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Where does popular religion go online during Covid? China of course.

The Chinese version of Amazon advertises religious services such as making the loved one you broke up with return to you, ensuring your car is safe and protecting your pet.

1,800 people signed up at E50 a go to have their ex-loved one forcibly returning to them by the intervention of spiritual powers.

A fortune teller promises to help solve worries about marriages, careers, emotional states or children’s future for as little as E90. He will inform you about your past first and if he is wrong you wont have to pay any money. 200 have signed up.

There is a newly recognised ‘God of the Car’ who will help you drive without accidents. It cost E40.

A popular item is offering prayers for an unborn child. It costs E30 a month.

Photos: 1. Your Fortune

2. Force loved-one to return 3. Offer prayers for unborn

Dublin’s bike lending scheme started in 2009, China’s in 2014. Dublin’s is still doing ok but China’s ran into trouble and a new possibility may replace it  –  and electric car for just 4,000 euro.

 Five members of Beijing University’s cycling club grafted the idea of renting bicycles with the convenience of the country’s ubiquitous smartphone-driven internet economy.

They launched a company known as OfO, three letters of the alphabet resembling a rider on a two-wheeled cycle. For the cost of 10 cents you could pick up or drop off a bike with the help of a smartphone app.

Soon millions of blue, red, yellow and white bikes began to flood the cities. But bad habits began to spread and mountains of impounded, abandoned and broken bikes piled up on vacant plots as city authorities discussed how to deal with them.

Meanwhile another phenomenon, the mini electric car is beginning to change the countryside.  The cheapest is about E1,500 and the most popular, the Hong guang, about E4,000.  The four-seater does 170 kms on a charge. Its not regulated yet so it is a favorite among older people in the countryside, ideal for hopping to the market!

Can Dublin catch up?

Roll Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas all together and you get the Chinese Autumn Festival.

This year to add to the mix,  Chinese National Day also falls on 1 October.

Traditionally it is a time for families to come together but this year in China people are encouraged to travel around the country to help the economy while in neighbouring Korea, which also claims the festival, people are asked to stay at home and celebrate in small groups. 

Last year in China 782 million trips related to the festival were made by people coming together but this year a mere 600 million trips are expected. Often three or even four generations would come together for a real family meal but slowly that is changing as families become smaller and people are scattered because of work over a country where being three or four thousand miles apart is not uncommon. The better off were also beginning to use the extended festive week for travel. The old customs are losing their significance.  

This year, because of the virus, journeys out of the country are not encouraged and Hong Kong, for some strange reason, is also not in favour. Instead, free travel coupons in hand, the travel-minded are heading for China’s Hawaii in the south (Hainan), to the Alps country of Yunnan, the wilds of Xinjiang or the tourist trap of Xian.

Many who had tried to get home from business trips or studies abroad find themselves stuck in compulsory isolation in hotels far from their families.

Culturally, spiritually, economically and numerically any quietening of Halloween that the virus achieves in Ireland this year will pale in comparison.

Much of the success in China’s controlling  the Covid virus was due to local communities taking responsibility.  Volunteers manned roadblocks and prevented strangers from entering into their village or estate.

In the countryside this enabled life to go on almost as normal after an initial one month of strict confinement to homes. Once that ban to movement was lifted people could do business as usual within their own village or district, safe from outside threats.  

In certain parts of the Chinese countryside the proportion of Catholics is so high that they are known as ‘Catholic Villages.’ Their population could be from 3,000 to 6,000. These villages have a similar sense of autonomy and responsibility. Despite national programs to eradicate religion, they continue to gather for morning prayers (at 5.00 am!) and again for evening prayer.

Even though a priest, when available, only visits them once a week or a month they themselves continue to instruct their young in the faith and gather to celebrate. These are the communities which produced a new generation of priests and Sisters, keeping their beliefs and hopes alive.

Because they are in the countryside these communities may be expected to be old fashioned and conservative but in fact they are using the latest technology and social media to share and develop their faith.  They use the media to discuss the new challenge facing them and look for ways of responding.

The creation of such communities in Ireland would not only help create safe ‘bubbles’ in which  people could  return to normal life but be a solution to the challenges of passing on the values of faith from one Irish generation to the next.  

With the Covid rate and fear increasing in Ireland every day, it is interesting that in China, with a  population of one and a half billion, the number of new cases is minimal and stable.

How did they manage that?

Back in January, once the threat of the virus was officially acknowledged, they immediately ordered a strict lockdown in Wuhan, where the virus started to spread. Gradually the restrictions were implemented in other parts of the country and for the next three months over half of the population was confined to their homes. After three months the regulations were gradually eased and now the only concern is that the virus will come back through people returning to China from abroad.

So they have made it difficult for people to return.  I know some Chinese students who have being waiting since May for a chance.  The odds are against them. The number of flights is restricted and the cost is about five times what it was.

Besides that, they have to get a Covid test before they leave and that costs at least E180.

When they do arrive in China they have to enter a quarantine center for two weeks for which they have to pay themselves.

Despite the rigid lockdown, the economy seems to have survived, though it took a beating.  The government offered no compensation to those put out of work or to small businesses that had to close.

How did our response differ and why? We value our freedom, they value their security. 

I have never met the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Hazel Chu, but I know the villages in the New Territories of Hong Kong where her parents come from and I know Guilin in south China  where she was a volunteer teacher for a year.

I am also familiar with that amazing ability, typified by Hazel, which enables a remarkable number of people of Chinese descent to move quickly from hardship to financial stability and social service.  

Her parents came separately to Ireland and first met while working in the same restaurant in Dublin. They opened a restaurant themselves and Hazel worked there when she was young, washing dishes and cooking. Today her mother runs four restaurants.  

Hazel graduated from UCD in history and politics and went on become a barrister.  Over the next few years she worked for a number of ngos and companies to repay the cost of her studies.  

In 2009 she took time off to go to Guilin to teach is a poor county school.

In 2016 she joined the Green Party and became the first Green Party councillor in Dublin (Pembroke district) in 2019. She was elected chair of the party.

In June of this year she was elected mayor of Dublin, the ninth women to hold that post.

Unfortunately she has also been a victim of racism, being attacked aggressively on social media. A proud Dubliner, she says she can cope with the abuse and will continue her contribution to the city with the same energy and social concern that got her this far.    

What city in the world has the greatest interest in religion? It is Beijing, China.

The New York Times reports that since May, Chinese hackers have infiltrated the Vatican’s computers to spy on its preparations for a Vatican-Beijing meeting in September.

One attack was a virus hidden inside a document that appeared to be a legitimate email from the Vatican to Msgr. Javier Corona Herrera, the Vatican representative in Hong Kong

Chinese hackers and state authorities regularly use cyberattacks to gather information on groups of Buddhist Tibetans, Muslim Uighurs and Falun Gong practitioners outside China. Inside China surveillance is taken for granted.

The Communist Party is suspicious of all religious groups because they have alternative values and priorities, and their local communities are not under complete Party control.

The hacking in Hong Kong was also directed at the offices of the Catholic Diocese and of the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), a large missionary group there.

The International Headquarters of the Columban Fathers is also located in Hong  Kong so this development must be a source of concern for them also.

Is Dialogue Better than Confrontation?

Two years ago the Chinese Communist Party and the Vatican signed a two-year agreement to seek agreement and cooperation. Yet the Party continued to implement a harsh anti-religion program reminiscent of the Mao era, removing all religious symbols in public and forbidding young people to attend religious services.

The Hong Kong South China Morning Post has being reviewing the situation. It quotes a researcher who is a Communist Party member but asks not to be named.

“This is rooted in an outdated Marxist outlook that sees religion as a backward and reactionary idealism, Crackdowns and containment are the only response. Religions and religious believers are products of an evolving society. Completely denying the value of religion today is no different to completely denying the value of our own society. This is pure self-sabotage.

“The Chinese authorities overlook the complexity of religion in China and treat believers as ‘opposing forces’. But persecution will only lead to faster growth of unauthorised religious groups, especially among Christians.

Wenzhou diocese that had more than 3,000 baptisms last year under the leadership of underground bishop Shao Zhumin, who remains a frequent target for local authorities.

“The church must keep lighting the candle of hope, trusting only God can bring forth the change. If we lose hope, we will lose everything.”

As we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of letting foreign tourists into Ireland, consider what is happening in Asia. Here we ask for a self-regulated quarantine on arrival, there it is more rigorous.

If you are a Korean national wanting to return home, or a foreign tourist, you have to do a 14 day quarantine in a designated hotel. It will cost you E2,000, which covers room and meals, plus medical checks and transport.

In China, it is similar. You must stay in a designated hotel and it will cost E50 a day.

If you return to Hong Kong from Beijing (same country?), even a Hong Kong resident has to spend at least one night in a designated hotel and then two weeks in quarantine at a place of their choice  with an electronic tag that will tell if they stray from where they are supposed to be.

Despite this, the virus has started to spread again in Hong Kong. With 52 new cases yesterday, face masks are back on, bars are closed and parks such as Disneyland out of bounds.

Public gatherings are reduced from 50 people to four which is a relief to the security forces as the city tries to figure out just what the new security laws imposed by Beijing mean for businesses, families and individuals.

The Leaving Exams were cancelled in Ireland this year but in China ten million students sat for the Gaokao, the local equivalent, early this week.

Irish students might think the Leaving puts a lot of pressure on them (and their parents) but it nothing to what the Gaokao means in China. Students there study day and night for five years to prepare for this exam which will decide their future and their parents leave no stone unturned in effort to see their child succeeds.

Those efforts include appeals to the spirts of Einstein, Newton and Confucius. At exam time fruit, flowers, food and written prayers are offered to their statues, often located in public places.

At this moment in Chinese history, when the government is engaged in what it hopes to be the ultimate program to exterminate all forms of religion, this expression of public religious belief must be a disappointment.

The students’ parents were born around 1970 but they still display the Chinese confidence in the afterlife and the ability of the deceased to influence the present.

It is interesting that they appeal not to those who succeeded in business or media but to those famous for their learning. Their ‘saints’ are those who changed our understanding of what it is to be human (like Confucius) or our knowledge of the world around us (like Newton and Einstein).

It is this refusal to see religion and science as opposed but rather as two partners in the search for truth that distinguishes the Chinese even today.