God Bless John, My Friend.
When we started our first blog on blogspot.com on learning English and reading, he randomly picked up John as his ID. It was 2003, when we finished high school and both entered university.
John was my best high school friend. He was clever and devoted in school, good at math and physics, and eventually got enrolled in a top 20 university in China studying computer science. I had never dreamt of going to study in a university as famous. He is much of the academic kind of students, hardworking. Everyone believed he would ultimately become a prominent scientist.
John is serious about everything and he believes that people are generally good. When he arrived in Beijing as a university freshman, he kept his simple belief in the goodness of city dwellers.
Wudaokou is one of the most internationalized parts in Beijing. The top two universities in mainland China locate here, international students from every corner of the globe study and appreciate Chinese life here. One day when John was shopping there, an old trickster came up and told John a sad story about his family and that he needed some money to find his lost daughter. Without any hesitation, John picked out one hundred and gave the old guy. After walked away a few minutes, John turned back and asked the old guy if he needed more.
It was a long time later that John had realized that old guy was a professional story telling beggar. John was teased for quite a long time by friends on this. John replied with a big smile on his face, “I just thought I can help him out.”
John insisted he should do something positive in his university years. At the second year he told me he had been considering seriously about joining the Communist Party. I ask him loudly why, I have always doubted the Party that pretend to be accountable and great. John answered with his usual seriousness party committees in university departments are not as hypocrite, they are really working for benefiting the students.
But last year, John changed a lot and that gave me a big surprise. He asked me if I was interested in the Bible and invited me to a religious venue. What I expected was something like a lecture on biblical stories and western culture. It was in a very ordinary apartment hidden in all these apartment building complexes in north-west Beijing. I was totally shocked by the religious atmosphere in that barely-furnished little apartment. After the mass I asked the organizer in a low voice I probably would accept a god and a Christ, but perhaps not as described in the Bible. The middle-aged lady was taken aback by my question, and told me the choice is up to me, as I have my “free will”.
I talked with John in the summer sun of Beijing about the belief. I have to say I only want to believe in what I want to believe in. I want absolute freedom in choosing what I believe. The communist party has been telling fascinating fake stories, and trying to seize people’s mind for a long time. I escaped from their illusionary and hypocrite ideology. And now, when encountering Christianity, I cannot be sure if I can still keep my little freedom of questioning and believing in what I believe. Giving up questioning, even Christianity, means giving up other possibilities of learning and accepting other explanations and philosophies of the whole world. I’m not ready to jump into a certain predefined way of thinking.
But I totally understand John’s choice, and God bless John.
John kept on the same track, and went on further. Graduate students are really eager to get a good job and make good money. Or many would choose to pursue further study in post-gradate schools or abroad. And John, an excellent student in Computer Science, would have chosen a much brighter path. But he gave up all that and chose another way of life. He began working in the church (which I guess is not accepted by the government and literally illegal to Chinese government).
The last time when I saw him was Easter Day. I just had an interpreting course and worrying if I’m going to find a good job and if I can have enough money to sustain my life in this big, noisy, crowded city.
And John had a blissful emotion. I wondered why. He simply replied, “It’s Easter Day.”
