Thanksgiving arrives this Thursday in the US, so I thought it'd be a good time to write an article about Thanksgiving, and its connections to China, before everyone disappears off for a somewhat ceremonial family gathering. Thanksgiving in China? That is the title of an article I found which debates that real Thanksgiving occurs in China, as opposed to a ritualistic one in North America.
Seriously, Thanksgiving in China? Thanksgiving is a traditional feast for Pilgrims to give annual thanks to God at the end of the harvest season. But a better definition is that Thanksgiving is a holiday of sacrifices, particularly for God, or for a greater good. It is argued that Americans and Canadians Christians are so blessed by God that they take their wealth and Thanksgiving for granted (even Americans in China find that their only hardship over Thanksgiving is deciding whether to eat Peking Duck or KFC chicken).
One may question the extent to which Christianity is an integral pillar of America, but there is no doubt the religion cast a positive effect on its economy. To a certain extent, liberty, justice and equality are products of Christianity. The Protestant Work Ethic is a product of Christianity that drives the US economy to this very day. Yet the dark side of Christianity is that, perhaps particularly true in America, faith is simply not enough. There has to be deed to back up faith. How is it that more and more "devout" Christians in America are divorced, uncharitable and often gamble and skip Sunday mass? Proclaiming oneself without proving oneself as a Christian is no different from being a non-Christian.
Yet Christianity has grown in China, a hundred-folds even, under the harsh conditions of a conservative Communist regime. Due to constant crackdown on religious groups in China, as well as threats of prosecution and torture, "there are no nominal, half-hearted, lukewarm Christians in…China." Being a Christian has become so demanding that, for the risk of proclaiming oneself as a half-Christian, one might as well proclaim oneself as an atheist devout to nothing except the party. In that sense, China produced some of the most hardline Christians that the world has ever seen, ones who will carry the Bible on their prison death bed.
These are the very people who should be thankful come Thanksgiving, for God has provided them a path to continue their religious activities in China. Therefore, Thanksgiving in China means thanking the Lord in every way possible.
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