God Is Red - Liao Yiwu [93]
Liao: Do you know any members from an underground church?
Ho: No. When my mom joined the church in 1985, there was no underground church in Chengdu . . . I don’t think it’s a big deal. We only have one God, who leads us all. It doesn’t matter where you worship.
Liao: Have you heard of Reverend Wu Yaozong?
Ho: The name sounds familiar. I don’t know to which dynasties he belonged.
Liao: He was one of the people who founded China’s Three-Self Patriot Movement in the early 1950s. They proposed that the Chinese Christian churches should sever their ties with the Western imperialists and engage in self-governance, self-support, and self-propagation. Many Christians didn’t agree with him. They don’t believe churches should be under the rule of the Chinese government.
Ho: I agree. I think Wu Yaozong’s idea was so crazy and insane. The Lord Jesus comes from the West. Christianity is predominantly a Western religion. How could you cut yourself off from the West?
Liao: That’s an interesting point. What prompted you to be baptized?
Ho: It’s a long story. My mom used to bug me about my schoolwork all the time. She also sent me to study painting. I think she hoped I would be ranked at the top of my class. When I was little, I was too weak to fight her; I accepted everything she sent my way. After I grew up, I no longer obeyed her. During my last year in high school, I refused to take part in the national college examinations. My mom had a fit. She cried and prayed every day, asking God to give her more confidence and power. To tell you the truth, I was suffering from examination phobia. I couldn’t concentrate on my classes. I used to have four classes in the morning. By the time I was in my fourth class, I started to be seized with the urge to scream. I wanted to smash the desks and chairs. So I told my mom about it. She took me to see a doctor, who diagnosed me as suffering from “intermittent anxiety.” Seeing that I wasn’t too far away from being a lunatic, she let me alone and stopped pressuring me. She also encouraged me to play and to surf the Internet. I did a lot of that. I was very into pop stars, especially Chinese rock stars.
Liao: Tell me, did you date in high school?
Ho: Dating? You hick! We started dating back in elementary school. I tasted my “forbidden fruits” at the age of fourteen. By the time I was in senior high school, I was a veteran. What choices do we have? The food we eat contains too many hormones; our bodies mature fast.
Liao: Interesting. Sorry for the digression. What happened later?
Ho: I didn’t attend college. I couldn’t find a job to support myself either. I just idled at home all day. When the Hunan TV station ran the Chinese Idol show, I didn’t miss a single episode. I loved all the female contestants, especially Li Yuchun. She’s avant-garde and sexy. She’s super cool. Each time she came on, I was always excited, jumping up and down.
Liao: Li Yuchun? The singer who looks androgynous? I can’t understand a word she sings.
Ho: You sound like my mom. That’s exactly what she said. But really, it’s pointless to argue over the trivial stuff. Now that I’m a Christian, I have become more serious about life. I feel embarrassed by my wild teenage behavior. You know, when I was in high school, my mother would encourage me to read the Bible. Instead of studying it, I tried giving her a hard time by finding faults in it. And that was pretty easy. For example, in Genesis, we are told that God created Adam and Eve and allowed them to live without worries in Eden and have anything they wanted, but not the fruit that would allow them to know good from evil. Adam and Eve couldn’t resist the temptation put before them by Satan, and they ate the