Blog Post #11

Wuhan, China, Thursday, April 3, 2014

Today we both had some interesting experiences and conversations, always learning more about this diverse and wonderful culture and community. There are so many things we will remember and miss. Only one more day here, and then we fly out to Beijing at 8 a.m. Saturday.

Jim taught his class this morning and I sat and listened and marveled at the change in the students from his first class with them. Since they are used to lectures and rote repetition learning, it took him a lot of cajoling and encouraging to get them to react and respond. But by today they were laughing and sharing their ideas and even disagreeing with him at points. They really know the Bible and have memorized many verses, and can cite chapter and verse. That is amazing to see.  We ate lunch with a bunch of them and they thought that was great. Even the cooks gave us a thumbs up as we walked in, and one cook took a cell phone photo of us as we walked through the cafeteria line!

I will attach an account from Jim of his afternoon.  As for me, I met Pei Pei and Jasper, after lunch. They are two workers at church who volunteered to take me on a tour of a certain part of town and help me buy some gifts for our grandchildren. We walked through a charming street of shops, artisan studios and eating-places. They were good negotiators for me, and never let me pay the asked for price, always working on the shopkeeper until the price seemed good to them. One of them, Pei Pei, said she was from Hubei, this province, so she speaks the local accent and she was sure that helped us get the best price. She said merchants try to get higher prices from anyone with an out of town accent, and certainly for me, looking a foreign as I do, they would “go for the gold.”  We visited lots of toyshops and little artisan places. My photos show women doing incredibly detailed and delicate embroidery. We also saw a lot of paper cutwork, also very detailed designs, cut and then painted in vibrant colors, with symbols representing long life, happiness, wealth, contentment etc.  I offered them a snack, and they said they would pick, so we got yigin tofawan (I think), which is a sweet tofu pudding, much like vanilla yogurt. It was refreshing on a warm day like today. I wore a cross around my neck today and in several stores the shopkeeper or clerk asked me if I was a Christian and said “I am too” and would show me a cross they were wearing.

After the student chapel this evening we had a snack with Lydia, who has a great sense of humor and is a real friend to us. She is fro Guilin, in Guangdong Province, way in the south. She told us a couple of interesting things. First, most Chinese are Han, there are some Manchurians who come from the north, and there are about 24 minority groups, many from the western part of the country. There is only one written language but many languages and even more regional dialects. But there is a lot of variation in facial features and skin color among the Han, probably depending on what part of the country a person comes from, and perhaps whether they have worked outside or not. Many women want their skin to be as white as possible, thus the umbrellas in the sun and the many creams some of them us. Manchurians tend to be larger in frame, and taller. 

As to religion, Muslims are growing at a great rate. They have in the past lived in the western areas, much less settled. The Tartars and the Mongols are examples of such Muslims, but there are many other ethnic groups as well. Muslims are exempt from the one child policy and are also exempt from having to send their children to school. So they have been moving to cities all around China, with their large families. Their children have lots of children, Lydia said, and so do their grandchildren, so there get to be a lot of Muslims in an area that they move into. They often open up noodle shops or restaurants and people regard their food as clean. They like their food laws and regard their food as fresh. I think they cook in a different way than a wok so they don’t use as much oil, and, of course, no pork. So their businesses prosper and the kids help out because they don’t go to school.

There are quite large Jewish populations in several cities, Shanghai and a couple other places she named, one in Hunan Province north of here. A friend of hers who lives there said that the Jews have lived there a very long time and are really regarded as Chinese. Some keep their religious practices more than others. They seem to be respected.

The surprise for me was the attitude toward the Buddhists.  She said they are viewed as commercial. They sell incense to burn at the temple, and she said a stick of incense could cost 1000 Yuan, or $160. When you go in a temple, a priest will offer to tell your fortune and then charge you more for that. And if you arrange to have prayers made for someone who has died in your family, there is a charge for that as well. So she said many people don’t see them as very religious, though she acknowledged that there were some very serious devoted Buddhists as well.

One day at lunch we met a teacher at the seminary who is a professor at Hubei University and teaches a course in Western Philosophy at the seminary. He said western views are very difficult for Chinese because the underlying base is so different, from the Greeks right on down to the present. But this description of religion makes me wonder if gradually the world is changing in even such fundamental ways.