For this week's inspiring-quote-for-my-reflection, I chose to talk about Translating the Message.
As many of you may know, Translating the Message is a scholarly book that discusses the importance of translation in Christianity. I wanted to talk about the whole concept of the book and connect the central message to my reflection rather than a single quote though. Throughout the book, Lamin Sanneh, the author of Translating the Message, talks about how God never said the Western cultures which dominated the Christian power should be superior than any other culture. Furthermore, the importance of allowing the vernacular and local power was the power source of missions. Just today, I was going somewhere with my sister and started singing Despacito by Luis Fonsi. What I mean by singing Despacito was that we were just mumbling the whole time (while ending with -cito or -rito for the end parts), hitting the correct notes, because we don't know Spanish. If you like singing and have heard the song at least once, I'm pretty sure you can relate to us. Then, my sister showed me a video of a boy saying a very long name of his. All of these happened in 15 minutes and I started thinking: wow, there are many languages in the world and they all sound so different. Although I laughed at how Spanish and some African language sound different from the languages that I'm familiar with, I realized that Korean and English might sound weird to them. Then I started questioning how all these languages are different and imagining how the world would be like if EVERYONE spoke the same language. It could have been easier to travel with no need to translate. However, I realized how intriguing and important it is for the human beings to recognize the differences in each culture and be thankful for the cultural abundance we have. On top of that, because we live in global society, it is fairly easy to absorb those distinguished, unique cultures through the Internet or SNS. In fact, it is primarily the reason I can have both American and Korean audiences for my Youtube videos. I have lived my entire life in Korea and therefore living and studying in a diverse environment with people who have different ethnicities would be a drastic transition for me. However, I'm really looking forward to the change and thankful that my experiences at BHCS, including reading the Translating the Message and expanding Youtube, are preparing for the transition!
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