On November 4, 2019, a couple other students and myself met with Kwan to learn the lion dance. We met from 12pm to 1pm. We each took turns putting on the lion head costume and practiced the movements. Kwan told us we need to move the lion head up, down, and side to side. He …
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Update on Hong Kong Protests
This past weekend was particularly violent in the district of Hong Kong, with protesters continuing to clash against the government and police since June this year. In one incident a man injured four pro democracy protesters with a knife, while in a separate incident a local Democratic Party politician Andrew Chiu had part of his …
ICR reflection 11/3/19
This week during my service, I helped mostly with the two smaller children who are 5 years old and 6 years old. Usually, the younger children are split up from the older children during lesson time so that they can learn things that can actually help them and they will not be lost during the …
Call to Prayer
I was in the military from 2010 – 2019 during my time I have been to multiple nations in the Middle East – Afghanistan, Kuwait, Qatar and Bahrain. But my most memorable and life changing tour was in Afghanistan, I was stationed on the outskirts of a city called Mazir E Sharif And though i …
Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (Rojava)
I am always on the lookout for Libertarian movements around the world, as I find the people who believe in the decentralization of power and having a government that is purposely handcuffed is a direct ideological challenge to the general world view of the importance of governments. When doing a scan for Libertarian movements in …
Continue reading “Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (Rojava)”
Israel Baseball in 2020 Olympics
Continuing the conversation of baseball in the Middle East from my last post, there is some other interesting news involving the Israeli Association of Baseball. One of my teammates from high school is representing the United States in a qualifying tournament for the 2020 Olympics and I became curious about what teams were in the …
Baseball Rising in the Middle East
As I did with the China unit, I decided to look into baseball and its impact in the Middle East. I came across an article from the Washington Post written in 2018 that talks about a man named Kemp Gouldin and his efforts to bring the American pastime to the Middle East. Currently, no one …
Readings 10/31
As we continue to read the Qur’an, I keep making connections back to Christianity and the bible. I really focused on Sura 11 from our assigned reading for class. This Sura started out by basically discussing how God created all things in nature and talked about how God ultimately controls all outcomes. It coincided with …
Reading for 10/31
In chapter three of No god but God, we found out why the people of Yathrib sent Muhammad the invitation in the first place. Interestingly enough, it wasn’t necessarily because of Muhammad’s revelations or teachings of the one true God, but for his skills as a mediator. He was known in his time for working …
Readings for 10/29
I enjoyed reading the Quran because I have never really explored other religions and it was very interesting to compare the book of Islam to the Bible in class. We talked about how it was a guide on how to live and think, like the Bible and like the Tao Te Ching from the last …