Columban Fr Warren Kinne writes of his return to Australia after nearly 20 years of mission in China
When I was home at Christmas I went for a walk along the beach at Surfer’s Paradise with my sister Narelle and then decided on a swim. The water was limpid and fresh but quite rough so I swam out beyond the breakers to get some still water to turn on my back and enjoy the blue sky.
Apparently the life-guard was a bit anxious with this old baldy-headed bloke out so far, albeit inside the flags, and on a loud speaker and with flashing head-lights on the beach car hailed: if that gentleman out there is not a very good swimmer come in immediately. I didn’t hear it but my sister did and said that, even without the need to look up and not being in the least perturbed, she knew it was me. She was a little embarrassed and murmured something about “way out, that’s him!”
Well, I intend coming in from the deep later this year, in June in fact. Come June of this year I will leave Shanghai after 16 and a half years here. Before that I was in Beijing for nearly three years. So all in all close to 20 years in China. Could I be called 'an old China hand'?
I have enjoyed the challenge here in China, living by myself throughout the period and, both in Shanghai and Beijing, starting out with almost not a friend in sight. In fact when I first arrived in Beijing from the airport, I discovered, at the front desk of the student accommodation that I had been told was booked for me, that there was no entry for my name to be found. And I knew not a soul in that city.
My initial language studies were in Beijing and although I worked hard at them I was over 50 years old when I started and so was up against the downward curve of ability to easily absorb a new and complicated language. However I have made enough progress over the years to carry on ordinary conversation with people and to read my text messages and to send off something that is generally intelligible to Chinese friends.
I came without a plan in regard to what I would do. There was for example no contract between the Columbans and the Diocese. One here needs to find one’s own way given opportunities that present themselves.
Eventually my life-work in Shanghai was to have three streams. The first one was to teach in the then Philosophy Department, now School of Philosophy in Fudan University. I got this position on the strength of my PhD from a secular university in the UK and with the help of some friends as well as a little bit of obfuscation on my part.
Secondly, I established a foreign-registered charity, You Dao Foundation, also with the help of some other friends here. I was its founding Chairman and have just recently relinquished this post. Soon I will also step off the Board. The Foundation has done a lot of work with internal migrant workers here in Shanghai and continues its work although not without a lot of difficulty because of the suspicion that surrounds Non-government Organizations (NGO) in China. The Communist Party that seeks to control everything seems to have difficulty with the very concept of an NGO and the whole notion of civil society itself.
My third steam of endeavor is with the local church but largely with the huge ex-pat community in Shanghai. I have been tolerated by the Government in this role although one cannot enter China as a priest. I am here currently as a 'businessman'. It is all a little hard to understand, even for me.
However there comes a time in the affairs of men when it seems like moving-on is the wise thing to do. I am 70 in May and it is difficult to get adequate medical insurance cover. What’s more, I feel that it is time to go home and to see what is happening in the local church there.
I have talked to the Archbishop of Brisbane, Mark Coleridge, who is a friend and former resident in St Columbans in Rome, and he is very willing that I do some pastoral work in his diocese, probably near where my sister lives in the hinterland of the Gold Coast and not too far from that pounding surf of my own native shores.
In fact I haven’t lived in Queensland, my home state, since 1964, the year I went to St Columbans Seminary then at Sassafras, Victoria. What’s more, I have only worked for seven years in Australia since 1971 when I was sent to the Republic of the Philippines.
I appreciate the opportunity I have had here to return to a part of my roots and to meet Chinese family members who reside in Guangzhou. China is also the place where our Columban Society began and our Procure, built by us in about 1930, is here in walking distance of where I live. Our Columban mission stations far up the Yangtze River were supplied from here. Of course we do not “own it” these days but it is a reminder of the past.
I thank the Society of St Columban for giving me the freedom and the resources to live the mission. Now is the time to return to the shores of my home state. I wonder how much it has changed!
Columban Fr Warren Kinne served several decades working in Shanghai, China.
Related Links
- Read more from The Far East - April 2017
