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I’ve been in China for about 10 days now. While facebook and BBC are blocked our blog isn’t (yet..hehe)! So I’m happy to be doing a live update instead of relying on a scheduled one. I will post some pictures and come back with some interesting stories about religion in China or at least some entertaining pictures of me at the Great Wall and the Terracotta Army.

We’ve been learning a lot about religion while we’re here. While I still don’t know a ton about it John summed up some of it nicely in his last post. While the state is atheist (because of their “communism”…uh huh) people are still religious and superstitious in the wrong ways. I’ve heard stories about people believing they have a hex on them and all these strange things. An even bigger part of the problem with religion in China is that people who are religious often get put into jail… (this is all anecdotal). I was working at a call center and there was a guy there handing out all this information about different religions that had been suppressed by the Chinese government. One that is pretty popular is the Falun Gong.

I’ve heard different things about the Falun Gong. Some people really support them and want the government to get off their back. But some people I’ve talked to have said they are a crazy cult that takes all your possessions and money. Sort of like Scientology, I guess. On the outside it seems almost harmless and sort of “good for the soul”… but once you’re in it eats you alive. John’s father has told us that the stories are really really over blown, though.

Most of the tourist places that we visit have a lot of religious history to them… mostly Buddhist. (A few day ago we were somewhere where a bit of the Buddha’s finger was hanging out.) But Christianity is leaving its mark around the country, too. I was sort of surprised to see a big western style church with a big cross on the top of it while coming into Shanghai. A big difference is that the catholics here don’t want to be associated with the Vatican… they want their own Catholicism. I haven’t really figured out how big the tension is about that yet, but I plan on sticking my nose into it a bit further in the days to come. I’ve also run into a couple mormon (I think) missionaries. I heard them speaking pretty solid Chinese to a few workers on the street. Gotta give them credit for learning a freaking hard language just to get their message out, I guess.

Anyway, just a hello from across the world! Keep Canada wonderful for me.