What is it like to be a Chinese immigrant in Ireland or an Irish-born Chinese? What are churches in Ireland like? How can we support and encourage our brothers and sisters in the Emerald Isle?
In this 20-minute conversation, SOLA editorial board member Daniel K. Eng interviews two leaders of the Chinese Gospel Church in Ireland. Tommy Kyaw Tun is an elder at the church and a first-generation immigrant. Caleb Teo is the youth leader and an Irish-born Chinese.
Join us as we delve into their insights into the Chinese church in Ireland—from their ministries to to unique blessings. We hope that this conversation encourages you to pray for the church in Ireland.
You can watch their conversation below, on our YouTube page, or via our podcast. We have also provided a lightly edited transcript of their conversation. Please note that it may contain spelling or grammatical errors.
Editor’s Note: Below is a lightly edited automated transcript of their conversation. There may be typos or grammatical errors.
Daniel K. Eng: Well, hello, everyone. This is Daniel here at the SOLA Network, and we are going through a series called “The Chinese Diaspora.” And I’m here to introduce you to Tommy and Caleb—I’m gonna have you introduce yourselves in a bit.
Today we’ll be talking about Ireland and the people who are of Chinese background who are in Ireland. What is the church doing? How can we pray? And so on. So why don’t you two introduce yourselves? Why don’t we start with Tommy?
Tommy Kyaw Tun: Okay, thank you, Daniel, for having us. My name is Tommy Kyaw Tun. I actually originally from Burma, I was born in Burma. I grew up in Hong Kong, and I came to Ireland to study medicine. And I finished and I stayed, became a Christian. And I’ve stayed and worked ever since.
I’m an elder in my church, The Chinese Gospel Church in Ireland. And I also work full time as a doctor as well. So my ministry is include preaching overseeing the English ministry in Esker house in one of the suburbs. And also looking after the young people.
Caleb Teo: Yeah. Hi. I’m Caleb Teo. I am actually an Irish-Born Chinese. My parents came to Ireland in the 70s; they studied here. My mom is from Hong Kong. My dad is from Malaysia. I was raised in Ireland and raised in the church from a very young age. My parents were heavily involved in church my whole life.
I grew up here through the Irish school system. I am now a software engineer full-time and been working about three years. And in CGC Ireland, I would be the youth leader, leading the youth, so a group of teenagers between 12 and 18. I am also working with a team who are two other main leaders and five who are kind of new and are being trained to be leaders.
Daniel K. Eng: Tommy, you mentioned what brought you to Ireland. Caleb, you also you also mentioned a little bit about how your parents were moved to Ireland. Can you think share with us, how do Chinese people end up in Ireland in the first place? I think that that would be a question that many of us would be curious about.
Tommy Kyaw Tun: I suppose we like many immigrants and looking for a better life a better life for themselves or for the next generation—I suspect mostly for the next generation. And perhaps you can broadly say at the early years, 1960s-70s, there were two broad categories.
Many of them would be you know, in the restaurant business, Chinese takeaways, some restaurants, but there’ll be quite a few number of students as well from the 70s and so on in different disciplines, whether it’s medicine, computing, or others as well. So two kind of broad categories from pretty much the early outset, I’d say.
Daniel K. Eng: So two categories would be people who come looking for work, and many of them you said you start small businesses. You mentioned Chinese takeaways. We call those Chinese takeouts in the US. And then and then you also mentioned foreign students, like you.
Tommy Kyaw Tun: Yeah, like myself, yeah.
Daniel K. Eng: Caleb, what brought your family to Ireland?
Caleb Teo: Yeah, good question. So, very similar to what Tommy already said. My grandfather on my mom’s side from Hong Kong was a good businessman. He had restaurants in Hong Kong and he wanted to set up a restaurant in Ireland. I think a lot of people coming from Hong Kong to the UK set up takeout or takeaways, and I think he saw an opportunity to come to Ireland so he came to Ireland and set up a restaurant here and that’s how my mom would have came as well. So she would be about I think she came over when she was like 15. She came over to study. That’s how she ended up in Ireland, through that take away business from my granddad.
My dad’s slightly different. He kind of came a little later. And he actually originally studied in England for his first three years of secondary school, and then for his college, he came to Ireland to do his his masters. And so that’s how he came to Ireland.
Daniel K. Eng: What are the churches doing in terms of reaching Chinese and Ireland that you can share about your church you can share about what what’s been going on more broadly.
Tommy Kyaw Tun: Yeah. I suppose just before we get to that specific question. In recent times, between immigration and demographics changes, there’s a lot of prediction that say, for example, like people from Hong Kong would decline [and so would] the Cantonese congregation and so on.
But of course with a lot of the recent developments in Hong Kong and China, so many of them have arrived and landed here. So I just want to say that you really can’t see too far in the distant future as to what God would do to any population and with the landscape and for our churches.
So whereas we thought that we will be driving and more and more developing the Mandarin and English ministries, seeing the Cantonese side getting older and so on, and less and less people to reach out those who have been shared with in terms of the gospel, or reached out visited etc have all been done and cleared. Bt actually now there’s so many more who are just coming to the church that we don’t even have to go to them. They’re just coming to meet us to seek God or other practical help and advice. I think there’s a mix of both.
Apart from that then locally I mean, Ireland is a small country so you can get from one side to the other pretty much in two hours, three hours—some of the more remote places 4, 5, 6 hours. But the bulk of the cities are reached within two hours say. So to visit them and then the towns in between you can do that in day trips.
So once a year, for example, we will have a little “visiting different parts of Ireland” mission like local short-term mission. And apart from that then the bulk of it, especially on the Chinese side, will be on based on like festive events whether it’s mid-autumn festival, Dragonboat Festival, Chinese New Year, Christmas, of course, and so on etc.
In the English side, we do outreach a little bit differently. It’s probably more one-on-one testimony, sharing, and visiting. We’ve tried a few big events parties and picnics and barbecues—hit and miss, variable response. Either way, I think you know, we need to have one to one connections or small groups and so on for doing that.
Caleb Teo: Yeah, I wanted to add to that as well. Tommy has already kind of said it there. We’ve done a few things here and there but definitely from my perspective as being an Irish-born Chinese and second generation among my peers, like Tommy said already, Ireland is quite small. So there is already a lot of connection. Those who are second generations, they would know each other or you would know someone who knows someone and you’d be able to find a connection quite quickly. So it really is like Tommy says it’s really a more smaller group, not necessarily bigger events to reach out but those friendships or connections that you have.
One thing as well. I think on the English side we do a bit or we’ve been doing it quite a bit for now a few years. It’s like kind of summer camps for kids. We do support the kids ministry in the other parts, running Sunday school or sometimes kids outreach programs and kids summer camps. They would be kinds of things that I guess our English-speaking congregation has responded well to and both found found a purpose in it and to get some good response out of those well.
Daniel K. Eng: As you are are ministering and being involved in the church scene, I know that you’ve gotten involved in some of the things in the UK as well. And you’ve gotten to know some of the church leaders there. What are some things that are, you find that are similar, but maybe some things that might be unique for Chinese and Ireland?
Tommy Kyaw Tun: Caleb, you want to take that first?
Caleb Teo: For between Ireland and UK for at least the Irish Born Chinese, British who are Chinese we have definitely felt that there’s like a lot of similarities. I mean, that’s why we’ve connected so much with them. Over the years, I’ve had so many good friends over there, who I can just connect to and chat with, and, and really have fellowship with. Because I guess there is not too much of a cultural difference between Ireland and England, this is a bit different school system and different subjects and parts of that.
But the, I guess the identity part of you know, being raised Chinese, but in a western culture that that that’s like that main connection. And so there’s similarity in that kind of connection there. I can’t really think of anything that’s too different. The only real big thing is, I think when Tommy mentioned already with, with the Hong Kong families coming to the UK, and are the smaller, so we don’t have as big of a scale or complete change in landscape of people arriving, we have to we, that that’s just more of a scale difference, not necessarily difference.
Tommy Kyaw Tun: Yeah, and a few other differences on this, probably actually more so to do with just bog standard factors like geography and, and so on. So again, size and differences. So like, our church is probably one of the main churches, Chinese churches, or Chinese heritage churches in Ireland. There are a few other smaller churches slash gatherings, house gatherings, and so on, some registered, not some, some not.
But in UK, for example, in the large cities, you’ll have one or maybe more in each center, or each each large city. And when they go from when a student goes from, say, secondary school, high school to university, they very often leave one city, the home church, so to speak, go to another one. And so, you know, part of it part of the growing up is to plug themselves in into another university group and other church ministries, whereas in our church, it tends to be like, you know, you go straight from kids, to teens, youth to university to young adults, all in the same church, pros and cons.
So, in terms of second generation, growing up Irish-born Chinese or brethren, that that is a definitely a very different experience from saying the UK.
Daniel K. Eng: You briefly mentioned the the influx of Hong Kongers, who are coming to the islands here. And that’s kind of shifted some of the ministry approaches. But you know, what, what, what would you say are some of the needs of Irish Chinese right now and how the church has meeting that?
Tommy Kyaw Tun: Irish Chinese Christians or Irish Chinese?
Daniel K. Eng: You can go either way with that.
Tommy Kyaw Tun: Yeah. Oh, I suppose. I suppose very generically. I mean, I mentioned briefly that, you know, people might be coming to church for different reasons. So and I think, in fact, perhaps on the status, right is more developed than here. Here, there’ll be some about like, you know, accomodation finding finding car schools that the usual etc. But we might not have as much opportunities for a full fledged old age ministry, daycare centers, some which I know is very well developed, especially maybe in certain parts of, of Chinatowns, and so on. And if Chinese heritage and Chinese are there many for long time in Chinatowns.
So apart from that, pretty generic, I mean, you know, some specific ones that I’ve come across recently, for some, like the teenagers or the youth of the people, the families who claim there you know, between language or feeling that whether they fit in or don’t fit in may or may not be able to intermingle with the youth groups, those who are already in the youth group here. From I think we have less of an issue in terms of integration between, say the Cantonese and Mandarin, maybe some but not so much. Here. Sometimes in UK, that’s been, you actually have to set up a completely different ministry for them.
But so far, I don’t think we have we’re not quite there yet. I mean, there’s a little bit of emphasis on like, you know, doing maybe doing a separate group for them, but it’s not fully trashed out just yet.
Daniel K. Eng: So what what what do you have now and what would you say need to might need to be developed? Can you?
Tommy Kyaw Tun: I suppose we will, of course, we still take you know, we’ll strive on integrating and helping people to settle in. Across the generations and across the languages. So whether it’s, you know, the parents who are coming as first generation, their children who are coming as you know, not quite even one and a half, but some of them are younger, some are older, some could be older as ready to go to university already.
So finding friendships, finding groups that they can feel that they can belong to, maybe even areas of ministry they can serve. None of that should be taken for granted. And, you know, I suppose the hazard or the danger is, is people can come in and get paid doing things. But do we do the people actually get to know each other relationally, and so on. I certainly am one who thinks that, you know, apart from doing and serving together, etc, people need to invest in time just getting to know each other. I think that’s really important. Because otherwise, it’s easy, as people get busy and so on, etcetera, and they don’t know each other, you know, misunderstandings turns into conflicts, and so on and so forth. So, basically, integrated harmoniously, relationally, I think would be a key priority, I think.
Caleb Teo: Yeah I agree with what Tommy is saying there, I just tried to take up some examples of people who are coming in. And it’s like, it is definitely a challenge in terms of integration. And it’s like, you can see the, from the youth perspective, you know, some of the, especially our teenagers are teenagers, sometimes, but socially awkward, or need a bit of an encouragement to reach out. But you can see those who come in who’s been more shy, you to actually spend time with them, get to know them, help them integrate, you know, the community is a huge part of that the fact that it has family, as a parents connected to other parents, with the parents connect with the church and in the kitchen and connect with other teenagers, it works well.
And even there’s some cases where there’s teenagers who recently come over. Their parents aren’t here, the parents are in Hong Kong, and they came here to study. But there is this lovely lady who brings them out on Sundays, and really encourages them. Pretty much like a mom, even though she’s at the moment. And she’s wonderful for that. And she knows she’s invested time in that. And that’s really supportive for me as a youth leader, and to know that she is committed to bringing the youth out to then we can then get I know, you know, there’s a lot of work to do there. Because, you know, maybe they aren’t, you know, feel welcome, what do they need to settle in and feel like they belong, but at least if they’re out, we can have the time with them to get to know them. And they’re good. They’re good guys, you know, so it’s, you know, the idea of that, and committing to a relationship to time to help people integrate. Yeah. 100%.
Daniel K. Eng: You mentioned integration, and you mentioned some growing ministries. What are some other ways we can be praying for your church to the ministries and the Chinese in Ireland?
Tommy Kyaw Tun: Yeah, so I think I think not unique to our church, our church needs a lot of prayer with regards to for the leadership, you know, between like, the different generations, so what I call G1 versus G2, or I have another label called G2O, so these are people who are actually more they’re coming in and, and actually, they’re first generation in the sense that they are the first ones here, but they’ve come in a later stage, and in many ways, culturally, very much more like G2 like people like Caleb, in terms of thinking, openness to change, and so on, etc. They’re fluent in English, even though they may be coming from China and so on. So, I mean, I did my own thesis on hand generation leadership, dissertation and interviewed various leaders and members in my church.
And I think it’s a critical thing to be able to try to develop a healthy kind of pan generational leadership for across the generations across the different congregations in a Chinese heritage church like ours, like we’re up to about 500 people and twenty something odd leaders in terms of like deacons, pastors, elders, so again, unity, respecting learning to know how to work with each other, and so on, etc, so important, because it’s such an impact on them across all the generations, not just for a second generation English ministry that were involved in. But I think it has a lot of impact as well on a Chinese congregation. Very often, they may feel like we’re not, we’re getting further and further away from them, but that’s not the intention. Right. So, I think these are things which are not unique to our church, and then wisdom in doctrine, preaching, faithful preaching, and so on. Yeah.
Caleb Teo: Yeah, I think the answer to that is as like, for the leadership and praying for our leaders is, you know, the idea of yeah, I think unity. When I think of unity, I think of you know, the idea that you have to work together and communicate. But of course in communication, that miscommunication I think a lot of what I feel that it’s needed more is forgiveness and grace, to each other, and this idea of from being a point of humility to be able to help no two, to want to understand each other, to take the time to understand each other. And sometimes, I think, you know, as a church life is busy, or even life is busy, you kind of tell prior to time and you kind of get on, but I think that does more harm than good. So I think yeah, for, for grace and forgiveness and for time and understanding each other, I really think we know God will be able to bless us in growing in that.
Daniel K. Eng: Yeah, it’s encouraging to hear that there are efforts being made to reach and disciple others. Also echo some of the same prayer requests that you have. And it just seems to be some of those. Some of those are very common concerns that we hear at churches in general. And so but thank you for the work that you do. I’m encouraged by your desire and the the ministries that you have through your church there in Dublin, right?
Well, thanks a lot, Tommy and Caleb for your time. And this was a blast interview and I appreciate being able to chat with you. Alright. Take care, everybody.
Caleb Teo: Thank you for having us. Thank you.