My wife’s mother was a Chinese Christian convert. It was not safe to belong to a religion during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. To survive, she became a closet Christian. She prayed at night but never let her children know that she was a Christian.
She told her husband that having children was for God. Whatever her religious beliefs were, she kept to herself. Since she had a statue of the Virgin Mary and held it when she prayed, it should be safe to say that Catholicism influenced any form of Christianity she believed in.
I understand Catholicism. When I was a child, I was baptized a Catholic and my family went to mass each Sunday. I also attended a Catholic elementary school for a few years.
I write about what I know, and I know only a little about other cultures outside the United States.
However, I do know something about China. After all, my wife is Chinese. I have been to China a dozen times since 1999, and we have a flat in Shanghai.
After nine years of researching China, I published my first novel, which takes place in 19th century China. For the last ten years, I have immersed myself in discovering China and have learned that there is more to discover. I have barely scratched the surface.
See When in Rome, Do as the Romans
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Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of the concubine saga, My Splendid Concubine & Our Hart. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too.
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