Communism? Where?

Before hopping over the Pacific about a month ago, I knew China has been liberalizing its economy for a couple decades now. Full on central planning is out, and it seems the nation is on a tenacious march toward becoming a decidedly market economy, practically not much different then our own. It has been over thirty years since Deng Xiaoping’s call for a transition to a “socialist market economy” was met with widespread enthusiasm.

I knew the government was administering this transition in a slow and deliberative fashion, however, so I still expected to see some remnants of the country’s communist past.

I was wrong. Walking down the streets of Beijing, it quickly became quite clear that there is nothing but capitalism here as far as what meets the eye. The grocery stores, massage parlors, and restaurants are seemingly locked in a fierce competition for our tourist dollars. This first impression was affirmed time and time again during our week in Beijing, and has been further solidified during my stay in Shanghai.

I recently learned two interesting things on this subject:

1.     1) Economic communism is very much alive and active in China, it just occurs underneath the surface. As summarized by economist Stephen Jen:

First, the price of money is controlled: China does not yet have a meaningful yield curve. Interest rates are the prices of money and liquidity, and they are still mostly pre-set. Second, the prices of energy input are subsidised. Third, the price of the currency is distorted. In other words, three of the most important macroeconomic prices in China are controlled.

In other words, the state is still playing an active role in attempting to control their economy; it’s just mostly done in the financial and energy sectors, which despite their crucial importance, are not really seen while walking around on the streets.

2.     2) In 1965, 67.5% of industrial enterprises were state-owned, and the rest were partially state-owned. Now, only 15% of the businesses in China are owned by the state. While this reflects a massive decrease in the amount of economic activity that is done through the government, fifteen percent is still quite a lot. It seems though that this would be better described as socialist activity rather than communist; more sectors, like cell coverage, are under state control. The state isn’t telling anyone what jobs they can or cannot do.

It seems that Deng Xiaoping’s vision of a socialist market economy has come into fruition, and is being practicing as we speak. It will be interesting to see how much of a role the government maintains in the Chinese economy in the long run.

Not Allowed In Church

So here is something that never happens out West.

Last Friday I had about a four-hour lunch with my language partners; they are both Chinese college students from different parts of the country, studying at the same university I am. At some point during the conversation, I mentioned I was going to church on Sunday. They were quite curious about this and asked if they could come along, as they had never been to a church service before. I said of course, and told them to meet us at 3:15 on Sunday.

I was pretty psyched about this, so I mentioned it to my friends Colby and Vincent; they were equally enthusiastic, but told me they had heard that only foreign passport holders were allowed to attend the English service. This sounded ridiculous, that they would actually check some people’s ID at the door of a church, so I asked some of the Shanghai veterans in our new small group about this at a BBQ we had on Sunday before church. They confirmed that it was absolutely illegal for a Chinese citizen to attend an English service at an expat church. Had they ever heard of someone actually getting kicked out of a service? No. But if they came, they would run the risk of getting a permanent mark on their record.

The reason for this is that the government doesn’t censor the English services at all; it seems that as long as we don’t try to start an insurrection or something, we pretty much have free reign to talk about whatever we want. This church does offer services in Chinese as well though, which citizens are allowed to attend, as the sermons are looked over by government officials before they are preached. It seems they don’t censor too much out—the one example that a new friend of ours gave is that they must never mention abortion from the pulpit. Interesting, but given the country we’re in, not surprising.

It turned out one of my new friends couldn’t make it, but when I met up with the other just outside our dorms at 3:15, it was pretty awkward and strange trying to explain that he was not allowed to come inside our church because he was a Chinese citizen. This is a conversation I have never had, nor would like to have again soon. We are going to check out a Chinese service tonight though, so that will be cool. It will be weird that my friends and I, the Christians, won’t understand anything, but my new Chinese friend, the non-Christian, will understand perfectly. We’ll see how it goes!

Most Useful Chinese Phrases

It has been about a month since we stepped off the plane in the Beijing airport, and over the course of that time I have found myself saying the same few phrases over and over again. Here are the five I’ve used the most, plus a bonus one …

Wo ting bu dong.

This is like saying, “I hear you, but I have no idea what you’re saying to me.” I think it’s funny that the literal translation isn’t “I don’t understand,” but is actually “I listen no understand.” I guess we have to specify that we at least gave it a shot. Despite my still very underdeveloped speaking skills, I have made a point of practicing Mandarin whenever I have the opportunity, so I have had to become quite comfortable with this sentence.

Bu yao

This is the most important phrase to know when perusing the bargain markets; it means you don’t want whatever someone is offering you (literally “no want”). This won’t deter many of the vendors, but some will receive the message and back off.

Xie xie (approximately pronounced “Sheeuh Sheeuh”)

“Thank you.”

Ni hao (Knee how)

“Hello!”

Zai jian (“Tzai jien”)

If you are going to say hello, you’ll eventually have to say “goodbye!”

And just for fun …

Wo ai ni

Save this one for that special someone … “I love you.”

Congratulations, you have now pretty much mastered the language of Mandarin Chinese! Be sure to impress your Mandarin-speaking friends next time you see them!

"The Venice of China"

Nine of us had the opportunity on Saturday to take an $8 round-trip two-hour bus ride to the water village of Xitang (You may recognize it from Mission Impossible 3!).  There are several water villages in the area that compete for the title, “The Venice of China,” and we had heard that this one was the best preserved and least touristy of the set. Apparently it was once upon a time an important fishing village that was built at the intersection of nine different small rivers. I believe the town has been in existence for over a thousand years.

This place absolutely was a miniature, less wealthy, Chinese version of Venice; right when you walk through the gate of Xitang, the first thing you see is a bridge stretching over the water in a similar angle and structure (though scaled down) as the famous one depicted so often in it’s Italian sister, except this bridge appeared to have been layered with distinctly Chinese styling.  As we kept walking we finally made it to the central area, which was jam-packed with tourists—if this was the least touristy, I can’t imagine the other water villages. It was also jam-packed with tourist shops and restaurants; on one side of the walkway was the serene, albeit murky, water, on the other was annoying vendors selling every kind of trinket and cheap gadget you can think of.

Probably the coolest thing we got to do was take a twenty-minute gondola ride from one side of the town to the other. Gliding along the water with the Chinese dude in the back rowing, passing other boats (and even crashing into one), and going through all the bridges—all for a buck-fifty—was pretty amazing. Also our loud American antics, including singing Disney songs, drew quite a bit of attention from the other tourists; I don’t think the puzzled, amused looks we seem to get wherever we go will ever get old.

Overall it was a great day, and I am very happy we dragged ourselves out of bed at 6:15 to experience yet another crazy treasure of this huge country. We’re on to the famous Yellow Mountain next week for the national holiday during the first week of October. Supposedly the Hallelujah Mountains in Avatar were inspired by the scenery in this area, and just from the epic-looking pictures I've seen the connection is not difficult to see.

Underground Church

A little while ago, we got the chance to experience a service at an underground church in China. The underground church movement over here is something I have heard a lot about these past few years, and was something I was really keen on experiencing while over here, so I was very grateful when a new friend from the expat church we’ve been going to offered to take us with him. Some thoughts:

There is no way the government doesn’t know about this church. We arrived a little bit late (as usual) so the worship had already started; before entering, we could hear the music from outside the big room they were using, no problem. There were a few hundred people in there as well, so I can’t imagine they could all arrive and leave at the same time without looking conspicuous. I asked our new friend about this afterwards, and he agreed the in all likelihood, the Man probably had caught wind of this particular church; they had probably just calculated that shutting it down would be more trouble than it’s worth. Or perhaps there was a Christian, or at least a friendly government official in the position that makes that kind of decision. Either way, the group was carrying on without any state interference.

A few looks around confirmed that I was the only non-Asian in the building; I would guess that besides my three friends from our program and myself, there were no other foreigners in attendance. I really wanted to experience an authentic Chinese Christian church service, so I had evidently come to the right place. The lack of diversity was incredible though, the polar opposite of the expat church we go to.

The singing during the time of worship through song was quite loud, louder than at churches I normally go to back home. Also, our new Chinese friend told us something interesting about the worship songs: they are all just adapted from Chinese pop songs. The music is the same; they just change the lyrics to something more worshipful. This makes the creative side of my sad, but I suppose that while English worship music may be a big industry, Chinese praise brands aren’t quite there yet. So practically it does make sense to just use tunes people already know.

We of course had no idea what the pastor was speaking about, but our new friend gave us a rough summary over dinner afterwards. The message surprised me. It was about the relevance of obeying God in pursuing your dreams. The pastor had told two stories, one personal and one well known, that were basically rags-to-riches tales. In both cases, the protagonists worked hard and remained faithful, and eventually were blessed with an unexpected level of worldly success. This immediately reminded me of the “prosperity gospel” that is so often demonized (justifiably) back home, so it surprised me that this pastor over in Shanghai was flirting with it as well. Maybe he wasn’t—after all, I only heard a summary from an individual about an hour after the fact, and our friend could have left out important qualifiers the pastor was careful to include. Hopefully future visits will illuminate this for us.

Anyways, it was really cool to see a bit of this underground movement I had heard so much about. Hopefully as my Chinese gets a little better, I’ll be able to converse a little more with the other churchgoers and get a better feel for life as a native Christian in Shanghai. I’m sure it will be fascinating to hear from them!

Silk Roads to Super Trains: Has Authoritarian Rule Caused China's Rapid Growth?

In my Chinese Biz class yesterday, we learned that business practices in China originated from trading on the Silk Road. While routes across this area of Northern Africa, Eastern Europe, and Southern Asia existed before the Han Dynasty’s ascent to power in 202 B.C., it was greatly expanded during this family’s time at the helm.

This infrastructure development project served to greatly catalyze economic development wherever the extensive network of paths reached. Markets sprung up all over, the West started exchanging goods from the East (we got paper, wells, and typography, they got wine, our clothing style, plants, and music), and the existence of this road is attributed with the development of three fundamental business considerations: ensuring steady suppliers, reasonable prices, and building a reputation.

Long story short, development of the Silk Road was a brilliant economic move. While hearing about all the great things this Road enabled to happen, it reminded me of a TED talk I had watched recently. In this talk, MIT economist Yasheng Huang asks the question of whether authoritarian governments can foster economic growth better than democracies. In particular he looks at China and India, noting that one country has experienced rapid growth recently while the other only modest: in this case, the more authoritarian regime has presided over more efficient development.

Some have argued this is because China has the ability to quickly and deliberatively pour funds into expansions of infrastructure (highways, airports, bullet trains, and the like), in effect building a sort of modern Silk Road.

Mr. Huang disagrees, pointing to many other comparisons between developing countries with contrasting political systems. He recognizes that every East Asian authoritarian growth story (Taiwan, Hong Kong, South Korea) is matched by an authoritarian failure (North Korea, China under Mao, Pakistan).

In regards to the question of whether increased spending on infrastructure leads to economic development, Huang draws attention to an interesting fact: despite China’s growth advantage over the last thirty years, they have only had an infrastructure advantage since the late nineties. Accordingly, Huang rules out superior infrastructure as the reason for China’s superior growth.

So why has China grown so much faster than India? Huang’s answer is this: a more educated population. At the beginning of this time period literacy rates were much higher in China and people were generally much better educated. This allowed them to be more productive as economic units.

This explanation makes sense, but I have a hard time completely getting on board with Huang’s statement that rather than infrastructure fueling development, it usually works the other way around: once economies grow, government’s then receive the tax income necessary for significant infrastructure growth. Take, for example, the Silk Road. In this case, infrastructure was built and then industry and trade expanded as increased opportunities were recognized and taken advantage of.

While it worked in that case, it is easy to see how sometimes investments in flashy new public works projects are not at all the best way to spend our money. Sometimes a better infrastructure greatly increases trade opportunities, and sometimes it only helps a little. Given that, it seems that it all depends on the circumstances whether government investment in this area is a good idea at a given point in time.

English Corner

On Friday the Shanghai University English Club kicked off the school year with a Mid-Autumn Festival (Chinese holiday this last Monday) themed meeting. About fifteen of us foreigners attended, and we all had a great time conversing with the students.

Some notable points: I have never been asked whether I curl my hair every morning, but I was there. When a student ventured the question I instinctively laughed, but I guess given the context it was not that silly of a question; Chinese people do not naturally have curly hair, so if someone does they have obviously treated it. That hair would just form waves by itself is sort of a strange phenomenon to them—they were even more fascinated with Lucas’s hair, which is in the early stages of an afro.

The students I hung out with the majority of the time were also amazed that the ethnically Chinese students in our program were actually Americans. This has actually been a common theme wherever we have gone; people are astonished that although they are ethnically indistinguishable from everyone here, they speak, act, and dress as American as anyone.

A few of them were quite proud of their hometowns. I met a kid who was born in the city where green tea originated, and I met another who was from the same place that the material china, after which Westerners named the country, was first used to make pottery.

We also got to hear some Chinese myths, as there was a popular one that was relevant to the city of Hangzhou, which we were about to visit. It was about a snake goddess, who someone managed to make herself appear human, that fell in love with a man, but the two were forbidden to be together by the Budda (Or a buddhista? I’m not sure). She was than locked in a tower somewhere in the city, where I guess she still resides today.  We looked around, but couldn’t find her.

I have also never been accused of looking like Edward Cullen. To my shame, I was there.

It was a good time, and looks like it will be a great way get a better feel for Chinese culture. Hopefully as we get to know the students better, we’ll be able to have more substantial talks and gain some deeper sense of the differences and similarities between American and Chinese perspectives. I'm looking forward to it!

"The Most Beautiful Place In China"

On Monday morning, which was a national holiday in observance of the Mid-Autumn Festival, we took an hour-long bullet train ride to a former capital of the empire, Hangzhou. The general report we had heard about the city was that it was perhaps the most beautiful place in China, so were excited for the opportunity to look around. We were told it had a nice, large lake and pretty surrounding scenery, as well as impressive Buddha statues and cool-looking temples.

Upon arriving, my first thought was that beauty is indeed in the eye of the beholder. The lake was nice, but it was no Lake Tahoe. In all fairness, I reckon it would have been gorgeous had the air been free of smog; the water would have been blue, reflecting the sky that should have been there, and we would be able to see the lusciously green surrounding mountains. Because of the smog, however, the water was grey and you could barely make out anything but shapes beyond the shores.

That being said I’m actually glad that we went, as there were some really cool areas besides the lake. We went on a cool walk along a nearby creek, where there were numerous Buddha’s carved into the rock-walls and caves, and the lake had a neat island in the middle complete with it’s own pond and very Chinese-looking walkways over the water. Also the food we got there was amazing, and the hostile we stayed at that night had a very artsy and relaxing atmosphere. We met a Scottish girl there who was studying in the area, but always hung out at the hostile because she liked it so much.

All in all it was a fun day. Most beautiful place in the mammoth country of China? I certainly hope not. But it was quite pleasant, and I’m glad we had the chance to check it out.

Oh ya, and this was my first time on a bullet train! It was so fast! At it’s top speed, it was going about 180 miles-per-hour. The tracks were a bit elevated, so that made it seem like we weren’t going quite that fast, but it still felt pretty quick, and much smoother than a car or Amtrak train.

Tutoring the Adorable Spawn of Satan

During our opening information session a couple weeks ago, our program director briefly mentioned that she knew of families in the area who were looking for English tutors. I had also heard rumors that tutoring for a family here was more of an intimate process than back home; the families treat you very well, make you food, invite you on family outings, etc.. Turns out I was qualified (I can speak English), so I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity to help out, earn some money, and gain a little insight into the culture of a Chinese family.

So I got set up with a family that lives across the street, and we had our first session last Sunday. I was tutoring a boy and two girls; the three of them are each eight years old, and are absolutely adorable. When I rang the doorbell to their apartment, the father of the boy opened the door and very quickly introduced himself in broken but adequate English, then introduced me to the three kids, who told me their English names and ages in near-perfect speech. He then ushered the four of us into a room, threw me a textbook, and slammed the door.

The suddenness caught me a little off guard, but I gathered myself and started asking them questions I had prepared about their favorite color, food, game, thing to do, etc, thinking this would be a good place to start before diving into the lessons in the textbook. It immediately became clear they had other plans. No sooner had the door closed than there were jumping on the bed, tackling each other, yelling and screaming at the top of their lungs, and not listening to a word I was saying.

These kids had more energy than I have seen in individuals for a very long time. They were incredibly difficult to control, and I progressed from nice, mild, friendly teacher to “sit down and shut up,” authoritarian teacher extremely quickly. The interesting thing was however, that every so often they would became obsessed with the lessons we were doing; when reading through practice dialogues, they would passionately fight over who got to be which character, and loudly and proudly read their parts. When playing a “name that object” game-show type thing, they were laser-focused.

Also, I was absolutely amazed at how good their English was—I would go as far as to say that their proficiency was not much worse than their American peers. I wonder if this is the trend now in China, that kids begin learning English at almost the same time they start school; this seems to be the case. I actually heard an interesting statistic on the Colbert Report a little while ago, that there are more people learning English in China than in America. I know that in most places in Europe they start teaching kids English at a very young age as well, so if China has adopted the practice, that makes me all the more glad that it is my mother-tongue. 

It also kind of makes me feel like I’m wasting my time learning Chinese! Nah ... actually according to a random guy I met on the subway, most young men and women here can read English very well, but can't speak proficiently because they almost never practice at school. Hence the need for a weekend tutor.

Top Ten Pics from HK

View we were stuck with from the hotel room 

We referred to this as the "Tetris Tower."

Forbidden City Ballers

When we walked through the Forbidden City a few weeks ago, I think the most surprising thing I saw actually had nothing to do with the art, architecture, and history contained in the majestic compound. Rather, what shocked me most was that within its walls were was not one, not two, but three full outdoor basketball courts. Inside the Forbidden City!

Though this is still absolutely astonishing to me, now that we have spent almost two weeks living at Shanghai University it makes a little more sense. The Chinese youth love their bball. There is a large rec center on-campus with at least ten baskets, and every time we go there is a half-court game running on every hoop.

And they are good too! In general, they have solid ball handling, a great shot, and are very fast. They’re main disadvantage is that they tend to be a bit shorter than their American pick-up game player counterparts, and consequently don’t have much of a post presence, but we will still fairly often see players that are taller and faster than us.

Besides this, they are just fun to play the game with. At least the kids we’ve played with seem to understand that basketball is just that: a game; I cannot remember a single one getting legitimately upset after missing a shot or letting his man blow by him. They play with a light, yet competitive attitude and are friendly and respectful. Of course, there are some wildly competitive ballers somewhere around here—the Georgetown incident a few weeks ago certainly proved that. But in our experience so far, the pick-up game players have been large in number and reasonable in demeanor.

And given the sheer number of players over here, you think there will be a bit more of a Chinese influence coming to the NBA soon? It wouldn’t surprise me …

Mandate-of-Heaven to Rule, Unless He Sucks

For the couple thousand years before the Revolution of 1911, it seems the title of this post encapsulates the political system of China pretty well. Emperors always had unlimited power over their subjects, as they believed he was the “Son of Heaven” with a divine mandate to rule. However, this mandate had an exception—if he failed to rule righteously and in a way that preserved harmony, his right to rule was lost and rebellion was an option.

Here is the catch though: a rebellion was only justified if it was successful. If it was crushed, this was taken to be a sign that the emperor was still in the right. This sort of reminded me of how things are remembered in the West; the American Revolution is generally thought of as being a noble and just cause, but that is only the case because we won. If we had lost, it would have been a treasonous rebellion. I guess things were the same back East.

Although there were all kinds of power shifts during China’s long history, it seemed this pattern of imperial rule always remained intact (until 1911): emperors had a divine right to rule, unless they sucked at it.

(Source: Contemporary Chinese Politics, by James C. F. Wang)

Chinese Biz & Gov with Frank

Today I attempted to order a tall cup of Chinese tea from Starbucks using zero English. I was doing fine at first, but ran into trouble when the barista asked me what kind of Chinese tea I wanted; in my ignorance I made the fatal error of forgetting there was more than one type of tea within the billion-person-strong nation of China.

Anyways, the somewhat awkward order gave the Chinese individual behind me pretense to ask, in perfect English, where I was from. I told him, and then learned that although he was born here, he had spent some years in New Zealand. I have actually spent some time in New Zealand myself, so we connected over that, and he asked to join me when I sat down and we had a quite interesting conversation.

Frank had spent a couple years in NZ studying, and then three or four working as an accountant. Recently, he has been given quite a bit more responsibility and is making more decisions for his company; he is also now located back here in Shanghai. So he had some interesting thoughts on being an international businessman in China.

For one, the government in China is indeed a bit of a nuisance to work with. Here, the government is large and in charge and they know it. Frank lamented that back in NZ if you had some legal question about business, you could just go on the government website and learn everything you need to know. And what you read would likely still apply in the near future. In China the rules are not only fluid from day to day, but also from official to official. If you have some question, you can hardly just find the answer in a conveniently made website; you really have to make an effort to hunt it down, and it sounds like there is a bit of strategy involved as far as gleaning the answer you are looking for.

This last summer I had read an article in the The Economist to that effect, so it was interesting to hear that what they reported matched up almost perfectly with the experience of a Chinese businessman. Of course The Economist took it a little farther, postulating that this jungle of regulations is putting downward pressure on the amount of foreign investment China receives. Frank said he was not sure about that, but it certainly makes sense that if a businessman knows he will be ceding a significant amount of control by entering a country, he will think twice about doing so.

So that was his complaint about the government, but he also had a praise: he loves how the Chinese government can just “get stuff done.” For example, the recent bullet train fiasco notwithstanding, the government has been able to efficiently develop a state-of-the-art transportation system in a remarkably small amount of time. He contrasted this with another example from NZ: a few years ago, he received a letter from the NZ government containing pictures of three different logos for the city of Auckland, asking him for his vote for the best. He later learned they spent over a million dollars involving the entire city in this decision. He thought this was absolutely silly—just pick a logo! Overall, he was bit frustrated with the general slowness of the western political process, a sentiment I think it’s safe to say is shared by many of us Americans.

During my time at Shanghai University, I will be taking a Chinese Business Issues class and a Chinese Government and Politics class, so this is definitely a subject I will be exploring more deeply in the coming months. I will be sure to take note of the most interesting insights we are taught, and do my best to remember to write them here! 

Church In Shanghai

These last couple weeks have been filled to the brim with adventures, cultural experiences, hilarious circumstances, and fantastic conversations. Even bearing this in mind I think yesterday was perhaps my favorite day yet.

Yesterday, we finally had the opportunity to check out a church in Shanghai: it was called Shanghai Community Fellowship. This is not an underground church; it mainly serves the expat community and the bulk of its services are in English, which I believe causes the government to give them a little more leeway as far as what they are allowed to teach. It is held in a mid-sized cathedral adorned with crosses, and is clearly visible from nearby.

As we walked in (a little late) the congregation was mid-way through singing the song “Blessed Be You Name,” by Matt Redman, which I think immediately made me feel at home. After that, the drum-intro to the next song sounded oddly familiar, immediately making me think, “There’s no way…”—as soon as the guitar joined in my suspicions were confirmed: they were playing the song “Let the Praises Ring,” written by Lincoln Brewster, the guy who leads worship at my church back home. I could not believe they were even playing it here in Shanghai, China

One of the first things I noticed was the diversity of the congregation; it was actually probably one of the most diverse groups of people I ever been a part of. All kinds of Africans, Caucasians, Latinos, Asians, and more were present—quite literally a “church of the nations.” I learned from a later conversation that there were nine different nations represented in the worship team alone. Where else do you see that??

Another thing I noticed was how loud everyone was singing, much louder than the churches or fellowships I’ve been to in San Luis Obispo or my hometown of Granite Bay. Now I understand that volume-of-praise is my no means a perfectly accurate barometer of deepness-of-faith, especially on an individual basis; however, in this case I do believe it is a telling fact. Here is why: if you want to be a Christian in Shanghai or anywhere in China, you have to really be serious about your faith. Back home in America, we hear all the time about how easy it is to live just like the world Monday through Saturday, then drift in and out of church Sunday and consider yourself a Christian. In Shanghai there’s none of that—if you find yourself in church on Sunday, it is because you made an effort to get there.

In that vein, another conversation we had later that night was with the lady (from Brazil) who oversees the youth ministries at SCF. She is now in her sixth year of full-time ministry, and over the years of working at this particular international church, she said she has come to understand why Christians in the area think of Shanghai as “The Peniel City,” in reference to the story in Genesis where Jacob spent an entire evening wrestling with either a man, an angel, or God Himself (the scriptures are not clear on this), then demanded a blessing. He then named that area Penial, saying “I have seen God face to face…” (Genesis 32). She said that she has seen many foreign Christians come through Shanghai and have had their faith challenged like never before, finding themselves “wrestling with God,” and were forced out of a nominal, superficial faith in one direction or the other. This served as a hard-hitting illustration for the state of the church in Shanghai, and perhaps China in general.

Anyways, after the service my friend Vince connected with the girl he met at his home church shortly before leaving the country, and we joined a big group of her friends for a nice and spicy dinner, and afterwards joined them for dessert. The church was really, really cool, but simply meeting so many different international Christians in this group, when previous to this we just knew the group of five of us in our program, was an absolute blessing. They were on fire for God, they were energetic, they were clearly very bonded by the less-than-friendly attitude towards the church, and they were a lot of fun. We spent about five hours hanging out with them after church, and the whole experience was simply priceless.

One more thought on the church: it definitely does seem like the message in the sermon has to be a bit watered down. The worship was a different story; the songs were more or less the same and people were praising God passionately. But the sermon was all about community and how important it is for Christians to be a part of good, solid fellowship with other believers. That is no doubt a very biblical teaching, but looking back on it, I can’t remember whether the pastor ever actually said the name “Jesus,” and tied this concept of community back into our ultimate purpose of glorifying Him.  I don’t know—it was only our first time going, and I could just be forgetting.

I am definitely really stoked to go back. And we are going to go to the “small group” (30 people!) on Wednesday which most of our new friends go to, which I am also very excited for. Also, we might actually volunteer at a huge youth camp they are holding during the first part of the October holiday. How crazy would that be, volunteering at a Chinese Christian youth camp in Shanghai?? Needless to say, God has been good, and I cannot wait to see what is in store for us in the coming months.

My New Name

During our second language class of the semester yesterday, out teacher informed us what our new Chinese names were going to be. I was very excited to finally get one, as the locals seem to have just a little trouble with Brad and Bradley.

An interesting tidbit of Chinese culture is that the meaning behind your name is much more important than in the West; I feel like back home we by and large treat the meaning behind our names as an interesting bit of trivia, but that’s about it—many people in fact don’t even know what their name means.

But over here it’s different. What we learned in class yesterday is that when you meet someone for the first time, generally the first question you ask them after exchanging names is what the other person’s name means. This is actually essential information, as each sound in an individuals name could be represented by a multitude of different characters, so the only way to know the correct one is if you know the meaning.

So anyways, our laoshi (teacher) started giving out Chinese names to those that didn’t already have one, along with explanations for what they represented. Most were fairly close sound translations—for example “Melissa” would become “Mei-li-sha.” In addition to sounding close to the original English names, the Chinese ones were also somewhat poetic; like “Meili” can be translated to “beautiful.” It all seemed very clever. So when she finally got to me, I was expecting some real cool meaning I would be able to share every single time I met a Chinese person.

This is what I got: Bu-La-Duh. You say the “Bu” with a sharp downward tone inflection, the “La” with an even inflection, and the “Duh” in an upward tone, like you were asking it as a question. That sounded fine to me. Then she explained the meaning: the Bu can be translated to cloth, the La is the same character found in “La-mian,” meaning noodles, and the Duh means German. So my name could be fairly accurately translated to German Noodle Cloth. 

Really? German Noodle Cloth?? That is awesome—I cannot think of a more random set of words. It’s certainly no “White Dragon” or “Cunning Warrior” or something in that vein, but I’ve decided I quite like it. So next time we speak, feel free to address me as “German Noodle Cloth!”