2013

Even though Liu Li was an ayi – the Chinese word for aunt, which is also used for domestic helpers – there was nothing auntly, let along great-auntly about her. A small, but energetic 20-year-old, she sported tight white jeans, a rhinestone T-shirt, stiletto pumps and a pink cell phone with a doll phone strap. Liu Li worked as a nanny and as a house help; for three weeks, she was also my language exchange partner.
Having grown up in the deep countryside of Shandong province in northern China, Liu Li had come to Beijing as a migrant worker and now lived in cramped conditions on the outskirts of Beijing. Together with her husband and her parents-in-law, she occupied a space that was smaller than my medium-sized one-bedroom apartment. Regardless, Liu Li was optimism incarnate. No matter how many hours she had spent on public transport, her radiance would light up the room. Her driving force and the source of her joy was – God. Liu Li and her family belonged to a Christian underground church, which sustained them day by day. Though religious gatherings in China border on the criminal, Liu Li was fearless and met her congregation twice a week to sing and pray, celebrate a baptism or a marriage and study the Bible.
She insisted I needed a Chinese name and christened me “ma li ya”, the Chinese equivalent of Mary, the very first time we met. The next time I saw her, she gave me a Chinese copy of the “Holy Bible” – a book impossible to get over the counter – in which she had highlighted some sentences in red. As a self-taught, she was convinced that the Bible was the literal truth, and nothing but the truth. Jesus had indeed turned water into wine, and nobody – not even the Red Guards – was going to make her veer from her belief. Officials had repeatedly tried to crack down on their gatherings, yet she and her fellow believers had always managed to escape on time. In a never-ending cat and mouse game, they were convinced that God was on their side.
I have yet to apply the Chinese words for “angel”, “manger” and “holy ghost” in an everyday conversation, but three weeks of language exchange left me with a deep impression of the thriving underground churches of China and an ongoing e-mail friendship that unfailingly concludes with the words “God Bless You”.