It was autumn. Late enough that I brought along my jacket, but early enough in the season that I could leave it in the back of the charter bus. After a two-hour bus ride, split between high-speed highways and hilly village pathways, our group collected itself at the statue of the Han Emperor, Liu Bang. Aunt Fong, me, and her colleagues- both fellow faculty and some professors from nearby universities- assembled into rows to take pictures in front of the mounted, charging emperor.

Aunt Fong was always happier to show me places than I was to see them.

It was a simple day trip, and although I assumed that because of the cave and its history this tourist area must have been well-known, whenever I tried describing it to my students afterwards they had no idea what place I was talking about. Perhaps it was my pronunciation; Chinese isn’t a language accommodating to outsiders (I describe it as permutations of ch, sh, and j sounds with rising and falling tones). Our plan was to hike through the woods to the cave at the top of the hill, enjoying as we went the greenery and the bluest sky I had yet seen in China. Although that doesn’t mean the sight was spectacular, the sky still shined clearly through the tree canopy. The environment was remarkable in another way, which is that it was the largest space in China I had seen uninterrupted by the detritus of civilization. Outside of vendor huts loaded up with the same wooden, seemingly-traditional goods, and the bright rainbow of plastic junk toys and junk food, there were no remnants of concrete buildings, no car exhaust (or blaring horns), and no litter pooled together by the roadside into a disgusting faded rainbow swamp.

One of the professors from another university, English name Lily, was an English professor who occasionally translated for me in a dignified, steady voice or interpreted the sights along the ascending pathway. She also asked me a few grammar questions that had been on her mind, point blank. An example, not necessarily one of hers, but of the type I heard from her and from students: “What is the difference between may not/might not and cannot/ could not?” I also had one student ask me why words have more than one meaning, or why two different phrases can mean the same thing. As a rule, when answering these types of queries, the first thing I would say- no, drone- was, “Uh…”

Lily was a lovely lady, though, who told me about her college classes and about her son studying computer science at Stanford (many of the Chinese I met aspired to study in America at one of the top 50 universities. In China, extracurricular activities are a nearly non-existent priority compared to test scores, so in their system the bright and ambitious- and well-funded- can realistically study abroad at a prestigious university.) Then, after we climbed the stone stairways overgrown with roots of 2,000-year old gingko trees, and passed through the colorful, incense and idol-filled temple, we approached another statue of the Emperor Liu Bang (pronounced more like Bong or Baang) and the heralded cave he and his men hid in from their enemies. An eroded stone stairway led the way up, and a crowd of people ascending and descending, balancing and slipping, made their way in and out of the cave (tourist attractions did not have the same safety rails and caution paint as is mandatory in America, not even close). Without its history, the cave would not have attracted attention. Hardly ten people could comfortably stand in its space. But one significant feature was the large stone covering the mouth, said to have fallen “from heaven” to protect the emperor.

Tourists stumbling down the eroded stairs.

The stone “fallen from heaven.”

Lily explained this all to me, and she said that it was similar to the way a stone was rolled over Jesus’ tomb and removed by angels. Now this pricked my ears. I knew that, as a professor, she was required to be a member of the Communist Party and disavow religion. I also knew that, at her age, she had grown up in a China slowly opening up to the West, with a foundation of atheistic beliefs laid over centuries of Chinese philosophy and folk religion. So, her knowledge of the Resurrection account could have been simply head knowledge, or, more likely, she could have been familiar with it because she was Christian.

I tread carefully. I asked her an opening question about the similarity between the Emperor’s cave and Jesus’ tomb. Then, I followed up with, “So you know the story of Jesus rising from the tomb?”

Without swaying, Lily replied, “It is not a story. It is the truth.” She said it with conviction, and I quietly explained that “story” can also be a true story; it does not only mean a fiction or fantasy. I don’t know if she heard or understood me; as we walked on I was left to think of her words and replay them in my mind.

I was surprised at the number of Christians I met in China, and the openness with which students of mine happily volunteered that they went to church for Christmas or believed in Jesus. I had assumed that religion, the Christian faith especially, was kept quiet about in public. I knew that persecution in the forms of imprisonment and execution were still real. And I knew that the government expected to control its people’s religious activities to a large extent. The Chinese state would not accept divided loyalties and sought to arrest the leaders of independent churches that attracted too much attention. As part of my teaching contract with my university, I was not allowed to participate in religious activities that violated the government’s laws and interests, which would include religious meetings with students.

I broke that law. Word always spread through the social networks in China, and it was not long before some student I did not know approached me because she knew who I was, inviting me to a students’ prayer meeting. She asked me if I was a Christian, which was not surprising because I had been approached several times by other students who said they saw me praying before I ate in the cafeteria, or they suspected that I was Christian since I came from the land of the free, which every other country knows is the place where everyone is so religious and church-going. Like several other students, when I told her that I was a Christian and interested in the Chinese church, she said, “That’s great! Praise God!”

Her English name was Kate, and she was a chipmunk-cheeked sophomore student who responded to everything I said with fulsome praise and giggling. I was very happy to meet her and be introduced to some Christian students by her, but it was a little difficult to hold my smile and nod my head as she responded to everything I said with girlish squeals and statements like, “You are so great!” A foreigner’s life in China, even someone like me without fame or name, will have many such celebrity encounters, simply for being a “handsome” or exotic-looking white person. With people like Kate- a sweet, impressionable young girl- my only option was to grin and bear it. Although I was tempted to be frank and dispel her fascination with me, I silently sat on the receiving end of her praise and did my best to make spare conversation in return.

There was one other student who got into the habit of following me around, sitting in on my classes, and taking pictures of me as I taught, and at one point I was afraid that the school administrators were going to think that I was encouraging this or making romantic advances. My policy, as a shy, introverted Iowan, was to keep my eyes on my shoes as I walked and only make as much of a verbal response as was politely necessary. I rode out the storm of social discomfort and eventually the tension subsided. Fascination with foreigners could be unrestrained in my young Chinese acquaintances; for good and ill I had to live with it.

“Insurance way careful you.” Wise words. I would have to watch my steps throughout China.

In Kate’s case, she introduced me to a group of students who covertly met in an empty, fourth-floor classroom before the first bell on Friday mornings. I was excited to meet them because I had read about Chinese church meetings and I wanted to see if the reality lived up to my mental visions: persecuted peasants huddled in a locked room, curtains closed, praying fervently, filled with an intensity of spirit unparalleled among the casual, comfortable church services I had experienced in America. Besides excitement, I also felt a mild fear. Word got around in China, and everyone at that meeting would have a story to tell about the conspicuous foreign teacher who came to join them for prayer. Long before the links of my social network would have connected me to Kevin Bacon, they would have traveled to the school authorities with news that I had broken an iron stipulation of my contract. I accepted the possible consequences and went forward, knowing that I could face any reprimands with boldness. If the expression of my Christian belief went up against my loyalty to my Chinese handlers, I knew which one would win out.

The prayer meeting was in a small, typical Chinese classroom: one dusty chalkboard in the front and one chalkboard in the back painted over with classroom cheers and patriotic minders, old window frames covered by tattered, heavy curtains, and everything illuminated by a morning sun filtered through the thick haze of industrial China. We sat around a cluster of desks on a dirty, gritty tile floor. When I entered, I scanned the gathering for familiar faces but found none. This was somewhat of a relief, since one of my students might have been able to report my attendance to a class monitor or faculty supervisor.

The students opened their Bibles (much rarer in China and without the dozens of translation variations of English Bibles) to the hundredth chapter of a book, which I recognized had to be Psalms. I followed along in English; occasionally someone would ask if I understood, or they would try and translate something simple to me. I would assure them I understood their point and thank them kindly. After a brief Bible study, the group would transition to prayer. Every student would bow their head, and they would speak rapidly in hushed sounds, rushed out without pause or breath. Somehow, as one student was pushing out a stream of overlapping syllables, the rest of the group was able to time their responding shouts of “Ah-men!” in unison. I was startled by their prayer method, and I found myself raising my head out of my bowed position and watching in confusion as one student forcefully chanted and the rest joined in for bursts of “Ah-m’n!” every few seconds. I wondered how they knew to respond with Amen so rapidly and so often, and in unison- what was their cue?

Before long, I became frustrated with these prayer meetings because I did not feel fulfilled and I questioned their spirit and their methods. The meetings felt very bare, and the praying was so agitated. My spirit was already flagging because of my doleful daily experience in China, so I had a difficult time willing myself out of bed and walking to the distant meeting room by seven in the morning. As my spring semester wore down, though, I realized my weeks in China would soon come to an end, and no more prayer meetings would be possible. So I made the effort to meet with the Christian students as often as I could, which included a couple meetings outside the school campus along with the Friday prayer meetings.

But before concluding my experience with the student fellowship, I should mention my church experiences outside of the university and the small surrounding city. In Aunt Fong’s more urban hometown nearby, she took me to some Christian gatherings she found out. The first church experience I had was in the city’s old downtown district, which was a very busy street filled with clothing shops and pedestrians. Right next to an Adidas store there was a black façade with a large, neon red cross above the entryway. I thought it was odd to have such a prominent church edifice in a very public place. Weren’t churches supposed to be secretive in China?

I was naïve. Inside the building, old women in cotton jackets and simple, fabric shoes squatted on wooden benches and stools. Every seat was filled. Aunt Fong and I walked upstairs and searched through the aisles, the back seating area, and the side seating area, until we found a seat towards the back of the upper level. Seeing so many people in China singing along to a hymn was a moving sight. The church pews and chairs in America sit half-empty, and in the large churches that attract the public, the music is amplified so loud that the people- sitting in the dark- are drowned out. In China, I saw real people- huddled masses of the poor- gathering together by the hundreds. I was moved by it, perhaps too much.

That church, as anyone familiar with Christian worship with China will already have identified, was a government-sponsored church. The official name is the Three-Self Patriotic Movement (TSPM) Church. TSPM Churches are allowed to have public buildings, whereon they may hang crosses, and wherein the people may gather to sing hymns and listen to a person in a white robe preach, but that preacher is approved by the Chinese government’s TSPM offices, and the subjects and biblical books preached on, even the sermons, are governed by the TSPM offices. I was not fully aware of this at the time, so the four or five times Aunt Fang took me to attend the church service downtown, I sat silently and lethargically read from my Bible or e-reader as the preacher moralized at length. TSPM churches cannot preach about essential Christian topics like the resurrection of the dead, so what they are left with is basically moral lessons equivalent to the popular philosophy and history professors’ lectures that were broadcast on Chinese TV.

I could not understand the words, which was a handicap with an advantage because I could only perceive the mood of the meeting and the tone of the preacher. It felt cold and dry, and I was intimidated as if under the watch of a browbeating librarian. One Sunday, the woman preaching halted her monologue and pointed her finger accusingly at some poor soul sitting near the front. The preacher began screeching at the congregant and gave her a tongue-lashing as a parent would if her child had just drunkenly crashed the family car. I was afraid to speak up and ask Aunt Fong, “What is it? What is wrong?” Aunt Fong couldn’t say so at the time, but she would refer to that scolding incident later as an example of the unreliable nature of church meetings in China.

China, because churches are growing and multiplying so rapidly, and because Christian belief is new to so many, has many deceptive leaders and untrustworthy church gatherings. The situation is bad enough that people always remain suspect of the the different churches and meetings, and someone like my Aunt Fong felt helpless to determine which she could trust.

For independent churches- those house church gatherings outside the government’s watch- there are many different networks and types of churches, whose description can be found in books or websites elsewhere. For my part, I went (accompanied by Aunt Fong, of course) to a few different house church gatherings around and outside the city. One group we sat in with changed their meeting place from a factory house on the outskirts of town to a nondescript apartment in the center of the city. Their meetings began with group singing and were followed by their teacher standing up front at a whiteboard and giving a Bible study lesson. Aunt Fong was nervous to be there, and our attendance at these meetings was a secret partially known of but unspoken of by Uncle Jiang, who dismissed it all with a stern saying: “It is none of my business.”

Aunt Fong and Uncle Jiang knew it was dangerous to attend a private, independent house church meeting, and they knew Chinese society far better than I did, naturally. Still, after enduring much of my pleading, Aunt Fong tried to satisfy my desire to see the real church meetings in China by taking me to visit these house churches, which she would learn of through the friend of a friend.

At one place, the woman leading the singing asked me to stand up and sing for everyone, a common request in China. Aunt Fong was dragging me by the arm out of the room and telling the woman “Another time” as she pulled me away from our insistent host. My aunt did not trust the gathering or she did not trust the safety of it, or she just panicked, and she wanted out. My biggest disappointment in China came after meeting in Aunt Fong’s apartment with a small group of university students. I was excited about the church that was being built up, the Christian fellowship that I had found and wanted to nurture, but it came to an abrupt halt. Uncle Jiang and Aunt Fong both were bothered enough by it that she stopped inviting the students over. It was an issue of staying within the government’s religious laws, she said, and Aunt Fong argued with me that because the students came to her apartment as a group, and because one of the students was considered their leader, then their participation wasn’t voluntary. Involuntary indoctrination of students was a serious breach of Chinese religious law and we could have faced penalties and arrest for it. I was upset by the termination of our meetings, and I was left to wander between the Friday campus prayer meetings to the small apartment gatherings of Christians singing hymns together to the TSPM church services and only occasional house church meetings accompanied by Aunt Fong.

I’m not sure which church group it was, but this is a performance at a Christmas party I attended inside a rented hotel ballroom.

It was difficult, limited, and strained, and overall my most frustrating experience in China because I could not see the vibrant, growing church that I had heard was alive and well. The most inspiring scenes I saw were small ones, like the four or five people I met by chance, just seeing a red cross poster on their door and letting myself in when I heard singing, who would meet on Sunday nights to sing hymns together, and graciously allowed me, a white stranger, to join them. That was the most powerful religious singing I have ever experienced, because they did not dress up the music with amplifiers, instruments, or lights. They would practice one song, line by line, until everyone knew it by heart, then sing it together and clap along to keep rhythm. A small roomful of Chinese Christians moved me far more than any semi-professional stage show in an American mega-church auditorium.

The other moving moment came when I met with the students’ prayer group at the end of the school year. It was the last meeting before everyone parted ways for the summer- some graduating and moving back to their hometowns permanently. The students had prepared a large meal with a dozen dishes for everyone to enjoy, and they had purchased a couple cakes to celebrate the occasion. At the end, in that hot, small concrete house located down a bumpy back alley, when everyone was saying their good-byes, Kate and several other of the students came to hug me and tell me how much they appreciated me. Kate’s praise had always been fulsome and her giggling around me was always too much, but when she told me, “God bless you. God will always be with you,” and she told me how much she and everyone were grateful for me, I was overcome and had to lower my face to hide my tears. As excessive and undeserved as I had found her praise and adoration, in that final moment it was given without any pretense or reservation, and I felt the full warmth of this childish woman’s intentions.

I had always been secretly ashamed of myself when Kate, or someone like her, told me “You are great,” and I wanted to correct them that they had assumed too much about me. In that final moment, though, all the guilt and self-hatred were gone. It didn’t matter that I knew better about myself and I knew I was a secret scoundrel. Kate and the others’ affection was stronger.

My hopes of connecting with the Christian church in China were frustrated and unfulfilled, but I was not without fellowship and hope. It was the light I wanted to see in gray China, and although it never broke through the haze I was in, I did feel its warmth. I was, at times, pleasantly and hopefully uplifted when these rays of sunshine broke through, when a Chinese stranger would surprise me with news about how their family all believed in Jesus since He answered their grandmother’s prayers, and I could see the new green shoots growing up through the crumbling concrete.