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Last term, one of the Chinese teachers in our department mentioned that she attended local Christian church services with teachers who came from Zhengzhou proper every Sunday and that the group had grown greatly over the last few years.  I was reminded of this as many of my students this week introduced themselves specifically as having chosen their names from the Bible.  While with some of the names, I wouldn’t have realized that was the source had it not been mentioned, some were more obvious– Solomon, for instance.  I didn’t see this as much last year, but I was teaching mostly freshmen, whereas I have juniors and seniors this year.  Given that the numbers of students attending services has apparently been increasing, I suspect that this indicates a change that occurs during the university years (students can change their English names at any point, since it’s nothing official) rather than reflecting a difference between specific groups of students.  Now, I didn’t witness this trend among the juniors I taught last year either, but they were not English majors (this year, all my students are), and I suppose it would make sense for English majors to be more interested in a religion that is important in English-speaking countries.

As for what the shift signifies, I can only speculate (and wildly at that).  On the one hand, it seems similar to the tendency on certain US college campuses for students to become Buddhist: the search for a fulfilling spirituality or philosophy looks to the exotic.  This could also be called the religion of “the grass is always greener”.  On the other hand, my mind can’t help but wander to Roman history and how Christianity began as a religion of the poor and of the slaves.  Henan Province is not a particularly prosperous part of China; I’ve mentioned before that some of my students have told me that their parents have had to borrow money from everyone in their village in order to send them here.

As I said, I can’t draw any particular conclusions, but it is an intriguing social trend.

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