you go for an overnight getaway? Obviously there is downtown KL, but that is pretty pricy when we live in the suburbs and can go there anytime we want. Besides, it doesn’t seem like a getaway to us unless there is water in the picture.

There is a little beach resort called Port Dickson just south of the city that always looked promising, but we had never been able to find a hotel along that strip that was both nice and affordable; that is until we got a car and could do some serious investigating. Last month our investigations turned up a place called Avillion, and last night we stayed there and had a fabulous time.

There are no rooms at this resort, only chalets. You can get a garden chalet, or a beach chalet, or a premium beach chalet. If you book through Agoda, the most expensive room is only $100 U.S. For that you get complete privacy, with your own deck and lounge chairs, a canopy bed, another daybed in a bay window with an unrestricted view of the ocean, a soaker tub with Jacuzzi jets, a fabulous shower that is open to the stars, two swimming pools, one for adults only, several bars overlooking the ocean, several restaurants with views as well, and an all you can eat breakfast buffet. All of this will cost you a hundred bucks. We spent a little more and got lunch at the spa restaurant overlooking the ocean and a candlelight dinner of stuffed chicken and grilled trout with tiramisu and chocolate for dessert. The dinner music – double bass, guitar, two excellent female singers who knew Patsy Cline, Bread, Abba and Anne Murray – was free.

Everything was spotless; the amenities, from the huge towels at the pool to the 54 inch television in the room, were first class. The staff were invariably helpful and polite, which is not unusual in Asia, but sweet all the same. The grounds, with their luxuriant gardens artfully lit in the evening along cobbled walkways, were refreshing and relaxing. However, the real bonus for us was that this place is only an hour’s drive from where we live. We are already planning our next visit.

The late sixties and early seventies were a heady and exciting time for Canadian artists. In music Guess Who’s “American Woman” outsold The Beatles. Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen and Neil Young were blazing a song writing trail across American music and Canadian performers featured prominently in bands such as Blood, Sweat and Tears, Steppenwolf and The Band. In art Alex Colville and Ken Danby were gaining international attention for their explorations in high realism, and in film Allan King’s Warrendale in 1967 and Don Shebib’s Going Down the Road in 1970 demonstrated that there was a market for quality Canadian film. In 1971 Shebib followed his early success with Rip-Off, a largely forgettable film that was notable only for launching the film review career of my brother, Wyndham Wise.

Forty years ago, on Oct 21, 1971, Wyn published his first film review of this film. Other reviews followed, principally on Canadian film, and Wyn began to gain something of a reputation as an expert on Canadian film. He continued to develop that expertise as Toronto reporter for Cinema Canada, and had the distinction of being its last writer, as the magazine folded in 1989. He then parlayed his experience into the launch of his own magazine, Take One in 1992, which during its fourteen year tenure, was widely regarded as the leading magazine on Canadian cinema¹. At the beginning of the new century Wyn wrote and published through U. Of T. Press² Take One’s Essential Guide to Canadian Film, still considered the gold standard reference for Canadian film. CBC books in its review wrote of Wyn’s book that it was “impressive for its breadth of coverage, refreshing in its opinionated informality,” and went on to note that it was a “comprehensive and lively look at Canadian film culture at the start of the twenty-first century”³. In 1997 Wyn founded the Toronto Film Critics Association, and launched Canadian Screenwriter for the Writers Guild of Canada in 1998. From 2008–11 he was the editor of Canadian Cinematographer. He is credited with the genesis of Hot Docs, a yearly celebration of documentary film that takes place in Toronto. He is a contributing editor to Northern Stars⁴, and continues to write about and promote Canadian film.

Canadian artists have had a notoriously difficult time making inroads into a largely American market. Some Canadian film makers, like Norman Jewison, Ivan Reitman, David Cronenberg and James Cameron have become tremendously successful, but often at the expense of ignoring Canadian themes, rather than in celebration of them. Those who write about Canadian film have an even harder time getting the public attention in this Hollywood dominated industry. I salute my brother for his tenacity and integrity in continuing to promote and critique this important artistic exploration of our national psyche for the last forty years. Congratulations, bro!

¹http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Take_One

²http://www.utppublishing.com/Take-One-s-Essential-Guide-to-Canadian-Film.html

³http://www.cbc.ca/books/reviews/2001/08/take-one’s-essential-guide-to-canadian-cinema.html

⁴http://www.northernstars.ca/Wise/01110210740_review.html