Chasing the Dragon by Jackie Pullinger Page A

had a conscience about this, and he did not want to let me see what he was doing. There came the day, though, when I trapped him. We met head-on when I was carrying my heavy piano accordion, which was large enough to prevent Christopher from passing me. We were in one of the tiny passages where retreat was impracticable; he was wedged in, and I asked him to carry the instrument for me to the repair shop.
    As we walked, I talked to him in my pidgin Cantonese. I asked him, “Christopher, who do you think Jesus came into the world for?” He did not reply.
    “Was it for rich or poor people?” I continued.
    “That’s easy—I know that one. He came for poor people.” His schoolteachers would have been happy.
    “But does He love good people or bad people?” I probed.
    “Jesus loves good people, Miss Poon.” It was a dismal catechism; he was hating this walk, this talk.
    “You’re wrong.” Luckily, as he was carrying the accordion, I could wave my arms about. It helped to fill in the gaps in my vocabulary. “Do you know, if Jesus were alive today, He’d be here in the Walled City sitting on the orange boxes, talking to the pimps and prostitutes down there in the mud.” You are notsupposed to tell Chinese people that they are wrong because they will lose face, but I was longing for Christopher to understand. This was no time to be playing conventions. “That’s where He spent a lot of His time. In the streets with well-known criminals—not waiting in a neat, clean church for the nice guys to turn up.”
    “Why did He do that?” Christopher asked incredulously. It sounded as if he really wanted to know.
    “Because,” I said slowly, “that is why He came—not to save the good people, but to save the bad ones—the lost ones—those who have done wrong.” 1
    Christopher stopped suddenly. He was clearly overwhelmed by what he had heard. By this time, we had walked out of the Walled City, passing the street market where people were hawking everything from plastic slippers to pressed duck. He said he wanted to hear some more, so we left the accordion in the repair shop nearby and found a public bench by the traffic roundabout. I told him the story of Naaman, the army commander afflicted with leprosy, 2 and finished up by saying, “It’s so simple—all you have to do is come to Jesus to be washed clean.” I turned to Christopher to see if he understood.
    The traffic was roaring past us; people were yelling as they always do in Hong Kong. Another plane came in to land, flying a few feet over our heads as it skimmed the flyover and thundered onto the runway. Christopher heard nothing; he had his eyes shut and he seemed to be talking quietly. He was not talking to me; he was admitting to Jesus how he had failed in his life and was asking Him to make him clean. Sitting by the dusty, noisy roadside, he became a Christian.
    There were many problems in store for Christopher. The next Saturday, he came back to the Youth Club. Bravely, he stood up in front of the others and said that the week before he had not believed in Jesus; now he knew Him. The announcement was greeted at first with silence—it was so extraordinary a thing to say. Then came the jeers and taunts. Boys from bad homes did not become Christians; that was for good, educated,middle-class students. He was joking; he was mad.
    Christopher was not. He now refused to carry on with his Triad initiation. He already had the book of poems, laws and ceremonial dialogue to be learned before he could be accepted. He sent it back. To make such a stand was both very firm and very courageous; such a thing had never happened before among those people. His decision was a breakthrough for me, too; now I knew that it was not true about there being a “cloud of unbelief” over Hong Kong. Jesus was alive in Hong Kong just as much as in England, and those who looked for Him could find Him.
    The change in Christopher was remarkable. He worked so well at his factory that he