Tiānzhǔ Táng 天主堂

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Early last week, I set out to find the Catholic church in Hangzhou. Pete and I decided we would attend Mass as a memorial to his father who entered Heaven on March 18, 2011. I remember Scott telling us about this church as it was one of the oldest Catholic churches in China. Scott loved to talk about China ever since we moved here in 2009.

My goal was to get directions to the church from our apartment and call to find out when the English service was, as I search online and couldn't find this information. When I called the church an elderly man answered, "Wei" Hello in Chinese. My response followed in, "Hello" as I would then know if he could speak English. Most people in China don't but sometimes the person on the other end of the line quickly change to broken or fluent English.

I then used my limited Chinese, "Ni hui shuo Yingyu ma" which means Are you able to speak English. His quick response, "bu hui" no haven't learned. I then responded, "deng yi xia" wait a moment, as I ran into the next room where Pete was to have him ask when the English service was. Pete got enough informaiton from the gentleman that the English Mass was on Saturday night at 7pm. Now we would be attending service on St. Patrick's day before going out to drink green beer, very Irish of us.

We made our way downtown on the B2 bus from outside our school gate to a block and a half way from the church. We arrived at 6:30pm and noticed that no one was in the chapel. We went into the bookstore to ask when the service was. No one spoke English, so Pete used his Chinese to communicate. We decided we had 30 minutes until the service began so we grabbed a quick bite to eat at KFC (there goes my 6 weeks of no fast food, but I drank lemonade instead of Pepsi so I am still soda free).

We walked back to the church to see no one in the chapel and were told to go to the 3rd floor, all in Chinese of course. What? We want to attend mass, what is on the 3rd floor. We entered the room with about 20 other Chinese nationals who were sitting at desks with bibles open. We turned around and headed back down the stairs, then were met by an English speaking Chinese man. He had us go back up to the room, sit down and then answered our questions. Come to find out they were studying the Old Testament in Greek. Yes, Greek. We explained we wanted to attend the English Mass and he then said "Oh the Catholic church is down the street." But before we left we wanted us to be missionaries and teach an English Corner at the church, no thanks.

We walked out and 2 minutes later arrived at the Catholic church that I saw on the internet. I have only seen 1 church in Hangzhou and tonight saw 2 more churches within the same block of each other. Come to find out we stumbled upon the Greek Orthodox church.

When we walked into the Catholic church they were singing away and I noticed it was almost communion time by the sounds of the Mass, the service started at 6:30 instead of 7pm as the worker had advised us. We were in the area at 6:30pm and could have experienced the whole service. Pete called it the "Express" Mass since we arrived 30 minutes late.

The members of the congregation were from all around the world and all different colors. It was a cool thing to see in this homogenous society. I wouldn't think twice about it in the US but here in China it is a different story. Instead of having missilettes the church had mini flat panel tv's on both sides of the church which were displayed in English. The communion hosts were the strangest size and texture that either of us had experienced, very thin almost like rice paper. After the service, we even met a man from Irvine, CA who has been coming to this church for 10 years during his business trips to Hangzhou.

We know that Scott was smiling down from heaven and doesn't want us to be strangers to the church now that we know where the church is, when the English Mass is and how to get there. We won't let you down Scott.

For more information about the church please click on this link Immaculate Conception Cathedral.

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Comments

[Mom]

Tianzhu
Life does not seem to be easy....at least you found it and now know the routine!