Haidian Coffee Shops

We sometimes see odd things in Beijing coffee shops. A few weeks ago, a pair of foreign students enjoying what we suspect was the third week of their relationship shared some extremely public displays of affection with twenty or so expatriates at a place called "Sculpting in Time." Last week, a guy in his twenties used the Starbucks next to Tsinghua's east gate to call all of his family on Skype, yelling profanities into his laptop for the next hour because he lacked both a sense of propriety and a headset. Yesterday we sat next to another young man using Skype to call what we suspect was either his brother or his psychologist, as he proceeded to discuss in intimate detail his ability to pick up "cute Chinese girls" at local bars, how he helps out his friends by being their "wing man" and dancing with "the stubbly ones," and how he recently cut off his pony tail.

Right now, however, I am sitting next to one Chinese woman and one foreign woman in a Starbucks who are openly holding a bible study. This is only odd to the extent that neither of them seem to care that such gatherings are usually held behind closed doors for fear of the police being called. Indeed, rumors suggest that the Public Security Bureau has even detained people for "participation in an evil cult" in relation to events surrounding the Sichuan earthquake. Notably, article 300 of China's Criminal Law expressly provides that,

Whoever forms or uses superstitious sects or secret societies or weird religious organizations or uses superstition to undermine the implementation of the laws and administrative rules and regulations of the State shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not less than three years but not more than seven years; if the circumstances are especially serious, he shall be sentenced to fixed- term imprisonment of not less than seven years.

You would think they would be more cautious.