"Pray for China?"

This morning in my usual semicomatose state, I drove to the gym. As I passed through the town center, I noticed a lone man standing with a sign. I craned my neck to see what his sign said as I raced to the gym. I figured it would have something to do with McCain or Obama, or maybe Iraq, or possibly even the controversy over replacing some very new town parking meters because a portion of the population in town is too stupid to figure out how to use them (or more likely too much in a hurry to use up their quarter's worth of time to completely read the instructions).

Instead, what I discovered was that the sign said "Pray for China." Huh? Pray for what exactly? I mean we are in the midst of the Olympics here, so are we meant to pray for more gold medals? A gold medal sweep in diving? That they will see the light and 'fess up about the fact that their gymnasts are actually 12 and 13 years old?

Or maybe we are meant to pray for the people of China? For the human rights abuses they are subject to? A friend at the gym pointed out that maybe we are supposed to pray for the Tibetans really, because of how China is treating them. But if so, wouldn't the man be better served to have a sign saying "Pray for the People of Tibet?"

Maybe he was really working for the nearby mall during the recession. What he meant was pray for china as in porcelain, like Royal Doulton, Wedgewood, etc. He was standing on the route one might take to the mall, or there is a nice jewelry store a few blocks away that carries all that kind of "china."

Someone else at the gym suggested that I should have rolled down my window and asked him precisely why we should pray for China, but I was in too much of a hurry. I was praying for a good parking space at the gym, make no mistake about that.