Catholic churches in Beijing

I'll cover the most visited Catholic churches in Beijing and include their information at the end this blog entry. I have a PDF version for this one-page information sheet, which you can download from this location.

First of all, you can clearly feel the Marian influences in the design of the chancel for all five churches, especially the center fresco behind the alter.

Long Chinese scrolls and couplets are used for the decorations. All the churches all have a long nave and a chancel with transept.

Something the churches have in common these days is renovation work of various kinds, including a much needed overhaul in all the restroom facilities, for the upcoming Olympics in 2008.

Other than the on-going Sino-Vatican relationship problem, I see that the Chinese Catholic Church faces a serious pastoral challenge in serving the fast-changing demographics. No new churches exist near where I live at the corner of the Tsinghua University. This HaiDian district changed from farm land to many high rises in the last 20 years. People have to travel 1 hour to get to all these old churches, with exception of the West Church. It takes 40 minutes to get to West Church. New churches are needed in the outskirts (3rd, 4th, 5th Ring Road) of Beijing. Except for the West Church, which is on the 3rd ring road, all others are along or inside the 2nd ring road. This infrastructure is for the needs of 1950's. Land is a scarce resource in Beijing now, and it is difficult to build new churches to meet the needs of the faithful, even assuming that the civil authorities are cooperating.

Now, let's look at the five churches and their pictures.

[East Church]
This church is situated on a beautiful plaza and is in the middle of the most affluent shopping district, WangFuJing, in Beijing.
















[North Church]
The liturgy of this church is quite vibrant. This is the only one that is not close to any subway station, and thus is less accessible. It is at the bend of a long alleyway, and it is not easy to find. You have to get help or show the taxi driver the Chinese address in order to get there.






[West Church]

This church needed the most attention in terms of renovation when I visited in 2006. And lo and behold, this one is being rebuilt now as we speak. I was told that this would be a beautiful church when it is done, with liturgical design help and financial support from churches in Hong Kong and other places.

I did not take a picture in 2006 and now can only offer a wall inside the construction site, which has the design that would be repeated for the interior of the new church.









[South Church]
The parishioners also refer to this as the South Cathedral since the it is the seat of the Beijing Diocese.

There is a huge, vibrant international community that draws English-speaking and French-speaking worshipers. The faithful come from Southeastern Asian countries and from as far away as Africa. This church draws curious non-Catholics to see English services.

The Sunday readings are available from the following two URLs: English readings and French readings.

[St. Michael's Church]
This church is situated in the old (Qing Dynasty) diplomatic district and it is not too well-known these days. This is a secret hideout for me to attend mass. I like its schedule on 6 p.m. Sunday. This church was my favorite for some time.











(If you have trouble reading the Chinese characters, try to "View" this page with encodings such as Windows-1252, Simplified Chinese GB18030, and Simplified Chinese GB2312.)
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	北京天主教堂		Catholic Churches in Beijing
	Last Update: November 30, 2007
南堂	北京宣武门 前门西大街 114 号				North 39.53.951 East 116.22.162
South Church	141 Qianmen XiDaJie, XuanWuMen, Beijing 100031
(Nan Tang)	(10) 6602-6538
	Monday to Friday Masses
		6:00 am (Latin), 6:30 am (Chinese), 7:15 am (Chinese)
	Saturday Mass: 6:30 pm (Chinese)
	Sunday Masses: 6:00 am (Latin), 7:00 am (Chinese), 8:30 am (Chinese),
		10:00 am (English), 4:00 pm (English)
	Bus 47, or Subway XuanWuMen (宣武门) stop, Exit B
北堂	北京西城区 西什库大街 33 号				North 39.55.421 East 116.22.353
North Church	33 XiShiKu DaJie, XiCheng Qu, Beijing
(Bei Tang)	(10) 6617-5198
	Monday to Saturday Masses
		6:00 am, 7:00 am
	Sunday Masses: 6:00 am, 7:00 am, 8:00 am, 10:00 am, 6:00 pm
	Bus 690 GangWaShi (缸瓦市）stop, walk 10 minutes
东堂	北京王府井 天主教堂 74号				North 39.54.950 East 116.24.340
East Church	74 TianZhuJiaoTang, WangFuJing, Beijing
(Dong Tang)	(10) 6524-0634
	Monday to Saturday Masses
		6:00 am (Chinese), 7:00 am (Chinese)
	Sunday Masses
		6:00 am (Latin), 7:00 am (Chinese), 8:00 am (Chinese)
	Subway WangFuJing（王府井）stop, walk 10 minutes
西堂	北京西城区 西直门内大街 130 号
West Church	130 XiZhiMen NeiDaJie, XiCheng Qu, Beijing
(Xi Tang)	(10) 6615-6619
	Monday to Thursday Mass: 6:30 am, Friday Mass: 6:30 pm
	Saturday Masses: 7:00 am, 6:30 pm
	Sunday Mass: 8:00 am
	Bus 690 JiShuiTan Bridge South(积水谭桥南）stop, walk 10 minutes
	Subway XiZhiMen (西直门）stop, walk 15 minutes
东交民巷堂	(Dong Jiao Min Xiang Tang)
St. Michael's Church		北京东城区 东交民巷 甲13 号
	13-A DongJiaoMinXiang, DongCheng Qu, Beijing
	(10) 6513-5170
	Monday to Saturday Masses: 6:30 am, 7:00 am
	Sunday Masses: 7:00 am, 8:00 am, 6:00 pm
	Subway ChongWunMen (崇文门）stop, walk 15 minutes

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English with a Chinese characteristic - 003

English with a Chinese characteristic - 003

This is the "003" installment of this series. (see http://blogs.sun.com/tpaullee/ for earlier installments)

• Grammatical Errors
  
  (Use definite article for the proper noun.)
  He used to live in United States. ==> He used to live the United States.
  


• Odd Phrase Usage
  
  The price will continue to rise in recent 4 or 3 years. ==> The price will continue to rise in the next 3 to 4 years.
  
  
  
• Difficult Pronunciation
  
  (This is a common problem for Chinese natives. Find a native speaker to say these two words, and listen very hard for the difference. If you cannot tell the difference between an 'l' and a 'r' by listening, you cannot pronounce them right.)
  
  flesh versus fresh
  


• Choice of Words
  
  Buy from a seller with good credit. ==> Buy from a seller with a good reputation.
  
  
  
• Easily Mixed-Up Words
  
  Eric is interesting in art. ==> Eric is interested in art.
  I am exciting about this. ==> I am excited about this.
  

A beautiful day to work at Sun Beijing ERI

Some of my friends told me that they would like to see more pictures of my Beijing and China experiences, and this blog entry addresses that request. I was quite inspired by the many beautiful days last week in late fall/early winter in Beijing. I decided to give you a pictorial view of what I typically saw on my way to work every morning. I feel grateful to the invention of photography. You can benefit from my simple digital camera, which adds a whole new dimension in documenting human experiences.

First, this is the Innovation Plaza building where I work everyday; it's the destination of my 15-minute walk. It was an incredible shot using my simple camera.















Please note that most of the days, especially in summer, Beijing is more like this smoggy picture.

This is a shot from my apartment living room's sliding door. Since this is a premier spot for the new white-collar working class and is close to a subway station, the real estate is very expensive now. My rental agent quoted me 23,000 RMB per square meter for my apartment now. When it was first built 6 years ago, that number was 6,000 RMB. Now we are talking about unaffordable housing prices for the locals. And imagine the pressure to the middle-class people.











I'll walk by a kindergarten, and I can often watch the students follow their teachers doing some exercises during the morning break. It was a cheerful sight. You see the future of China in this happy and innocent crowd.

Now you see the innovative sidewalk advertisement for making (often times fake) IDs. Forgery is everywhere in the world, Beijing is not too much behind. From time to time, you'll see a special crew scrubbing these stickers from the sidewalks. You probably ask the same question I have, "Can't an undercover agent just call the number to get an ID and then arrest these crooks?"






Pedestrians ignore traffic lights and automobiles ignore pedestrians. Automobiles do not yield to pedestrians when they do right turns, even when the pedestrians have the green light to walk. This is probably my number one frustration in Beijing since one feels dehumanized.








Here you see a mobile recycling center in a tricycle - Chinese style. There are enough unskilled laborers who would do this difficult job for the time being.

It is interesting to note that commute buses provided by some Chinese companies in the Tsinghua Science Park are an attractive employee fringe benefit. This is specially common for state enterprises and for government agencies.









By the way, a flexible parking style is sometimes seen in the Science Park. Chinese are very flexible in many ways.

A Sun logo is at about the 25th floor level in one of the outside building in the Science Park, and is visible from a distance. It is pretty cool to see this since the district government now has strict rules on signage for the new buildings.

Check out the huge smoke stack in the background. This is typical in Beijing. A boiler room is often underneath it to supply central heating and hot water.

When you enter the Innovation Plaza building, the atrium is 3 stories high. It is quite nice to start a day this way.

Transition from blogs.sun.com to here

My older blog entries can be located at the following URL.
http://blogs.sun.com/tpaullee/
Feel free to access those entries including an introduction of myself.