On Feb. 8, I traveled with Fr. John Wotherspoon and Fr. Louie Legare from Hong Kong for the Chinese mainland. We headed to Zhaoqing where Fr. John has been teaching English for five years at a private high school. Louis has just arrived a few months ago and he and John form a small Oblate community, living just a few doors from each other. Fr. John has used his position in that institution as a foothold from which to reach out to the poor migrant population that has moved in to the city from other poorer provinces. There are estimated to be at least 100,000,000 “floating workers” in China who leave their homes in search of work elsewhere. Often they take their families with them. These are the people whom John has reached out to.

The next day the first stop of my trip was the Ricci Centre. It is named after Mateo Ricci, the renowned Italian Jesuit missionary of the 16th century. John started the center as an unofficial school for kids of the migrants since the local public schools refuse to take them in. To respect local sensitivities he couldn`t call it a school so he called it a “centre.” In this small two story Ricci Centre over 80 children come on a regular basis for schooling. As we walked around the poor area, people came out of their homes to greet Fr. John and ask if they could put their child in the center. To anyone who was indeed in need, his answer was always, “Meiyou wenti,” or, “No problem.” Because of donors, the center hires a couple of teachers who teach the children educational basics, provides simple computer instruction on four old machines– with internet. The centre also underwrites a couple of Chinese volunteers from Hong Kong who do what they can for medical assistance, and regularly sponsors weekly community meals to supplement the sparse diet.

The days I went there though were during the Lunar New Year holidays so I did not see the children in the centre. But John, Louis and I ate there with Joe and Wilson, two young men each with a powerful stories. Joe is an 18. He was run over by a train as he was walked his bicycle across the multiple railroad tracks that the people in the neighborhood have to cross every day. He lost an arm, a leg and a half of another leg. After the accident he spent his days at home with no assistance from anyone till Fr. John and one of the Hong Kong volunteers, Rosa, became aware of the situation. They were able to obtain donations to send Joe to get a prosthesis. Now he is studying in a vocation school a few towns away, learning some skills to begin a new life.

And there was Wilson . e is a young looking 31 year-old whose infectious smile almost makes you not notice that he has no right arm and only a stump for his left. He suffered this loss in an electrical fire when he was a child. In China there is little hope or resources for the disabled. Wilson　had no work until he was invited to be the custodian of the Ricci Centre four years ago. Now even with his one mauled and mutilated left arm he is able to watch after the property, clean up, keep things in order and even teach some of the young children how to use the internet. He got married to a young woman , who has no left leg, and now have a small child.

Fr. Fr. John has five other centers. Some are just small one-room gathering places, others are larger. Some teach the children, others are just gathering places where the people can come in and use the tap water. But all of them are in places that are extremely poor. The ones I remember the most were at the two dumps. I had thought I had seen poverty before. But this was beyond my experience. At one spot, people are living in an abandoned factory with curtains serving as partitions for families—no electricity or water. And yet people live there and even give birth to their babies in these conditions. The nearest water was twenty minute walk away till Fr. John opened a center that provided a water tap.

At the dump I was watching as some men brought sacks of old shoes to recycle. This one man had brought five or six big sacks to be weighed by the dump manager. I`d estimate it to be 60 to 70 pounds . When we asked the manager how much the man would receive, even I could understand the reply: “San shi mao”“Thirty mao”—which means about 2.5 U.S. cents! No wonder the people live in such destitution.

At the center at the second dump, there is the small 9 year old boy who cannot walk. He now has a wheel chair, thanks to John and the volunteers. The small boy proudly showed how he can wheel himself around, though he has to lift up his feet so they don’t get stuck in the garbage as he rolls himself along. The children in the area joyfully crowded in to Assisi Centre. And there they had refreshments. Fr. John announced that classes would start at the end of Luna New Year and that there would be a special dinner on Saturday night and to be sure to come. The children and several mothers who crowded chatted about the goings on of the families who lived around the dump. But the boy in the wheel chair became the center of attention again as he was cheered for a special accomplishment–writing his name in Chinese. He then wrote it in English. He had been taught to do this by the sixteen year old caretaker of the center that Fr. John hires.

Well, enough of that for now. There is more but there is only so much one can take. Such misery. But in the midst of it, there is a small glimmer of light and compassion can be seen flickering.
For more pictures you can go to www.China8.org.

Then there was my trip back on Saturday. It was more exciting than I had bargained for. About an hour into our trip at our first stop, about ten Chinese army soldiers get on the train and began loudly checking passports of the passengers who had got on with me at Zhaoqing. Then these people, loudly protesting, gathered their things and got off the train. What is this, I wondered. Are they political activists being rounded up for arrest by the army? As these thoughts were floating around in my head, the next thing I know the soldiers are asking me for my passport! Fortunately a businessman from Hong Kong explained that the immigration officials who stamped the passports of the passengers who boarded in Zhaoqin mistakenly marked “entry” instead of “exit”. No one noticed until the train had left. So off the train all thirteen of had to go. The train went off and left us．We were led to the VIP room and given tea and profuse apologies by various officials. There we waited for the vice mayor to drive down from Zhaoqin and correct the mistakes on the passports. If the
mistake had not been caught it would have shown that had not exited China and would have had problems re-entering the next time. Then the local colonel to show up and
along with the vice mayor of Zhaoqin offered tea and profuse apologies and arranged
for a van to drive us to Shenzen with a military escort. Before getting off they
gave us a 100 yuan to pay for our lunch and cover train ticket from the
border to the central station. Though it was inconvenient, it was certainly interesting.
I saw more of Guandong province than I would have otherwise. I also met several
interesting people, whose cards I am keeping for future reference.