One of the greatest evidence of the presence of the missionaries in China is their cemetery; the Zhalan cemetery. The cemetery is located in what is now the Communist Party School and it took a while to convince the guards to let us in to visit it. Here, 53 Jesuits are buried along with 10…

Today we went to visit the Imperial City, in the center of Beijing. The Imperial City, or Forbidden City, used to be the residence of the Emperors and until the Republic was forbidden for the public. Kircher in the China Illustrata describes the center of Beijing with this words: “There are vast city walls in the…

Today was packed full of exploring the city and attempting to find the remnants of the Jesuits who came here centuries ago. Beijing is such a dense and busy city that finding anything is a challenge, especially when those places are the lesser visited tourist attractions. We got soaked through looking for the Jesuit church…

We got here as the sun set since it took us a whole day to reach St. Joseph’s Church, known more commonly as Wangfujing Church or Dongtang, one of the few proofs of the Jesuits’s presence in the capital city! Hidden by the skyscrapers, the huge modern malls and the imperial monuments, this fascinating church…

Our first day in Beijing was hot, sweaty and different from what you would expected from European capitals. Even though the world today is so globalised, Beijing is like a world of its own. Few people in the capital speak English and although our Mandarin is rudimentary we can still get by using a combination…