The praising birds

This month, I celebrate my sixth anniversary of moving to Singapore to begin working with OMF with Au. While we’ve been here, we’ve found much to love, enjoy, and celebrate. But the thing that causes me to stare with wonder the most is the hobby of bird singing.

Let’s start by explaining what I’ve observed (we are trained to be cultural and language learners and observers here in OMF) by addressing some questions:

Who practices it? I’ve only seen men, never a woman participating.

Is it just for Chinese men? I’ve observed that it is the ethnically Chinese who practice it the most but from our visit this past weekend, we see that men of other ethnicities participate too.

What age are the men? Mostly, they are old (or shall I say “older” men?). I thought it best not to stare at them to estimate their age, being female and of a different ethnicity. 🙂

But what is it like? Let me take you there.

First, imagine walking across a field and noticing these sights:

Then notice the groups of men – sitting, sharing, smoking, and schmoozing with each other.

As I close my post today, you can stare…like I did this past Saturday…. or you can just listen with delight and wonder at the praises of the birds of every nation, tribe, and ethnicity.

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