The quarterly of the University
of Helsinki
A long march to the Faculty of TheologyThe Chinese theologian Paulos Huang became interested in religions as a young boy, when he noticed how ancient Confucianism steered the everyday lives and choices of the Chinese, despite the Cultural Revolution - including his own Anhui family, which was atheist. For instance, his father would show respect to his forefathers by burning paper money on their graves.
Tapio Ollikainen
Huang's interest in Christianity was awakened in 1990, when he began reading the Bible for the first time. That experience later led to Huang being ordained the first Chinese clergyman in the Finnish Lutheran Church. Huang is also a docent in comparative religion and teaches Chinese religions at the University of Helsinki. Resident in Finland for 12 years, Huang has noticed Lutheran undertones even in the modern way of life in Finland.
"Deep respect for the law and its literal interpretation in Finland seem basically Lutheran. In China, a needy person who did not steal when nobody was looking would be considered slightly foolish, for instance," says Huang.
Respect for education is shared by the Finns and Chinese. Huang believes that in China the respect springs from Confucianism, which says people should strive towards the ideal through learning. Huang himself certainly has not been idle in his studies, or, indeed, otherwise.
He first came to Finland mostly because postgraduate studies were affordable - coming from a poor family as he did. He was driven abroad by his desire to study theology, but at first he ended up continuing his humanistic studies. Huang, a Bachelor of Arts in Chinese Language and Literature, did not find transferring from the Faculty of Arts to the Faculty of Theology entirely painless.
"I would have been able to compensate only a few credits of my degree, so I continued in the Faculty of Arts, completing my doctorate on Taoism for the Department of East Asian Studies in 1996."
However, the pull of the Faculty of Theology was so strong that Huang graduated with a Master's degree from the Department of Systematic Theology in 2002 - while already writing his doctoral dissertation on the encounters between Confucianism and Christianity for the same department.
The future double doctor Huang has also had time to complete a comparative study of Chinese and Finnish and study Christianity in the context of Asian religions. In addition to research, Huang has translated Finnish: An Essential Grammar by Fred Karlsson and A brief history of Finland by Matti Klinge into Chinese. Incidentally, President Martti Ahtisaari took copies of the latter as diplomatic gifts to China.
In the evenings Huang taught Chinese and wrote a textbook on Chinese characters. Somehow he even squeezed in time to meet his future wife Johanna, and now the family already has three children!
Back to spring issue 2004