Chuqiu Peng, MTS ’19

“I have some stereotypes about Christianity and Islam, just because I do not know them well. I need more time to learn, to digest, to actually live fully, to learn fully.”

Chuqiu is a second-year master of theological studies candidate from China studying religion, ethics, and politics.

Rural Village and Metropolitan City

I come from Shanxi Province in the northern part of China. I am from a very rural village. For example, I did not have enough water to drink when I was a kid, so we dug a well for water. I did my undergraduate and graduate education in Shanghai. It was a stark contrast for me to move from the village to Shanghai. Then I came to HDS.

Actually, for me there were more differences between rural village and metropolitan city in China than differences between China and America. At HDS I feel more familiar and comfortable because it is not a competition-oriented environment. But in Shanghai, I don’t like that kind of high-speed life. To me, Shanghai is much more Westernized than HDS. It is a very fast, very modern city. I think even more modern than New York. Everyone is running down the street because they have so much work. I am kind of quiet and introverted, and I feel a little nervous in competition—when everyone is trying to grasp something. I feel so lucky to get a fellowship at HDS. That is the reason that I could arrive here, otherwise I couldn’t afford it.

I studied English literature in undergraduate and English-Chinese literature translation in a master’s degree. I also feel that even though I have been studying English-related subjects in China, I still feel that, Wow, have I been studying fake English in China?, because on the first day in the U.S. I was so confused, totally lost. The elementary, middle, and high schools in China did have English classes. But, there are very limited English resources. I don’t think my English teachers were qualified to teach English because they also have limited English learning resources.

Studying English in school is really different than being in an English-speaking environment. I’ve been here for one year and a half and I am still in the process of learning to communicate with people, and I try my best to talk to people and initiate conversations. I sincerely hope I can find a job, so that I can go home to see my parents, and then come back to the U.S. to work. Maybe after a few years I will apply to PhD programs.

Travelogue of an English Missionary

In my master’s program in Shanghai I translated the travelogue The Old Highways in China by Isabelle Williamson. Missionaries came to Shandong Yantai in the late nineteenth century to advocate Christianity in China. That is the end of Qing Dynasty. It was quite interesting work because I, as a Chinese person, I do not know a lot of facts they recorded in their travelogue. For example, I tend to imagine that people living at the end of Qing Dynasty were suffering a lot because of the war, natural disasters, and social turbulence. But, according to their travelogue, I feel that it was not so bad. Their living condition and daily life, to some extent, was good.

I was amazed by the missionaries. They came to China, a very different environment, and they studied the local language and helped to establish hospitals and schools. They introduced medicines. They cared for local people. At the same time, they respected local culture. They translated the Bible into the local language. It was not Cantonese or Mandarin, but the local language. A lot of local people could not write, only speak. Isabelle Williamson, along with other missionaries, would translate the Bible into the voice of local languages. She lived in China for 40 years to advocate Christianity. Now those provinces have the most people who are Christians in all of China.

What People Care About

In my first year here at HDS, I focused on Buddhist studies because my mother has been a Buddhist for 20 years. She taught me a lot about Buddhism and was very happy I was studying Buddhism at Harvard. In the second year, I changed my focus to religion, ethics, and politics, because I gradually realized that focusing on the Buddhist scriptures and analyzing, for example, the different levels of meditation or the ultimate truths and the relative truths, is for me sort of distant from real life. What happens in daily life and what I really care about is not the difference between ultimate truths and relative truths. I gradually realized that I really didn’t care about that. I care about what really happens in life, and what other people care about. They care about very solid, specific questions—like survival and how to be happy.

I feel that I lack that experience of life. It is too early for me to jump into serious religious analysis because this is too distant for me. The theory feels so distant. For example, generally people think Theravada appeared first, and then Mahayana. Now a lot of evidence shows that Mahayana may have appeared earlier than Theravada Buddhism. This is a specific example— what does it mean for me? Apart from it being a very important question, and it is meaningful for us to figure out? What does it mean for me as a person which Buddhism appears first? Other examples: the comparison between the Bodhicaryavatara and Epictetus, the comparison between Krishna and Jesus. Apart from writing papers and finishing assignments, what does it mean for me?

Last semester I took the Christian ethics course with Mark Jordan, and I participated in the Evangelical student group at MIT. I am also reading the Quran, and I am taking a religious literacy course. I feel … wow!

There’s another problem for me: if I take four courses, then I cannot finish all the readings in one semester. I do not need to hurry into a PhD program, I need time to digest. I want to be patient and to see after a few years maybe I will be more well-prepared and focused to do a specific research project in a long-term PhD program. I need more time to think.

Challenging Stereotypes

I am studying Pali with Beatrice Chrystall. I like it. Even when I changed my area of focus I continued to study Pali. I feel that the language courses I take at HDS are the most grounded courses. I feel like I know these words, I know the structure—I know that I learned something. I am not so sure in the reading courses, especially if I can’t finish the readings!

We translate Patacara from Pali to English. My stereotype before: I assumed that in Buddhism there are so many discriminations against women. For example, Buddha was hesitant to acknowledge women as his disciples, and he said that because of women, the dharma will exist in the world 500 years shorter because I accept women as my disciples. There are a lot of stories in scriptures that say that women cannot become Buddha unless they transform into men first.

I thought this stereotype that women are inferior to men in Buddhism was true. But the Patacara is an accumulated collection of female poetry. It is challenging my stereotypes. It was written in Pali far earlier than Mahayana scriptures like the Lotus Sutra for example. There is a lot of description of female stories, their lives, their practice of dharma. I was amazed! I realized that stereotype came from ignorance, because I really do not know Buddhism well, that is why I had those stereotypes. It is the same for me that I have some stereotypes about Christianity and Islam, just because I do not know them well. I need more time to learn, to digest, to actually live fully, and to learn fully.

Interview and photos by Anaïs Garvanian