Happy Easter!

I thought I posted this on Sunday, but I just realized I didn’t!

Easter was a beautiful day in Shanghai! It was a sunny day with clear blue skies and a great day to rejoice.

We started off with a champagne brunch at Sasha’s restaurant with some friends. This was a fun game: balancing your desired champagne intake on this beautiful day in the sun, with knowing you had to go to church in a couple hours. Brunch was delicious and just being outside was peaceful and relaxing.

Easter is not a holiday in China. While freedom of religion doesn’t exist in China, they do have churches.

We made our way to the Hengshan church (supposedly one of the largest near us). You cannot worship with the locals, so the foreigner service is at 2pm (local service in the morning) and you must bring your passport. (We didn’t get stopped as we obviously don’t look Chinese).

The service was predominantly contemporary Christian music (my personal preference is more of the traditional variety). The highlights were this choral group who performed as well as just looking around at the diversity of the worshippers. All in all, a beautiful service, but we certainly missed our homes.

Then after church we headed back to our brunch spot to soak the last few hours of sunshine and warmth. :) 

Of course, on holidays, we also really missed our family so it was great to get to Skype with my parents & the Zeller clan. Witnessing Kyle’s first Skype experience was also a highlight of our Easter.

Brunch outside at Sasha's

Hengshan Rd Church

   Kyle's First Skype

On the topic of religion, I’m unfortunately not as educated as I would like to be… I’ve tried to do some research on the topic but most sources seem to have an opinion and are don’t provide an objective view on the topic. Oddly, enough I turned back to Wikipedia for some info! (Yes, I’m embarrassed).

What I do know is that during the Cultural Revolution there was a policy to “eliminate religion” and many places of worship across different religions were destroyed as young people were taught that religion, any religion, was “feudal superstition”. This was effective in many ways as seen from the perspective that majority of Chinese consider themselves atheist / agnostic. However, this also led to many others, especially of the older generations to worship underground, so it’s likely that the percentage of the population that would align themselves with a religion is actually under-reported.

There are still concerns about being persecuted for practicing religious beliefs as the government is wary of any groups coming together en masse. However, I don’t think it’s to the extreme as it once was… but honestly, I don’t really know. More to come if I learn anything new.