Celebrating Easter Sunday in China
It is hard to be religious while living in China. Especially living in a Chinese household (father in law, wife, kids mostly localized) – but I do try to recognize the holidays I grew up celebrating.
So there is a Easter Sunday celebration at the Abnet community -which is a weekly business networking lunch community in Shekou, Shenzhen. BTW – I’ll be a speaker there on Wednesday April 19 At Green Bistro if you want to hear about how I use personal branding for lead generation.
The lunch looked nice in the Wechat poster, so I signed up for my family and I. Its also good for my father in law to get a break from taking care of the kids, so he was able to relax at home.
While Easter isn’t as culture shock as Christmas – it is still weird that it is a normal day here in Mainland China. Compare that with Hong Kong – where it is a 4 day weekend (HK has Friday, Sat, Sun, and Monday off for Easter!) and it is totally different. This just adds to the confusion as I bounce back and forth between Hong Kong and Shenzhen on the regular – and there is basically nothing going on in HK all weekend, but China is just another weekend.
What still blows my mind, is my perspective of life and the world. When I was a kid, heck, even when I was an adult living in America, the holiday was clearly the holiday. The calendar was all the same for everyone, everyone had the same days off, the same agenda. These days, I forgot it was even Easter until I saw an advertisement on my Wechat about Easter celebrations. Heck, I almost planned Cross Border Summit to be on Easter (luckily a friend Ovey reminded me that a few months ago and I updated the schedule to next weekend!)
And on top of it, how about my own kids? What holidays will they celebrate?
But – I think it is a PRICELESS opportunity for my kids. This is why I am inisting to stay in China. My kids will be super connectors with an amazing ability to know Chinese culture and holidays and language combined with English (Western) holidays, culture and language. So while they are too young to know what is up, all I can do as a father is try to make the best decisions for my kids until t hey are old enough to make them on their own. But their view of the world will be so much more rich than my own.
How about you? Am I a bad parent for having my kids not get as much exposure to God and Church? I do sometimes feel that going church as a kid helped me get more structure and discipline. That there is a life after death, that there is more to this world than what we see with our own two eyes. But my kids can make that decision once they are older, seeing all cultures and religions equally. I could find a church here in Shenzhen, there are some Easter masses happening, but I am writing up this blog post at 8am on Easter Sunday, kids still sleeping, and we’re going to this Easter lunch with other expats and Chinese who want to celebrate together there.
Life is much more complicated than I expected. I had no idea I’d be living in China with a wife and kids back in my hometown days. It would be more simple to just go back to America and live a normal life – but normally the harder things are the things that become “richer” in time.
And the last part of course is missing my family – my parents, my sister, my aunts and uncles and all the chocolate easter bunnies after Easter Sunday Mass. Those are memories I have cherished in my mind and appreciate on the regular.