Easter in Shanghai

I think probably one of my misconceptions about China before coming here was that Christianity was not a significant faith for Chinese people. While I do not have exact statistics, I can tell you that there are a number of Churches in Shanghai that on Easter Sunday were packed with Chinese and Expats alike. I was one of the Expats who went to worship on Easter. Following the direction of one of my friends, we were going to go to a Catholic mass where we thought the service was in English. It quickly became apparent that this was not the case as we were the only foreigners in the church. Using a English telephone service called Shanghai Help, we quickly found a service that did offer an English translation, grabbed a cab and made it in time for the 10 O'clock service.

The church we ended up at was Shanghai Community Church, I'm not sure what denomination it is, but definitely a protestant branch as there were two women celebrants. The church was packed with people standing outside near the windows trying to look in. We sat in the balcony where they supplied headphones and had someone translating. The church itself is bigger than St. Saviour's but smaller than Trinity Church in Boston. The service itself was 90 minutes, including a 40 minute sermon that I cannot describe any other way than very 'Chinese.' During the course of the service four different choirs performed, singing songs all with tunes that I recognized, but very different words or course.

After the service we decided that Easter wouldn't be complete without some hot cakes, so we took off to a meiguo fandian (American restaurant) called City Diner, which is probably serves the most authentic western food in Shanghai.

Following a few hour break which involved going back to the fabric market for a Chinese project (ended up buying corduroy jacket while I was there), met up again with the SLU crew (all the kids from my school aka SLUzers) plus a few for Easter dinner. Since were all on budgets we didn't go to any of the more expensive Easter options that various restaurants were offering, but rather to Yao Ming's very own "Yeeha" restaurant, featuring Texas BBQ. It was pretty surreal feeling, felt like I could have been anywhere in the US (it was kind of nice), TVs with NBA games and the Masters being broadcast, the walls lined with NBA jerseys and cowhides and to top it off a mechanical bull in the corner. We all indulged in our western food then called it a night, completing what was actually my second Easter abroad (I was in Costa Rica two years ago while I was a senior in HS).

Happy (belated) Easter!

-AL

PS. Booked my spring break trip tonight, going to Sichuan and then Yunnan provinces, will provide details later.