God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [17]
In 1998 things changed. We had a new bishop. A new generation of nuns, such as Sister Tao, arrived. I feel more relaxed now. I will continue to press them to have the government return the remaining church property. Even if we can’t get it back, we need to record it in the church history. Future generations should know what happened.
I’ve been waiting for the Lord to take me. I’m looking forward to reuniting with Bishop Liu and my aunt. While I was not looking, another ten years have passed. I’m going on 101 now. People around here are thirty, forty years younger than I am. What can I do?
Liao: What would you like to do?
Zhang: I would like to continue to praise the Lord. I would like to continue to make sure that our church gets back our land. I would like to continue . . .
Chapter 3
The Tibetan
Bars and nightclubs on Foreigner Street in Dali look different in the daylight without their flattering neon signs and the hypnotic thump thump thump of their music; I imagine a model woken up too early, without her makeup and glamorous outfits. The smell was different, too, in the fresh morning air: body odor and stale marijuana smoke. Beyond were the vegetable vendors, Bai women in their colorful dress calling attention to the fruits and vegetables from their land, their displays smelling earthy and real, leaves unusually lush and thick. I stopped to admire the bok choy and, out of mischief, asked if it was genetically engineered. The Bai woman looked at me through narrowed eyes, smiled toothlessly, and scolded: “You damn ghost from Sichuan.”
At a little after nine o’clock on August 3, 2009, I turned right on Renmin Avenue into a small stone-paved lane, following the directional signs for “The Catholic Church.” The door to one courtyard was open, and, from the lane, the “church” within appeared at first glance no different from any of the other old residential houses in the neighborhood. Though its eaves were carved with the birds and animals of Bai legends, reaching into the sky was a steeple topped by a cross painted gold. Inside, the ceiling arched several stories high, and the building took the shape of a butterfly, its wings stretched ready for flight.
Sunday Mass had just started as I slipped quietly through the waves of singing from the hundred or so parishioners and eased along a pew to join my friend Kun Peng. Not knowing how to sing hymns, I hummed the melody. At the altar, against the background of four big Chinese characters proclaiming God Is Love, a middle-aged priest and two young acolytes were immersed in an ancient ceremony. “For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him,” the priest intoned. I felt a little self-conscious about my presence in the church, a nonbeliever here to observe the behavior of believers. I knew the passage the priest was reading and hoped they did not think the betrayer was me.
The service had a rhythm of rising and falling, like the wash of the tide against a beach: standing to sing the hymn, sitting to hear the sermon, kneeling to pray, standing again to sing another hymn. Kun Peng had told me that with the repetition of each act, the heart became purer, more pious and more passionate. We all stood again when the organ began to play, and the congregation made a line in the aisle to receive Holy Communion, the wafer and wine that were the body and blood of Christ.
I was not alone in remaining seated; there was a smattering of other nonbelievers here out of curiosity or simply to enjoy the music. By eleven o’clock, the Mass was over, and Kun Peng took me to see the monastery next door. High walls divided the views of two traditional Bai-style courtyard houses, where plants and flowers grew in the garden, lush and in full bloom. The houses looked dilapidated. Nuns and monks shuffled in and out, some in robes, others not, going about