King James Bible Exhibition (Day 5)

Day 5 of my Oxford study abroad: Tuesday June 28, 2011.
This post is out of chronological order because it's too amazing to post it later. I will post Day 3 and 4 after this one!

Warning: This LONG entry contains NO photos of any kind, only embedded links. Be sure to click on it!!

Today was a very very special day, where I will blog about it in two parts. First, I just want to say that my hope for this blog is to bring you all a daily account of all of my activities here in Oxford, and with my best attempts at writing and your best attempts at imagining, you could experience what I have experienced here. But sometimes, events that occurred are often beyond descriptions, narratives, or illustrations that it's hard to give an accurate account of what happened that day. And today was this kind of a day.

In order to tell you all about the Exhibition, I need to first tell you my basic understanding of the Bodleian Library. The Bodleian Library is the main research library of the University of Oxford. It houses more than 11 million books that it acquired since 13th or 14th century. All of the books published in the United Kingdom must submit one copy to the Bodleian Library, it's kind of like the Library of Congress in the US. A fact about the library is that it's not a lending library meaning that you can NOT borrow books, it's a library of reference. If you need a book, you need to physically show up at the library and read it inside the library. You can never check out a book, no matter who you are (a King of England, whose name I forgot, asked for a book to be sent to him but was rejected by the librarian, who was NOT beheaded. The King had to show up at the library). For Harry Potter fans, you might be thrilled to know that the Divinity School was shot as the Hogwarts Infirmary and the Duke Humfrey's Library was the Hogwarts' Library. (So, Hogwarts' Library does exist in real life!). And this is NOT a public library either, only members are allowed to use it. I am fortunate enough to be in this study abroad program and to obtain a temporary library card that would allow me excess to some of the books and amazing, Hogwarts-like (only description) reading rooms.

What's the whole point about the back story on the Bodleian? Well, not only is it one of the most historically rich, resourceful, old and incredible library in structures. It also houses the most amazing collections of books you could ever imagine. Ever since it was built and even before it was built, the library has had a copy of all books published in the UK and on top of it private donations from the wealthy (who wished to leave a 'legacy') and from scholars. And this is where our King James Bible Exhibition begins....

This is a free admission exhibition. As you can imagine, some of the most prized and famous collection of books can't be shown to the public, so the library has exhibitions where they let the public view some of the collection. And this is how I was able to look at this amazing collection of priceless books.

The exhibition is formally known as Manifold Greatness: Oxford and the Making of the King James Bible. (Please check out the website!!!) It is not a huge exhibition. But there were 11 glass displays of priceless books. The website will give you a better understanding of the history of the making of the King James Bible. I will give you some basic explanation of the works I saw and a bit of background with each display:

1st display: Before the King James Bible (KJB): the Earliest translation of the Bible into English was around 9th century. Most Bible (Old and New Testaments) were known to Anglo-Saxon as poetic adaptions. I saw: Old English religious poems c.1000 that had a color illustration of Adam and Eve with God.
There is a display of "MacRegol" or "Rushworth" Gospels c. 800 in Latin by Irish half-uncial MacRegol


2nd display: First complete translation of Bible in English was produced by Oxford Theologian John Wycliff (c. 1324-1384), but the translator was unknown. The Wycliffite Bible had 2 versions: Old and New. The Old version is a direct word-to-word translation, but the New was more idiomatic, which was prohibited. I saw a 15th century Gospel Readings from Wycliffite Bible.
Wycliffite Bible (c. 1380-1390 written) itself that had the Old Testament in the Old version, flipped to Book of Deuteronomy!
Nicolas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ c. 1415-1430.
Old English translation of Old Testament (Genesis to Judges) from 11th century translated from Latin, also called "Heptateuch"


3rd display (no background, sorry): Ann Boleyn's (Queen to Henry VIII) Tyndale New Testament. Tyndale New Testament was first printed in Germany (1525-6) then in English after the Wycliffite Bible.
Geneva Bible 1606 flipped to Genesis Chapter 3 with a map of Eden, it's also called the "Breeches Bible" (from Genesis 3:7). It was Elizabethans' favorite bible for private reading.
Vulgate Bible, Lyon 1511. It is in Latin. This bible has chapters numbered but not the verse. And in the page it is flipped to, the word 'papa' (pope) was twice erased (I saw that) by its Tudor owner, who followed King Henry VIII. At the margin, there is Archbishop Thomas Cranmer's writings.


4th display: Douai-Rheims New Testaments (1582-1609), some verses of this bible were later in-cooperated in the the KJB. It is flipped to the cover and it reads, "The New Testament of Jesus Christ, translated faithfully into English out of authentication Latin...."
'The Great Bible" 1539 which depicted Henry VIII as greater than God in the cover. This Bible remained in church 9and was used) until 1611. It became the foundation of King James Bible (but the KJB was also influenced by Vulgate Bible). For those looking at the photo in Wikipedia, I saw the copy in person and it was magnificent, beyond words. The drawings and such.

5th display: "The Holy Bible" 1611 (or King James Bible) I won't tell the history, but if interested should look it up. The Bible included calendar, almanacs, "Genealogies of Holy scriptures" and so on. It was printed by the King's printer, Robert Barker.
The Bible was huge and amazing! I got chilled down my spines when I saw it. It was THE King James Bible. THE ORIGINAL! THE BIBLE! It was thick, huge and magnificent. It was really beyond words, such important piece of history just inches away from me and it BELONGS to the Bodleian Library. How incredible is that!? I was not expecting to see the KJB to be there but, there He lies....AMEN!

6th display: Bishop's Bible of 1568, which was used by Elizabethan bishops and became the textual model of the KJB 1611.

7th display: Annotated Bishop's Bible 1602. There were 40 copies distributed around Europe to be translated in to English. This is the sole surviving one (and it's in Bodleian!?). Like it says, the Bible has annotation at the margins. Incredible!!

8th display: Handel's manuscript of Messiah (c. 1741-42). The original manuscript! One side has a huge X where Handel crossed out a page of the music. Speechless!

9th display: The Holy Bible 1769, which is the first revised KJB by Benjamin Blayney of Hertford College, Oxford. And it became the "Oxford Standard"

10th display: Literary effects of KJB
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe 1719, the original copy.
John Milton, Paradise Lost 1668, greatest Bible based poem in English. The first edition was what I saw!
Samuel Richardson, Clarrisa 1748

11th display: other Bible translators and their other works.

I guess what I am trying to say in this entry is that it is incredible, fortunate, moving, and scary. I am amaze at the quality these books are in. I could read the texts (not that I understand), I could see the illustration as if it drawn yesterday and I could try to relate how much work it went to but nothing really prepares you too see history in front of your eyes. It is a very weird feeling how close they are to you. I would think that these should be locked away in some highest of high security vault miles underground, but there they are, so welcoming, warm, and innocent. I almost felt so guilty standing so close! The chill I had when I saw KJB, it's a feeling I would never forget!

A place like Oxford could be so deceiving, you see the shops, cafes and markets all around you, so you feel like you are just in another college/tourist towns. You know the buildings are old but they don't really feel that way. You know history is all around you, but it's only with quiet and serene moments like these that you really experience that eerie-ness and magic of history and the journey men have made together. It's really is beyond us.

Until next time
Truly truly bless and with love, AMEN!

Day 2: Roaming around Oxford...part 2

Swan in River Cherwell

Punting boats

After meeting, Clara and I went downtown with Kristin. We walked from EF center to Oxford city center, which was about a 10-minute downhill walk. Along the way, we stopped at Magdalen (pronounced 'maa-dalen' not 'mag-dalen' this is an Oxford specific pronunciation, more later) Bridge and saw swans and punting boats in River Cherwell.
                                                                        




Then, we directly went to get our bus pass, the Key, operated by Oxford Bus Company. This bus pass is similar to ORCA card in Seattle, except that it doesn't cross over with other bus company, not yet at least. We got the 37 GBP for 4 weeks within the Oxford city, it's a great deal for us because every round trip bus fare cost 2.40 GBP, so more than 11 round trips would definitely worth the 37 GBP. We got the card on the 3 Floor (which is the 4 floor in US, because in UK, they have Ground Floor that is our 1F, and every subsequent floor is +1, a bit confusing at first) of Debenhams, a higher end department store in UK located at the intersection of Cornmarket Street and George Street.

After we got our card, we specifically wanted to look around Radcliffe Square (check map :-) )where Bodleian Library (pic not included here), Radcliffe Camera and University Church of St. Mary the Virgin are located.
The Brasenose College is one of the 38 colleges of the University of Oxford.
The Radcliffe Camera is not a camera, in the modern sense, at all. Camera means chamber in Latin, so Radcliffe Camera is a big, open chamber that used to be the first science library for Oxford.
The University Church of St. Mary the Virgin is one of the oldest building in the entire Oxford University, it was here around 13th century, maybe even earlier (I can't remember the history, check website!). It is OLD!! And magnificent. It's really magical how these buildings have been here for many centuries, and here I am surrounded by these amazing buildings. The buildings have witnessed brilliant histories and themselves have become history! It's overwhelming and extraordinary and incomprehensible sometimes.   

Brasenose College

Entrance to Radcliffe Camera

Entrance to University Church

After walking around the square without a tour guide, we bumped into Brian and Chuck. We talked a little and they pointed out that the King's Arms have some really good beer, so we decided to go and have our first British pub experience and have ourselves some beer.

The King's Arms

Young's Gold

My empty glass!!!

With Chuck's recommendation, we both ordered a half pint of Young's Gold, which is a very smooth tasting beer without any after taste at all. For a non-beer lover I really really enjoyed the beer, which was definitely unexpected (as many of you know!) :P Each pub in Britain has a brewer that they chose, so for the King's Arms, they use Young's brewery and their beer.
The beer was very delicious and I finished all of it, haha! And was not red or anything afterward, lol.
After we got our drink, we picked our seats and just enjoyed our beer. There were a lot of students and people in the pub. Everyone had a beer or a drink with them. They were there to talk, hang out and drink.The atmosphere was very lively! We will be trying their food next time (next blog entry). So next time if you are in Oxford, I highly recommend the King's Arms as a place for great food and drink!!

Tip:
This is how British pub works:
You go up to the bar and order your drink with the bartender and pay for it there (no tip at all). Then you can take your drink to where ever you like to sit and enjoy. There is a separate counter to order and pay for the food. There is no need to tip in the UK. If you do, they would love you, but if you didn't, it's ok. There is no shame in ordering just a half pint, even though most British drink the full pint. And you can pair your beer with whatever you desire, sweet or savory, there is no rule. The pub might recommend the pairing, but you don't have to follow. They will serve the food for you.
One rule: the British don't drink to get drunk, public drunkenness is considered very impolite and rude. So, please DO NOT do it! It's an American thing.... 

Day 2: Roaming around Oxford

I have added a link "Oxford City Centre Map" I HIGHLY recommend looking at the PDF file of the Oxford City centre map while reading my blog. The map will help orient you where things are and where I was. The map is very detailed and is the map I use to navigate my way around Oxford (but I don't use it as much now, haha, I got the city down! :P)                                                      

walk towards the park

Overpass, the pedestrian walk way

                                                       








 
The second day in Oxford, we had a quick meeting with the group and Brian at 12. But before the meeting, Clara, Julia and I walked to Headington Hill Park, which is located next to EF Language Center and on the way to Oxford City Center (The linked map does not include this place, Headington Hill Park would be on the lower right hand corner of the map).

 The park is huge and tranquil. It was Saturday morning, no one was there, everything was still slightly wet but the air was clean and refreshing.

Gates to the Headington Hill Park

No one was there but us. We walked around, looked around, enjoyed a walk in a (British) park. What I experienced most was tranquility. The park was so quiet that you felt peaceful and secluded, you wouldn't really notice the traffic, wouldn't really remember you were next to a big city. You were only surrounded by nature. It was beautiful!

There is a mosque behind the tree, can you see it?

There is a mosque behind the tree. The idea of having a mosque is a bit unimaginable (in the old days) because England is a protestant nation. This is especially huge because this mosque is located quite close to University of Oxford, a school that was heavily associated with Christianity and the national religion was Catholic and now Church of England (Anglican). But nowadays, people are more welcoming and accepting of new religions, so having a mosque for people of other faiths to practice is a show of respect and openness.

We walked around for about 40 minutes and headed back to EF for our meeting. The meeting was welcome meeting for us to meet everyone on the program. At the end of the program, everyone was, unfortunately, tired because of jet lags. But, Clara and I decided to head to city center and explore a bit to help adjust to the correct time zone faster.

To be continued.....(I think the blog would only let me upload a certain amount of photos.)

Going to Oxford town

First, thanks to all my friends and family back home who are reading my blog! I miss you all (maybe...? :P) and would LOVE to have you all here.

Freeway Sign: Oxford

Arrival: Heathrow International Airport on Friday, June 24, 2011.
We boarded the bus from Oxford Bus Company that has a direct bus between Heathrow and Oxford City (Gloucester Green)! The lady bus driver helped loaded our luggage and gave us a hard time (jokingly) when we were paying for our round-trip fare because as tourists we only had 50 GBP and no small bills for the 26 GBP fare and she was running out of change!


After roughly 2 hours of bus ride with beautiful countryside scenery along the way, we arrived at Gloucester Green. Our next objective was to find a British cab to take us to EF International Language Schools Oxford which will be our living quarter from June 24 to July 3. Then we will move into Jesus College (College explanation later) from July 3 to July 12. And lastly Jesus College Graduate Housing, July 12 to July 28.

Inside of a British cab

So, find a British cab, here we go: we walked from the Central Bus station in Oxford at Gloucester Green and through a square which was filled with pigeons. There was a very unnoticeable sign/post/bulletin board that basically read taxi call line. We waited for our taxi and here it came! A black British cab came and picked us up. It was the typical British cab that you often see in movies (sorry didn't have time for photo). It was very spacious in the back. From the photo you could see it fitted Clara, Cassie and my luggage plus the three of us! Then we were off to the EF Language Center (EF).

Courtyard of EF Center

At EF, we saw Julie Villegas (Associate Direct of Honors Program at UW), Brian Reed (my professor for the program and Chuck Krysieniel. And got our room assignment.








At the EF center, breakfast and dinner are included, so after dinner, Clara, Cassie and I went to Oxford City center because Clara needed a converter and Cassie needed a towel. The weather was rainy, typically Seattle weather. Since it was Friday, shops closed early and with the rain, there weren't a lot of people.

Cornmarket Street, main shopping street in City

We walked around trying to find a store and eventually ended up at Boots (a British version of a Walgreen). Most of the drugstores and grocery stores have self-scanner, which made life much faster and easier for the busy British. The stores are very much like American stores but the prices....well, honestly, I just think everything in Britain is more expensive in general, so let's just say they are expensive....for now. I didn't get anything because I brought most things with me (budget control!).

Can you tell the difference between this and an American scanner?

This was our first day and night at Oxford, Oxfordshire, UK! We safely arrived, safely ate the dinner, safely navigated Oxford city center, safely went to bed.

Until next time
Bless + Cheer+ Love

The Land of...The Queen's Land (and the drive-on-the-other-side-and-use-S-for-authorized land)

We flew into London Heathrow airport from Vancouver, BC with Air Canada (pic in last post). It was a pleasant flight with a decent meal (one of the better ones I had in a long time). I sat next to a middle-aged man who moved from Hawaii to Port Angeles (why, I have no idea). He is meeting his friends to bike around Bath (read with a British accent, please!) 

In case you were wondering, as I often do. I watched I am Number Four but got bored and didn't finish it, so I moved on to Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps. I have to admit Shia LaBeouf looks way better in suits and I absolutely adore Carey Mulligan, who is a British Actress.

Ok, back to the more important things. Our flight left Vancouver 25 minutes late because some guy couldn't make the flight, but his luggage did, so they had to remove his luggage from the plane. After that, we started out 9 hour flight. Overall, it was a pleasant flight, other than some weird sleeping positions I was holding (joy of sitting in the middle). That 9-hour went by faster than I thought, so all was well :)

Next stop is the UK border with UK Border Agency. I couldn't risk being detained or have my camera confiscated so I didn't take any photo. You are required to fill out a UK Landing Card to enter the UK. The lines were separated into EU/UK Passports and All Other Passports. An important note to everyone that plans on traveling to UK, you should definitely have documentations indicating/supporting your reason for traveling to UK. They are quite strict about this. I had my acceptance letter for the study abroad program and even with that the agent kept asking me questions.

But, goodbye UK Custom and Border and hello UK...and luggage reclaim. Then we were off to find our bus to Oxford! We walked for a solid 7-8 minutes with our luggage underground from Terminal 3 to the Central Bus Station.

Can you find Oxford??

We took the lift to first floor and there it was: Central Bus station! We asked the very nice lady at the Information Desk. She pointed us to stop 14A for the bus to Oxford.

Then we saw our bus at stop 14A. The door was on the other side of the bus for apparent reason. Our destination: Gloucester Green bus station, the last stop of this bus route and 5 mins away from Oxford City Center (or Centre). We paid the rather humorous and nice bus driver for our 26 pounds round-trip bus ticket (it's quite expensive). The round trip ticket lasts for 3 months and I will be using that when I leave Oxford to go back to London. With the tickets, we were Oxford bound!!!!!! (side note: waiting in lines are quite common and don't ever cut!)




(note: encourage you to listen to "How Am I To Be" by Watson Twins from here, reason below)

Oxfordshire sheep

It was a cloudy day when I arrived at London, the weather was very similar to Seattle. On the way, there were lots of trees, farm lands, hills and most importantly Oxfordshire sheep. That's right, sheep in Oxfordshire is called Oxfordshire sheep :P
The trees and hills reminded me of Seattle but with a touch of European flavor. The British style farmhouses and flatter hills really made the difference. On top of knowing that I was in England, something that I was seeing but couldn't describe accentuated that I was really in England!

Overcast in Oxfordshire

As I listened to "How Am I To Be" by Watson Twins during the ride, something about the music, the weather, and the scenery that came all together. It was my first impression of England, a peaceful one.







Until next time
bless + love

preview for next: Going to Oxford town

The land of Canadian and French ( and A&W and Tim Horton's)

The plane was super small and super noisy

It's goodbye Seattle and hello Vancouver, BC, or Adieu Seattle, bonjour a Vancouver!

We arrived at a huge and modern airport. I noticed that the cashiers in the Duty Free shops were mostly Asians, and the labels were English, Korean and Chinese- a huge indication of the type of people traveled to here (ha!)

Cool design centered in the middle of the duty free shops

Gate 65

After walking around, we reached Gate 65, sat down, ate some snack. While I was eating, I noticed how my hands were shaking a bit for unknown reasons. I couldn't tell if I was nervous, excited or worried, but all I knew was my yogurt was falling off the spoon (ha!).

Air Canada taking us to London

Thus, we bid farewell to Vancouver and the North American continent and began the journey to Europe.....

Until next time,
Bless + Love

So here it goes....

Today is the day that I leave Seattle and embark on a non-scientific journey (well it's a study abroad, but all the same)! Even after three months of preparatory seminar, nothing really prepares you for what is yet to come. After many procrastination on packing and arranging, I am semi-ready to leave Seattle.

This is my first trip to Great Britain and hopefully won't be my last. I have expectations, questions, and mostly huge uncertainties about what is to come. But my friend Michelle told me to hold no expectations (well, maybe a bit), so there would be less of a shock. Before the trip, I was very nervous and scared and even stressed out about the trip because of the uncertainty. I don't like when things are out of my controls or not knowing the details (haha, I guess it's one of the many downsides of being a scientist) and this study abroad is full of that. On the other hand, this trip will certainly teach me about spontaneity, randomness and disorganization (wow, some high entropy is involved here!)

Thanks to Andrew, Sara and Michelle for dropping me at Sea-Tac. I am about to board the plane to my first stop Vancouver, BC, Canada. Some of you might ask, "Seattle to Vancouver!? You could have driven there and enjoy some Dim Sum!" My answer to that is yeah, I could have but I am not because I forgot about Dim Sum in Vancouver!

I will sign off here at Sea-Tac, see you in August, Seattle! I am going to find some British Love :D
Bless + Love

Women/Girl Power

This post is a background post on my proposed research project (which I have yet to decide what/which to do).

Why women?
To me this is a very pertinent question because most importantly I am a woman! Women account for roughly 50% of the people in the entire world. (Why roughly? There are people that identify themselves as women but might not necessarily possess a female body and we should respect and be inclusive to them as well.) You would think that being the other half of the human population, women would get 50% of the attention. Not true! Sometimes, all I hear is about how women are devalued, tortured, raped, slaved, and demoralized in general. There aren't enough celebratory news about women and all her accomplishments.

Secondly, as a woman in science I personally experience this imbalance between men and women. There are more male science professors that lectured my science classes than female professors. Although, I must note that I am working in almost all women research lab! My friend and I wonder why this is so and we realized this unspoken "norm" that women would eventually be heavily involved in family and somehow family and science/medicine don't mix well. Therefore, despite higher ratio of female acceptance into higher education, somehow the people holding the position of power are usually men!? I personally refuse to believe that family and medicine don't integrate well because if you are truly passionate about both you will make it work!

Thirdly, I grew up learning and being exposed to girl power, which gave me this unwavering and unquestionable idea that I can accomplish my goals and my sex should not dictate my future! I think, as a generation in the "developed" world, we grew up learning about women's rights and inequality and how to achieve gender equality. But, the reality is that gender inequality still perpetuate in this world. We all hear jokes about women but we grow accustomed and become insensitive to remarks that devalue us. I am guilty of that. But the good thing is to realize where and when the boundary has been crossed and appropriately stop gender bullying.

It came as a great surprise that Beyonce released this new song Run the World (Girls) that speaks about girl power! I am still trying to get used to the song, but her message in the lyrics speak for itself!

With all these being said, it will be interesting to find out what British history/culture and women think about themselves (women) and how they have changed through the years either for the better or worse.

This is a quick background on why I am interested in studying women for my research project, hope this will help start some conversation among your friends and hopefully my project, ha :)