An Unexpected Post

I know there is a lot I have to fill you in on.  There's Hua Shan.  More swimming.  A Tea Ceremony After school Monday.  A 108-degree day. And of course the Katie situation. 

 

Unfortunately today, I don't have enough time to do all that.  I'm still sleep deprived, so it's really only the fact that I was completely inspired by today's activity that I'm writing at all. 

 

Today, we had a fashion show with traditional Chinese costumes.  It was really fun and I have some awesome pictures.  Jade and Jonathon looked absolutely awesome in their Tang dynasty emperor/empress costumes.  Sarah looked like Princess Peach in this pink courtier dress.  Everyone dressed up and basically took silly photos.  I tried on a soldier costume, which didn't really fit, and a set of courtier robes. It was fun but not the reason I wanted to post today. 

 

After Culture Class, we had our weekly RD meeting.  Wei Lao Shi and He Lao Shi have a topic for us to discuss that will help us better understand and reflect on our time in China. 

 

Then Noah, Sarah, Jade and I ventured across the street to buy rou jia mo (a Xi'an "snack" that is called the Chinese Hamburger. It's really good, although this place was only so-so compared to Wai Po's.)  We were going to volunteer at a soup kitchen later and so wouldn't be getting home until around seven. 

 

The soup kitchen we visited, the Yellow River Soup Kitchen, was the first of it's kind in China.  For some reason, volunteering or even just helping someone in need is frowned upon in China.  Wei Lao Shi posted an article for us to read before we went about the "bystander problem" in China.  The Chinese people put a lot of emphasis on guan xi (relationships).  There's this idea with guan xi that you always trade favors and the favors you return should be bigger than the ones you were given.  This concept nullifies the idea of community service because why bother to form a relationship with someone who can't repay the favor?   The article is http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/24/chinas-bystander-problem-another-death-after-crowd-ignores-woman-in-peril/?tid=pm_world_pop

 

The Yellow River Soup Kitchen was founded by a foreigner almost 9 years ago.  It was literally the first soup kitchen in China.  It's nearly impossible to become a nonprofit organization in China as the government monitors everything all the time.  The Yellow River Soup Kitchen tries to avoid any problems by doing no advertising or trying to raise awareness in any way.  Everything is word of mouth.  I mean they're legal, but it's still best to draw as little attention as possible. They provide dinner Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays and organize different activities on the Weekends.  They have a building where people come to eat and they have teams of people delivering food to the homeless who can't make it there.  Every penny (should this be every Yuan) goes directly to helping the community.  Everyone's a volunteer and works another job including Tony, the founder who's either Australian or English (I pride myself on my ability to pick out accents but I couldn't quite identify it. Some of the students were saying he sounded slightly Irish, but it definitely wasn't Irish.)

 

We didn't even get to volunteer there tonight.  I mean we washed a crate of peaches for dinner, but there was a miscommunication and dinner didn't start until 7, when we had to leave.  It was still an incredibly eye opening experience.  In China, being hungry is so much worse than America.  It means that you have absolutely no family because the Chinese value system demands that you always care for your family.  Food is so much cheaper.  And besides this one soup kitchen and a few State run programs through out China, there is no help.  You're considered a complete flaw in society and people act like you don't exist and no one offers help. 

 

There aren't religion organizations to fall back on either, because religion in general is frowned upon in China.  Religion was literally on the topic of things to not bring up at any cost.  Any nonprofit organization with even a tiny connection to a religious group has no chance of passing the government codes.  The Yellow River Soup Kitchen is not officially connected to the Church, but they have a building the Church built on the property. 

 

As a Catholic, it's been weird being separated from my religion (well not separated so much, but there is this feeling that it's forbidden. And religion as I mentioned earlier is a banned topic.) I know some of the other kids have been having some problems too.  The two Mormon kids in my class will talk all the time and one girl (her Dad is a Southern Baptist Minister) went on a rant the other day about how to tell the difference between a real Christian and a fake Christian. Her tone the entire time was extremely condescending as if she was absolutely perfect.  Yes there are people who identify themselves as Christians but don't practice every little detail of the religion.  There are people like that in every religion.  I'm sorry she just really got on my nerves especially when she continued this rant when we were in an actual Church. 

 

Okay there I said it.  I had the pleasure of being in an actual Church today.  It was incredible.  According to Colleen, the alter was the one on the Catholic Answers Page about Christianity in China.  I was just so overjoyed.  As I knelt in a pew, I had my favorite psalm/hymn running through my head.  (It's "This is the Day!"  in case any one really wanted to know.)

 

I wish I could have taken pictures, but my camera was at the school, as it wasn't allowed for volunteering.  The church was very interesting.  The Ten Commandments were written on pillars through out the church in English and in Chinese. 

 

There were few people in the Church besides all the NSLI kids.  There was one man sitting on the right hand side of the church about halfway up the rows of pews praying the rosary.  He would cough loudly whenever the NSLI group was getting too loud but he just continued praying. 

 

Colleen and I ended up praying the rosary together.  It felt so good to finally be able to pray aloud with someone else. 

 

We had spent some time looking at the different paintings.  There were just a few, one of someone who was clearly Mary, but the others were different Saints.  It was really a beautiful church.  It felt calming to see the different images from home painstakingly painted on the ceiling. 

 

I also received an image of a statue of Mary and Jesus that stands in Taiwan.  He Lao Shi talked to a man who was from Taiwan and visiting the church.  She in turn gave it to me.  It's got some Chinese writing on the back of the photo.  It's hard to read.  I can recognize the word for Catholic and that's about it.  I'm still so thankful to have the picture though.  I'm also so thankful that I have Colleen.  It keeps me from feeling so isolated. 

 

Wei Lao Shi encouraged us to come back at a later date in small groups.  Katie and I definitely want to.  I also want to get there just a little early so I can visit the church again.  It was a good day. 

 

I'll write more soon about the past few days. It's just a lot to cover and we're so incredibly busy.