Shijiazhuang, a city I often visit, is now liberally painted with “chai’s”, a character with which I am familiar with from earlier days in Beijing. It means “for demolition” and various buildings are already in the process of being knocked down. Unlike in Beijing, where important historical cityscapes were sacrificed to modernity, in provincial Shijiazhuang only rows of nondescript buildings are disappearing under the jack hammer. The pattern is familiar from my Beijing experience. As a business closes, everything that one could imagine being reused is stripped by hand and what is left for the demolition team is already a naked shell. Since the closures are not coordinated, a line of denuded shops will be interrupted, incongruously, by a still functioning haberdasher or noodle seller working away among the ruins. When the demolition teams who follow on have finished their work, the brick salvagers arrive and cart off the poor quality bricks to be reused elsewhere. The economics of this seems to make little sense, but it clearly is of some profit to someone or the rubble would simply be transported to landfill. I am sure that, if compared with the price of a new brick, the difference would seem trivial to even the thriftiest of westerners. It is a measure of the topsy turvy nature of this economy that a person can eke out what one might call a livelihood from this work and that there is a value for salvaged second hand bricks. Continue Reading »

Tags: Beijing Diaries, bricks, Robert Hannah

The pity is that this growing irritation with Xmas distractions me from the Advent season that is unfolding around me…. It reminds us that before we sing “Gloria” for His Birth, we need quietly to pray “Maranatha” (Come) for his return among us.

This year I find myself irritated by the completely sanitized Christmas Holiday that has been imported here, whereas in previous years, I was merely amused by it. Since the end of November, the tree tops (artificial) have been glistening and children have been listening to sleigh bells, if not in the snow, then in the shopping malls (snow being a minor part of the Beijing Winter). The decorations will stay up until after the Chinese New Year Holiday where the incongruity of red lettered “Merry Christmas” signs in January will be lost on a population who does not understand English anyway. Shops have stars, and snow scenes, the most saccharin of carols and the inevitable Santa Claus, with only the occasional, forlorn angel, bereft of context, failing miserably to announce the miraculous Birth of the God-Man in a stable in Bethlehem. I found a rather dowdy but very large “Christmas” display with an untraditional, slim Santa as its center piece (I think he was a mannequin in a former life) particularly depressing for some reason.

For 50 years I have listened to the moan that Christ is been drained out of Christmas. I understand the concern but even the most vestigial of Christians in western countries retains some sense of the connection between the tinsel and the manger. In China that vestige has been lost even before it was found. Instead we are left with shop assistants in red bobble hats and dreadful Christmas muzak everywhere because of some association foreigners make between a jolly guy with a beard and a good time. Despite myself, I have joined the ‘put Christ into Christmas’ campaigners. Continue Reading »

Tags: Advent, Beijing Diaries, bricks, christmas, Robert Hannah

In circumstances which bordered on the bizarre, I encountered what hitherto I would have too easily dismissed as the rabid end of the Chinese Church support groups.  These organizations are usually anti-communist, have a particular vision of Church and are not in touch with the totality of the situation here. “Till now, I had known the personalities by reputation only, and since my own circle was broadly out of sympathy with their agenda, it was easy to bemoan their inflexibility, and wish them to the sidelines of the encounter with China.

Mary and Joseph (not their real names) were active in the Chinese “Catholic Action” of the late ‘40s in China. Young, articulate and committed, they helped organize the Church in the early days of communist rule. Such ‘anti-social’ behavior did not go unnoticed and they were assigned to prison and labor camps for 8 and 13 years respectively. In the latter years of their incarceration they were able to meet and decided, despite earlier intentions to religious life, to marry. Sometime after their release, they were able to leave China and settled in the US where they are active in a very vocal, if very conservative, Catholic organization. Listening to their story, told without rancor, I felt a growing awe of their unassuming heroism. It seemed fantastic, given my romantic, “come rack come rope” vision of martyrs, that two Confessors of the Faith should be masquerading as a retired couple in Stamford, Connecticut. Continue Reading »

Tags: Beijing Diaries, bricks, Robert Hannah

I used to observe teasingly to American friends that “I’ve been to Yonkers, I know all about America”. It is the US equivalent of saying, “I been to Luton, I know all about Europe” Extending my range to four states does not an expert make, but challenges some of my deeply held (mis)impressions of this country.

I have heard often of the American “Culture Wars”. These weeks have been ones of meeting people who hold stances on the issues similar to my own but with a passion I cannot find in myself. The defining battle is Abortion, with the Right to Life pitted head to head against the Right to Choose. The degree to which the “choice” camp is willing to demand late term abortion is horrifying, yet something in me is unwilling to accept the disconnect between the death penalty and the abortion issue, no matter how cogently argued. These last three weeks have involved discussions with articulate intelligent people who argue their (usually) conservative positions very forthrightly. I have never been exposed to such emotional commitment to the “cause” before and after three weeks I am confused. It would be easy to dismiss the passion as extreme, but I cannot shake the nagging doubt that perhaps my own position is too removed and uncommitted. Continue Reading »

Tags: Beijing Diaries, bricks, Robert Hannah

It’s a long, long way to Beijing to here.

I search the card rack looking for the supersaturated picture postcards of my home town circa 1966. I used to laugh at them before, thinking that their ludicrously emerald fields and sapphire skies would fool nobody. Now I flick past the more recent cool and sophisticated images of Ireland for the reassuring fantasies of town past, rather than the alien reality of town present.

I have noticed the symptom before, the sense of dislocation as I return to the place of my birth and find that it has parted company from the selectivity remembered town of my youth. This time the impact is more stark and my response more emotional. The town is particularly uncooperative and stubbornly insists in presenting its cool ‘08 face, when I want only the reassuring familiarity of how she looked in 1966. The disruptions are everywhere, entire streets have come into existence and even old landmarks “improved”. Ham Bridge, over which I trudged to school, is the same, but has been prettified with faux gas lamps, the total effect is one of which I can only grudgingly approve. Commercial life has changed and many family businesses have been replaced by generic brand stores, the ones that survived are managed by people whom I thought were my contemporaries but have morphed into clones of their fathers in my absence. Continue Reading »

Tags: Beijing Diaries, bricks, Robert Hannah

I have been at the edge of AIDS in China since 2003, I know the figures of projected spread and the main sources of infection etc, I can do the “NGO thing” when it comes to AIDS Awareness, but by and large, I rarely meet people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHAs)in person.  The organizations I work with have focused on the plight of those who have been infected through blood selling or transfusions (mainly rural farmers at the bottom of China’s economic heap.  For the nuns who deliver these services, who are often from farming backgrounds themselves, this work is a “shoe in” and while it has many challenges, fits easily into a traditional approach to “Charitable Works”. It has the added advantage of having no moral issues; these PLWHAs were infected by poverty and are innocent victims in any ordinary meaning of those words. In these days I have been introduced me to another group who are now living with, rather than dying of, HIV AIDS- namely urban gay men.

The situation of these PLWHAs is rather different from those of the poor farming families I have been more aware of up to now. These men are often educated and articulate, needing much less material support or encouragement than their country cousins. But urban sophistication does not go as deep as a superficial encounter might suggest and one finds that their circumstances have their own poignancies.

Many gay men in China are married (since not to marry is virtually impossible) so few are “out of the closet”. Many of those who live a gay lifestyle do so clandestinely, though that is changing for the young. The extra stigma of HIV+ status imposes a second hidden life on top of the first. The pathetic nature of the situation was brought home to me when, visiting a clinic, I watched  obviously otherwise assured, self confident men, strip the labels from their tablet boxes, least anyone at home realize that it contained AIDS medication. Rejection by family is not uncommon, freedom to openly acknowledge ones condition in the workplace rare and support groups few. Although superficially urban gay PLWHAs have a better life, emotionally they are as much in need of support as anyone else.

Today I watched two Sisters deliver such support, not in some dramatic ‘do gooder’ kind of way, but just by being there. They had acted as midwives for a support organization and the occasion was to allow the 30 members to express their gratitude. The Sisters were probably, in a country where such things usually matter, the least educated of the group, but it was very obvious that these men appreciated the unconditional acceptance offered them more than any professional support.

Watching the unaffected approach of the Sisters made me aware that these men were not a collection of politically correct acronyms but People made in the image and likeness of God. Rather cold political correctness was not what was asked of me a priest and a baptized Christian, but rather unconditional love for each of them. These Chinese Sisters use a terribly non PC  description common in Chinese “infected people” to describe those whose gratitude they were accepting, but despite that, their Faith filled view meant  they saw only human beings to be loved. My being with them allowed me to see as they saw and that has made, this week has made all the difference. Thanks be to God.

If you liked this article, please consider visiting Our Projects page.

Tags: Add new tag, AIDS, Beijing Diaries, bricks, gay, Robert Hannah

The young conductress looked more like a poor little match girl than the confident, almost imperial figures I associate with the traditional conductress on the Beijing Buses. The latter were Amazons with beady eyes who ruled their carriages with an iron sway. Their buses were rickety and liable to break down relatively frequently, but, to the ladies who held sway at the door, their bus was a personal “Forbidden City” and they were its’ Dowager Empress. Some made the effort to feminise the rather utilitarian coaches with flowers or banners, but even without these attempts at personalising the work space, one was under no doubt t as to whose territory one was in, and woe betide the mere mortal who did not kowtow before her. This girl was not in the same league. Her bus is one of a shiny new bus fleet which has replaced the clapped out contraptions of only a few years ago. The new models have a very strong corporate stamp to them and one feels that any attempt on her part to personalise this work spaces would be frowned upon by the “suits” in head office. Nothing should distract us from the flat screen TVs pouring advertisements over us as we trundle, relatively speedily it must be said, towards our destinations. She looked more kitchen maid than empress; there has definitely been a change in mandate from Heaven and she has been kicked off her celestial throne.

Her hunched up posture was unlike those of her predecessors who managed always to tower over us mere passengers. Their beady eyes constantly scanned the hoards as they mounted the bus and swift punishment followed those who those how failed to produce evidence of payment. During a longer gap between stops, they would descend to the level of the passengers, bearing their symbol of office, a heavy duty leather pouch, and sweep through the bus, scouting for miscreants. One was expected to produce one’s flimsy ticket, which I invariably could not find. t. However my western face had usually registered on purchase and I was exempt. For the poor Chinese, the story was different. Although nothing as crass as an accusation was ever made when no ticket was offered, one would see grown men, sheepishly proffering up their 1 yuan and listening like chastened schoolboys to the deliberately loud injunction to pay up promptly the next time. In a society where public humiliation is the worst possible punishment, it worked as a disincentive to fare avoidance. My young friend had no such presence about her. A smart card system has largely shorn her of her ticketing responsibilities, and while some of the old hands still keep a practiced eye on the scanning machines, this neophyte seemed unequal to the task and had simply given up. She looked too scared to risk leaving her conductress box and since there is no way of checking the cards she would have to take the word of the passenger in any case. That the fares have been reduced more than 50% in a time of rising inflation makes the effort seem pointless to her perhaps.

She tried, in a rather desultory way to announce the bus stops and direct us to the relevant exits. But her heart wasn’t in it and she could barely be heard. So unlike her elder sisters! They had voices and they knew how to use them. The lambasting that awaited the young person who failed to give up their seat to an elderly “comrade” (the only situation where I ever heard this now quaint title for a citizen being used) was quite serious and even the deafest of passengers was never in doubt as to the next stop. Occasionally one would come across a particularly piercing enunciation which one felt could cut steel. While having to endure its temporary impact, I would raise a silent prayer for the husband that it might never be directed to him. The same voice could part the sea of bicycles as the bus pulled up to a stop, murmuring an indistinct but recognisable incantation into a microphone that miraculously causes the bicycles to weave effortlessly around the bus. My conductress doesn’t need that voice, either to chastise callous youths, the buses are usually too crowed for the elderly to receive such attention, and the bicycle streams have disappeared, swallowed up by prosperity (in the major cities at least). So instead she sat, hardly bothering to mouth, let alone speak the Chinese equivalent of “mind the doors” and instead took refuge in frequent sips from a huge tea flask, the only moment of obvious connection with her Amazonian predecessors.

I felt sorry for my “poor little match girl”. I have been luxuriating in the many advantages which the shiny new bus services have brought me. However, in her I saw the impact on the operators of the new Olympic ready bus system. Her elder sisters exuded a sense of competent responsibility, but she was tied to the drudgery of a very basic assembly line, and clearly had dumbed down to its level. I have been blessed with opportunities and stretching challenges all my life and I thank God for them, but it was salutary to get a sense of how cushioned I am from match girl realities, where one may never get on the first rung of the ladder of opportunity which is being created here. I hope, I pray that somehow God will show me how do more than just observe from a distance, shyly almost, the “match people” of modern China and in his grace actually be present with them in more than the fleeting solidarity that comes from a mumbled Xie Xie as I get off the bus. If only one knew how.

If you liked this article, please consider visiting Our Projects page

Tags: Beijing Diaries, bricks, Robert Hannah

When you know that the Bird’s Nest is a contrast, not a compliment, to the lifestyles of many in China, it’s easy to be po-faced about the Olympics and the impression given of First World sophistication. Lost in one’s reverse snobbery, one can end up underselling the positive impact of that extraordinary event.

My own epiphany came in the Underground, only a week ago. In the crowded passageways, I suddenly found my way blocked by a lady being pushed in a wheelchair. Suppressing, for the sake of charity, the minor burst of impatience that began to well up inside, I looked instead for a way past.  Suddenly it struck me that I had never seen a person in a wheelchair using the Underground before. I began to take a new interest in the couple in front of me and I allowed my pace to match theirs.  They seemed rather lost, but eventually negotiated the corridors to arrive, coincidentally, at the train I too wanted to board. Fellow passengers adjusted to the mild inconvenience of their presence on the crowded train, staff was positively helpful and, for the most part, the pair seemed to be making their way unassisted.  Eventually, they left the train as effortlessly as they had alighted and went their way. A Beijing first and all as a result of the Olympics.

I have spoken of the Games related additions to the Subway system before, namely the upgraded security, but perhaps even more revolutionary has been the introduction of stair lifts at many of the stations and the provision of an ingenious stair climber in other places.  The former is a rather more industrial version of those found in many homes now, and the latter is a contraption I had never seen before which can be wheeled to the beginning of a stair well, and allows a wheel chair-bound individual to be transported up or down  effortlessly.  They are not available everywhere, but they are to be had at the major stations and allows those in wheelchairs to access the system.  Up to this, the otherwise excellent Underground could not have been described as disabled friendly.

Access to public transport is just one of the challenges facing China’s 60 million disabled people.  Were one to look only at the legal code, the impression is of enlightened attention to their needs. The realities are less impressive. Many of the legal mandates remain aspiration. What services that are available are often confined to the urban areas, with few, if any, supports available to the rural disabled.  When one realizes that 56% of China’s population lives in the countryside, it shows how many are outside the loop. A Government Sponsored NGO exists to promote care of the disabled, but the top down approach is not complimented by a vibrant grass roots network promoting change.

The driver for the transformations of the situation in Beijing has been  the 2008 Games, the Paralympics in particular. It was perhaps a face saving exercise, one could hardly host a “Games for the disabled and have no access to the Transport System, but a year from now, that will seem immaterial. What will remain is a new mobility and extended range for people who, till now, could not easily move beyond their homes.  During the Olympics one saw many foreigners in wheelchairs but they were expected, and seemed an extension of the unreal quality of the Olympics month.  But the Olympics are over and this erstwhile po- faced observer is delighted to find that the legacy is more than a rather inaccurate impression of First World grandeur.

If you liked this article, please visit Our Projects Page.

Tags: Beijing Diaries, bricks, olympics, people with disabilities, Robert Hannah