Shanghai

China's Crowded Churches Stifle 'Religious Warmth'

The group of eight assembles every Sunday morning, risking arrest.

On a Sunday morning in June, they filed into a tiny, windowless underground apartment in Beijing to attend a Christian church service in the second little room to the left of the front door. Pastor He Xian spent the next two hours leading his small flock in hymns and delivering a sermon as congregants sat attentively on plastic folding chairs about four feet away.

Safety Is as Safety Does

 “You don’t need that,” Xian taxi driver Chang Xumin remarked sharply, as I reached for my passenger seatbelt. “It’s very safe, really.” He apparently took offense at the thought that I might need a seatbelt in his cab, but the prospect of riding beltless in Chinese traffic persuaded me to buckle up anyway. Chang clucked a few times and sped off, narrowly missing an old woman who was slowly crossing the street.

Big Brother (and Everyone Else) is Watching

A 20-something woman takes off her pants in a doctor’s office. She stands wearing purple-striped bikini-cut underwear in a room full of strangers.

A mother holds her toddler over a bush in an elevated squatting position. A convenient tailored opening allows the kid to do his business, major or minor, without the burden of diapers, or any protective layer.