Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas - Bring Your Passport

A (belated) Merry Christmas to all of you.

Friday night we went to a church to celebrate Christmas Eve (kerstavond). China, of course, is officially a non-religious country (even though many Chinese are buddhists or taoists). So while there are churches around, there are not a lot of them, and they all have a bit of an underground feeling to them.

This particular church we went to was in some sort of art expo center (see photo). We had to bring our passports to show we were foreigners, because Chinese citizens would not be allowed in. It was dreadfully cold and the few space heaters (or the words of the pastor, if you ask me) weren't able to heat up the room.

After the service we had dinner at a friend's house. All in all the evening was lovely - but as Simon said: "it was not like our old church in Washington."


Hoofdpunten in het Nederlands: We hebben kerstavond gevierd in een Katholieke kerk in een expositiecentrum. Chinezen zelf mogen niet naar de kerk, dus we moesten onze paspoorten meenemen om te laten zien dat we buitenlanders zijn en wel naar binnen mogen.

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