On Monday (I can’t believe Monday was just yesterday) we started the day by visiting a local migrant school along with the choir from the international school and performed a number of pieces for them outside before mingling with their 9th graders and starting a basket ball game. After that we returned to the international school and ate lunch before leaving again to tour the religious sites of Chengdu. The first was the local Mosque, which didn’t really have any surprises.
The second was the Three Self Church, government sanctioned church (self-governance, self-support and self-propagation), which was pretty much just a large sanctuary much like one would find in an Episcopalian church around here in the US.
We sang a couple of songs in there, which sounded very nice thanks to the gorgeous acoustics of the room. Finally, we also visited a Buddhist temple, which was a very depressing experience. The most striking aspect of the entire place was its oppressive nature. There are literally angry gods, demons, and other nasties coming out of the woodwork.
Comparing this hope in incense candles offered to enormous
scowling statues that look like they’d love to rend you in pieces to the hope I
have in Christ almost impossible. It’s interesting
to think that the deep sadness I feel for such people now is not felt by them
at all, as they must see it as simply another form of insurance. It’s so clear
to see the utter despair, sadness, and hopelessness of anything besides the one
true God. It’s terrible to think that
the metaphysical Idols in my own life are just as horrible evil, oppressive,
and destructive anything in that temple, if not more so. After the temple, we went to a dirty little
restaurant near by and had some delicious Tibetan cuisine, while being
serenaded by a somewhat tipsy gentleman who knew some cool songs and shook each
of us by the hand as we left. After that
we returned to our host families and retired to our beds. The next mourning (today) we went first thing
in the mourning to see the Panda reserve.
Although I don’t
seem to appreciate Pandas in the same way that others in my party do, I did see
some interesting birds roaming the premises along with the Red and Giant Pandas
in there, some of which I was able to identify including Yellow-bellied Tits,
Collared Finchbill, and the omnipresent White-browed Laughingthrushes and Light-vented Bulbuls. After that we returned to the school to eat
lunch at the cafeteria before going to another to take part in a cultural
exchange, which I found extremely interesting and entertaining (except for the
part we did). There was an oriental
orchestra, Tai Chi, an Erhu solo, and a dance called “face
changing” which involved two dancers and A LOT of masks. Afterwards they walked us around some of the
local shop and treated us to dinner at a fancy restaurant. The coolest part was that a guy from the
Sichuan TV station filmed us the entire time we were there, which I assume
means that we will be broadcasted on province television. Needless to say, we’re back at our host family’s
houses now and I need to get some sleep.
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