Wirtschaftswunder

Have you ever seen the movie Auberge Espagnol? I know i wrote about it on here once, but i recommend it. Right now i am sitting in the Schmittman Kolleg- what we in the US would call a CO-OP affilitiated with the university of köln. It was 10 degrees today (ive even lost track of how much that would be in fahrenheit- i pretty much think in Celsius now), and me and my friend Kai went to the museum of the history of the federal republic of Germany today. It was so interesting to see how Germany went from the bombed out ruin of WWII to the modern society it is today- a country that i love, and that seems to be to me in no way connected to those old movies and war doceumentaries i see. I just can't grasp that this is the same country that in those old films cheered on Hitler in throngs.

I have been really struck by the affluence and efficiency of Germany. I should have expected that I know, but it really seemed like the trip i took to get here was from one world to another. It just seems impossible to believe that i could set out from Yanji westward and end up in the Bergisches Land, with its beautiful streets, rolling lush green hillsides, slated-walled houses, cafes, konditereis, modern schools, order, peace, quite, affluence, tolerance, freedom, harmony. You can get to all those things just by driving? It really seemes to me like my plane trip must have been from one planet to another, instead of just around our little globe.

Even the crass excesses and contrasts and luxury of Dubai felt like a completely other world. The desert, the wealth, the bravado, the striving for ever more luxury, that felt foreign to me, although in some ways it felt much more like China- a country where the attempts to outdo and impress with overstated architecture are everywhere. One thing that really hit me about Dubai was that it is really a pan-asian city. No one group predominates. There are Filipinos, Malays, Chinese, Pakistanis, Dravidians, Hindis, Koreans, Russian Central Asians, Europeans, every shade of Asian, all speaking English in its various beautiful forms, all come together in a brand new city built out of nothing in the Arabian desert. I don't think any city in the world demonstrates the true heart and future of the English like Dubai does. English is the language of Asia, of Asians, accepted and transformed by them. It is only a matter of time before English ceases to be thought of as a European language, or even an American one. There are twice as many English speakers by some estimates in Asia as there are in the United States.

My good friend Mike, with whom I teach in China, is a big documentary fan, as am I, and in between our exam giving, exam grading, goodbye parties, Bible studies, etc... we watched several episodes of this gigantic 50 hour documentary on WWII. It has really struck me in the last few days how the world has changed since my grandfather fought in that war. The Germany today would be unrecognizable to Nazis- a multicultural bed of postmodernism and tolerance, the heart of the new enlarged multicultural EU. Where 60 years ago i might have had to stare at all these young Germans that i have been visiting and spending time with down the barrel of a gun, now i can hear their stories, play poker with them, worship Jesus with them, pray with them, play with them, love them and be loved by them. Mao TseTung is surely rolling in his grave as the capitalist paradises of Wangfujing in Beijing ring up their yuans in designer Armani boutiques with Haagen Dazs and Pizza Hut. The once grandiose Tiananmen square now feels outdated ugly and rundown, surprisingly devoid of traffic, in contrast with the new mgea skyscrapers and frenzied business of the new centers of that great economic giant. The Great Hall of the People, rather than impressing, just makes one feel sad and used and tired. The Arab world- in the time of those documentaries a backwater of sheikdoms and baksheesh is now the heart of a brand new economic boom, transforming all of Asia and calling the Asians to itself. THe prospect for Islam has never looked brighter, the influence and power of the Muslim world has never been stornger, and i highly doubt that in a worldly sense, that Christendom, in the old sense of the word, possess anything that can counter these new rising powers- China, the Arab World, etc...

The world has changed so drastically. To me it feels like it has shrunk completely. We have the freedom to just move around this earth, in peacetime, in a way that was unthinkable in the days of those old WWII documentaries that i watch with Mike.

Tomorrow night i go to Klaipeda, and complete my first circumnavigation of the world. A journey that started at the little Klaipeda Bus Station to the moving goodbyes of my friends, will soon complete itself. I will have come back to where i have started; but as ever the Journey is still underway, and will continue to drive me ever ever on, the way it drives all my brothers and sisters around the world, till we reach our Final Rest in our True Home.