Here’s an update on Easter 2011, mainland China-style:

“…they try to harass your family, your workplace and your landlord. They want to evict you. They want to control you.” [Full article.]

“In April this year, local governments across China started to “settle the score” with the pastors who had actively participated in Lausanne last year … Because of the large number of people who have been detained, the names of the others are still being confirmed … The meeting sites of these pastors’ churches have all been closed down and sealed by the police.” [Full article.] (See Lausanne story background here and here.)

In case you missed it:

• China Detains Church Members at Easter Services
• Celebrating Easter, even at the cost of arrest
• Was the Shouwang Church right to meet publicly?
• Beijing Christians Detained

The official English-language ‘soft power’ response:

• House churches cannot politicize religion
• Family churches should abide by law
• Praying for trouble

I’m biking home from work tonight around 9:30. I’m on a two-lane road near our place, and it’s clogged up ahead. This barely registers because getting clogged is just what Tianjin roads do. But then I hear the music — looped Buddhist funeral chanting. As I get closer, I see what must be the relatives standing silently lined up in the middle of the road — there’s at least twenty of them, all in dark clothing. Several meters ahead of them are a about five guys piling Chinese funeral wreaths in the middle of an intersection (as they often do at Tianjin funerals), dressed casually and yelling, “Throw that there! Move that over! Don’t put those there!” There’s a big paper-maché-looking horse at the front of the pile. Mildly curious onlookers are scattered on the surrounding sidewalks and cars are waiting in both directions.

The pile is finally ready; it’s about six feet high. The last thing to go on is a white, paper something placed on top by the lead family member — looks like he could be the son. Then they light the pile and it flares up quickly. The family members are all kneeling on their hands and knees, heads bowed, in the middle of the road. The horse literally bursts into flames, and the flames from the pile threaten the overhanging tree branches and telephone and electrical wires. The lead pile-arranger has a long pole that he stokes and corrals and beats down the fire with.

Once the flames are on their way down (but still high; this is a full-on bonfire), the family gets up and the women start wailing. They slowly walk away down the road, arms around each other, crying, dabbing eyes, etc., following the amplifier on wheels that’s playing the looped Buddhist chanting and being pulled by some guy.

The guy in charge of the bonfire is trying to get the cars to start going around it. The drivers hesitate, but one nimble taxi cuts out of line and flies past like he’s afraid of getting his paint scorched. As the flames get lower, some of the onlookers chuckle and applaud and begin to disperse.

I didn’t have the camera with me, but you can see examples of what I saw here:

• Chinese funeral next door
• There’s hell to pay

A piece of commentary I occasionally hear, unsolicited, from students who are interested in social issues is that China has “no religion”, and they mean this as a bad thing, that no one heeds the previous moralisms of Confucianism or Communism; everyone is consumed with an amoral greed for wealth and status at whatever the cost to themselves or others, particularly with an astoundingly callous disregard for others. Unrestrained, shameless, brutally pragmatic selfishness guides behaviour (here’s a recent infamous example). One Chinese novelist who came through my news recently is calling it “AIDS of the soul.”

This interesting take on what it means for Facebook to strike a deal to enter China brings in Lu Xun’s famous “people in the iron house” allegory: Facebook and the People in the Iron House: 非死不可？

“非死不可” is a Chinese transliteration of “Facebook” that literally means “cannot not die” — the kind of toast soldiers might make on the eve of a suicide mission.

“there was actually very little we could inherit from our parents spiritually, who grew up during the 1960′s and 1970′s … the current dilemma of the post 1980′s also includes the fact that we not only have to work hard to afford all the mortgage we carry, but also have to build our own spiritual world, after we have come to realize how barren it has been, from scratch, which has brought both elation and disillusion.” For more see James Fallows’ Voices from China #1: The ‘Post 1980s Generation’.

I couldn’t possibly count the number of times I’ve heard someone start with, “我们中国人都……” (but don’t you dare turn it around and say, “You Chinese all…”! ;) ). Anyway, someone traveled all over China, stopped lots of random people on the street and asked them “What does China mean to you?” and “What is your role in China’s future?” Now they’ve complied their answers with their photographs and basic personal information at we-chinese.com.

Jiaqi “Crystal” Tao writes about the travails of her friend who just finished her traditional month of confinement (坐月子) after giving birth: “Jiaqi, never again! I don’t care about the pain of delivery, but zuò yuèzi… that’s too much.”

Crystal explains what her friend was forced to endure, and lists other common traditional Chinese post-postpartum practices in Some Weird Things Chinese Women Do After Giving Birth.

Here’s an eye-catching photo gallery of regular people doing regular things in Beijing. Here’s what some of the Chinese commentors had to say:
“I am a chinese guy, i have to say this subject is the worst ever. The photographer showed us only boring pieces lives of chinese people, nothing more.”
“I’m a Beijing native, I will have to say, most of the pictures are really realistic, and driving me homesick.”
“Is is the real life.”

Here’s a nice little primer with visuals for speaking about time in Chinese: Long Time No See

One article and one “sermon” (compliments of the Party) discussing the appropriateness of the Shouwang church’s decision to meet publicly in an ever-worsening climate. First, there’s a helpful overview of supporting and detracting positions in The Debate about Shouwang Church: “Even before some of its members were detained and leaders were put under informal house arrest last weekend, a vigorous debate about Shouwang Church in Beijing was going on both inside China and among Christians overseas.”

Then there’s The Global Times editorial: House churches cannot politicize religion. (The Global Times is the Party’s official English voice to the outside world; it’s a big-budget attempt at soft-power that is supposed to engage and compete with major English-language international news agencies to help ‘foreigners’ better understand and accept the official Chinese position. It’s infamous among lǎowàis for brilliantly achieving the exact opposite effect.)