Not so lost in translation

After a short and lazy weekend in Singapore, Sunday rolled around and, as it was the 3rd Sunday of Advent, Jen and I went to church. I remember several weeks back, when Jen first arrived here, I gave her directions to an area that contained several churches. Since then, Jen found one in particular that she liked, The Cathedral of The Good Shepherd, and so we decided to head there. Unfortunately, we woke up with 20 minutes to go until the 11am mass (or so we thought).

The first time Jen went, she walked the entire journey. This time, being behind schedule, we decided to take the MRT (Singapore's rapid transit) a few stations, which would shorten our journey to just a few blocks. Once out of the City Hall MRT Station, we got a little turned around and it was past 11am, but we figured being tardy by 15 or so minutes would not be a big deal. Finally, we reached The Cathedral of The Good Shepherd and entered quietly from the side. This cathedral is the oldest Roman Catholic Church in Singapore and was first built in 1833. Since the building has no A/C, all the doors were open and all of the sanctuary's 50 or so fans were at full speed. Once out of the heat of the sun's rays, it actually makes for a nice experience. It was now about 11:20am and oddly enough, the congregation was semi-full and extremely quiet. The pulpit was silent and there was no sign of a priest. Whew, we made it... or did we?

Living in Singapore, you don't expect to see a great number of Caucasians. There are a number of ex-pats here, not to mention loads of European tourists, but once you get out into the everyday culture and are no longer in the tourist or commercial areas they get much fewer. That said, it should have come to no surprise that the congregation was almost entirely of Asian decent. The more I looked around (which is remarkably easy as a 6'3" person in SE Asia) I realized we were the ONLY Caucasians in the crowd. Jen and I wondered what service we had come upon. Then, suddenly, the service started. The priest emerged from behind the altar and the worshipers revealed their prayer books written in... uh oh... Korean!

Turns out, the English service was at 10am... but we thought there might be one following at 11am. Unfortunately, the next English service was at 6pm. Despite the language barrier, we stayed for the service. I still have no idea what the sermon was about, but the great thing about a Catholic mass is that it's... well... catholic. Catholic literally means "universal" and no matter what church you attend in any part of the world, the ritual is the same. Almost like a "ritualistic Rosetta Stone", we knew exactly when the Nicene Creed and Lord's Prayer were happening since the rhythmic nature of each is unmistakable. There were a couple minor differences, though. At one point, before communion, everyone filed out of the pews and went to the altar with red or green envelopes. What are in the envelopes? Alms? Jen and I were especially conflicted on what to do at this point because 1) the envelopes might have been prayer offerings for loved ones and 2) dropping alms at this point in time might be bad form. So we just kept our seats and tried to look inconspicuous. Also, during what some call the "peace offering", the tradition was slightly different than in the States. In the US, the priest offers peace to the congregation and then the congregation offers it to everyone around them with a handshake or what have you. During a Korean mass, they give you a bow with their hands together and say, what I can only assume as, "pyeonghwa" which is Korean for "peace". However, it's done in a rapid-fire succession... like ballerinas, they swirl and pivot and bow to everyone and everything around them. "pyeonghwa, pyeonghwa, pyeonghwa, pyeonghwa". Imagine 300 people all doing this all at once... then imagine two Westerners sitting there, dumbfounded.

I looked at Jen and said, "This is SOOO going on our blog!"