You and I is a story about being in love with someone, and about being afraid of losing the one you love. Two siblings, a girl and her younger brother, love their grandfather, his boat and other things he has. They enjoy rowing, playing games, seeing the ocean.

• – One day this will all be yours, grandfather tells his grandchildren. But the girl is reluctant. This is difficult to talk about. She doesn’t want it, she wants grandpa.

Norwegian Synne Lea (b. 1974) puts into words the hope of forging the very close relationships and the fear of losing them again. Her children’s literature is as gloomy as it is life-affirming.

Stian Hole (b. 1969) is a Norwegian designer, but he also writes children`s books. He is a graduate of the Norwegian School of Crafts and Design in Oslo and has won awards for his design work, including several times in The Most Beautiful Books of the Year. He illustrates books with collages made using Photoshop.

He has also won several awards for his books, also abroad, as they have been translated into many languages.

• – After 2 years’ suspending, TIBE 2022 opened today, Rex How wrote Thursday on his Facebook. – Due to the pandemic, there was some arguments that TIBE should be suspended one more year. Anyway, the fair opened today. So happy. We selected 30 titles, 9 categories, and 9 authors. We tried to make our booth spacious and not to be crowded. So it will be less risky for both the readers and our colleagues.
• – And thanks to Stian Hole’s drawing in Synne Lea’s “You and I”, Rex How continues. – We set up the topic of our booth: “In the Time of Pandemic, Reading Opens Up a Door to Transcendence.” Combined with our slogan, Hole’s drawing is the focus of the fairground.
• – I think Rex How was very good with the changes he made, including the front page of the book, the author Synne Lea tells Norway News. – I think he made good choices, she wants Rex How to know.

With over thirty years experience in the publishing industry, Rex has become one of the most internationally renowned publisher in Chinese. In 1989, Rex advocated for and organized the first Taiwan Pavilion exhibit and delegation for the Frankfurt Book Fair. In 1996, as the organizer of the 1996 Taipei International Book Fair (TIBE), he increased the exhibition’s scale from the previous year, and established the foundation for future development.

This year TIBE is celebrating 30 years anniversary. After two years online TIBE has retuned to offline mode. In total 364 local and international publishers from 31 countries brought 43 authors and over 250 events to many eager readers. Usually TIBE is held yearly in February. It is the first time TIBE is held in June, about the same time as the Norwegian Festival of Literature in Lillehammer, and just after the Book Fair in Warsaw 2022, Polen, where Norway was the Guest of Honor. (https://norla.no/en/warsaw-2022). Polen will be the guest of honor at TIBE in early 2023.

Synne Lea has worked for the Norwegian Children’s Book Institute where author and illustrator Lene Ask once was her student. Norway News wrote about Lene’s last book: https://www.norwaynews.com/missionary-children-tell-their-versions-now-documented-by-lene-asks-cartoons-%ef%bf%bc/

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Jan Arild Snoen (b. 1964) has for many years been a prominent analyst of American politics and society. In 2020 he published the book The Trump Shock. The US position is now being challenged by China, but Snoen argues that the US will remain the world’s leading power for the foreseeable future. The expected Chinese growth in the years to come is exaggerated.

– The US could outpace its economic rival for the first time in a half-century, Blomberg opinion by Daniel Moss writes in Taipei Times. –China’s economy is more than a weak spot in faltering global expansion. Growth this year is likely to fall short of Beijings own projection.

In 2019 the Australian China expert Richard McGreger’s little book “Xi JinPing: The Backlash” starts with the question: When did the world turn to China? Around the turn of the millennium, many were optimistic with hope that China could become a partner in the liberal world order. China became a member of the WTO in 2001 and won the Olympics in 2008 and 2022. This optimism has been replaced by resignation. The Xi regime has extinguished the hope that economic progress will lead China in a liberal direction.

The only thing Joe Biden continues with Donald Trump’s policies is a skeptical attitude towards China. The country challenges the United States’ dominant position in the world, and the US-led liberal world order after World War II. Now Europe is united against Russia because of the attack on Ukraine. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Thursday last week that rather than Vladimir Putin’s Russia, it is China that represents the most potent and determined threat to the American-championed world today. “– But the intensifying fixation on China’s potential to disrupt the world order shrinks space for cooperation with Beijing and distracts from real treat in the world: Russia”, Zachary Karabell tells New York Times today. Karabell is a former portfolio manager of the China – U.S. Growth Fund with Fred Alger Managment. – We need to be cleareyed on China, he continues. – It is without doubt a more powerful potential adversary than Russia on every metric – military, economic and ideological. – China spends more on its military than any country besides the United States, which is intended to counter American military pre-eminence in East Asia. Rising nationalism is expected in the belief that Taiwan must be reunified with mainland China and that the South China Sea is Chinese lake. The Communist Party (CCP) views the United States as an adversary. But it has been willing to engage diplomatically, har repeatedly championed the inviolability of state borders and is not averse to self-interested compromise over issues like trade and climate change. It’s rhetoric over Taiwan has been little more than saber-rattling and appears restrained compared to how the United States had historically treated Latin America. – China is deeply intertwined with the U.S. and global economy. It holds more than a trillion dollars’ worth of America debt in the form of U.S. Treasury securities, benefits from the cumulative effect of U.S. investment in China and need access to foreign markets.

Norway sells salmon to China rather than forcing the country to change in return for Beijing’s reduced support for Kim Jong-un of North Korea. In todays New York Times Zachary Karabell’s opinion is that Biden should find new ways to work with China in return for Xi’s reduced support for Putin.

The author Jan Arild Snoen places the great power conflict in a historical and geopolitical context and tells it in relation to Norwegian conditions.

A stronger and more assertive China instead leads to increasing conflicts with the West, not least in trade policy. The regime’s increasingly authoritarian behavior and human rights violations, especially against the Uighurs and in Hong Kong, have contributed to a worsening of relations. If there is a military conflict, it is likely to strike in the South China Sea or Taiwan. The book has its own chapters on these areas. (https://www.forsvarsforeningen.no/norges-forsvar/norges-forsvar-6-2021/taiwan-frykter-angrep-fra-kina/?fbclid=IwAR0vzoqNPAt1rHevdZJcuJ9J_sdO-UmVHkW864D3A7flVnTizWkuxHUeGiE)

On March 1st. this year former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen visited Taiwan together with Meghan O´Sullivan, former deputy national security adviser under former US president George W: Bush, and Michele Flournoy, a former undersecretary of defense in former US president Barak Obamas administration. A senior official in the Biden administration said the trip was to demonstrate continued robust support for Taiwan. Beijing don`t want anybody to visit or support democracy in Taiwan.

The next day former US state secretary Mike Pompeo visited Taiwan and urges US to recognize Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan. He said if China takes Taiwan, it will tip the global balance.

In the beginning of April US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Mark Milley said US can provide Taiwan with Ukraine-style assistance. But on April 16th, former US national secretary adviser John Bolton called for US troops to be stationed in Taiwan to deter China from launching an invasion. This week US senator Tammy Duckworth went to visit Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen in her office in Taipei. After the visit she told media that the US National Guard is planning to cooperate with the Taiwanese military. The Taiwan partnership act has received bipartisan support in the US Congress, although it has yet to become law.

On April 15th, the US senators and Lindsey Graham and Bob Menendez had a visit to President Tsai. Menendez knew that the Chinese government was “very unhappy” with their visit, but added that Beijing`s protest “did not dissuade us from coming” and supporting Taiwan also in the future.

• – With Taiwan producing 90 % of the world`s high-end semiconductor products, it is a country of global significance, consequence and impact, and therefore it should be understood the security of Taiwan has a global impact, Menendez said.

In May last month the US Department of State made major changes to the US-Taiwan relations fact sheet on its Web site. The former text “In the Joint Communique, the US recognized the government of the People`s Republic of China as the sole legal government of China, acknowledging the Chinese position that there is but one China and Taiwan as part of China” is removed. It now says “As a leading democracy and technological powerhouse, Taiwan is a key US partner in the Indo-Pacific” .

• “This kind of political manipulation on the Taiwan question is an attempt to change the status quo on the Taiwan Strait and will inevitably stir up a fire that only burns (the US). The US move is a petty act of fictionalizing and hollowing out the one China principle,” Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Zhao Lijan said.

• – That the world is facing a new cold war is unlikely, Øystein Tunsjø told Aftenposten last week. He is a professor at the Norwegian Department of Defense Studies (IFS). There he researches China and RussiaHe has once been to Taiwan. (https://www.aftenposten.no/verden/i/wOBMyM/kina-vil-endevende-verden-frykter-usa-en-helt-ny-strategi-skal-holde-styr-paa-den-hurtigvoksende-rivalen?fbclid=IwAR2DMFm58q2nYtkc5f9RaYXg_FtHuQlX_zIWA6lcvqEwDjxTh48sCSronNU)

• – Today, the world is far more closely intertwined than during the Cold War, Tunsjø points out. – The United States and China have no choice but to deal with each other. But it is a relationship that will be marked by competition and conflict, and the time for unlimited free trade is over.

• – Although China’s power is growing, it is by no means a given that the country will eventually be able to compete with the United States, the publisher Dreyer says. – While the United States has allies around the world, China has very few. China also faces major challenges at home. The workforce is shrinking, while the number of older people is exploding. An enormous debt build-up, especially in the real estate sector, makes the economy vulnerable.

The Liberty Times had on May 18th a great editorial. It’s worth reading. China could not supplant the US: https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2022/05/18/2003778377.

Jan Arild Snoen has been to China a couple of times, but not to Taiwan. Because of Covid-19 and strict visa rules before that, he has not been to China for some years. So the information he has is based on the latest uncensored sources outside China. It is an important book for Norwegians to understand the background when reading the news between the two superpowers of the world.

Aftenposten published on May 24th, in collaboration with a number of major Western media, new documentation about the Xi dictatorship’s camp in Xinjiang. As the newspaper writes: “Now new documents and pictures shed a whole new light on what is probably the largest mass internment of people since the Holocaust.” Chapter 6 in Snoen`s book has the background information.

(Article behind pay-wall: https://www.aftenposten.no/verden/i/RrAr0A/kina-kaller-dem-skoler-nye-bilder-og-dokumenter-fra-leirene-avsloerer-en-helt-annen-historie?fbclid=IwAR3ZXNoRIM1CGQ-FX9PL6cy5UgWNsL9GWZRfkp5HA8ez5-mIsaPWgdoBiXc)

Norwegian Broadcasting and media were before we got internet mostly pro Mao during the former cold war. Jan Arild Snoen’s book is important as it gives Norwegians an enlightening contextualisation of elder views and myths about China.

Reporters in China have trouble obtaining neutral information and have previously written one-sidedly. That is why more and more journalists and authors are writing from outside of China.

You may also read Chinese Days Getting More Difficult For Media: https://www.norwaynews.com/chinese-days-getting-more-difficult-for-media

Trygve Bjørkås (89) had his last home in Jørpeland. After years abroad in Asia, his whole family including wife, children and grand children all settled down in the coast village in Rogaland in South West Norway.

His work in Asia started among the about 50000 children affected by poliomyelitis in Taiwan. The Norwegian mission had a hospital in Pingtung where 10000 of them got operations, braces and crutches. Most of the children came from the countryside where nobody could follow up training after surgery. The mission decided to build an orphanage where children could receive education and schooling.

Olav Kristian Strømme was a Norwegian Lutheran priest. He is known for the many aid projects he raised money for. Through red first page advertisements in newspapers, he encouraged people to donate money to projects that Norwegian missionaries had started. He heard about the need for dormitory for the children after treatment in the hospital. Soon he had collected money to build a home for 200 children. Trygve Bjørkås was given responsibility for the children and named the dormitory Victory Home.

Madam Chiang Kai-shek, the wife of the president, once went to visit Victory Home she saw as model for her planned polio center at Yang Ming Mountain in Taipei.

After four years in Taiwan, Trygve Bjørkås moved back to Norway with his family, living in Rykkinn in Bærum outside Oslo.

After four years in Norway, the family returned to Asia where Trygve started pioneering work among lepers in Vietnam. But the war didn`t let them stay long in Vietnam, so after a time they returned to Taiwan for an other year.

In 1976 Trygve and Borghild Bjørkås started their main work as missionaries by moving to Manila, Philippines. Two years later, in 1978, the Bjørkås couple toured congregations in Norway with their singing, charming and dancing staff of social workers. Trygve was very charismatic and committed. The tour created many donors for their work. But the staff maybe got a fake impression that people are very rich in Norway.

In 1981 Harald Stene Dehlin released his book Engler i slummen (Angels in the Slums) about their work. In 2001 Norwegian Mission Alliance released the book Når Kjærlighet Krysser Grenser (When Love Crosses Boundaries). It has a chapter about their work in Philippines.

In 2011 Trygve moved for the last time back to Norway and the rest of his family. He passed away on April 29th 2022, 89 years of age. The funeral was held from the Pentecostal church Klippen on May 13th.

His youngest daughter An-Magritt read his eulogy:

“On Friday January 20th, 1933, Trygve Halvard Jensen was born in Blåmannsvika on Kvaløya,just outside of Tromsø. He grew up with his grandparents on the farm Bjørkås and took that as his surname when he became an adult.

Trygve attended primary school in Henrikvika, and afterward moved on to Heimly Framandskole, a secondary school. One of his teachers recommended that Trygve should attend the Diakonia College in Oslo, which was something he would later do. Before that, he worked on a fishing boat with his uncle and grandfather. They fished several seasons in Lofoten, and then he worked several seasons at a fish farm in Båtsfjord. When at home, he would do some carpentry work, like helping build his mother’s house.

Trygve decided to listen to his old teacher, and his journey led him to Oslo and deacon studies at the Diakonia College. This was a lovely time, with wonderful revival meetings held by John Olav Larssen that made a huge impression on him. In Oslo, he became a deacon, and met the love of his life, Borghild, who he married in 1961.

After completing his studies, he joined the military and went with the UN forces to Gaza as a 2nd lieutenant. He enjoyed the military, so much so that he took the prerequisite course to enter the Norwegian Military Academy and considered a career in the military.

But God had another plan.

The boy from Blåmannsvika also had a calling to missions, something that his dear Borghild shared (- to a much greater degree, he always said). They applied as missionaries to the Norwegian Mission Society (NMS), whose letter of acceptance went missing and never reached them. When they didn’t hear back, they sent an application to the Norwegian Mission Alliance, who were very pleased to have a couple interested in missions. The next step was 6 months of English language studies in England, before leaving Oslo by cargo ship, the Tarn, to Hong Kong.

The Bjørkås couple first went to Taiwan (1964). There, new language studies awaited in Taichung city, this time Mandarin, before they started their work at Victory Home in Pingtung where the focus was treatment of polio patients.

Four years later, they returned to Norway with three children who couldn’t speak a word of Norwegian. They stayed in Norway for four years, managed to have child number four, before their next mission which was working with lepers in Vietnam. There, they built a village for lepers called New Morning Village.
The war forced them to leave Vietnam. Trygve managed to evacuate his family, before returning to see if there was any chance of continuing the work. However, he grasped the gravity of the situation and boarded one of the last flights to leave Vietnam.
Leaving Vietnam was a source of great sorrow for both of them. A missionary that they had met in Vietnam, Paul Contento, recommended that they consider missions work in Manila, Philippines.

While they were deciding, they returned to Taiwan for another year.

In 1976, Trygve and Borghild arrived in the Philippines. They day after their arrival, they took a taxi to “Smoky Mountain”, the once famous rubbish mountain in Manila. And it became very clear to them, this was where God wanted them to be. The later part of that year saw the arrival of child number 5.

Bit by bit they found good people to work with, and bit by bit they build up 15 multipurpose centres in different parts of Manila, where those who lived in the community could go for Bible teaching, schooling, nutritional education, doctoral and dental help. Trygve and Borghild spearheaded a sponsorship program, where people in Norway supported children through school. By the time they finished their work with NORMA (Norwegian Mission Alliance), in the Philippines in 2003, about 40,000 children had been provided with an education, and their families had received support, so God used the work to touch many lives. Perhaps understandable that Trygve was nicknamed “God’s bulldozer” in a Norwegian newspaper.

The staff that Borghild and Trygve worked together with became their family. There were office workers, houseworkers, nurses, social workers, and nutritionists. Many of them say to this day that Sir Trygve is the best boss they have ever had. Several aid projects sprung out from NORMA, two of the largest were Shalom Learning Centre and Papa John Centre (named after John Olav Larssen). We were newly informed by the board of the Papa John Centre, which has become a school, that they want to change their name to honour our Pappa, to the Trygve Bjorkas Memorial School.

Eleven years ago, Borghild and Trygve moved back to Norway and to their house on Fjelde here on Jørpeland. Trygve continued to support projects in the Philippines in any way that he could and returned there regularly during the first few years. When he was in Norway, hetook many long walks. Bit by bit, the walks became shorter, but for many years he walked to Klippen (his church) nearly weekly so long as his kidneys permitted. Many have told us that they miss the sight of him walking down the road with his hands behind his back.

In 2018 Trygve’s kidneys deteriorated so much that he had to start dialysis treatments in Stavanger. Initially, Trygve quite liked these trips, he always loved car trips and enjoyed the hospital food, and he looked at it as his work day. However, during the last year those treatments began to wear him down. Since January, someone has accompanied him to his treatments. After taking his last treatment on April 2nd, my Pappa stayed home, still with a smile at the ready and a quick quip on hand. Until the morning of April 29th, when our Heavenly Father welcomed his son home.

Trygve was a good man, a kind man, a generous soul, with a wonderful sense of humor, an infectious smile, and a sparkle in his eye. He was a joker who liked to surprise, challenge, and sometimes shock people. He was both patient and restless and could not abide injustice. He and our Mamma always had time for us, and our house was always open to others. He gave everything he had to anyone who needed it, even if it left him with very little. Our Pappa had a servant’s heart. All that he did, he did wholeheartedly, there was never any halfway, and he never gave up.

He surrendered his heart to his Lord, gave his heart to his Borghild, shared his heart with his family and friends, and left much of his heart in the Philippines. But, as he knew so well, whatever we give we receive in a much greater degree.
May his memory be a blessing.”

Kristin, Thor, Ove, Borgar, An-Magritt (children) Borghild (wife)