standing outside a big church here in

the middle of mainland China so I pose to

you that it is in fact not banned. This is

a big misconception;

but of course religion is controlled and

I'll get into that in a short while.

Firstly I just wanted to say, you know, as

a bit of a disclaimer that I personally

am not a very religious person. I guess

you could say I was brought up Christian, I

mean celebrating Christmas and you know

all that kind of thing; you know, we had

Bibal studies in school and all that,

but I was never that kind of

church-going sort of Christian or

anything like that, and I've always been

fairly open-minded to all religions, all

over the world. And you know, I don't have

any particular favorites to be

honest. The thing is, when you talk about

religion, just like politics or sex, you

tend to, you know, get certain people

annoyed, so I usually leave politics and

religion out of my videos. But today

because people ask this question quite

often, you know, "Are there churches?"

"Is religion banned?", "Are they

harvesting the organs of anyone who

tries to practise any kind of religion

here?"

Well no, not really but the

organ harvesting thing is something that

happens to criminals in China, it does.

I don't know the particulars; I never

really read up on it; you can go look. I'm

sure there's tons of people who will

tell you lots about that. But that's not

what this video is about. This video is

basically for all of you guys out there

who are curious about religion in China.

Let me cut to the chase here. Most

religions are accepted in China, as you

can see by the fact that there's a big

church right behind me over here.

And China doesn't particularly have a

problem with religion per se, but what

they do have a problem with is mass

gatherings that can get out of hand. And

this is something that they keep a very

close eye on because you know there's a

big mob mentality here in China which I've

experienced myself personally. And when

you get a lot of people all in

one place, if they get too excited or

they kick up a fuss, you know, it can

spark off like this and you'll have like

massive sort of civil unrest. That's

the biggest problem they have with

religion, not the religion itself. It's

more about large amounts of people

gathering together and you know sort of

I guess plotting or whatever. So

the thing is, places like this, churches

like this are allowed to exist; you are

free to practise your religion here in

China but you can't proselytize—I think

is the word—where you go around

trying to convert people. That's not

allowed

and when I've signed contracts to do

work here in the past, it actually stipulated

in the contract: it says you may not

proselytize. So you're more than free to

come and you know practice your

Christianity here and go to Mass and all

that

however China does want to make sure

that you are teaching their version of

Christianity. They do kind of want to

censor a few things and change a few

things here and there and you know if

you live in China you understand that's

just how it is they censor the internet

you know they censor things like pornography

for instance it's completely

illegal here and so there's a bit of

give and take. but of course if you're a

hardcore christian you know you

understand your faith, you can practice it

pretty much however you want as

long as you're not going out there

trying to convert people. Now

Christianity as a whole anyway because

I've got some Christian friends here is

pretty much unregulated like it they

might kind of want you to have you know

certain things not preached you know

certain parts they don't want read out

of the bible and stuff but it's

Catholicism that is actually controlled

to a certain degree. For instance you're not

allowed to follow the Pope here so the

Pope's not allowed to appoint bishops in

China things like that. The Chinese

Catholic Church, whatever does that and

like I said I'm not into religion so I

can't give you specifics,

it's something you can very easily find

online. Right, I'd like to move on from

Christianity but before I do I'd just like

to point out that actually right now

China is the fastest growing Christian

nation on earth at the moment and I do

find that a lot of my Chinese friends

who are Christians they generally come

from Taiwan or you know like for

instance this church there are Korean

signs all over, so I'm guessing the local

Korean population probably has something

to do with this church being built and

they've kind of come in and introduced it

and you know i have seen little churches

here and there and you do see churches

all over China it's not like it's

completely banned but anyway let's move on

and talk about the actual sort of

religions that Chinese people follow. Now

from my own observations anyway

Chinese people are less religious and

more superstitious, it's more about

tradition. There are temples all over the

place

unfortunately as I pointed out in the

past a lot of the traditions and you

know that the actual feeling behind it

the whole culture behind it was

destroyed during the very badly named

cultural revolution for this kind of

appropriate anyway thing is a lot of it

was wiped out so although traditions

still remain, they're not really as

deep and vibrant and full as they used

to be

however you can actually still see these

traditions very clearly if you just pop

over to Hong Kong people there are

incredibly traditional and you know they

go to the temple every year and their

temples all over Hong Kong and of course

in Taiwan as well it's very easy to see

the sort of elaborate temples in a way

people follow their traditions

I mean I have a little story when i bought

a scooter there in Taiwan years ago and

I was busy repairing it, there was

actually a good luck charm

a little Buddhist good luck charm inside

the scooter that somebody put inside

underneath the bodywork you know to keep

themselves safe as they drive so the

tradition and the superstition is a huge

part of people's lives you know in

Taiwan, Hong Kong and of course you know

in mainland China too, to a certain degree

now, it's difficult to sort of pigeonhole

Chinese religion and tradition and

superstition but it's kind of a mix between

Confucianism Buddhism and ancestor

worship. so you know you'll meet

people in general I'd say most of

the people you meet in China are rather

atheist and they live their lives in a very

sort of agnostic sort of a way however

they will always you know have some sort

of traditional still believe in things

like fate and luck and lucky numbers and

you know things like this and of course

there's a lot of ancestor worship here

as well, there's a lot of respect for the

elderly and respect for you know your

ancestors, where you come from

so it is very interesting and it's one

of the biggest attractions for a lot of

people who come to China they look for

that I want to go see the temple they

want to see the monks they want to see

you know that kind of thing I mean and

it does exist but it's really not as

prevalent as you might think i was

actually quite shocked and I know a lot

of people are going to say that Shenzhen

is a new city and there's not a lot of

culture there but trust me they are old

part of Shenzhen but I was quite shocked

at the fact that I look around and

didn't see any temples, here i am in a

completely different city this is a

3rd-tier city I look around I don't see any

temples you know what I mean it's not as

prevalent as you may think there are of

course big famous temples all over China

and in the bigger cities you will

usually have one big temple that people

go to during new years Chinese New

Year's like you can see in the footage

here this was in Guangzhou you know

which is not far from where we are right

now and as you can see it's still

something very popular and it is very much

engrained in the Chinese mentality. I do

find that Chinese superstition and

tradition it do very much revolve around

the whole sort of luck and fortune

aspects and usually it's something like

go and pray at the temple so that you

can make money during the year we're

gonna pray the temple that you have good

health and good luck and your business

will be well it's usually something like

that. it's less of a sort of a

selfless religion like you'll find many

other religions around the world it's

more of a practical sort of religion

and superstition kind of setup now there

are still some rules here in China when

it comes to religion for instance if you

work for the Communist Party, if you work for

the government any i guess if you're a

postman or you're like a manager of I

don't know, the Vehicle Bureau anything

like that you're absolutely not allowed

to practice religion and you actually

have to sign a contract that says that you

won't and I guess they're probably

worried about people spreading their

religious

views around the office or maybe funneling

money out of work into their religion or

something so it's -- it's a big no no

so that's definitely something that is true

if you work in the government here you

are not allowed to practice religion as

for you as a foreigner coming to live and

work here in China or just visit there are

pretty much no restrictions like I said

the only thing you shouldn't do is go

around trying to spread the word of

Allah spread the word of Jesus spread

the word of Buddha or whatever it is that

you follow because you know that's when

you're going to start ruffling a few

feathers and people are going to start

you know say hey what the hell are you

doing here you're not go if you want to

practice your religion go elsewhere type

thing but it's very easy to find out

where your local christian churches or

there are mosques there are synagogues