March 2016

Japanese school children

Chinese youths

Woman praying in Kyoto

Japan and China, March-April 2016

After leaving Taiwan we spent five days in Japan, one in South Korea, and three in China. Everywhere we went we saw people praying. What China and Japan have in common is Buddhism and cherry blossoms, which have just started to peak. Otherwise, they are two very different societies. Japan is very polite and it is one of the cleanest countries I have ever seen. China, on the other hand, where masses of people can be seen everywhere, is loud and pushy. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, “China is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” For a so-called communist country, it has given rise to a super-rich class of people we drive some of the world’s most expensive cars.

What made a deep impact on our group were the memorials in Hirhosima and Nagasaki to the victims of the the atomic bombs dropped in the middle of those cities in 1945, ending World War Two. Also in Nagasaki, the memorial to Madama Butterfly in her neighborhood on the slope of the hill overlooking the harbor was very touching.

Building that survived in the epicenter of the atomic explosion

A building (with an empty dome) that survived the explosion in the epicenter.

Memorial to Madama Butterfly

HongKong Hong Kong: a fantasy land

PrayingWomanTaiwan A woman praying in Hualien, Taiwan

IMG_3521[1] Chiang Kai Shek memorial in Taipei, Taiwan

Welcome to the Far East. This is my first blog from our 35-day cruise of the Far East.

We boarded the ship in Hong Kong and after a day at sea arrived in Taiwan. Actually there are three different Chinas: Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mainland China. They are totally different from one another. Hong Kong is rich. Taiwan is what is left of the old China. The Mainland is a communist-turned-capitalist giant. In Hong Kong Mammon, or money, is god. In Taiwan they have a memorial to a failed dictator, bigger than the Lincoln Memorial. But in the Taiwanese countryside I ran into a woman praying at a humble Buddhist temple. It was there that I felt the presence of God.

A footnote: It is estimated that there are today in Mainland China 100 million Christians. There are only 85 million members of the communist party in a population of 1.2 billion. It seems to me that religion continues to be the most powerful ideology around the world and needs to be reckoned with.

Archives for March 2016