Mid-Autumn

At Mid-Autumn, we Chinese like to celebrate it as a festival.  People book tables at restaurants to have a big family feast.  Housewives buy chicken and fish to cook a big meal for the family.  People buy and send each other mooncakes of all sorts.  Adults watch and children play with lanterns.  People eat all sorts of fruits: star fruit, persimmons, …  It is supposed to be a time of harvest, a time of plenty.  While the full moon signifies fullness, completeness, family together.  

It would be perfect if it were true.  Unfortunately, for many, the reality is nothing of the kind.  I am reminded of a student who has been admitted to our university, who is still stuck in Gaza, internally displaced from her home, but cannot get out of Gaza because of the blockade.  Even she does get out, she will be safe, but separated from her family.  Then there is the rest of the 2 million still hanging on in Gaza.  What kind of Mid-Autumn are they living through?

Of course, the war is still raging in Ukraine, with no end in sight.  What about the Rohingyas, persecuted both inside and outside Myanmar, for whom no place is safe?  The rest of the Burmese, stuck in a civil war itself?  For several years in the middle of the 2010s, we had been sending teams to Myanmar each year.  Things were difficult, there were poverty everywhere, the education system was severely underdeveloped, but there was hope for the better.  Now, we dare not send our students there.  We don’t know what is happening with many of our friends there.  

There is also Yemen, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, Iraq, Iran, Tibet, …, and more.

The situation is far for ideal where we are.  But at least we can still have food (pretty good food at that), work, go to school, meet with friends, travel, talk with friends and family at a distance, dream for the future, … 

Yet, even where we are, and a lot more elsewhere, families are divided, and broken.  People are silenced,.  Many are in jail, some because they made mistakes, but there are also many who should not be there.  Many are hurt, and dead.  Many are in poverty, sick and in distress.  While we celebrate our good fortune, I cannot get rid of the feeling that the world is suffering, that all is not well.  Those of us who profess to believe in God may ask “God, don’t you care?”  I suspect that God is asking us the exact same question.