By James McCaslin, ssc

A bamboo curtain came down around China when Communism took over in the early ‘50s. Missionaries were imprisoned or expelled. Native Chinese priests were executed, tortured and imprisoned. A pall of sadness settled over Christians who went into hiding like in the catacombs of Rome in the time of Nero. China was struggling to stand up and declare her independence before the world and the Church-so associated in some Chinese minds with excessive colonial powers in the past – suffered in the process. We wondered in fear what was happening to the four million Catholics especially during the excesses of the cultural revolution. Then after the death of Mao Zse Tung that bamboo curtain began to part a little. Christians emerged from the catacombs and we suddenly realized with joy that they were alive and well and that the terrible pruning had born much fruit.

By Fr. Tom Gonzales, MSP

Msgr. Tomas Gonzales is from Baliuag Bulacan and was ordained for the Archdiocese of Manila. Having served in Tondo and Pasay and later as Pastor in Alabang and Sta. Cruz, he then volunteered as a missionary to Papua New Guinea and then at present in Hong Kong as an associate member of the Mission Society of the Philippines (MSP- is the official missionary arm of our Philippine Catholic Church). Here he tells of the two different worlds he has come to encounter. GUTBAI is the Pidgin word for 'Goodbye’, the GUDE for ‘Hello’ and ‘Good Day,’

By: Leticia Bartolome, ICM

Looking for Flowers
“When you live amid rocks the heart is bound to cry out for flowers.” The source of the quotation is a Benedictine nun who wrote in poetry about the “rocks” of everyday life. I met the passage almost twenty years ago when I newly-arrived missionary in Hong Kong, and have always liked it. I was determined not to remain “crying out flowers” but to look for flowers in Hong Kong, literally and figuratively.

By: Isabel Taylor Escoda

I went to jail last Sunday. An Englishwoman I know sent me there. Hong Kong’s Victoria Prison is not far from my small flat, u p a hill in the colony’s Central District. Around the prison block are art galleries, antique and furniture shops and on the same street as the jail entrance, down the hill a bit, is a cozy French restaurant.