"(Given) the penchant for concrete relational thinking and a preference for non-linear logic among Chinese, Japanese and other East-Asians, for the purpose of expressing the Christian faith in these contexts, much more emphasis ought to be given to stories, parables, pictures, narratives, poetry, songs and the like, instead of rational apologetics, systematic theologies built upon inductive and deductive logic, and cold analytical approaches to Biblical studies."

Hwa Yung, Mangoes & Bananas, p.82

I first met Hwa Yung at Philip Koh's big house (on a hill in KL). Michael Moey took me there for a Kairos-organised review and discussion on Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilisations.

I remember seeing Z there. We both felt tremendously outta place (I was in my 2nd Year and I think she was doing her ADP or something).

The hall was filled with PhDs' and experts, kinda like a Who's Who of Malaysian theology.

I recall there was some heated discussion about the seriousness of Huntington's work. Someone said, to the effect, that we needn't worry because Huntington's thesis about civilisations clashing will fade away eventually. I remember the professor (who was doing the review) looking up to his side and casually asking, "What about Hegel and Marx? Were they writing 'serious' works?", which elicited a shout of protest from the original commenter.

Ng Kam Weng, who was the facilitator, also commented with a suggestive smile that in reviewing the factors and the outcomes, we needn't think solely in terms of causality but also, and preferably, correlation.

It's kinda strange to be in a room where a lot of smart people and talking real fast using real cool-souding words. Makes you feel 'small' yet privileged. Hmm.

But what does have to do with Hwa Yung's book? Only that it was the first time I took notice of it. Hwa Yung brought quite a few and was giving/selling them out. I recall thinking, "Now what kind of messed-up name for a book is this!?"

This was 1996. Five years later, in 2001, I borrowed the book and couldn't sustain my interest in it, except for the religious pluralism where I was checking to see if Hwa Yung would be for or against the salvific inclusivism I was working through at the time. (I've got about 60 more pages to go and so far I reckon that Hwa Yung would be very cautious about inclusivism although he's unlikely to theologically discard it the way, say, Ronald Nash would).

Now, in 2007, more than a decade after I first met its author sharing the book with many other authors at an occasion where yet another author was being discussed, I'm reading this 'modern classic' again, this time with much profit and pleasure.

I appreciate Mangoes and Bananas for :

• its construction of what Hwa Yung sees to be a true missiological theology with its four criteria; hmm, how does y/our theology (personal or otherwise) square up when assessed for its:
  • socio-political relevance
  • evangelistic and pastoral concern
  • inculturation
  • faithfulness to the Tradition's core

• its (not uncontroversial) demarcation of Asian and Western ways of thinking - I have GOT to look deeper into this...!

• its mentioning of the 'excluded middle' (how different would this idea be from the powers and principalities discussed by Clinton Arnold, Greg Boyd, Walter Wink, etc., I wonder?)

• its survey of important names and work/(d)s in Asian theology (e.g. Koyama, Song, minjung, etc.) - I can 'feel' straightaway that Koyama is 'my' kind of theologian (grin)...I even googled Kosuke Koyama and found out he has a website, which includes an article expounding Koyama's view of the "boundary-breaking" God.