The Far East, March-April 2016

Hong Kong:  a fantasy land

 A woman praying in Hualien, Taiwan

 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.