835: Children of Dave
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A quick warning, there are curse words that are on beeped in today's episode of the show. If you prefer a beef version, you can find that at our website, this american life, that org, my Z T M password, was eleven nineteen till day died. Eleven nineteen was also in the password for his homework fi network.

Eleven we shot hand for eleven one thousand bayard street which is wear is grandfather, my grandmother, father under tiny growth y store on the ground and four of house in downtown bottom er in the one thousand nine, twenty, thirty, forty fifties. Picture your neighbor bg dea, and you've got the general size of this thing. The family lived upstairs, worked downstairs.

So much happened. It'll love in nineteen bayard, so many things about our family. We are set in motion there.

But my sister and I only got little scraps of stories about the place, this handful of family defining, urgent stories that I tried IT out. now. Then I print one about chickens.

My dad and his brother lending both worked in the store, and the time they were little kids and chicken s were right at store or treat them out, both of them to point where, decades later, as grown man, neither are the main chicken. And they explained this was the reason why. Or there is a story about my great grandfather's bookkeeping skills, actually named from my great grandfather is IT, or freezer.

My parents chose ira instead of israel because is a door glass, is a possible english sentence, is a door glass. My mom once told me that they picked ira over the alternatives because they sound of less jewish to them. We just goes to show how completely utter ly jewish the entire world was back then.

I've heard of my life what a kind hearted man is IT, or was an soft touch, which remains me to this next story we would hear now. Then during the depression, when everybody in neighbor od was broke and buying on credit, is there a set of a system where every customer would have a little book, like this filthy paper thing, where he would write down what they hold? But the thing .

by the system .

is the customer kept the book. Maybe see the problem with this all the time, customers will be at the store and said, i'd lost my book and is IT always said, in a math, it's okay. What do you think you and then the'd say some not very high number, and you write them down and hit a new book to take home? Years later, my dad became a certified public account.

And this became one of those the day Peter Parker got bit by the radioactive spider sort of origin and stories. What bad book keeping is his grandfather do at eleven nineteen bayer? And now he is gonna Better.

I'm sure some good things happen over nineteen bayard, but those stories did get passed down. We had painful things. My dad was miserable working there.

So was his brother, his mom, my granda re, to got out of the store, went to college, taught, lightened in junior high school, but then got dragged back into the family business against her will, like Michael curry on my dad is IT or got sick, I visit IT to love in nineteen bear. No, maybe half a dozen times in my life. A dozen times usually would happen when my uncle landing came to town here.

My dad would drive a soll downtown, and we'd stand outside of seven ninety nine. And to do with them would marvel at the place, in fact, of IT. I think at the distance they'd come from there.

My dad, with his accounting for him out in the suburbs, my uncle, who became a surgeon and moved to Sandy ago, the kids raised in the kind of ddd class comfort that we ate all the chicken we could ever want. I always found those trips disappointing. We take a picture, hang around there on the sidewalk. It's not a store anymore, just somebody d's house doesn't look like anything, a roll house in a block of row houses.

Somebody.

few years ago, somebody painted a cheerful Christian neuro on one side of the building. The quote in the book of mark.

every time i've .

gone to a hundred one thousand beyer instead of the sidewalk, I tried to picture IT my family there long ago freeda and or thirties, the cash register against her will. My dad is a little boy opening boxes, putting stuff on shelves. I'm not great at that kind thing.

It's like trying to someone goes with a width board, a real point, or refuses to budge. We've got these spots from our families past. We go to them. No, like civil war battle fields have been washed. The blood one go. We paused there, work with the trees and the grassy fields, and we want what, some connection to something I am, who I am, partly because of this place, but now it's mute.

So we take a cell and try to to link to the past like a distant radio station with signal we can just barely make out today, in a program we have a story of for somebody else who adds up to a place like that from his family history, looking for answers to get so much more out of IT than I ever did at eleven in nineteen bar about who we is. Do you be easy? Chicago to american, like america. Gas, stay with us.

okay. So what voting today's entire program to this one story by ben wong we've had on a show before he's a Bruce er who's work as its own very distinct sound and feeling. That's one of the things that we understates really like about him. Here's what he put together today.

August one thousand nine hundred eighty nine. My dad is in an airport. He's flown from beijing ing to tokyo to 3Francisco to denver to oklahoma city， almost missing his flight multiple times because he can understand the announcements in english. He is here to get A P H. D.

From the university of oklahoma, he's here for a new life, a life where he doesn't sit chain smoking cigarettes at his boring job in a cheap factory while living in a tiny room with no running water or heating or cooling. He wants a life where something changes. It's the middle.

The night in the okura city airport, he had sent a letter to the university with the date and time of his arrival so that someone could pick him up. He scanned the crowd looking for someone holding a sign with his name on IT, but finds no one, one by one. The crowd thens out until my dad is stuck in the middle, this airport in the middle of this foreign country, a stranger in a strange land. So you really learn.

yeah, I was I was alone and I was looking for someone to pick me out. But how how old they left. No one stayed around and no sign for picking me up. So I, as I was trying to leave, thinking what i'm going to do. And then this nice gentlemen approach me.

This nice gentleman, the first one american my dad always talks to, introduced himself as dave Davis in his real name. I changed IT to protect his privacy.

And he comes here to pick me up. A, he's about the the same height and he he wear glasses. He has a very warm .

smile mile.

Yeah, he smells warming. And and and said, he's going to take me. So I was so happy to see him.

Dave takes my dad to his car and drives half in our south to his home in Norman, the college town that surrounds the university of oklahoma. My dad meets dave's wife. And finally, having reached the end of his from .

specific ordeal, he told me to sleep in this room. So I took a shower and want to sleep.

Dave is a Christian, the leader of a local churches chinese ministry. Dave gives my data bible, the first english language book he studies from covered to cover, and invites him to a weekly bible study in sunday service. In time, my dad will accept Christ so on.

My mom, after SHE arrives in amErica later that year, my parents will raise me and my older sister as Christians. We will attend church, church sunday in oklahoma and bandon filly where my dad finds a job and where I grow up. It's the perfect conversion story, the sort of testimony you'd share in front of an audience at church.

My parents grew up during the cultural revolution when the communist party suppressed any expression of religion, the great atheist st. By default, their conversion here in amErica goes against everything they learned in china. The only problem with this story is me.

After twenty two years of Christian energy, I left and never came back. Have you ever felt depressed, perhaps, of the blue did ever have an existential crisis in start to question the very foundation of your faith? I am raised in the church.

I go to sunday school and worship service and youth group and bible study, which I come to lead every brick. I go to a retreat that held out a camp near link ister out an omission country. When in seventeen, I make this promoted video for upcoming spring.

You through treat, maybe you have doubts about your faith. Maybe you have been a Christian for many years, but you're still uncertain about some things, maybe your new to Christian and and have a lot of questions. Either way, you should take the opportunity to go to the spring youth retreat. Don't believe me, just listen to the satisfied .

customers first. I was too sure about this. Like retreat, you know.

I mean, like people going to was singing, worshipping, isn't that could do? But like that I went to and I was like, really interesting, like singing, worship and wall IT. All I an should definitely go .

in retrospect CT. This sounds like a cry for help. I'm totally not trapped in a court, haha. Being immersed for decades and this not called, didn't just shape my behavior IT required my brain.

But given today, when in washing the dishes, i'll be thinking about how this scrubs that i'm using is falling apart and you probably get some new sponges from the supermarket. And jesus cries. Remember that time at the food bizarre flatbush, when I almost ran my shopping car into that old lady and SHE yelled at me, got, i'm such a world piece of show.

But anyway, I should probably go to giant eagle to get some spongers. And jesus, Chris, from a real time when I met up with the arts council guide, the sixth cafe across the street from the, and we said goodbye, but then we were walking the same ay and awkward, be made more conversation until we reached this car. God, and such a worthless piece of shit.

But anyway, I should email the landlord about how the dish washers doesn't work. So I don't have to hand wash these dishes that hasn't work the entire time. And jesus crist, it's been almost a year since I moved into this apartment, and I still haven't eyed him.

God, why am I such a procrastinate? A sometimes I whispered to myself, i'm a worst piece of shit. I myself, this is the main thing I learned from Christian energy that i'm a worthless piece of shit.

And listen, I know that that's not the main message of the gospel. I know jesus teaches us that were redeemed, his sacrifice, that were all children of god. But all that nice, feel good stuff bounce right off me.

What was drilled into my mind. And what I really internalized is that while i'm a child of god, i'm also a child of adam who ate the forbidden fruit, offered him by eve, and whose original sin I inherit. IT Christians remind you of IT all the time I was at a wedding with a groom's brother, told the newly words, they need to never forget that their broken signers at a celebration of the couple.

So I learn to hate myself. I need to punish myself every moment of every waking hour of every day for my synfuel ness, which moves into a need to punish myself for anything i've ever done that's vegan sing. For years I hated talking about myself because I hated myself.

If I met a social event and meet someone new, I so there for, where are you from? And if someone asks me a question like what I do for a living, i'm like, uh, well, you know, I make podcast or whatever, it's stupid. And then I do, retorted jusuke, and read, act back to the other person, what do you for a living? How you get into that?

Humility is a big part of Christianity. The good are humble, quiet in mek, while the evil are loud, boisterous and proud. As Solomon teaches us in proverbs, when pride comes, then comes disGrace, but with humility comes wisdom. So if I don't wanna disGrace myself, I need to make sure the attention is always on the other person.

I need to stay humble and never answer anyone's questions about me, because if I talk about myself, they'd soon discover my fundamental, worthless piece of shit ness and be as disgusted with me as I am with myself. Besides, who would want to talk me in the first place? Who would possibly want to get to know me, the friend me, or, god forbid, date me?

Sex was out of the question, even as an adult living on my own. As jesus says in the sermon on the mount, anyone who looks at a woman, buzz fully, has already committed a dottery with her in his heart. So not only is IT immoral to have sex, to just think about sex is a sin.

I held on to that even after I left the church and graduated college, I simply cannot imagine myself ever dating. When I thought about the future, I pictured myself getting frozen fish nuggets s from trader joes, frozen hash brands and title sauce from giant eagle. And eating them together is the saddest fish and chips in the world while watching through all of twin peaks, which is what I did my first mester in grad school, living with crag's roommates in a single room in pittsburgh.

I read an interview in the cut with a quote, fifty eight year old virgin, who said that the worst part about his life is, quote, lying alone at night, falling asleep and then getting up in the morning and remembering your alone. I read that and I was like, yp, all right, here we go. At age twenty five, I started dating my partner and now he on, say, Grace, though the first person I ever dated, we saw the movie chAllenges the other day, the hornets and day of tennis movie, about three tennis players who fucking each other, while fucking each other over on the drive back from the theater, Grace was leg, wow, honey, a tennis movie? sure.

Honey, do you think? And I was like, a, well, I just really like the soundtrack by train resident and adequate for OS of nine and channels. They also did the music for the social network and gone girl the watching T, V show right.

But the movie was also like, really honey, right? Didn't make you honey. Ah maybe I don't know.

It's just that nine of nails actually released an album of instrumentals two thousand and eight entirely through a creative common license. So you don't have to pay any new licensing. Feels I actually use some of their songs in my podcasts.

So in did the horney and da tennis movie make you, honey, why are you being so immature about this? I don't know what exactly happened in this moment, but I felt like a child. I felt swallowed by an overwhelming feeling of shame, shame about sex, about sexual desire and simply being a sexual being for having a body for a long time.

I wish I didn't have a body that I was a floating consciousness freed from the shame and guilt of the flash. It's been seven years since I left Christian unity, but the effects are still there. These mental groups are so well warn at this point, it's basically instinct.

Where does my fucked up ness come from? Well, I think I can trace all of this back to my dad at the alcohol city airport. The story of my dad waiting for someone to pick him up at the airport has taken on an almost mythological significance to me this moment that sealed my fate years before I even existed, because as he stood in the terminal, he also stood at a crossroads.

Is there an alternate reality where dave doesn't pick him up and someone else doesn't stead someone who isn't a Christian and my dad never converts, and my life is so much Better? As a result, I was born in local homa and moved away when I was too. I have no memories of living there, or of dave.

What was IT about this place in these people? They mean my parents choose Christian energy. If I went there myself, if I talk to dave and the people who knew them visited the places they spent time in, attended the church they were shift at, and try to imagine what their lives were like thirty five years ago, maybe then I could finally understand why things went the way they did.

Okay, i'm standing in the oklahoman city airport. I had this idea where I would like stand where my dads stood looking around for someone to pick them up. But I don't know exactly where that would be. No, seemed just tired and won a lin a bed.

Rolling my suitcase across the parking lot, I think about how my dad flew in from dating as an alien, to use the official terminology, while I arrived from pitzer as A U. S. citizen. Can my dad was at the mercy of strangers for transportation? Well, I have a license in rental car. How I would now retrace the route my dad took from oklahoma city to Normal, and how the one thing we share is a sense of exhaustion, of wanting nothing more than a warm bed in a private room at the end of a long day in a strange place. four.

You remember what you saw looking at the window?

I think it's just, highway is dark outside red .

lobster chick by mcDonald naming chain restaurants here I would open the on signs.

Highway signs, get off. Get on exit. I still fine.

I have two. My universe are.

And then we went along and we got to another.

I think I was very tired. I fall, save quickly.

The next day I go to my parents first department, I just want to see IT with my own eyes. The building is two stories and painted a pale yellow with a big porridge. A guy is sitting on all of a son.

I guess that some sort of warning make a tornado warning. Is there tornado coming? No idea. Anyone gonna do my parents commute, walk to the old chemistry building that they used to stay out.

It's very quiet. Nobody when you walk on the street, you even can hear your own footstep and your own breathing. We came from beijing and such big city, so many people everywhere is crowd. All sudden, you want to place just off, so you can image that kind of shocking. Facing this .

might be the chemistry building. This is the old chemistry building. It's got the chemistry building anicom.

I cannot feel very lost and have no sense of being anchor to any spot because I feel on just pursuit to the place in the middle of nowhere. I don't know anyone. You start with that zero. I mean, you are on ground zero.

three, four stories, and like fade, yellow break, some like castle, like terrace on the top, interesting. Some the outside is pretty corroded. no.

When you said, like you just like parachutes ted into this place and you had zero, you started at zero. You had nothing. Do you think that's why like, you relied so heavily on the church?

I think so because you love. You don't have a gravity. You don't have a gravity like so razer, that's how I about this could be happening in the second, just turning upside down.

I visit the campus library and find physical copies of my parents. S P, H, D dissertation my moms is titled formation and characterization of anchored polymer coatings on alumina. There's a cheats bags sandwick between the front cover and first page.

No idea why I asked my mom about this later. Did you leave a cheetos bag in your dissertation? Maybe have some sort of message to future readers.

She's like, right? no. In the acknowledged, which is the only section I can understand, he writes, I shall give all glory and honor to god.

All caps. He, all cups is my strength. I saw away the chaos back on my way out.

The first person I talked to a oklahoma's, dave, the nice gentleman with the warm smile, who took my dad in and brought him to Christ. Dave knew me as an infant and visited us in philly, which I have no memory of. My parents always referred him as my yeah yeah my grandfather, perhaps in place of the yeah in china I never met.

This would probably be my first and only chance to talk to him, at least again, consciousness in the power of speech. I wanted to know, who is this man? How did he end up in charge of this chinese ministry that changed the fate of my parents lives and my life?

Hello, good. hi.

Nice to finally talk with you. How are you?

M, well, I guess me for A B ninety next february.

ary. You're OK with a me recording .

this yet you're recording IT.

yeah. Is that okay?

It's okay, right. But let me say this 是 i found that if you were publicly identify somebody and the devil， they can come in and try IT take away their testimony. And I would just urge you that if you do right this, that's honoring to your mom and dad, but you don't want the devil jump and on. So do you understand that?

I do yeah. The way I understand what David is saying here is that since I am publication my parents story, I need to make sure not to dishonor or slander them because the devil is lying in weight. They ve worked as a campus minister and colleges across the us.

In the world in nebraska and maryland, in ioe, kenya. But he spent the bulk of his career ministering to chinese international students at O. U. As the university of oklahoma, as confusingly nicknamed, starting in one thousand nine hundred eighty seven, two years before my parents arrived. Did you have any sort of like prior knowledge of like china, chinese culture, the language or anything like that?

Well, no. When the chinese started coming over here from mainland china, they had never been in a church. They had never met a Christian.

They had never seen I. But they came over here wanting to know our closure. IT sounded like him.

M. A. Stumbled into this role. He saw a new population at O. U. Many of them already curious about western culture in Christianity, and he was happy to oblige.

IT was clarifying for me to learn that dave had been a missionary in kenya. I've come to think of him as a sort of domestic missionary serving people from outside the U. S. Within the us.

I think, is somewhere close to four hundred fifty chinese cost, maybe even to five hundred during that time over the years. Say we, we didn't russian, we didn't want to come Christians to please us, but we would love them with taking on trips. We have bible study with them.

Among these acts of love were practical things like picking my data from the airport. My mom came four months later, dave Victoria as well. At that point, my dad was ready to convert David. His wife came to my parents apartment. My dad got on his knees, prayed to accept jesus into his heart.

And then your dad looked up and smiled, and he said, this was his hardest. I thought that would be, and he was really happy. And I looked over your mom and I was crying and I said, what's the matter? SHE said, were you a Christ? And now my husband's is a Christ, but i'm only one, is not a Christian.

I just feel now seems there are slim between me and daddy and so that make me mix fading really makes fading.

You thought like there is a line, like a dividing line between you and that at that moment yeah.

because he became a child of god. I'm not yet so IT feels like we are now in a different path.

but we, you need to know what is all about first. H I love your parents.

How long after my dad came to Christ until my mom came to as well?

IT was only maybe a month, two or three weeks.

over the phone. I didn't have the courage to tell this kinda old man who had my parents to the path of Christianity, who then raise ed me on that path that I rejected all of that and that i'm still recovering. But then when I go to him in person, I resolved to tell the full truth, dave is an assisted living facility.

now. In the lobby, I meet his son and daughter in law who had asked that I not record the conversation. David fAllen recently and broken a vertebrae.

He sits in an armchair, his room, and was a neck brace. If he sneezes or laughs too hard, he can hurt himself. After a softball question, I forced myself to come clean.

I'm no longer Christian. How does he feel about people? He tried to lead to Christ, who either didn't believe or later left. Dave smiles. He asks if I heard the story of the prodigy.

Son is a classic, one of jesus's most famous parables, where a filson disappears, his dad and leader returns to him, penitent and willing to accept any punishment, but instead his dad forgives him and welcome him home. Dave then explains that he has a daughter who left the church in high school. SHE angrily confronted dave with tears in her eyes and told him, dad, please apologize to me for being a Christian.

I think I understand what he meant by that. It's a way of saying apologize for making this decision for me, reading me with this belief I didn't choose and that you don't agree with. In a sense, i'm asking the same thing, yeah, yeah.

Why did you convert my parents? His daughter left the faith, David, and try to convince her of anything. Just kept loving her and praying for her. And after twenty years, SHE, like the protocol son, returned to the faith and to her father. These days, SHE visit him every week in the assisted living facility.

Dave emphasizes again that he never forced anyone to believe anything that if someone chooses to reject Christian energy, they need to be loved, whatever their decision is. But he also tells me theyll be nobody going to hell who didn't have an opportunity to accept Christ. He says, IT in a way that isn't angry or spiteful, just sad, not as kind.

It's getting late. Dave needs to take his medication. We stand up.

I love you. He tells me, give my love to your parents. We hug and I get that. I get when my parents converted. This man is filled with so much love and gives IT so freely to my parents, to me, to all the people he picked up from the airport and fed and sheltered and help get on their feet.

Where does his love come from in the moment? And convinced that IT must be something beyond what any human is capable love IT must come from god on the receiving end of his unconditional love, I consider being the protected son. For the briefest flash of a moment, I consider returning.

can I pray for you?

When we were on the phone, this is how they evaded the call. I didn't feel like I could say no. I didn't wanted to appoint my White grandpa.

sure. Okay, lord, thank you for this. Wonderful that in the phone that bohn and made join our hearts at the throne of Grace and thank you for bullen calling in and Operated the rest of his life that he will walk with you to the draw is less breath in crash name. amen.

amen. I talked to dave on saturday night. Come sunday, it's obvious where I have to go.

Quick voice, but because i'm already late, but i'm at the church. I tired work about eight thirty step up to late last night, already late. But gonna go to this Mandarin sunday school will see how that goes.

This is the church where dave LED, the chinese fellowship, the one my parents attended, and that I attended as an infant, until we moved away when I was two. What does this place mean to them? These are people who had zero experience with organized religion.

What do they get from going? The chinese fellowship is now run by seven people, seven daves. In other words, three of whom are chinese, in four of whom are White. I spoke to one of the new White daves over the phone who told me that I could record the service, but a few days later, while I was cooking butter at squash riot, he called again and told me he had found a podcast called jesus wept.

Jesus web is a podcast my fiancee, Grace and I make where we analyze and, to be honest, make fund of various topics related to eventually ical Christian entity. We process a respective religious draw mas through humor. In the most recent episode, I went to a chinese church and recorded the service.

Afterwards, Grace and I critical the speakers, and again, to be honest, made fun of them. I told Grace about how one of the speakers said that because paul rights, that women shouldn't have authority of a men. SHE won't teach men in the church, so then basically he is like, well, in the church I will teach women, I will teach children, but I will not teach men except in specific circumstances.

Like, I don't know, but Better to change I per but you have a fucking page d SHE has a masters in divi. Ah, from the cement, which you can't teach. Yeah, I arrestive new.

Dave tells me over the phone that after listening to the podcast, he changed his mind. And one, allow me to record anything in Normal, which is reasonable. I recorded a church service, has made fun of IT, and he doesn't want me to do the same thing to his church.

In the podcast, I talk about how I don't believe in god. And as we wrap up the conversation, new dave says he needs my word that I won't record anything. He says, I know you don't believe in god, but there must be something you can base your word on, like your chinese heritage, which is kind of a weird thing to say, but i'm like, sure, you have my word. See you sunday.

When I enter the church, new dave is waiting in the lobby. I shake his hand and tell him not recording. That was a road to free sound effect from free sound dorgan, although I do have the pink no book I bought from target for three dollars, we walk past an armed guard to the geneva where the Mandarin sunday school is held.

IT seems notable that the Mandarin sunday school isn't in a dedicated classroom, but an equally gm with the basketball court. Newly, i've introduced me to a group of chinese immigrants sitting around a falling table. They ask if I can speak chinese.

I say, I can understand IT OK, but not speak at that. Well, new dave is like, uh, there's that phrase, A B, C. And i'm like, yp, that's me.

American borne chinese as a sideshow. I really hate the free as A B. C. Just call me chinese american. Anyway, new dave says that since he can speak Mandarin, he's gona leave us to IT. It's nice to be away from White people, at least for a little bit, to talk among ourselves in the language I associate with family, home, love.

My parents must really crave that when they first came here, where else could they find a chinese community in the small town in local homa? Someone later tells me that this church is usually the first stop for new chinese immigrants. People from church are willing to give rides to the supermarket, furniture for apartments, help with taxes and all sorts of essential services. My mom still uses a set of balls that they ve got for her.

When the service begins, we sing himes in Mandarin again. This is not a recording from okhotsk youtube. The speaker, an older White guy, delivers the sermon in english. And like most sermons, it's boring. I picture my parents in these same seats, praying the same prayers, singing the same songs that I would grow up singing.

Bone wrong coming up. Bone flies harm. And get to this question. Maybe IT wasn't Christianity that mess them up as a kid? Ten minute just above radio when our program continues. This american life for mara glass, today's program, children of dave bond one's pilgrimage to finally understand why, as parents started to become Christians when they rived in america, we pick our story where we left off for the break .

when I fly home to pittsburgh until Grace, about going to my parents to church in meeting dave, they point out that maybe i'm just blaming Christianity for my own problems. Maybe Christian energy is just my excuse to hate myself. He gave myself losing a shape and structure, but IT isn't the root cause.

Maybe would have hated myself to matter what, maybe he doesn't matter what past my dad shows at that crossed roads in the oklahoma airport. If you never met dave and never believed, maybe i'd still have the same self loss. If I grew up communist like my parents, maybe i'd be like italian, thus piece of shit.

I need to write another self criticism and do another struggle session. Thankfully, I can answer the question of whether i'd hate myself if I hadn't been raise ed Christian by comparing myself with my high school friend, Andrew. Andrew grew up in the same suburb fila as me.

His parents are highly educated chinese immigrants. We attended the same school district and have the same circle of friends. But he was raised by atheist parents who were never interested in Christianity or church.

I asked my mom and I, like, have ever been to church and he is like a, yeah, of course you have been to church. And then what what he really meant was that we walked into a church one time and then walked out. So I said Andrew down and tell him that I want to conduct a science experiment where you're the atheist control group and I am the x Christian test subject.

Okay, I understand that we have a sample size of two, but just humanity. Andrew has lived the life I always imagined, a life without church or youth group or bible study or retreats, new linux out in omean country. And so my question is, in this alternate ethie's reality that Andrew was raised in, does he also struggle with self losing? Does he not like himself? I don't like myself.

okay. All right. Well, fine. But does he just like himself the same amount as I do in the same way? Does he do the thing where I ask someone unless follow up questions, and if they ask me something I do verbal to jetty and redirected back to them? Because I hate talking about myself, because I hate myself so familiar, I could say those exact same words.

And that's exactly what I do like. If Andrew is made one of his colleagues for the first time, i'll be like, what's apartment are you? And how have you been the university for what you? And if someone asks Andrew a question like what his researchers will be like, oh, I work in by all that and I just call the day.

I just make sure as hard as possible that they don't asking any questions I want to talk about IT. Andrew didn't even have to grow up, Christian, to hate himself and for a self hatred to manifest in the exact same way. So where's this coming from? Andrew doesn't believe in sin or god.

Why do we hate herselfe, even though we were raised with such different beliefs? Well, entry thinks the answer might be right in front of us. I wonder, you know what? The science experiment, maybe the main thing that balancing us, that makes us comparable is a second generation of bringing our parents are from a very specific cohorts.

People who grew up during the cultural revolution went to the best colleges in china, went abroad to get stamp, P, H, D, and get well paying jobs and academia and from a and biomedicine. And I think of that to me, make me always kind of feel inadequate in a way right, like i'll never be able to do that. I will never be able to achieve that kind of, you know, rags to rich is kind of story, know, because I was ever in rax you, my parents, my parents were the ones I kind of struggle do that.

So we're more less on the same page when IT comes to self losing. But what about the shame I feel about sex and sexuality? What about my inability to talk about the horney and day, a tennis movie with Grace? Does entry feel that the men shame? So and how did you feel about sex? morally? Nothing wrong with that.

This is all so much funny that like a lot of Christians, like they will marry early, right, because they had to marry before they have sex. But like for people they don't grow Christian, like a central active access is not a problem. Andrew started dating when he was fifteen.

I then started until a decade later, when we tried to ice, ate the effect Christianity had on me. That's the word we kept returning to shame, the shame I feel about having a body, about being a Richard singer. Need of redemption. Andrew feels none of that.

The shame goes to my very core, any way that Andrew can't relate to, I told him about how, even today, when I remember something embarrassing I said or did years ago, i'll still say out loud to myself because it's such a reflex of this part. At this point, I like, I hate myself. I should kill myself like I I verbalized that you still say that? Yeah, you act surprised.

Have you ever done this? Have you ever said no, no. But I, I, I yeah isn't tense as intensive. I don't have that reflux.

Are you telling me that you've never said I loved to yourself, I hate myself, I want to kill myself? You would never said that. I, I, I would never said that. That's the Christian difference. That's the question. yeah.

The Christian difference is a belief that my existence is fundamentally wrong. The Christian difference is a need to punish myself for my existence. I don't regret being raised Christian. I won't be who I am today otherwise, and i'm incredibly grateful for everything my parents have done for me.

But in this one aspect, I know I would have experiences less pain if my dad had stood at the crossroads in the oklahoma airport and chose a different path and ever told my parents about the damage Christianne caused me. I didn't want to make them feel bad or think I was blaming them. I didn't want to see ungrateful. But now it's what I finally decided to do at this point. It's the only thing I can do.

I was actually damaged by going to church and being raised in church. Does does that make sense? Like do you understand .

that it's it's hard breaking too to realize? And of course, whatever happened in the past, it's gone. It's the past, right? But I just feel that we could have done Better. We could have done Better.

Really what what do you feel that way?

Because we really didn't check and how you receive the information, we didn't really talk to you that much and we just receive automatically without checking. And IT is blindly believe everything. What church teaches is right?

You fight like you blindly believed.

Yes, because I I mean that bRandy not believe what church ends teaching and the way they teach me.

So then do do you have any regrets span about raising me and sister in the church?

yes. But after you said that to me, yeah, I I do feel I do feel I didn't really pay too much attention to what how they told you, how they told you and how that has printed on you and how that manifest in your well, we ll be, yeah I feel I don't feel very sorry.

I was not expecting this. I always thought my mom and dad were a united front true believers. When I first interviews my mom about converting to Christianity, SHE described IT as this happy moment when he joined my dad in the same belief.

I feel we are same people. Now we are same people, we are equal, we, we are children. I've got.

but when I came back to a few months later.

actually, I was thinking that the time I decided to become a Christian, I I think i'm a very premature to make my decision because I really do not know much, and I just just got here and the things has been changed, draw for me in every aspect, and I don't really have that kind of I have a self confidence to my own believe. So I feel there are a lot of outside factors.

My mom wants to be clear about this here on the radio. SHE will always be thankful to the people from church who helped her get on her feet in the same way that I want to be clear that i'll always be thankful to my parents. But looking back, my mom says that the kindness of Christians can be transactional. We give you free stuff, and in return you got a church.

This is how church try to get those people to become believer. No, if you really believe you, don't you? You are not perhaps that person to become a believer that you .

think it's bribery.

Yeah, I think that's a bribery.

That's a strong word, mom.

Yeah, I do feel, no, I do feel that a brave y you bribed those people. You give them free lunch, free ride, free staff.

yeah. Well, how about all the free stuff that you and dad got when you refers in a ga?

I didn't really think about that way at the moment. Now I feel, yeah.

over the years, my mom been really hurt by people from church. SHE raised questions about the bible, like if god created everything, why did he also create certain? Why would he allow something to tempt eve into eating the forbidden fruit? Why would he even create for been through in the first place? No one at church would ever falling engaged with her.

They give her surface level attitudes that never satisfied her. There was also a period when he was depressed. I remember coming home from school on seeing my mom lying on the couch with the light turned off in the curtains closed. My mom tells me that while some people at church helped in this moment, others weren't so kind, and some actually .

seemed happy that he was suffering. I think now they believer.

wait, really at a church. yeah. Why do they think that you're a nonbeliever?

Because I don't go to church anymore. I do not participate any kind of church activities.

Why did you stop participating?

Because I don't get anything from participating in the other activities. If I ask some question that give me answers, I just feel in a circle not going anywhere. I don't really get enranged or enlighten by doing all those activities.

SHE hasn't been there since the pandemic shot everything down and is much happier for IT. But as my mom withdrew from church, my dad got even more involved. He became a deegan and spent more and more time at church functions and less than less time at home with his family.

If someone needed a ride to the supermarket, he would do IT. If someone needed to ride to the airport, he would do IT. My mom was not happy about this.

I feel he's like a robot. He's just does IT automatically when I was someone from all directions. So one point I took the point that he completely crazy.

So that is time. I think the church can destroy family. Church can really destroy family. Because when you are not really thinking on the same level, at the same level, on the same page, and you can for just go apart.

so do you feel like church almost .

destroy her family to the poet? Yes, I was really, really upset one point.

So my mom finally put her foot down and gave my dad and automate them.

And I told that you quit your dick on now. Otherwise we're not going to have a same life under the same roof. So dad sent a letter to church that he's going to resign.

IT was almost comforting, realizing I wasn't the old one out in my family. I thought I was the only one who was damaged by Christian energy, and he left the church. I thought I was me against them, but IT turns out that my mom was actually on my side this whole time.

Who knew? I wasn't surprised that my dad gave into my mom, though, when he comes down to IT, he wants family first. I asked him once, if you ever had any regrets, and he told me the story about how, when my sister was a baby, he discovered that SHE torn up an important piece of male.

My dad yelled at her and made her cry. And any thought himself, why did I do that? She's just a baby.

SHE doesn't understand what she's doing, and he remembers that moment forever. So he's always been a kind, thoughtful, reflective person who wants the best for us. He's also always been a true believer going back to the very beginning. 的 斗争 开 起来 到 明天， june nineteen eighty nine.

My dad has been accepted to the university of oklahoma. He applies for his passport in VISA so that he can leave. On the evening of june third, my parents watched the news on the landlords. T, V. Since they don't have one of their own.

there's A T V announcement. They don't go to 天安门 square。

国 人民解放军 戒严 部队 指挥部 紧急 通告。 They go to bed .

in the middle of night. We heard some some 干 啥。

And on the morning of june fourth.

they wake up in the morning. We will planning to visit a friend to bicycle to to her home. On the way, we saw a lot of buses, you know, they were turned around and blocked the road, and also a out of huge trucks, like armored vehicles just parked along highways block in the road.

All the government offices are shut down. The entire city is shut down. To get his passport, my dad now needs a letter from his workplace saying he didn't participate in the demonstrations, but there's a problem.

He had to quit his job to apply for the passport. And they're saying that since he doesn't work there anymore, they can provide them with that letter. My dad is freaking out.

He staked his entire life on studying abroad. This is his plan, his future, his chance to leave his boring job in a jeep factory, living in his tiny room in beijing with no running water or heating or cooling. Now his future is crumbling before his eyes. In this most desperate hour, my dad does something he's never done before.

So I pray that took god h 上帝， ask 上帝 to help me。 So that's how I think I parade for the first time.

Were you specifically prying to the the god of Christian energy at the time?

We don't have the habit of prae growing up. We don't have the habit of praying or or talking to a god or something. So, uh, IT just came natural. You know, I just lying on bed and say, all god help me.

I never knew this story. I thought my dad's first encounter with god was in america. But two months earlier in beijing, my dad naturally and spontaneously cried out to a god he didn't yet know or believe in.

And then when his workplace finally gave him the letter that allowed him to leave china, IT had to be god answering his prayer. So my dad was already prime to believe. And when he came to america, he would have encountered a Christian eventually, enviably.

So I think in my case, i'll meet someone else and and i'll came to the face.

you would have eventually been exposed to Christmas energy, and you would have always, after having considered IT accepted IT that right?

Yes.

yes. Why.

well, I think, is the fundamental truth guard revealed to us in the bible. And then everyone has to make a decision either to .

you choose to accept 你 也是。

When my dad stood at the oklahoma airport waiting for someone to pick him up, I always thought that he started across roads that if dave hadn't appeared, my dad wouldn't have become Christian. But I understand now that he was ready to be a Christian Normal, a small town, he probably would have run into dave and its chinese ministry eventually.

And even if my dad didn't go to local hoa, there are kind Christians with warm smiles in every city in america. So the airport didn't matter. There was never across roads. IT was a straight line. Do you really way?

That you have the more.

This make cry, do you?

The story by boon wong is not a productive in pitcher g with Fiona gray. Silbert came up with the title for today's episode, bone's website boeen dot cool. That's B O E N cool produce today .

by the so the .

people who put together today. So could the and microcomputers son lean catherwood an romi a ship speed Crystal a and managing edr sorry edr David or ecuador dor is manual berry to back universa 阿森 华 janeen man hung leo。 And just in asia gretz I red came in studios.

This is our very less show with our production philosophy. Rio, who's down a great job here, he is off to do reporting for the associated pressure of next job. Come back and do you our website, this american lights out, or if you only need something to listen, do in a long drive during the summer or holiday, you can stream from an archive of for eight hundred episodes for absolutely free.

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thanks. As always, a program code is mila. You know, he is the worst babysitter I have ever seen.

Baby one, go go to bed, starts crying. Tories technique. He leans into the grip, works in the baby's eyes and says.

why are you being so a mature about this .

amErica glass? Back next week, there's more stories of this american life.