China Part III

After Arriving back in Hong Kong on the 14th of July we spent a number of days visiting the places we had yet to see there.

We visited the Hong Kong seminary and a number of Hong Kong churches including their cathedral. We made a stop at the downtown Catholic center. To my surprise they have almost every book you would hope to find at a Catholic book store in the United States. The churches like almost all that I have seen in my visit were of Gothic architecture. It was interesting to see the European influence. I don't remember seeing a distinctly Chinese church except for maybe the Hong Kong Seminary's chapel. And there have been little to none of what we would call modern church architecture.

Human Rights Group

On Monday the 19th, we visited with a few people who work at the China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group. This group is a non-governmental organization which helps lawyers in China in various ways. They help them with funding and advice in order to bring their case through the courts. They also get the word out, mostly through email and blogs, about injustices going on throughout China. This, slowly but surely, puts pressure on the govt to give a little bit by bit. Because China has signed the United Nations Human Rights Accord, this group does what they can to hold China to what they agreed to. This has been the most successful method of putting pressure on China, using this accord that China has agreed to.

Later that afternoon, I found my way to the shipping yard which is just Ginormous! I really enjoy seeing the big ships come in and out. These are different than the ships that come to Duluth. These are container ships rather than iron ore or grain ships. I'm not sure how much business is done through the Hong Kong port but whenever I look out the window of the retreat house there are at least five huge container ships passing by. I haven't done any research but I have a lot of respect for the guy who invented the idea of the container, who standardize shipping in that way. They can be moved by train, tractor-trailer, or ship. It makes it really efficient. I appreciate efficiency. Remember, I am also a business major.

Dinner with a Communist

On the 20th of July, we took a ferry back to the mainland where we met a few priests, one who was elected bishop and is now waiting approval from the Vatican. The highlight of the day was our dinner with a woman who was taught English by a Maryknoll priest and has a relationship with other Maryknoll priests and brothers. The catch is that she and her husband are members of the Communist party. After dinner, she took us seminarians for a walk and to a tea-shop. That was really cool to see how they do tea. It is a science/art and something I can really appreciate. Anyways during the tea, we learned that she was a Communist and we got talking about how and why we wanted to become priests. We mentioned how we want to help people and I in particular mentioned how I want to share the hope and peace that I have from knowing Christ and living a Christian life. She said that our beliefs coincide with what she desires as well. But I had to point out that our hope lies in the life to come not what is here on earth. This is a big difference even here on earth. If you believe in God and the life to come you aren't going to be as concerned with squeezing every ounce of enjoyment out of life. In this way you are free to sacrifice for others. However, if you believe this is all there is, you will tend to take advantage of this life and others in a negative way. We also talked about other realities of life such as death, suffering, and the meaning in life. It was a great blessing to actually talk to a Communist and actually get a sense of what they believe, how they think, their philosophy on life.

Leprosarium

The following day, the 21st of July was one that I will never forget. We visited a leprosarium in the rural part of Southern China. Like everything in China, they have a director from the Communist party but there is an Italian Salesian priest, a lay Italian woman and four sisters that help run things around there. And I mean "help" run things around there because the people with Hansen's disease are given a lot of responsibility and are able to do a lot for themselves. It is a self sustaining community. They have a few men who make shoes for the community. These shoes are very important because with Hansen's disease the person's nerve endings are destroyed and so they don't feel pain when they over use their feet walking. So these shoes are modified to lessen the pressure in particular places where there are sores developing. There are also men there who fabricate prosthetics there. They had some very nice equipment brought in from Germany so that they can make them right on site. The sisters help with the clinic where they change the bandages every morning of the people there.

There is a blind woman there named Maria who when the priests and sisters were kicked out during the Cultural Revolution, kept the faith going by leading prayers daily until the Church was allowed back in around '79.

The World Health Organization pays fully for the medicine to treat Hansen's disease. The catch is that the person must be registered through the govt, and because leprosy makes a region look bad and affects the economy, they are reluctant to register the people.

But this medicine if taken correctly for two years will make a patient noncontagious and stop the disease from killing more nerve endings. Even with an active case of Hansen's disease, only 3%-5% of the world's population is susceptible to the disease. Therefore, there was no risk at all touching and loving these people. In fact, this was what I enjoyed most about being there. Most of the guys said they could see Christ in these people very easily. I agree, but I also felt like I could be Christ to them. They were so joyful and just wanted to touch and love on you. They didn't want any money,just your attention. In that way I was able to give them what they wanted, I was able to love them as Christ does, which was a true blessing for me.

We celebrated mass with them. There is no pre-requisite of being catholic to live there, but 99% of them are catholic. The organist has one hand that works normally, but one hand that suffers from contraction which is a symptom of Hansen's disease. So in his right hand he puts a chopstick in order to push the keys.

The following day we stopped in Macau on our way back to Hong Kong. Macau is a small Island which used to be a Portuguese colony but was given to China in much of the same way Hong Kong was. We visited a nursing home for elderly men and celebrated mass with them. It is such a joy to see the faith of these men. Some blind, some not being able to do much, yet they are singing and vociferously saying the prayers.

Unfortunately Macau is becoming the Las Vegas of the Orient. Gambling and prostitution and drugs are becoming more and more prevalent. The more I see of the world the more I realize how much we need Christ!

China Part II

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July 9th, the feast of Sts. Augustine Zhao Rong and companions. These are Chinese martyrs who died in the past 150 years or so. This includes those who died during the Cultural Revolution, 1966-1976. Mao Zedong is believed to be the biggest force behind the Revolution. He wanted to eradicate anything and all things that were seen as threats to the Communist party. This included all religions. So many Christians were martyred during these years. We visited the graves of 14 Christian martyrs from the rural parish we were staying at. Seven priests and Seven sisters were martyred for their belief in the Christian God. It was special to be able to pray at the graves of these Chinese martyrs on the day that the Church recognizes the Chinese saint martyrs.

That evening we took the bus from Shenyang to Changchun. There we met Fr. Li who is the Diocesan administrator for the diocese of Jilin. There bishop died a year ago and they are now finally preparing to elect another. Remember that in China the official Church elects there bishops and hopefully they are faithful to Rome and ask to be recognized by the Holy See. Fr. Li studied in Rome so we communicated to him in Italian. Its crazy to think that we would be speaking in Italian in China, that that would be our language of communication, but there were about four priests total who studied in Rome so we communicated in Italian because they knew very little English and we knew no Chinese.

The following morning, July 10th, we took the bus to Yanji where we spent three nights with Fr. Tom Egan who is a retired Maryknoll priest from Pennsylvania. He is in Yanji because they have a large number of Koreans living there and he spent 14 years in Korea as a pastor. He teaches English now unofficially and has a few bible studies and covers the local parishes every once in awhile. He his technically a tourist and has to "tag up" every three months. This means he just has to go through immigration and then he is allowed to go back in. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense if you ask me. During our time in Yanji we visited the parish there and and a number of parishes in the area. Almost every parish offers masses in both Chinese and Korean. We also had the opportunity to go to the North Korean and Russian borders. There is a spot close to the Sea of Japan where China, Russia, and North Korea meet. It was quite remarkable to see three of the most isolated countries in the world at once like that. There is very little traffic back and forth from China to North Korea. China puts forth great effort to ensure that North Koreans are not sneaking across the border into China. For most of the border between the two countries, it is the Tumen River which separates the two.

Again the priests in this area were so generous. One priest, who had a van drove us all around the area, showing us the various parishes and was the one who took us to the border.

Also, during our time in Yanji, we visited the Yanbian Hospice. It is run by St. John of God brothers. This is a good example of how the Church works with the Government. The Government owns the land, they own all the land in China, and the people lease it. Therefore, they can take it back whenever. The St. John of God community paid for the construction of the hospice and pay for its operations. They are not allowed to do anything religious related. No prayers with the patients, no crucifixes in the rooms. If one of the patients is Catholic, they have to have an outside priest come and anoint the patient. The craziest thing is that the communist party appoints some doctor from their party to be in charge. Now, this communist doctor like the heads of all other sorts of organizations doesn't do much at all. In fact, he rarely comes around. But his job is to check on things and make sure that they aren't doing anything they aren't supposed to. So this means that the hospice must have their own doctor who actually does work around there. These doctors are considered co-presidents of the hospice. The worst part is that the brothers are forced to pay for this communist party doctor to be the overseer of their work. This is one of the ways that the party keeps control of things. They do the same thing with schools. The school will have an active principle who actually cares about the school and the kids and they will be forced to pay for another principle from the communist party who has control and veto power over the operations of the place.

On July 12th, we went back to Jilin City where we were to fly out in the morning back to Hong Kong. Life was much different in Northern China. It was much cooler, 70's and the sun rose much earlier as I pointed out in my previous post.

So on July 13th, we arrived back in Hong Kong where we briefly said hi to Martin and Jun, the other NAC seminarians who were basically switching places with us. They were going North and we are going to spend time in the southern part of China and Taiwan.

Our time in North East China was great. Fengxiang was our photographer while we were in Beijing. She is Wongwei's friend. She was always taking pictures. I am grateful to her for helping me rember the time through her photos. Wongwei, (Wrong Way! haha) Fr. Brian Barrons' secretary was so good to us. She is fluent in both Chinese and English and she knew everywhere to go and what to do. I couldn't imagine a better way to travel China. She got us everywhere we needed to be. We were so blessed. So I am so very grateful to her.


Praise God!

China Part I

Tianemin Square



I am a pro now with the chop-stix

The Beijing Crew in front of the Bird's Nest!

Myself, Mike, Wongwei, Fengxiang, and Nick Barnes

I just returned to the Maryknoll retreat house in Hong Kong last night. I enjoyed the past two weeks on the mainland of China. Ho had the opportunity and wanted to put up a few posts while I was there but the communist government has this website blocked. To be honest this was the only real personal negative experience I had of the communist country. I wasn't able to check facebook or create a new post on my blog, other than that I really didn't feel as if I was in a communist country except for talking to other people and listening to their experiences.

On July 1st, flew to Beijing. We spent four nights there at a youth hostel. This was the first hostel I have stayed at, and it was a much better experience than I had expected. For four nights it was less than $40 (U.S.). Lodging and food is so inexpensive for foreigners. I should qualify that. Food that isn't from an American chain is very inexpensive, however, a coffee from Starbucks, McDonald's, a blizzard from DQ costs as much as it does in the States. With that said, you can understand how expensive those items are for the Chinese. Electronic prices are also relatively comparable to the States. Most nights we ate a full dinner for less than $3 each.

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Why is this? China "pegs" their currency. Meaning the government artificially injects Chinese dollars into the market so that the supply increases which causes (all other things held equal) the value of the Chinese Yuan to decrease. The U.S. for years has been trying to get China to stop this because it creates an unequal balance between our exports and imports with China. We buy all their goods because they are inexpensive, but they buy very few of ours and we buy few of ours because we can get them cheaper overseas. This is one of the reasons why a lot of our manufacturing companies are struggling and moving overseas. So with everything there is a tradeoff. This strategy of keeping the Yuan devalued helps Chinese businesses, American visitors (me) to China, but hurts the Chinese consumers, and American businesses.

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Now that we are done with the economics lesson, I shall continue. In Beijing, we visited the Great Wall, the Forbidden Kingdom, the Temple of Heaven, the Water Cube (home of the swimming events at the 2008 Olympics), the Bird's Nest (home of the opening and closing ceremonies along with the track and field events), and Tianemin Square where I saw Mao Zedong. Mao is the first Chinese chairman, he is the founder of the Communist party. He looks as if he is an incorruptible saint. They have him lying dressed in a suit in a glass room and people are allowed to walk in and see him. The guards keep the people moving and you are not allowed to take pictures. I'm not sure how they have him looking so good, it may be just a wax replica of him or they may have electricity running through his body ( his face seemed to glow orange).

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We also visited two parishes and the seminary there. Both these churches looked like a church you would find in Europe or the U.S. there wasn't anything distinctly Chinese about them. The people have a great love for our Mother Mary, they have a great reverence for the Eucharist and a particularly strong devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. They are drawn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus because it is an image that attracts all and speaks to all cultures. Every culture including the Chinese refers to the heart as the center of the person, so the Chinese can really relate to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

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On July 5th, we took a night train up to Jilin City which is to the north-west of North Korea. We attended mass at the local parish there a couple of mornings, visited the seminary, and the catholic social services center there as well. They do good work but don't get help from the government. They allow it though because they do work that the government doesn't have to.

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On July 8th, we traveled south in a bus and spent the night at a rural parish where 4000 of the 4000 inhabitants are catholic. It was so great to see. It was just as you see in the movies of old parish life and what some of our older blog readers would be familiar with. At mass the children all sat up front with the boys on the left and the girls on the right. The men sat in the back on the right and the women sat in the back on the left. The two sisters at the parish were up front making sure the kids were behaving. More than once the sister would take one of the boys back to sit with her. Mass was at 5:30 but the church was full at 5pm. The teenage girls led prayers including the rosary before the start of mass. It was very encouraging to see the faith of this small village. The next morning we celebrated mass at 5:10am. It used to be at 4am but the priests wanted it later so they compromised. Why so early? First, everyone in the town farms. Second, because Mao ( the dead guy they have on display for everyone to see) wanted everyone in China to be on the same schedule, he implemented one time zone for the whole country! So when I was there, the sun rose at 3:30am. We have four time zones in the States and we are comparable size to China, so you can get an idea of what it would be like to have one time zone.

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I'll write Part II tomorrow. There is just so much to talk about. The people have been so generous and kind to us. Part of the reason why Maryknoll has this program for us is so that can experience China and in particular the Catholic Church in China and someday return as missionaries for 3-5 years with the consent of our bishops. It is something that feel I should consider. I have truly only been receiving the generosity of others here. I haven't done much and want to return the favor in some way, someday. So God willing, I'll be back here some day.

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The interesting thing is that it won't be for awhile. This is because China will not allow any foreign priests into the country. They will shut down whatever you are doing within a matter of months. The priests in China are strictly teaching, and celebrating a mass here and there as a substitute. So I was confused, all these Chinese priests we met said I hope you come back some day, but why would I come back just to teach English and have some pastoral work on the side. So I asked one of the priests about this confusion, something has to give. He said that he doesn't think communism can last here. The only thing holding the country together is the communist party. China is too big and the more it grows economically the harder it will be for so few of people to control this great number of people. He thought in thirty years there will be not be a communist party in charge. What will the country look like then? He didn't know, maybe a number of smaller countries, sort of like the U.S.S.R after the fall of communism there. Now I don't know how common of a view that is but it seems to make sense. I think that is why in Hong Kong there are many, many priests and religious. They are all just waiting for the opportunity to get into China.

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But while there is a communist party in charge, there is little that a foreign priest could do.