Chinese Mother I live that life ©
By
Michael Casey
I was just looking at the Daily Telegraph when I spotted a piece about a book Chinese Mother, I scanned it and thought, I don’t need to read this I already live this, I have a Shanghai wife, so for 13years I know all about Chinese things. The work ethic, the saving ethic, and the religion ethic, what did he just say the religion ethic? Yes the religion ethic, if and when you meet a Chinese Christian you will be amazed. I don’t know if they are all converts or just how many generations of Christians they are, but I do know when they believe they really believe.
I’m a Catholic from County Kerry, 1st generation born in Birmingham, but my Faith goes back 100s of years, from the nipple for generations, very very poor but a faith so rich, see photo Cromane Kerry. Now when you visit Chinese church you may see a lesson going on, lots of adults doing Bible study, the students in their 30s and 40s may all be PhDs, 12 students as many as there were disciples with one teacher, who is of course a PhD too. Once we were at a meeting, and the great thing is there is always food afterwards, just imagine that. Anyway you may ask is he a PhD and the answer is yes yes yes and yes, you notice somebody empting the bins, is he a PhD, no not him, he is a Professor, Andrew may smile if ever he reads this. The point is they are committed to what they love, their love of God, just being average is no good, just being good is no good, being very good may be acceptable, but being the best of the best is their target, it’s the norm for Chinese Christians. That’s why they study Bible so much, we have 3 or 4 Bibles in our house 2 in Chinese, and one is bilingual Bible, my kids are encourages to study it every day. I’m classed as the pagan because I don’t daily read the Bible, I just remind my convert wife that I have heard the Bible in Mass for over 50years now. I did used to read it on Sundays too, but that’s no good for a Shanghai wife, I am a pagan, I may as well be wearing wode and dance around the garden naked. If I can’t pass A level Bible studies with an A******* then I’m useless. This really is the standard Chinese Christians try to attain.
In other aspects of life Chinese people want to be the best, computing for example; we had a problem on our home computer and we ended up with a totally clued up kid come and fix it for us. The point to all this is that we have to emulate, compete and try and be better than them, and yes it can be done, we just have to raise our game. I’m fortunate because my Birmingham/Shanghai daughters have a head start because of a nagging, lovingly nagging mother, I’m the more relaxed one in the family. This of course means that I’m classed as useless, however my girls have inherited the love of writing from me, or it could be from their Chinese granddad and a Political Editor Chinese Great Uncle. In the end though it’s the Love from everywhere, from Ireland from China from Birmingham from Shanghai, THIS is always the key, without Love there is nothing, there is a famous Bible passage that states all this. If I were Chinese in a nanosecond I’d quote the chapter and verse of it all this, I think its Paul’s letter to somebody or another. I’m no Bible Scholar after all, I’m just a writer looking for a publisher.
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