The Church in China

To many Americans, China may seem like an atheist country that is completely devoid of religion. True, things do tend to work a little differently around here -- laws concerning religion are much more limiting and strict, and education does tend to lean a little more toward atheism than American education -- but China does claim to have religious freedom, just like the US. What differs between the two countries is what you can do with that religious freedom.

In China, I have found, the thing the government worries about is the influence religion can have on people. For example, there are two things specifically prohibited for Latter-day Saints in China: proselyting to Chinese nationals and attending the same meetings as Chinese nationals. I believe that this is because government officials hope that their citizens' loyalty to the Communist Party and to China aren't swayed by religion. In a communist society like China, this kind of loyalty to the system is required for things to function properly -- so who can blame them? The situation now is already much better than it was around the Communist and Cultural Revolutions. As of right now, China recognizes the "Big Five" religions officially, those being Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism, and Protestantism, and other religions are free to practice as they wish as long as they follow the rules. The Church tries very hard to do things by the book and impress the Chinese with our integrity, so hopefully some day soon, the LDS Church can be officially recognized, too!

For now, the Church here in China works almost the same as it does in other countries. At the beginning of each of our meetings, the member of the bishopric conducting the meeting reads the "Statement Regarding Expatriate Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in China," which basically states the twelfth Article of Faith and links it to the laws of China, and then reminds us that we cannot proselyte or have joint meetings with Chinese nationals, even if they are members of the Church*. After they finish reading the statement, the meetings go on completely normally.

As for the ward here, it's great! We meet in a nice hotel for our meetings, and we have probably 50 people in attendance, on average. The demographic of the ward is definitely very unique. There are lots of students in the ward because of Nanjing University's connection with BYU, but there are also a few families and older people here for work and teaching. Most of the ward members are American, but there are others, too: families from South Africa and Germany, and students from Zimbabwe, Brazil, Russia, and Latin America.

I recently received a calling to be the primary pianist, and, I have to say, I'm stoked. Not only do I get to play fun piano songs every week, I also get to listen in on primary, which is always a treat. The kids in the primary here are all very bright, so it's a great time. There are two South African kids in the primary, and they have awesome accents. There's also a little German boy that doesn't speak any English or Chinese, so we're not sure what to do with him. The all-star of the primary is a little four-year-old boy named Dominic. He is very active in just about every sense of the word. He volunteers to do everything, and usually does it whether or not the teacher calls on him. He also talks more than all the other kids combined. Today, we started learning the primary theme for the year, "As a Child of God." Dominic insisted that he knew the song, so he stood up at the front of the class to teach everyone how to sing it. I started playing, and he said, "That's not the song I know, I though we were singing 'I Am a Child of God!'" He still didn't sit down.

Another interesting thing about China is that it feels a lot like the mission in many ways. First of all, we have our meetings in a hotel in China, which is pretty comparable to meeting in a four-story house in Taiwan. Next off, every Church meeting is like a mission reunion. There are quite a few missionaries from the Taichung Mission that I know personally from the mission in the ward, and there are also a few from before and after my time. It's fun to reminisce with them.

The last way I can think of is the service we do here. We are required by the Chinese Flagship program to do at least 10 hours of community service during the school semester, so most students end up volunteering as English teachers. This week was my first week teaching English to the kids at the YMCA/YWCA -- flashbacks of teaching the kids' English class as a missionary in Taiwan flooded into my mind. The little boys are super wild and loud, and the girls are very quiet and mellow. I walked in the door and was immediately confronted by Frank, a 10 year-old Chinese boy with pretty decent English. Our conversation went like this:

Frank: "What's your name?"

Me: "I'm Mark."

Frank: "Hello Mr. Mark. Nice to meet you. I am Frank. Do you want to see our class rules?"

He showed me a list of three rules that he had written in his notebook. According to one of my Flagship friends that I went with, he had made up these rules last week. Unfortunately, we had to add an amendment to his rules this week: "No fighting."

This week we taught a lesson on fruit, so we played "fruit basket" for about half the time there. Frank kept calling coconuts "QQ-nuts." Oh Frank. There was also a little eight-year-old girl in the class that had an urgent question for the teachers at the beginning of class. She doesn't speak much English yet, so she asked in Chinese, pointing at the other guy from Flagship that came with us, "Why is he so handsome?!" He didn't have a very good answer for her, so she said, "Is it because you're so white?" He didn't really know how to react that, either. Later on, during our game of fruit basket, I saw her making googly eyes at him. It was hilarious.

In short, the Church is alive and well here in China, and even though the members here are few, the spirit of charity and service is still very present here in the Chinese society. I am very privileged to be able to live here among such great people -- they are generally very kind and friendly, and they look out for each other. There is a lot I can learn from them.

-小强

*The Church is growing among Chinese nationals. Even though regular proselyting missionary work is not allowed in the country, direct family members can share the gospel with each other. There are many Chinese nationals that take weekend trips to Hong Kong to officially take the missionary lessons and get baptized, and then go back to their homes in the Mainland. Once they return, they can meet with congregations of Chinese nationals that report to Chinese national church leadership. Interesting how it works, isn't it?

Playing Fruit Basket at YMCA English Class

Our "Chapel"

Student Life

As many of you know or probably could have guessed, school in China is very different than it is in America. In fact, "very different" is probably an understatement -- "completely different" is more accurate. Starting in elementary school, kids are under a lot of pressure to test into a good middle school, which will get them into a good high school, which, in turn, will open up opportunities to test into a good university. You may have also heard that Chinese universities are very lax because all the big, life-altering tests are over. While this may be true to some extent, I am here to tell you today that life at a Chinese university is no lame walk in the park.

Chinese universities are much more structured and stiff than American universities, I have found. Nearly all students -- even the masters and doctorate students -- live in the dorms on campus, and most of the time they eat at the school cafeteria. Graduating late or slow is barely even an option, as all required general and major classes are planned out by semester for each major. Students can loaf around and not be diligent with their schoolwork if they want, but if they want to do well in their classes, they have to work just as hard as they did in high school. One other big difference is that classes are often lumped together into long, drawn-out blocks. For example, in America, a three-credit class would probably consist of going to a one-hour lecture three times a week. In China, however, this means that you have one long three-hour lecture every week. On top of that, semesters are generally eighteen to twenty weeks long, and chairs are not comfortable at all. My back is hurting already.

Nanjing University itself has some "special features." Originally, Nanjing University was an American Christian school established in the late nineteenth century called Jinling University. Jinling University was one of five of such American schools, and according to one of my probably very biased professors, it was the best of the five, maybe even the best in the whole country at the time. I cannot verify the accuracy of this statement, but I do know that award-winning author Pearl Buck and her husband were stationed in Nanjing as professors, so I feel like it was at least a noteworthy university. As time passed, wars, revolutions, and other things happened, the American professors were sent home, and the name of the university was changed to China Zhongyang University, then to Nanjing University. Today, it still ranks around number five out of all Chinese universities, and the original campus remains intact.

Although the original campus is still there, nearly all of the undergraduate classes and many of the graduate classes have moved out to the new Xianlin campus. The study abroad building is on the old Gulou city-center campus, so all the students in our program are required to live close to this campus, even though most of the classes are about 40 minutes away by metro. This also means that most of our undergraduate peers are living out in the middle of nowhere on the Xianlin campus. New freshmen at Nanjing University probably have it the worst, though: Not only do they have to live out in the middle of nowhere, away from their families for the first time, they also have to participate in full-time military training for the first two weeks of school. According to my roommate and tutor, this training is a nationwide tradition borrowed from the Soviet Union, and the students are not expected to become soldiers after graduation.

Now, all of these things that I have brought up about Chinese universities and Nanjing University in particular are quite different than anything I have experienced in the US, but none of them hold a candle to the havoc that is wreaked when a foreigner walks into a Chinese classroom. I got to experience this exciting phenomenon on my first day of class, and I have to say that the attention I got for being the only white guy that any of these Chinese students had ever been in a class with is much more notable than any of the differences listed above. For example, in the first class I attended, the teacher himself was obviously very perturbed that I was in the class. He stood up to start teaching, and said in hesitant English, "Hello everybody, welcome to class." Then, gesturing at me, "It looks like we have a visitor here today. Where are you from?" If not all of the students knew I was there before, they definitely were keenly aware now. All eyes were on me. I answered in *Chinese, and the professor immediately looked much more relieved. His English was pretty good, but it probably would not have made it through the whole three-hour lecture. That aside, I have no idea what the other students would have done if he had continued in English. They have enough material to wade through as it is, adding a foreign language on top of that would be chaotic.

The second class that day was even more exciting. It was a bigger class full of bright-eyed sophomores. The teacher had the foresight to talk to me beforehand and make sure I could speak Chinese. What I failed to realize was that he was going to use me in his lecture. He started off like most professors do on the first day with some general life advice, telling the students that freedom means you have to accept the consequences of your actions and such. He went on with that for a while, and the topic eventually drifted to American politics. The next thing I know, the professor is asking me across the whole classroom in his thick Jiangsu accent, "American friend, why did President Nixon resign?" I was caught off guard, and literally the whole class was staring at me, so I just said, "Ummmm." He asked me again, and I managed a slightly more coherent response about something to do with the election. At this point, the class had already exploded into mini-conversations about what I can only assume were about the Chinese-speaking American that doesn't even know his own country's history. The teacher didn't call on me any more after that, and none of the students were willing to make eye-contact with me, even if I caught them staring.

In short, attending a Chinese university is simultaneously eye-opening and exciting. I highly recommend it if you have a chance.

-小强

*During the next lecture, I decided to talk to some of my classmates and try to make friends. The guy I ended up talking to said that he had heard that I had lived in China for a long time and had been speaking Chinese my whole life. I guess rumors spread fast around here!

Here I am on a rainy day at the front of the Xianlin campus

Introduction

Dear Reader,

Whether you are a relative, friend, acquaintance, or someone else, welcome! As for general introduction, this is a blog of my adventures as a student in Nanjing, China. I am studying electrical engineering at Nanjing University (NJU) for a semester, after which I will continue living somewhere in China for another semester while I intern at a yet-to-be-determined company.

There are three most important reasons I am writing this blog: First and foremost, I hope to share my experiences and newfound knowledge of Chinese culture with everyone. Second, I think writing this will help me, as the writer, to see China in a different light. Third -- and, yes, this is legitimate -- I don't want to forget English.

I plan to write once every weekend or so, depending on how much time I have. If you have any questions, you are welcome to contact me. Also, if I miss too many weeks in a row, please remind me -- I want to keep this up.

There you have it! Enjoy!

-小强