Did you know that the garden of Eden, the fall of mankind, the flood, were events that were not just known in the Bible, but also found in the origins of some of the most used Chinese words? Reggie Lee, film producer, author, preaching, and conference speaker, discovered these facts in a lifelong labour of love, that had come from much research.
Many years ago, God led Reggie Lee to make a film called Who Are the Chinese.
He had earlier conceived the idea but did not have the time or expertise to do so. But thanks to divine appointment and aid, from donors led by God, Reggie managed to finish the film in 2009. In Malaysia itself, there was more than 50,000 copies inflatable slide of the film produced and distributed. The movie is also widely distributed in Hong Kong, US, and China. Plus it is also broadcasted worldwide through Inspiration TV. It also won the best mission film in 2014 in the Pan Pacific Film Festival (2014) in the US.
When interviewed, Reggie explained that he didn’t initially expect to make a film.
“I never thought of being a film producer. In fact, I did not really know what to do. I was a chef base in the United Kingdom before I joined the ministry to be an itenary preacher, traveling around the world. So you can see, how a chef like me who didn’t know Chinese would end up creating a film that talked about Chinese culture. I guess sometimes God had other plans for us, and it’s not necessary the thing we want to do. He got me to reach out to so many other people by producing this movie. But I never knew this, until I crossed the bridge to the other side,”
Reggie explained that originally “Who Are The Chinese” was a concept in a book that I planned to write. “But I just couldn’t seem to be able to write. I left it for some time actually. Then I thought maybe God wants me to make it into a film. But I had no experience in film making whatsoever. How much would it cost to make a film like that? So I decided to go further into research while on a trip back to London. I listed down the things that I had to do. The first was to write the script. Next was to hire a team of videographers. Then find the locations for the shoot. From there I needed to put in the voices. So I had to find the narrators,”
By the time Reggie had complied the list he realised it was not going to be an easy job.
“I was at a preaching assignment in Sydney I remember talking about this book that I wanted to do which was, “Return to Your God, A Call To The Chinese. I was having difficulty finishing it. So while on stage I mentioned about the book, and suggestively said that perhaps God wants me to make a film out of it. But as I was coming down from the pulpit, a lady came up to me and asked how much would it cost to make a film like that? I said about 200,000 Aussie dollars, as a rough estimation. To my surprised, she said she would like to sponsor the film. I immediately returned to London, and began to study ways on how to make such a film,”
Reggie explained that upon studying the ways to make the film, he realised that it was not so easy. Especially after googling it. In fact, there were many procedures involved and he needed to set up a team.
“It was very challenging. I thought it might not be able to materialise. But through God, I was connected to all the right people at the right time. The first person I called on the team actually introduced me to a whole team from Livewire which would be the team that filmed who are the Chinese with me. The same team that followed me to China and London to do filming,” Reggie explained.
Yet even with his team, Reggie still had a lot of work to do. He had to make sure that every fact and detail of the movie was made out correctly, as it would be under great scrutiny from the viewers that were made up of the Chinese.
“The Chinese are made up of two groups, the mainland and those living in the overseas. The goal of the film is to get them back to their roots. First is by showing them the great things that the Chinese culture has which they did not know or have forgotten about. Some of these things are really interesting. I found out that the Chinese actually invented ice cream, and the sunglasses,” Reggie explained.
It was these things that Reggie would use to in the film to show how great the Chinese are.
In fact, Reggie said the goal of the film was to explain to the Chinese both from China or abroad about the things that they do, and why they do it.
“An example would be like, why do the Chinese eat bak chang, and mooncakes for many thousand years? I explained that in the movie. And from there I brought the topic to the subject of Chinese writing for my audience. Although Chinese writing may seem independent apart from the Bible, there is a lot of the Chinese language that relates to Genesis,”
Reggie explains that the reason is that this is because ancient Chinese is kind of a pictographic or ideographic language similar to Hieroglyphics.
“The most ancient form of Chinese, in the oracle bones. They have words that evolve into the modern day Chinese language. An example is the original word for death in Chinese found in the oracle bones, is a combination of the picture of a tree and two mouths a reference to the story of the garden of Eden and the forbidden fruit. Another one is the word righteousness. An amazing word which can be used to connect people to Jesus. You see the word righteousness is made up of the word Lamb and underneath is the word me. We know Jesus is the Lamb of God for you and me. That means the Break up the word me and it’s a spear and a man,” Reggie explains.
He also explains in the video that in Chinese culture there is an altar usually put outside the house with no idols in it.
The altar outside the house with no idols in it. The Chinese know that to worship the God of Heaven because they cannot have idols. Three cups, three joysticks. The Chinese cannot explain the three cups. But the three cups explanation comes from the book of Taoism.
“This leads to the book of the Tao Te Ching . Taoism. Tao means the Way. The Way created all things. And the way became two, and the two became three. This means that it talks about God in three forms. The Chinese are unable to understand this, but if you read the Bible you would know it links to the concept of the Trinity,” Reggie explained.
He adds on that because the video explains the links of Chinese culture to the Bible, many of those who were against Christianity because of fear that they may lose their culture, actually accepted Christ. Many have written to him in regards to this as a testimony.
“A teacher in Ipoh at the Methodist college came to me and said that he refused that he did not wanted to be Christian he did not want to lose his culture. That he had to be very westernised, celebrating Christmas instead of Chinese New Year. Yet after watching the film, he was so proud of the Chinese culture, and how they knew God already that he embraced Christianity,”
Reggie also adds that there were many other testimonies of salvation through his short film.
“One of them was a Singaporean pastor’s whose father and aunty were not saved. They refuse to receive Jesus saying they were born a Taoist; therefore they will die a Taoist. But once they saw “Who Are The Chinese” they received Jesus due to its explanation on Taoism. Two weeks later they were baptised. Another pastor in Bukit Mertajam shown the film to some friends who were against anything to do with Western culture and immediately they believed,” Reggie explains.
The film he believes is a bridge between Christianity and the Chinese people, who otherwise views Christianity as a Western religion. He also adds that the film has been translated into four languages which are English, Cantonese, Mandarin and Bahasa Indonesia.
“Even in Bahasa Indonesia the film has an impact in saving souls. A monk in Indonesia accepted Jesus after watching the video,” Reggie elaborates on the effectiveness of the film in evangelising to others.
Reggie explains that the film itself is an obvious example of how multimedia can be used to share the gospel to others, as he states that one does not need to be present to share the gospel but the video or recording can do it for you.
“The film can do a lot more than we can do our own. In fact, the church believes they must conquer the 7 major spheres of influence with one of the major one being multimedia. Yet this sphere is poorly represented by the Christian community,” Reggie explains.
He adds that this was one of the main reason why he undertook this venture.
“The media can reach even the unreachable, such as the Middle East, or even in certain communities in Malaysia,”
He adds that he plans to do future project such as Revelation the Inconvenient Proof, and already has another film completed which is the Elephant in the church.
Having demonstrated the effectiveness of the multimedia, he hopes that the church would unite and support future media projects, whether it be through the different churches around, or through the Christians in the marketplace.
Please visit http://www.whoarethechinese.com/about.html for more information.
|Share The Good News|
Jason Law
Leave a Reply