Saturday – Waiting on a Concrete Boat

We stayed up too late last night for a start. Getting up at 6am on a Saturday is fundamentally wrong, wrong, wrong. A Chinese friend came over at 7:30 and we were off. 1 hour to town, push and shove to get our bag through the x-ray machine and onto the bus. I sat next to a Chinese lady on the way so attempted some conversation. This was not particularly successful so I contented myself with going to sleep and reading a little.

Once we got to our destination, it was another half an hour on a local bus before getting off because the traffic jam was ridiculous. Once finally in the park it was lovely. Our Chinese friend knew a little Gow Mow Row? And he was able to translate some ancient Chinese writing. I learnt quite a bit.

The whole park is based around a gigantic Buddha, so we walked through the temples discussing the intricacies of the architecture, the statues and the uselessness of idol worship. It’s so sad that they are wasting their lives.

The park was beautiful to walk through, quite rain-foresty, which meant that it was very sticky and slippy. I landed quite impressively on my bottom at one point.

We had great fun on the speedy, speedy bicycles which took us through back yards and finally to a little behind-the-scenes village where locals were begging for us to buy anything off them. We then went down to get on the boat We were a bit wary as there was a concrete floor, water pouring in from the roof and a cage-like appearance to the whole thing. There we sat for half an hour before we were told matter-of-factly that this was the waiting boat. We burst into fits of giggle due to the ridiculousness of the situation and relief that we were not about to drown.

Tuesday – Handing Over

We did the Clothes and Holidays lesson this morning. Very exciting. At lunchtime we went to the usual riverside restaurant for a bit of caramelised banana and tang su li ji (sweet and sour pork). Two American Christians in Linqing, George and Martha joined us. The first thing Martha said to me was, ‘I thought you were Irish even before I heard you speak, because you have rosy cheeks’. You do learn something new every day, I learnt a new stereotype.

I introduced George to a student I have been studying the Bible with, so that the studying can continue next year, as George is working in Linqing. After lunch, I updated George on what exactly we had been studying.

The talent show was at 2:30pm with each of the five classes performing at least once. Some danced, sang, our class did a Nativity Play and sang ‘Country Roads’ by John Denver very loudly.

To finish the teachers sang a Grease song ‘We go together…’ performed, ‘if I were not a teacher, I don’t know what I’d be…’ and then sang a Chinese Christian song.

At 5:30pm some lads from my class came around to the apartment to watch the Asian cup football semi finals. Japan vs Bahrain which ended 4:3 and China vs Iran 1:1, which China won on penalties. Of course had to do a bit of lesson preparation in the middle. This was a good night, I had some dodgy cold food for dinner as well. Mmmm….

Thursday – Goodbye banquets

Yesterday was our last day of teaching, which I approached with reluctance as I hate saying ‘goodbye’. The lesson had a strange atmosphere as some of the students were feeling emotional too, so we didn’t have any deep discussions but mostly played games. The students were thrilled with their ‘certificates’ which we gave out at the end of the lesson. They were just A4 paper with a photocopied logo but we signed them individually and each student got a different award such as ‘best comedy duo’, ‘most glamorous student’, ‘neatest notebook’, or simply for ‘increased confidence’! The class were really surprised that everyone received a certificate and we showed that we had noticed some of their individual gifts. After the class 14 of the students came out for lunch with us. Usually in China the meal ends abruptly as soon as the last person puts down their chopsticks and the bill is paid. But this time no-one wanted to go, so we played games around the two huge round tables for an hour or so. Most of the games involved forfeits of singing a solo, which is my worst nightmare. I had to concentrate very hard to avoid such embarrassment. Eventually the waitresses started clearing the table very noisily and we got the hint.

In the evening the whole team were invited to a banquet hosted by all the students. Dishes included tofu with sweet corn and spam, sweet and sour pork, pickled carrot and a fish and cabbage soup which was covered in chillies. I enjoyed the food although some of the team struggled. I felt bad about how little of it we ate. Apparently it is normal to order far more than you can eat at a banquet. The main excitement of the evening was not the food or the gifts we were given, or the numerous photos of the team posing with their students or even the performance of traditional Chinese music which one of the high school students played on his accordion. No the highlight of the evening was a dramatic tropical storm which drew us all to the windows. We watched in horror as a cycle taxi was blown over onto its side and the driver struggled to right it.

The storm caused a power cut which added to the atmosphere as we ate our meal and drank numerous toasts by candlelight. When the bus finally came to take us back to the university the rain had stopped and there was a cool breeze. We stood chatting for a long time by the bus stop, team and students as none of us wanted to leave.

Saturday – Final Reflections

Well, as we pack and prepare to move on from Linqing and our time at Linde University, it’s amazing to reflect upon the last four weeks… all that has happened; our experiences teaching English, the relationships we’ve formed with our Chinese students, all that we’ve seen and done. Here are a few highlights and personal insights.

Trip to Chinese government 3 Self Church

We arrived slightly late, only to hear singing in Chinese to the familiar tune of the hymn “Trust and obey”….. whether that was the hymn that was actually being sung…. None of us knew! We were escorted up the stairs to seats in the balcony… where we would roast for the next hour or so. I was particularly surprised by the building itself… with its old western style architecture, resembling a Baptist or Methodist church at home, it stood out amongst the surrounding concrete apartment blocks. Was it originally built by missionaries in the past? Possibly! The female minister led the service which included what one would guess was liturgy, prayers, hymns and a sermon from a male preacher on Matt 21… none of which we understood of course.

I was left with mixed feelings in reflecting on the experience. I was greatly encouraged to see the church full and with most of the people avidly and eagerly reading their own Bibles as they followed the sermon. The church also had Bibles for sale. The place seemed vibrant and alive. Yet it was all very much a traditionally western style church service… western hymns translated, western building with pews and stained glass windows, liturgy, ecclesiastical robes etc…. there appeared little except the language to be culturally/ contextually Chinese! Was this good or bad? Was the church the legacy of Western missionaries in the past? If so, is it inevitable that the church would take such a Western form? Again is this good or bad…. What should a Chinese church look like? Is it better than nothing? Just questions I was left wondering about!

However there was a definite sense that morning that we had been amongst and worshipped our God with our Christian brothers and sisters. Despite not understanding a word we experienced the warmth of unity of Christian fellowship through their welcome, their nods, some knowing looks and fumbled attempts to communicate.

An insight into the political mind of a 20 year old Chinese student.

Of course, politics is a sensitive subject in China and we were all very cautious regarding what we said, when, and to whom; however on several occasions students in our classes were keen to discuss the present and past political climate of their own and our countries. They were realistic in their assessments of the Cultural Revolution and Mao’s positive and negative contributions to China’s development. They were also particularly open-minded and hopeful about China’s future having seen the economic benefits of an open trade policy. However they did express confusion and uncertainty about how a Communist ruling party can be reconciled with increasingly capitalist policies.

Finally….

Opportunities with students

The personal highlight of mine and many members of the team, was the many opportunities to share Jesus with our students. The spiritual hunger and naïve but sincere interest in Jesus from our students was evident quite early on in our teaching. It was a delight, a joy, a privilege and hugely exciting to speak about, explain and teach classes and individual students who Jesus was, why he came and how they could also accept his wonderful offer of forgiveness and eternal life, many of them having never heard it before.

You can imagine my delight after teaching the Festivals lesson on Christmas and Easter and having explained the Gospel as fully and clearly as I could to be asked after the lesson by one student “Can I borrow your book, I’m interested to read more!” Then for the following 10 days or so to have the privilege of reading the Bible every day with the same student and seeing Jesus literally walk off the pages of His word and into her life. It was amazing to see her mind illuminated and her heart warmed as we read and discussed together. The day we left Linqing, the same student called me to tell me she’d made the decision to follow Jesus. What a wonderful ending to three wonderful weeks with our dear, precious students! We came to love them and care about them deeply in such a short space of time. For those who also became Christians the future is uncertain, sources of support fellowship and teaching may be limited… so they shall remain in our thoughts and prayers as we trust our heavenly Father to take care of them, protect them and help them stand firm till the end!