John Gunter

Thoughts on Life and Living

3 steps towards healing our current vitriolic cultural climate in America

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This is Cory and Drew. Read about them and their project in the 3rd step below!

Ugh! I don’t start every day by getting on Facebook, but I did today. Mistake. Yet again, my feed was filled with angst, political rants, and wildly judgmental accusations against anyone and everyone. Unfortunately, this is my normal Facebook experience these days. This has me thinking. . .

As you may know, I lived in Asia from 1999-2014. One of the unexpected gifts of being an American living abroad is that it gives you a bit of an outsiders view your own country.

Also, one of the joys of being a missionary is being able to learn new cultures, values and ways of thinking. Cultural mores such as honoring family, an appreciate of history, and a love of spicy food are just a few of the values I feel the people of my host country passed onto me during this decade and a half. I attempt to bring these and other values I learned into my own life as a result of seeing the beauty of them in China.

On the flip side, living in Asia helped me to appreciate my own home country even more than I did before getting on a plane and setting up shop in the Far East. Home [Read more…]

The death of a picky eater…and the Hotpot Challenge (video included)

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Some of the participants at the first meal of the HOTPOT CHALLENGE 2013!
Some of the participants at the first meal of the HOTPOT CHALLENGE 2013!

I grew up as a picky eater.  Then I moved to Asia.  My eating habits had to change or else I would literally wither away to nothing.  Then I met “hotpot”.  It is a meal that espouses a wide range of opinions.  To some, hotpot is a “meal of the gods”.  To others, it is a culinary disaster.  This is my story and the “competition” we have created around this unique local food. [Read more…]

An embarrassing blunder and a vital life lesson

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John Gunter, Patrick Ku, and others in Asia
Patrick Ku and I in the midst of one of my many awkward cultural blunders (details below)!

I cannot begin to count how many times I have made cultural and life mistakes while living in Asia.  Pat Ku, upon moving to Asia gave me this advice regarding Chinese culture and the language. . . “however you do things/say things in America, do the opposite in Asia and the Chinese language”.  Though a little overly simplistic, it was solid advice just the same.

As a result of this, I have come to embrace one of the most helpful life lesson I have learned by living and working cross-culturally.  Whenever you enter a new environment, whether it be a new job, school, family, or in my case, country, FIRST notice what the local customs and norms are, THEN respond in all situations essentially in the same manner. This is THE fundamental skill in cultural and life adaptation.

This might sound as if I am endorsing conformity.  Nothing could be further from the truth.   At least not at a core values level.  Your values will stand firm and keep you grounded where ever you go in life.  However, styles, culture, and general ways people carry themselves around others will be different everywhere you go.  In order to be heard [Read more…]

First Impressions. . . Asian hospitality

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(This post is part of a series I am doing called “First Impressions. . . my first few months in Asia“. If you would like to read about this series and other articles, please CLICK HERE.)

Chinese meal
Though not from that day, this is a typical local meal.

Coming from the south in America, hospitality is something that is valued to me. This isn’t just a saying, but a reality. My mother is one of, if not the best, hostess that I have ever known. She loves having people over. Some of my fondest memories as a child are of our house being packed with guests, laughter, tons of food, and Mom & Dad providing a wonderful environment.

One of the many things that I have loved about Asian culture is their value of hospitality. They are wonderful at it and place massive amounts of effort into hosting guests. Additionally, it is literally a Confusion teaching to honor and take tremendous care of foreigners in their land. The result is that these people have, by in large, gone out of their way to be good hosts me in every conceivable way during my time here. It’s been wonderful.

Though I have been in the homes of many of my Asian friends over the years, the following story is of the first time. Nothing dramatic during this day, it was just my first such experience so I went to greater detail in chronicling it. Many others have followed in a similar fashion. . .

I had met the managers of the local weight room on my second day in county. They were nice guys. Their English was limited to a handful of “weight room words” and my Chinese was non-existent at the time.

[Read more…]

First Impressions. . . Traditional Chinese Medicine

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(This post is part of a series I am doing called “First Impressions. . . my first few months in Asia“.  If you would like to read about this series and other articles, please CLICK HERE.)9traditional-chinese-Medicine

One of the job hazards of living and working in Asia (for a foreigner) is sickness.  Food, preparation and many other things make maintaining health a constant issue.  As I often say, I really only have two states of heath here. . . I have a stomach virus or I am about to get a stomach virus.  It has gotten much better over the years.  I think this is both because standards of cleanliness have increased and my body is more acclimated.

However, my first few years were rough.  This is about my first sickness and visit to a local Chinese medicine doctor.

People refered to it simply as “the East Asian Wall”.  It seemed as if it happened to everyone that arrived in East Asia from America.  It was as if after 1-2 months of living here, your body would just hit a wall and completely shut down.  Body to self, “wait one minute. . . what is going on here?!?!?”  The food is different, [Read more…]

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