My China Experience

By Arthur Policarpio

I started writing this article in the airport lounge, less than an hour after a painfully sad goodbye from my family - my wife, and my two beautiful children, Juan Lorenzo (4.5 years old), and Ava (2 years old). I would be away on a ten-day business trip that would take me to far-flung India and the “other China” - Taiwan.

I cannot help but reflect on the fact that I am leaving the Philippines on the first day of the nine-day Novena to San Lorenzo Ruiz - and will be coming back exactly on September 28, his feastday. San Lorenzo has a special place in our family’s lives, since through his intercession, God granted us the grace of a miracle given to my sister many years ago.

Just like Lorenzo who had to leave behind his family and go to a foreign land, I too need to frequently go abroad because of the nature of my work. I guess the spiritual benefit of it is that I am able to go to places which we normally don’t go to - and write about it. Just two weeks ago, I had the privilege of visiting China for the first time. I went right to the heart of the “great Red Dragon” - Beijing and Shanghai.

Admittedly, as a spiritual writer, my impression of China has always been as the great enemy of the Catholic Faith - the modern-day re-emergence of the atheistic Communist Empire that had practically half the entire world in its grasp through the Soviet Union. China - a nation of more than a billion atheists. A country that is right at the doorstep of our own nation, claiming as its own, resource-rich islands that are a mere 200 miles away from the Philippines.