God in China

I forgot the single most important thing I needed to do before leaving the airport after landing in mainland China: buy a SIM card. The next day, a Chinese Catholic tried to help me acquire one, but that particular city required the police to interview me three days after I applied, before they would even allow the purchase—for reasons you can probably guess. But my plans didn’t allow it; I was only there for a day. This meant more days of struggling to survive unplugged from China’s infamous tech grid.

And why is that such a big deal, you may ask? Well, China has almost completely abandoned cash, and basically every purchase has to go through a government-owned app. No SIM card meant Wi-Fi hopping, borrowing data from strangers, relying on screenshots, praying they contained the right information, begging vendors to take cash, and lastly being a pitiful American tourist. But the real adventure began when I reached the mountainous town of Yangshuo, surrounded by the idyllic mountains you see in the photos above. I was there not for meetups or pilgrimage, but for “rest” before those parts of my trip began. 

After finding a taxi driver willing to accept cash, I discovered he couldn’t read Chinese. Imagining a peaceful mountain village like the ones you see in those polished YouTube videos, this didn’t seem detrimental to me at first. Little did I know that I was arriving during peak tourist season at the most bustling time of night. The streets were teeming with people like New Year’s Eve in Times Square, creating impossible traffic! Even if my driver could have read the street and hotel signs, it might not have mattered much! He dropped me off in the midst of the chaos, gave me a typical ambiguous answer—“Your hotel is over there somewhere”—and was gone.

With bags in hand, an empty stomach, and very little sleep over the last 48 hours, I was eager to find my hotel. Surely one of these thousands of people will help me! But I soon encountered a phenomenon I hadn’t expected: no one seemed willing to help. I asked a shop owner, “Where is Fanli Hotel?” He pointed down the road and said, “Over there.” So I went a little farther down the road and asked someone again, only to get a similar response. It didn’t take too many more attempts until I realized these people were just shooing me away. Instead of casually asking someone, I tried to find the most genuine-looking person I could find and begged. Begrudgingly, she helped me set my eyes on the hotel, but there was a big problem: it was on the literal side of one of those mountains! I stumbled through dark, steep alleyways, hungry and exhausted, taking one wrong turn after another. When I finally found my hotel, I wept, feeling alone and betrayed by humanity’s indifference to my need for help.

The next day I continued to have experiences that were difficult and negative. Before setting out to buy my SIM card, I needed some bottled water. Walking into a shop to buy three bottles, I asked if the owner took cash. He flippantly responded, “Cash? Why not the government app? Sure, I’ll take your cash—11 kuai ($1.64).” I had a 10-kuai paper bill ($1.49) and asked him to accept it, but he refused. After paying, I asked for a bag, which he then tried to charge me 2 kuai for (30 cents). By this time, I was annoyed by his miserliness. I denied the bag, asked for my change, and walked away. Soon after, all I heard was someone yelling, “Thief! Thief!” The shopkeeper hadn’t given me back my change as I thought; he had given me back all my money, which I was walking off with! Once I realized my honest mistake, I apologized, corrected it, and yet was still met with his threats and cursing. 

My first day in China hadn’t started so smoothly, and that night in the hotel room, I was bitter, annoyed, and simply avoiding people. Because my hotel was on the mountain, I could look down and see the masses of people bustling about in the cool night air. As I watched them, something glorious happened: it started pouring down rain on their fun. They scattered like ants. In spite of them, I laughed and pridefully thought God was putting an end to their pagan ways.

I felt inspired to go watch the rain from the rooftop balcony of the hotel. I’d never seen rain fall so hard, and through it, the divine pierced my hardened heart. All of a sudden, one white, shining bird started soaring through the rainy night sky over the masses of people. It soared and soared so majestically right before my eyes in the pouring rain for at least 30 minutes.  

As I gazed in disbelief, my soul recalled a critical biblical mystery: water and Spirit (dove) and their repeated association with God’s work of salvation and new creation. In the creation account, “the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Genesis 1:2). In the re-creation of the flood, the dove flew back over the waters with an olive branch in its mouth (Genesis 8:11). And most importantly, “when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him” (Matthew 3:16).

Through water and the Spirit, God enters into communion with His creation! God’s desire for worldwide salvation had never resonated with me so intensely. For I was ready to cast down fire and brimstone on sinners, but God deeply desires to shower them with His Fatherly care. Though I encountered people so harsh and hesitant to help me, I also encountered a God whose passion for His orphaned children burns and sets the world on fire with love.

He turned a night of resentment into a night filled with tears, repentance, intercession, and praise. This was a turning point in my trip and also in my life. Thank God His ways are not my ways.

Oh, and that day, I finally got my SIM card too.