“It’s not a story. It is the truth.”

It was autumn.  Late enough that I brought along my jacket, but early enough in the season that I could leave it in the back of the charter bus.  After a two-hour ride, split between high-speed highways and hilly village pathways, our group collected itself at the statue of the Han Emperor Liu Bang.  My aunt Fang, me, and her colleagues- both fellow faculty and some professors from nearby universities- assembled into rows to take pictures in front of the mounted, charging emperor.

It was a simple day trip, and although I assumed that because of the cave and its history this tourist area must have been well-known, whenever I tried describing it to my students afterwards they had no idea what place I was talking about.  Perhaps it was my pronunciation; Chinese isn’t a language accommodating to outsiders (I describe it as permutations of ch, sh, and j sounds with rising and falling tones).  Our plan was to hike through the woods to the cave at the top of the hill, enjoying as we went the greenery and the bluest sky I had yet seen in China.  Although that doesn’t mean the sight was spectacular, the sky still shined clearly through the tree canopy.  The environment was remarkable in another way, that is that it was the largest space in China I’d seen uninterrupted by the detritus of civilization.  Outside of vendor huts loaded up with the same wooden, seemingly-traditional goods and the bright rainbow of junk toys and junk food, there were no remnants of concrete buildings, no car exhaust (or blaring horns), and no litter pooled together by the roadside into a disgusting rainbow swamp.

One of the professors from another university, English name Lily, was an English professor who occasionally translated for me or interpreted the sights along the ascending pathway.  She also asked me a few grammar questions, point blank.  An example, not necessarily one of hers, but of the type I’ve heard from her and from students: “What is the difference between may not/might not and cannot/ could not?”  I also had one student ask me why words have more than one meaning, or why two different phrases can mean the same thing.  As a rule, when answering theses types of queries, the first thing you will say- no, drone- is, “Uh...”

Lily was a lovely lady, though, who told me about her college classes and about her son studying computer science at Stanford (many of the Chinese I’ve met aspire to study in America at one of the top 50 universities.  In China, extracurricular activities are a nearly non-existent priority compared to test scores, so in their system the bright and ambitious can realistically study abroad at a prestigious university.)  Then, after we climbed the stone stairways overgrown with roots of 2,000-year old gingko trees, and passed through the colorful, incense and idol-filled temple, we approached another statue of the Emperor Liu Bang and the heralded cave he and his men hid in from their enemies.  An eroded stone stairway led the way up, and a crowd of people ascending and descending, balancing and slipping, made their way in and out of the cave.  Without its history, the cave wouldn’t attract attention.  Hardly ten people could comfortably stand in its space.  But one significant feature was the large stone covering the mouth, said to have fallen “from heaven” to protect the emperor.

Lily explained this all to me, and she said that it was similar to the way a stone was rolled over Jesus’ tomb and removed by angels.  Now this pricked my ears.  I knew that, as a professor, she was required to be a member of the Communist Party and disavow religion.  I also knew that, at her age, she had grown up in a China slowly opening up to the West, with a foundation of atheistic beliefs laid over centuries of Chinese philosophy and folk religion.  So, her knowledge of the Resurrection account could have been simply knowledge, or, more likely, because she was Christian.  I tread carefully.  I asked her an opening question about the similarity between the Emperor’s cave and Jesus’ tomb.  Then, I followed up with, “So you know the story of Jesus rising from the tomb?”  Without swaying, Lily replied, “It’s not a story.  It is the truth.”  She said it with conviction, and I quietly explained that “story” can also be a true story; it does not only mean a fiction or fantasy.  I don’t know if she understood me; as we walked on I was left to think of her words and replay them in my mind.

I’ve been surprised at the number of Christians I’ve met in China, and the openness with which students of mine have happily volunteered that they went to church for Christmas or that they believe in Jesus.  I had assumed that religion, the Christian faith especially, was kept quiet about in public.  I knew that persecution in the forms of imprisonment and execution were still real.  And I knew that the government expected to control its people’s religious activities to a certain extent.  The state won’t accept divided loyalties and will arrest the leaders of independent churches that attract too much attention.  As part of my teaching contract with my university, I’m not allowed to participate in religious activities that violate the government’s laws and interests, which would include religious meetings with students.

I’ve been careful to watch my words here.  I’ve been in China long enough to have heard the people speak about religion, but not long enough to publicly interject my own opinion.  I’ve wanted to first gauge the Chinese’s own attitude towards mentions of Jesus and discussions of faith.  I meet brothers and sisters who said they saw me praying in the cafeteria and ask me if I’m a Christian and then say, “That’s so great” or tell me how they believe in God and the times the first had their prayers answered by Him.

And I have been pleasantly and hopefully uplifted when these rays of sunshine do break through, when the new green shoots do grow up through the crumbling concrete and life springs forth.