Sharing is Caring?

There are a few reasons why I decided to intern in Hong Kong this summer. One of the academic and professional reasons is to be able to have a comparison between social services in the States versus Hong Kong which I’ve always thought of as an East meets West type of place. Along with that reason is my desire to better understand how the role of social workers in Hong Kong differs from the States. Another reason is to explore my cultural identity and how it will impact my work as a social worker in the future.

All of those things I mentioned above I am certainly learning about. Ironically, the thing that I’m learning the most about that wasn’t even really on my radar is my identity as a Christ follower. During my first week of work I asked a social worker at my agency whether or not lots of social workers in Hong Kong are Christians. The reason I asked this question was because every social worker I had met in Hong Kong up to that point was a Christian. The worker’s response was affirmative and another intern at my agency proceeded to ask whether she was a Christian to which she said yes. Immediately the worker asked if the intern was one and he said no. As the conversation progressed she asked if he had friends that were believers. He said plenty of people are in his program so the worker inquired again why he isn’t one himself. She openly asked how he could not receive Christ if he was surrounded by Christians. After all, wouldn’t he have experienced the Holy Spirit by now?!

The whole time the intern was so calm about this conversation. He didn’t appear offended or closed off to the conversation. None of the worker’s questions seemed imposing to him. Actually, I found the response on both ends really interesting.

I thought it was neat how the worker was so forward with her questions and so blatant in the way that she asked them. It was surprising how well-received this conversation was by the intern. So when I went to supervision, I brought this subject up with my supervisor.

For one thing I’ve never really discussed faith issues with a professor before or even in an academic setting (which is quite ironic because my being in social work has everything to do with my faith). In supervision I talked about how this conversation might have gone differently in the States. I think if the same situation happened at home, the Christian social worker may not have been as forward in her questions and the intern may not have been as open-minded. The attitude would probably be one that implies: what I believe is good for me but what you believe is good for you and we don’t have to believe the same thing.

Involving culture into the mix of this conversation (and by the way she’s not a Christian), my supervisor discussed Chinese culture. Generally, when Chinese people experience good, they want others to experience it as well. In fact, it’s not just that they want the other person to experience good but they want the others to experience good in just the same way. By comparison, I find that the continually emerging postmodern culture of the U.S. promotes a very relative attitude. What’s good for you is good for you but what’s good for me is good for me.

I think that as believers we can’t be the American way. Maybe I’m a really culturally traditional person or maybe I just want to accept the idea of it but I really buy into the thought that what we have as believers we should want others to have and experience that good in the same way that we do. I don’t mean that in an imposing way but I do think that we can be a little more excited and free about sharing the goodness in our lives.

This could be relevant to non-faith related issues as well. I don’t think it’s necessary to be so relative in certain circumstances. Sometimes it seems to create this atmosphere of caution and fear of offending people. On the flip side I can see that someone who isn’t as relative may be seen as narrow minded. As long as I don’t get beat up, offending someone isn’t so bad, right?