Critical Mass

About 1:30 in the morning, Luke arrived. Luke was another friend of ours from Boy Scouts who was also working for the same program as Bryan, Johnny, and Emily. His flight had landed around 9:00 in the evening. He’d then taken the metro, followed by the slow train, followed by a taxi to reach the hotel (literally a plane, train, and automobile kind of day.)

We chatted with Luke for a couple hours before going back to bed. Bryan got up early to Skype his parents in the hall, while Luke and Johnny slept pretty late. I journalled a little while waiting for Bryan to finish so I’d be able to remember some of the events from the weekend later.

Suddenly, there was knock at the door followed by someone yelling in Chinese.

“Not it,” Luke mumbled from his sleeping bag on the floor.

“I’ll get it,” I said getting up and pulling on my t-shirt. I cracked open the door to see the maid. She said something in Chinese. “Can you come back later?” I asked. She looked confused. I tapped my watch and said again, “later?” She nodded, I went to close the door, but she started pushing her cart into the room. When I shook my head she looked confused. I folded my hands and put them under my chin like I was sleeping. “They’re still asleep,” I said pointing back into the room.

She nodded and smiled, then moved on to the next room.  I closed the door.

A few minutes later, Bryan came back. He took a shower, then Luke rinsed off the airplane. After I showered, the three of us headed off to church while Johnny slept in.

The walk through Suzhou was very interesting. It was definitely a very urban city, but in a lot of ways it had sort of a suburb vibe to it. There were a lot more apartment buildings and shopping centers were more centralized than in Shanghai. I also noticed there were a lot of construction cranes out which told me that the city must be doing well economically.

“So is it foggy or smoggy?” Luke asked.

“It’s smoggy,” Bryan said.

“Walking around China is kind of like being in a low-def 80’s movie,” I explained. “Everything is just a little blurry and out of focus.”

At the same time, Suzhou did seem to have more of a breeze to it than Shanghai (which is strange because Shanghai is the more coastal city.) But the canals in Suzhou were just as polluted if not more so. The water was a murky green color with lots of debris floating downstream towards the ocean.

As we walked along, we saw some sort of outdoor market, advertising with big, red, lantern-shaped balloons. By the time we got there we saw it was actually a used car lot, although Bryan explained they actually do all kinds of sales there.

We had to cross several large streets to get to church, and traffic was just as scary as back in Shanghai (I might need to make a traffic specific post at some point.) “My mom is going to love this,” Luke said with unhidden sarcasm as we jogged across a six lane road. The green cross walk sign was counting down but we realized it didn’t go in order. The sequence would be something like “…10…12…8…3…7…4…10..3…9…7…” and then it would switch to red. It wasn’t just that one street that was off; every intersection in Suzhou seemed to have its own unique countdown.

I noticed as we were walking, all of the tree trunks were painted white up the point the branches came out. At first Luke and Bryan suggested that maybe the discoloration was from pollution of being by the street, but throughout the day, we found that trees all over town were colored in the same pattern.

Turning a corner and walking down a little dirt road surrounded by trees, we could see a large stone archway with a big romantic cross at the top. Below the cross was a symbol I didn’t recognize. It was two concentric circles, with a triangle in the middle. The triangle had pieces of a broken circle weaved around it. Below that were three Chinese characters, none of which I recognized from my classes.

 I also noticed that we were surrounded by quite a few white people…this must be the road to the church.

The courtyard beyond the archway was beautiful. There were about eight parking spaces for a few cars. Various bushes—which had probably been flowering until recently—lined the pathway passed a large pavilion which covered several picnic tables. The path was stone covered in dirt and led back to the side entrance to the church.

“It’s very European,” I joked.

“Aren’t all Catholic churches very European?” Bryan pointed out. He did have a point there.

The inside of the church was pretty too. There were stained glass windows, various statues of different saints (one of which I swear looked like Hans from Frozen, although Luke and Bryan disagreed) and a giant altar with a statue of Mary holding the Christ child at the front of the room.

As we walked in, I went to dip my fingers in the little bowl by the door. When I pressed them in, I immediately pulled them back.

“It’s all slimy?” I said. “Where’s the water.”

“I think it’s a sponge,” Bryan explained. “I don’t know why, but I’m thinking maybe the water would evaporate in here.”

That did make sense. It was hotter than…hades…in that sanctuary. Electric fans were actually mounted on each of the columns and had long pull strings to start and stop the motors.

Now going to a Catholic mass in China may not sound like a cultural experience, but in fact the history of Catholicism makes it quite unique. While the mass follows the same liturgy everywhere in the world—including China—the Chinese government does not allow the Vatican to have authority over the Catholic Church in China. Instead, the Catholic Church in China is run by a political body called Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association. This group of government officials appoint bishops and set the direction and activities of the church. It is quite an interesting set-up but it does not feel completely appropriate to discuss it at any further length here.

When the priest began the procession in, the musicians started to play. The “band” was made up of a guitar, a keyboard, and an oboe. The songs they sang were a blend of traditional liturgy and modern worship music. The lyrics were very recognizable from other masses and worship services I’ve been to, although the musical accompaniment was often different.

The first reading was out of Exodus and was done by either an American or a Canadian. I could understand every word he said as he talked about the Jews being led out of captivity only to want to go back to the comforts of slavery. It made me smile a bit as I have noticed this theme of “the grass is always greener” pretty much permeates every culture you talk to. The second reading was from Corinthians, but this reader had a very heavy Eastern European accent. I understood most of it—as far as loving people or something along those lines—but some of it was lost.

As the readers were talking, Luke opened one of the red bibles in front of us. Oddly, even though the worship service was in English, the bibles were in Chinese.

I have no idea what the gospel reading was because the priest—who was Chinese—had such a thick accent the only word I could make out was “disciples.” I think during his homily, he talked about Jesus and a Wookiee eating the disciples, but I don’t remember that story from the bible, so I might have misunderstood something. In general, whenever he was talking, I was very lost.

“I’m not sure I can say ‘amen’ to anything this guy says,” I whispered to Bryan. “I don’t want to be praying for anything I don’t know about.”

The song during the Eucharist was “Shout to Lord” which has always been one of my favorites. I can’t say I’ve heard it with an oboe accompaniment, but the different accents were really cool. I also learned that communion wafers taste awful everywhere in the world.

On our way out, Luke and I talked a little bit about the differences between Catholicism and different protestant denominations. Bryan showed us around the courtyard and we took some time taking pictures, before going back to the hotel to get Johnny and Emily. The route we walked back was a bit more circuitous and confirmed my assessment that Suzhou very much has a suburban feel to it (definitely larger in scale than the suburbs back home, but not as much of a “big city layout” as Prague or Shanghai.) Bryan pointed out an American shopping district with Starbucks and Pizza Hut, although he explained that in Suzhou, Pizza Hut is a sit down restaurant and not exactly fast food.

Walking back, we really just had fun catching up and talking about our families, our years at school, and our plans for the future. I’ve known Luke now for over ten years and Bryan and I have gone on all sorts of adventures together in the time we’ve known each other. It really is fun having this extended “boy scout family” to share so much history with.

Luke continued to point out things that he thinks will drive his mom crazy when she comes to China, although I think they are going to have a great family vacation together. Touring my family around Prague and Germany was definitely a highlight of my last adventure and really was a pretty cool capstone to my European experience.

After we snagged Johnny and Emily, we went to a noodle house. Bryan ordered the dish he normally gets for everyone and it was pretty good. It was similar to what we’d eaten at the Islamic noodle restaurant in Shanghai last week—noodles with kind of a sweet sauce, blended vegetables, and fried egg—but a little bit heavier. I’m finding that noodles here are very heavy and a little bit goes a very long way.

At that point, it was time for the three of them to go meet with their boss. Bryan said it would only take about 30 minutes, so I tagged along to watch.

“I think from a business and culture perspective,” he said, “you’ll learn a lot.” I figured he was probably right. After all, seeing business and culture collide in China was why I’d wanted to come originally. I was excited to have the opportunity to witness just that.