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| Sorry for the absence. Things have been nuts these days. And if you know me, I never use the word “nuts” lightly. This is primarily because I moved last week but secondarily because I have been getting speaking engagements on North Korean refugee issues.
Good news: I got into Journalism School. I’m really excited to start this August.
I want to start posting some of my journalistic work since the magazine I worked for went belly-up, jerks. Here is an interview I did with singer/songwriter Bobby Choy aka Big Phony. Photos by Joe Yoon. I really enjoy Bobby's work and so should you:
Not Ashamed
By Dan Chung
It takes a lot to draw a large New York audience; it takes even more to impress one. But Bobby “Big Phony” Choy did just that with a throat infection, 30 minutes of sleep the night before and a lap steel player (Jinsoo Lim) with a broken instrument. “It can’t be perfect all the time,” he told me after the show, “but you have to deal with it.”
Growing up in New York City wasn’t easy for Choy. His family moved around 20 times, his father passed away when he was a teen, and for part of high school he lived alone. He retreated to the church as a place of stability and comfort. Church occupied most of his free time through his formative years. “We would go to church every Friday and Sunday, and sometimes Saturdays,” he said. After high school he enrolled in a Christian college and was well on his way to becoming a pastor.
That was until his sophomore year. “I completely started to turn my back on the church and everything it stood for,” he said. This outraged some of his friends and family. He said he “got an earful” from his pastor at the time. But as with so many youths rebelling against their past, an integral part of Choy’s rebellion was music. He retreated to the likes of Bob Dylan, Nick Drake and the Beatles, all of which was banned in his conservative household where only gospel music was allowed.
But as he shared these things with me over the phone, it was obvious that he is no longer mad at the church. He has since returned to it. There was no anger or sarcasm in his voice on stage or during our interview. It doesn’t take long to realize that Choy is at peace. You can hear it in his wispy voice, in the steady strum of his acoustic guitar and when he shares his painful, yet hilarious struggles.
Choy likes to poke fun at his own pain. He writes songs about being bullied by his older brothers and not being able to attract women. “I’m really nervous around women that I’m attracted to and it’s always been that way,” he said. This is evidenced in his song entitled “Girls Like You Don’t Go for Guys Like Me.”
His greeting to the packed house at The Living Room in Manhattan was, “It’s obvious you guys have no lives.” Everyone laughed at his deadpan delivery straight out of a Wes Andersen film. Everyone laughed when he couldn’t remember the words to his own song. Everyone could laugh of course because of the incredible, intimate rapport Choy builds with his audience.
His story is not unlike the many twenty and thirty-somethings that packed the room that night on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. This is why a guy with a soft voice and a cheap guitar can draw a packed house. Most people have things that they don’t like about themselves. Almost everyone has a past they’re trying to both run from and embrace. But hardly anyone has the guts to get in front of a mic and say it like Choy does.
One of his last songs that night was “Words That Define,” a song about his family. It opens with “I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ.” In front of a New York City audience known for its hostility to all things “gospel” and “Christ,” Choy didn’t blink. In our chat he said, “It’s really important for musicians, songwriters and singers to convince an audience that they’re really attached to what they’re singing.” And though a song about his family’s rich spiritual heritage might usually be met with rolling eyes, some of New York’s staunchest cynics gave their heartfelt applause and even went so far as to ask him to sing it again.
For more information on Big Phony or to listen to a sample of his music, visit: www.bigphonymusic.com.
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Last year when I was in China I found it quite interesting watching the state run television station that aired news in English. All news was completely slanted and depicted China as the best and even the savior of the world. What was most interesting to me was their take on the credit crisis. They alluded to and often times flat out blamed America’s lack of financial regulation on the current crisis, all but demonizing our version of capitalism.
Because of our many problems, there are a lot of people pointing the finger. As was evidenced by our last election, it was a great time for Democrats to point their fingers at Republicans. It’s a great time for China to blame the US for our lack of regulation in our financial system, for socialists to call for an end to capitalism, for the poor to blame the rich, for the fiscally responsible to blame the irresponsible, for liberals to blame conservatives, for blacks to blame whites, and on and on.
The US media is having trouble pinpointing who to blame as well. They have chased every lead and barked up every tree. You can see it in every report, this country wants to tear a new one to the person or persons responsible for this mess but there still isn’t a satisfying answer.
I find it hard to point the finger at one group of people or one ideology. These times are a great reminder to me of the universality of sin. Capitalism is not the answer indeed, look at our situation and the immense amount of suffering that has ensued. However, anyone who knows a little history knows that socialism is not the answer as well, look at the suffering that communism and socialism has brought into the world.
Any human institution, any system of beliefs, any group of people are going to bring about suffering into the world (this includes the church) because man is so depraved, so wretched, so completely wicked that we cannot help but cause suffering.
I think a more appropriate response is to point the finger inward. We are all completely depraved, utterly hopeless, completely lost. We might have the best of intentions but because of sin’s hold on our hearts, we will stumble and we will cause suffering many times without even knowing it.
Perhaps if our country stopped trying to blame someone else we would have a solution by now.
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| Before I go on further, it might be useful to mention that the way that I’m going about explaining working out is geared towards someone who wants to combine cardio and weights like I am doing now. Some people want to just run. Some people can’t run so they only lift weights. My workout plan is very specific but hopefully you can learn something whatever you’re focusing on or training for.
Hopefully by now you’ve found some consistency in your workouts. Good. Now you can take it to stage two: Divide and Conquer.
Your body is made up of many parts. To get maximum benefit from your workouts, it’s smart to focus each of your workouts on a major muscle group. Most people know a few exercises in the weight room: the dumbbell curl, the bench press, the squat and the pull up. These actually focus on four different muscle groups.
The weight room intimidates most people. I sure was intimidated when I first started. There are so many machines that you probably don’t know how to use and so many people around you who look like they are experts. Please don’t be intimidated. Soon you will be an expert too.
Too many people, when they “lift,” go in and do whatever machine is available or they do what they feel like doing. This is a horrible way to go about anything in life, no less your workouts. What you want to do when you get into the gym is do several different exercises for one muscle group, work that one group to its limit, take a day of rest and then go in and focus on another muscle group.
Let’s go through these groups individually:
1. Legs – Your legs are the most important muscle group in your body. They grow the fastest and if you play any sport, from football to golf, you’ll probably benefit from stronger legs. And since they are the fastest growing muscle group in your body, it’s wise to focus on them. More muscle mass means more calories burned when you’re just sitting watching TV.
2. Core – Some might argue that your core, meaning your stomach area, is the most important muscle group in your body. I would put core as a close second to your legs. I know that even avid lifters neglect their abs. This is a bad mistake. Your mid-section sits in the middle of your whole body, virtually everything is connected to your core.
3. Pulling Muscles – These are your back and your biceps. Your back is the second largest muscle group in your body and easily neglected.
4. Pushing Muscles – These are your chest and triceps. Notice, many people work out their chest the most. But unless you want moobs (man boobs) these are the least important muscle group in your body because they are one of the smallest.
Each of these groups have unique exercises and nuances. It’s important to know what these are (we’ll get into them later). But I wanted to focus on the concept of isolating your muscle groups for greatest success in your workout regime.
Also, I believe this regimen works for the ladies as well. Lifting weights doesn’t mean that you’ll lose that feminine figure and look butch.
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Last Wednesday I was perturbed when I read an article about Willow Creek Chicago’s Rev. Steve Wu and his stepping down because of “sexual impurity.” It’s sad but I wasn’t even surprised that another pastor fell into sexual sin. Unfortunately, it is an all too frequent occurrence now.
It took me a while to pinpoint why I was so troubled at the article but after thinking about it this weekend I would like to share just two reasons why this affected me:
1. The Ensuing Comments -
The comments after the article to me is a prime example of where Western Society is in religious discourse. I’m not just talking about the plethora of rants on how Rev. Wu’s misgivings are an example on how religion is false. There were comments on how Willow Creek is not a true church, on how other denominations and other churches are better, etc. This was an opportunity for anyone who didn’t like what Willow was up to, to bash it. There were others offering a variety of platitudes on sin and grace, most of which were offered in highly jargonized Christian-speak.
One thing that frustrates me about the culture today is that you can’t talk about religion without fear of offending someone. Sure, there are many reasons for this and I believe the church is mostly to blame for this. But in a supposedly post-modern culture where respect for other’s beliefs is tantamount, this is the level of discourse? Two sides so divided that they aren’t even listening to what each other has to say.
2. The Hush Factor –
We will probably never know what happened with Rev. Wu and frankly, I don’t want to know. I respect Rev. Wu’s privacy. He is probably married and has a family.
The thing that gets me is that the best that Willow Creek, this bastion of seeker-sensitiveness, could only issue a short explanation that Wu had fallen into sexual impurity. That’s it? Don’t you think that, in a time like this, the church can be more forthright in what it believes so that the world doesn’t think we’re some veiled community whose practices are ancient and steeped in tradition?
Sure, everyone in the Christian community knows what is happening to Wu, counseling, accountability, spiritual guidance – all of that. To me, this process is beautiful. It shouldn’t be shrouded in mystery and the church certainly should not be embarrassed to share with the rest of the world this process of restoration, of seeking the grace and forgiveness of God.
Often times the church gives the world more questions than it does answers.
As of today, there has been nothing posted about this on either the Willow Creek main website or the Chicago campus sight. Wu’s name and picture has in fact been taken off the Chicago campus website.
I pray that both Wu and the Willow Creek community recover from this incident, I really do. And for all my criticism, I trust they are handling this with wisdom and care. This is more a criticism of the evangelical church overall when it comes to very public occurrences such as this. There is no Biblical playbook for how the church should explain something like this to the secular media. But I believe incidents like these should be seen as opportunities, not set backs.
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I’m thinking of starting a new blog. One that is subject based and specialized. It’s in the early developmental phases so in the mean time, I will continue to post random nothings for the (literally) 2 people that are still reading.
I want to talk about working out. Since I have achieved a little success in losing weight through hitting the gym and hitting it hard, I have gotten quite a few queries as to how to go about working out. I will not delve into all the vicissitudes but let me (for now) share the most important element in losing weight: Consistency.
It sounds simple, right? That’s because it is.
You can have the worst workout plan. You can do everything wrong and literally use all the machines backwards but if you are consistent you will probably see some results. So what this means for you is to set a goal as to how many times per week you will work out, what days of the week you will go and for how long you will go each time and, as they say, just do it.
I took about two months off in November and December and paid the consequences for it. I gained around 15 pounds. In January I vowed to put a good three months together and not miss a workout until the end of March. I’ve only missed two because of some stomach issues but already I’m seeing some great results.
This world is fallen and everything around you is dying, especially your body. Your body is on a downward escalator and the only way to maintain is to exert energy and the only way to get better is to exert even more. If you go to the gym every once in a while then don’t bother. You should quit and use your membership fees to support a charity. Fitness builds upon itself. It’s not like a book that you can put down and pick up where you left off. Every month you take off, you start from page one again.
For beginners, try running for 15 minutes every other day. Every two weeks try increasing your time by five minutes. That’s how I worked up to the half-marathon. Now I’m training for the full.
A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. But to make it to your destination you have to keep on walking.
Later I will delve into technique to maximize your time as well as other pressing subjects. Thanks for reading.
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