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Chinese to English: TRADITIONS REVIVAL AND FAITH AWARENESS.AN ESSAY ON THE REVIVAL OF POPULAR RELIGIONS IN CHINA General field: Social Sciences Detailed field: Anthropology
Translation - English TRADITIONS REVIVAL AND FAITH AWARENESS
Abstract: recently, in Chinese “modernity discourse现代性话语” we define popular religious beliefs or religious sects as “medieval superstition” or “historical sediment”- However these beliefs originated in “opposition” to official religious activities during the process of Chinese modernization .The contemporary revival of popular religion has to be seen as the main component of the Chinese traditional culture revival, stimulating the “consciousness of being religious信仰自觉”. Till now, in academic debates about traditional religion it was not possible to separate religion from Chinese politics and education, that was his main feature. Now there is a new thinking about religion; an effort has been made to free religion from its label “medieval superstition反封建迷信” and a new rethink about the policy of “opposition to religious movement反宗教运动”. The basic argument of this thesis has to be seen in the aim to let people become aware of their own culture, a correct self-assessment, to avoid the decline and the breakup of Chinese culture. The concept of “intangible culture非物质文化遗产” presents the problem of determining/clear up what the feature are and what popular religion actually is, it makes us understand in the right way the “non linear culture非线性的文化”. Chinese traditional religion is the practice and the consciousness of being “popular religious”, helping to build a social identity of a citizen, (at a cultural level) helping to define the Chinese trinity of religion, folk customs, and “chineseness宗教性、民俗性、中华性的三位一体化” . Trying to analyze the changes and the features of Chinese popular religion, we must consider the Chinese religious view of life and analyze the changes of “modernity discourse” symbolism regarding religion! If we were forced to give our culture a symbol, a sign, then we could only call it “doctrine of cultural self awareness”. In the last century, the consciousness of “being religious” is a cry out for representing Chinese society and culture as a new trend of thoughts in the revival of Chinese traditional culture.
PROLOGUE: LAST CENTURY´S SHIFTED DISCOURSE
Few century ago, the French military and political leader Napoleon pronounced something that turned out to be prophetic: “China suddenly woke up, and that can shake the world!” Nowadays, in the 20th century Chinese , in the mainstream orthodox discourse China´s “Reform and open to the outside world” is viewed as representing the Chinese constantly strive to improve, the tenacious advance in an epic piece of history, realizing the great revival of “the only way实现中华民族伟大复兴的必由之路”. Developing Chinese culture, building the common essence of “being a chinese” , has also arose the vitality of all the cultures, improved the “soft power软实力” of chinese culture.
The change of modern debates in China let us rethink that also religion and his ceremonies need to be respected and understood as the essential core of Chinese culture, turning into a multi-faced religious system多元的宗教关系 where “each one is getting along with each other in harmony”. In particular is the modern century discourse (nationalism or “enlighten the young启蒙话语” discourse) that successfully gave a new name for Chinese popular religion, no more “feudal superstition” or “historical sediments” but now has a connotation as taken part of modern historical process. Trying to clarify and understand what popular religion is, we cannot forget to consider Chinese religious view of life and interpret the change of language´s symbolism. Concerning the “rigidity” and the “boundaries” of the Chinese religious system, where are the borders between the huge and confusing variety of popular Chinese religions?
2: CHINESE CULTURE: THE IDEA OF”POPULAR RELIGION”
In the times of globalization and different areas´ integration, we cannot just consider the official parameter to analyze popular religion, instead we could start from considering Du Weiming杜维明 expression “cultural China” to observe religion´s shift (regarding the society of “operating” chinese people being seen as main part of it ). On one side, we should consider all fields of vision starting from the “ceremony, perdition, and seek礼失求诸野”, religion´s popular aspect, right through the periphery and foreign lands influence to examine the cultural system and the religious practice, on the other side we should also think of the aspect of “seek cause in oneself”, the “desire to investigate”, learn through practice and examine minutely, all very important symbols of our culture. In other words, popular religion should comprehend “cultural China” ´s important capital, namely considering also the intrinsic prerequisite of a pluralistic/multi-faced society, including both good and bad aspects, scientific and superstitious parts coexisting, but it should comprehend as well our proper way of living, social network society aspects, cultural status, the value system, the emotion as the foundation of our culture: just if we keep in mind all of those aspects, we can properly understand Chinese beliefs mechanism, and Chinese cultural pattern. “a Chinese is exempt from wearing barbarian clothes, Jiangbiao (area south of the Yangtze) is the ultimate area中华免夫左衽，江表此焉缓带” (Songshu ; Xie Lingyun宋书•谢灵运列传 biographies); “China is made of Chinese people. That who will be educated from the king, he will belong to China, to wear in a proper way, to follow the filial piety and fraternal duty customs, this means being a Chinese” (Tang Code唐律疏议名例律). Being Chinese refers to culture, etiquette and rite customs, being under the heaven (tianxia) and the properness in the appearance. For these reasons, “cultural China” under the influence of globalization needs to deal with much more than one thing, we need to reflect on “chineseness” and Chinese religiosity. The idea of Chinese popular religion and Chinese way of life will bring eventually to a look back on our own cultural point of view. For the “cultural China” point of view, regarding Chinese popular religion and its development, there´s something to pay attention to.
First, in south China coastal provinces, popular religions originated from the small villages become the most important vehicle to express and intensify the identification with hua group华族”（华裔, and also they help promoting cultural dialogue (地文化), thus they have deeply influenced the gait of popular religion revival, effectively stimulating the consciousness in the modern times of “being religious”, breeding the cultural soil for identification of ethnic groups, far beyond the geographical distinctions.
Since the Qing dynasty, avoiding the chaos of wars and the search for better life conditions generated a big wave of migration of people coming from south-east, and those people carried with themselves all kind of popular religions traditions from their villages, in memory of their own native land, and brought as well with them their meaning of life and growth. For example, in the Fujian province, there´s a poetry in the transcripts of “guest”/migrants family clan, called “past flows迁流诗” or “consulting the ancestors认祖诗” (each version has got his own difference) : “excellent steed (men) often change place, but everywhere they go they establish their three cardinal guides and the five constant virtues. Their foreign land becomes their land, I saw that their alien land is their native land. From morning to night they never forget to consult the destiny, at morning and at evening they have to offer incense to their ancestors. My only wish is that heaven will protect them, and the ginseng (三七男儿总炽昌) will be prosperous to them. From the age of “China can´t bear to recall the moon brightness故国不堪回首月明中”的时代” (Tang Dynasty) on, there´s no land migrant who shifted from their ethnic group to another one没有祖国支持的海外孤民经历了由“落叶归根”到“落地生根”的族群意识之艰难转变. We can say “revert to one´s origin” or “have one´s abode wherever he goes”. One of the most important ground of this phenomenon is exactly the strictly funeral rites for parents and the worship of ancestors, never forgetting where are we coming from, always bringing with us our religious believes. It can be seen everywhere by Chinese people from the southeast coastal provinces ancestral temple, sacred-mountains, guild hall, temple of the gods, the so-called “Chinese religion” or the “worship gods’ doctrine”, essentially popular, namely derived from the people, with the decline of Daoism, with the influence of Buddhism and Confucianism; furthermore, maybe the most important of those are the one derived from ancient teaches, that´s after all present in every time, and everywhere (无时不在，无所不在). The Southeast China coastal province (from now on we´ll call it 南洋) popular religion was also influenced by Islam, Hindu and the south Buddhism, the most important diacritic mark of Chinese civilization. Since the 20th century, the historical process in South China (东南亚) is inseparable from western colonialism. The southern emigrant wave and the difficulty of being conscious to belong to a proper ethnic group formed the ethnic group consciousness, we can see the responsible in the western colonialism. Along with the society ruled by non-Chinese (非华族), Chinese reverting to their own origins were even more considered as foreign/outsiders or no-land people, and because of that the process of putting limits/borders in culture and politics went on and on. In Malaysia, such a thing is still there, the state´s economy is still based on the privileges of the so-called original inhabitants, politics being aimed to apartheid of the magong (马共) – “chinese new residential quarters plan/strategy/politics 华人新村运动, that is hindering Chinese culture. In Indonesia, as Suhuatuo苏哈托 ruled the military affairs, all the school run by Chinese were shut, it wasn´t even possible to read ,listen and write Chinese. At that time in Thailand, the education condition of Chinese people was almost equal. On the other hand, freedom of belief was guaranteed, and so Taoist and Buddhist temple and the affiliated Chinese believers organization didn´t encounter such problems, on the contrary they demonstrated the brute force of Chinese people being able to defend their own identity and their self-awareness of their own culture. And till today, the sacred-mountains bearing the tradition of Chinese spirituality, temple of gods and so on still represent the most significant source of Chinese “local religion”. Just like Wang Chenfa 王琛发 , the Chinese inhabitants in Indonesia have a say “the ultimate crucial point of Chinese sacred-texts has no word to express itself, a man in a mess can only study to shield himself with religion, applying it with chinese scripts” ; “translating religious texts in Indonesian means putting limits , from the classics to the reliable texts (善书), through the historical gods and spirits novel, as a matter of fact the cultural emphasis must be borrowed from another language to convey the meaning (实际上是借用强势文化的语言文字去维续弱势文化的传承), even though this kind of cultural media are not “complete” at all, there are many deviations, and it will anyway contain the details of the “ethnic group´s cultural identification”. Following the democratization of southeast Asia countries and the weakening of ethnocentrism of their politics, along with the spread of the Chinese influence over those countries after the “reform and open to the outside world” , Wang Chenfa said, the politics of anti- sinicization针对华人的同化主义政策brought an unexpected result, namely “impose the use of Indonesian in chinese religion sacred texts, it’s no more limited just to chinese people. If these translated books made easier the reading for other ethnic groups , nevertheless it opens the facing of chinese culture toward 100 million circa of Malaysian people and the spreading of the dialogue between these different cultures.” At the same time, the ideology of anti-communism, and the normalization of relations/dialogue between China and southeast Asia countries, the flow of people coming back to their native countries to visit relatives, offer to ancestors sacrifices, the revival of temple of gods and ceremonial practices, and especially the revival of chinese popular believes in Southeast Asia countries is the most crucial point. Chinese people going abroad bringing with them the tradition of filial piety, that’s for sure the most important factor of chinese popular beliefs changing from being “unusual非常态化” to being “common 常态化”, stimulating and shaping a consciousness of belonging to a proper culture and rebuilding a proper religious culture.
We should pay attention to the fact that, basing oneself upon consanguinity, territoriality, sharing of the same language and especially believing in spirits (spirituality), that produces the cultural “capital” of validity of a religion, it produces also the self-identification to an ethnic group regardless of territory one is coming from, such as the Fujian’s culture fever of “Hakka ancestors (客家祖地)” or “Hakka mother’s river(客家母亲河)”, the revival of “territory” ancestral temples. As a result of globalization and “regionalization”, the phenomena of “a-territoriality (transnational跨国主义)” of chinese religions is just unfolding, facilitating the decentralization of the religion organization and the tendency to unite/concentrate the temple according to their kind. Similarly in Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, China main territory and Taiwan people respectfully make obeisance to Mazu妈祖/Goddess of Sea, Xuantian Shangdi玄天上帝/God of Northern Heaven or Yaochi Jade Lake’ golden Mama 瑶池金母、Guandi Lord of War关帝, praying them in their temples, and this attempt to establish ties regardless of territory, as well as forming religious community ties. Furthermore Buddhists sects of chinese inhabitants of southeast Asia countries- such as Zhenxi and Jixi 振系和济系, were originally also an effect of temple of gods association.
Secondly , pursuing the process of integration/unification/standardization of chinese politics, the popular religious performances 文化（信仰）搭台，统战唱戏”的博弈筹码, has deeply influenced the development of chinese popular religion, as well as building a cultural space for the revival of religion. At the same time the new reborn religions showed again the old “cultural customs”, but considering the traditional chinese system in some areas, it should also mean a better and better knowledge of the cultural aspects of China, but right now to reach a conclusion seems to be too soon.
Just like Gezhao Guan said, the image of China in the last century was deeply influenced by the idea of “tianxia”, especially at the end of the pay tribute system, we can see historical concepts like the ”benefits of a good administration reach far and wide 光被四表、广传四裔” , then it started the custom of creating two antagonist “East” and “West” 习惯于以“东方”自居，中国的他者就是“西方. Since the Qing dynasty took over during 17th century, in the close countries like Japan, North Korea, Vietnam and so on, the strong consciousness of belonging to a proper ethnic group was already affirmed, and the image of chinese culture was regarded as “everywhere everything was ”barbarized”, was a time of upheaval, and the essence of chinese culture was entirely wasted”, “the days of old chinese system are gone, they never will come back again”, but the classical “tianxia” system still exists 今则四海之内，皆是胡服，百年陆沉，中华文物荡然无余”、“中华古制日远而日亡，将不得复见.
Other China’s neighbor countries, culturally speaking, didn’t have chinese culture aspects, politically speaking, they were still internationally governed, economically speaking , they’ve just started trade relationship. The former cultural identification between China and those countries was completely gone, just like the huge difference in the same oriental culture .Since 17th century neighbor countries and the politic of “leave further and further away 渐行渐远” give the impression that the 20th century history is just repeating herself. Chinese revolution success affirms that chinese people woke up, but the big dream of a “big overall unified politics” didn’t come true yet, and the huge cultural differences make this even more far away from reality. During the Westernization process of building a “Race-Nation”, in the first period of Guomingdang and Gongchangdan trying to enlighten people and save the nation from extinction, we could already see the distinctive “elitism精英主义” factor of chinese culture, with the hope for an effective chinese modernization. In particular trying to strengthen to control of the areas and to build a new image/consciousness of citizen, both parties separated “superstition” from “religion” with the idea and political tactic to keep going on doing it. However, the huge difference between political ideologies/theories and the practice, brought to divergences in the way of handling popular religion activities and different governing structure, for this reason we have different political strategies for different cultural landscapes. During the twenties and thirties of 20th century, with the promulgation from republican government of “measures to maintain or suppress of temples (神祠存废标准)” in 1928, of “measure to abolish divination, horoscope, wizard and witches and geomancy ” in 1929, “ban witch doctor activity” in 1929, “ban on trading superstition goods” in 1930 and so on, chinese popular religions were pointed as “superstitious” and put under surveillance , banned, abolished ,thus it was successfully created an image of religion that included both Confucian school aspects and organized form (temples form?), it was also a movement against superstitious activities inner the “elitism” tradition. This was exactly the old chinese tradition of “legism”, used to face superstition and popular religion. Scholars and researchers just like Ju Hongying found out that, as the GMD took over in Taiwan , the way the government handled with popular religions was much different; there were measures like “ theocracy superstition 神权迷信”, “movement on folk customs 民俗活动” ; “cultural resources and treasure/rarity 文化资源瑰宝; government structures experimented “ban查禁”, “abolish革除”, “way to improve perfection改善（进）” through “guidance辅导”的政策” and so on, Taiwanese society attaching importance to the trend of chinese politics. For example, in 1950 Taiwan’s province chief executive office announced the “measures to prohibit people bad customs 查禁民间不良习俗办法”, banning the ancestors worshipping society, planchette writing spirits beliefs superstitions and so on, functionaries and people’s representatives should set the example banning the “noisy festivals held in honor of local deities迎神赛会” , 神棍敛财, all activities that should have abolished till 1965. In 1959 “Taiwan’s measures to improve people customs” was published, in which sacrificial rites were pointed, but marry, funeral, longevity were saved, aiming to spare money 避免劳民伤财 . In 1960 Taiwan gave order to apply each county the “improving people customs 民俗改进会”, aiming to correct/adjust sacrificial rites activities. Till 1991, Taiwan’s authorities published “significant measure to strengthen the social conduit 加强改善社会风气重要措施”and “implements to this measure加强改善社会风气重要措施台湾省实施要点” pursuing the improvement and a guidance for calendar activities such as sacrificial rites of temples and festival tradition. Along with the economic liberalization in Taiwan, politics democratization and the autonomy of government, Taiwan’s municipal administration opened a project on ”cultural capital文化资产化”, precisely a change in “festival activities”, for example Yilan province main city, Pingdong province 恒春的“抢孤”, Taizhong province main city’s pilgrimage to Mazu temple and similar activities. Because of this popular religion “cultural space文化空间” increased a lot, temples became the center of cultural and territorial identification, and even an important political site. The above mentioned China politics before 1949 and the removing of restrictions in Taiwan, brought to a western influenced “modern discourse” faced against the religions , similarly to the “materialism” and “atheism” proper to PCC, turned systematically in a “opposition to the medieval superstition 反对封建迷信”, in an“ attack on reactionary secret society打击反动会道门”, in a “tidying up the forces of evil清扫牛鬼蛇神”. Of course the latter concept is not really like the other ones, as it let chinese culture elitism tradition revives. Before the “reform and open to the outside world” there were a series of leftists political acts and cultural movements such as “smash the four olds (ideology, culture, customs, habits) “破四旧”” and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution“文化大革命””, along with the difficulty in maintaining the “elitism confucian tradition精英传统”, popular religions were not moderately controlled or prohibited, on the contrary they were strongly and clearly destroyed, even smashed to pulp sometime, with the result that with the revival of popular religions after the “reform and open to the outside world” the “religion consciousness” had even more cultural concepts and institution’s inertia制度惯性的牵制, so that also in Taiwan 地相比较时难免带有一种“时间差”的错置效应，并持续地造成中国内地“宗教是否自由”的各类风评。It surprises the fact that, at the beginning of 21th century, in Fujian province still is going on the “opposition to medieval superstition” policy, the authorities used government power to demolish at least 10’000 popular temples, bringing serious and negative cultural effects. The 15th February 2004, afternoon 14:15, in the city of Haining, Fujian province, Huang Wangzhen in Wufeng village fired a straw shed spontaneously, this place was used by 60 people to burn incense sticks to seek divine guidance, 40 of them died, 3 of them seriously injured, other 10 of them fled from the fire disaster. A reporter of Xin Jingbao went there to investigate the event, it turned out that the place was fired already four times, but it was anyway soon rebuilt, that was the fifth reconstruction of the temple. We can observe that from 1980 the democratization of Taiwan and the market economy growth of China are seen as the most significant symbol of modernization, but both sides of the Taiwan Straits (China’s Mainland and Taiwan) have one essential difference, a fundamental structure in the policy , that is in the nature of the way they face religion, the way they judge religion, the way they adopt measure against religion, both sides still work on “gradually going, gradually far 渐行渐远” conception , thus gradually they nourish the cultural soil of Taiwanese mentality of people. For example, during the Taiwanese martial-law/restrictions period, the authorities unhesitatingly adopted against the so-called “superstition” or “bad customs” a moderate banning and improving strategy, however they carry forward the elitism traditional policy , at the same time carrying forward chinese traditional culture ( for example revitalization movement) to strengthen political ideology, basically not destroying temples, dismantling them, smashing them and so on, they haven’t taken drastic measures to deal with those situations, they didn’t create a political structure to wreck popular traditions, criticizing in this way the chinese “destroying culture” policy . In 1960 , neoconfucian scholars like Mou Zongsan, Xu Fuguan, Tang Zunyi, Zhang Zunmai... analyzing the chinese cultural tradition, 同样充满着一种“花果飘零”、“披麻戴孝”的文化情结. Not few religious scholars claimed that 4th May movement destroyed completely chinese culture: “a millenarian tradition is completely gone after that movement”. This extremely personal/sentimental critique and the “Dao superiority” symbolizing cultural properness, represent the new “historical memory” of chinese mainland, culturally it despises as “false China” or “new barbarian” culture, and still labeled as “foreignized 胡化”, “sovietized 苏俄化” and not “sinicized 非中国化”, we think erroneously chinese traditional culture is preserved in the Taiwan’s and Hong Kong’s “revival”, even in Korea and Japan, for this reason there were born different bad thoughts and feelings about China in political, cultural and religious point of view. We have no doubt, that in the last years chinese government appealed for trying to construct an harmonious society to “carry forward chinese culture, building the homeland for common spirituality弘扬中华文化，建设中华民族共有精神家园”, along with being directed against Taiwan’s political announce to “carry forward chinese culture and strengthen the spirituality factor弘扬中华文化，加强精神纽带”, 正是对往昔的“线性历史观”及相应实践的拨乱反正, namely the “linear historical thought 线性历史观” and the practice of bringing order out of chaos 拨乱反正, this process is shifting from “outside China 化外” to “inside China 化内”. The Taiwan-Hong Kong-Macao district haven’t done so far “政治他者”, they offered mainland China an important chance, namely look back at the own culture. In particular , the Taiwan-Hong-Kong-Macao district facing the Buddhist foresightness and the practice of worshipping deities and ancestors , since the reform and open to the outside world spurred on south China to resuscitate very fast chinese beliefs habits, helping to develop also the process for which chinese society gives big importance to religious practices and the “cultural awareness文化自觉”. Reflecting on the way a country defines a limit to legitimate religions and beliefs , we can see that every place found out very active strategies, and for this reason it was reproduced a “map” of the new cultural and social capitals of China. On one side, ceremony experts and the elites actively participated in temple activities (for example retired cadres, teachers, village headman managed temples business or shopkeeper donated their own property to let build the temple, Taoist priests, grandmasters, master of ceremonies and so on were responsible for the rites in the temple) and ceremony practices, letting the temple become a community or operating center with a cultural authority regardless of territory, villages beliefs got developed and rejuvenated gradually; on the other side running counter to popular religions temples, local government considered even more the model of “信仰搭台，旅游唱戏”, just like the temple was a touristic area which started developing “market operations” for “festival celebration” and “ visiting tour”, and for this reason it developed a cultural network by means of territorial religion”. Of course, government authority drove by economic interests selected the religions, the believers becoming a “mobile” figure 动员的对象 , from this it derives kind of “dissimulation” feature of religion 信仰异化现象 “( including for example the temple-museums 博物馆加庙宇的双名), creating this unhealthy wind of temple policy党政办庙的歪风不止. In particular we are talking about the governments’ double judgment coming from the pragmatism principle (on one side we have the revival of reactionary secret society and medieval superstition, that must have prohibited or banned; on the other side we see the use of cultural resources in the “pilgrimage activities”), cultural practices passed through many difficulties . With regard to chinese government, under the circumstances of the separated policy between the two sides of the Taiwan Straits, considering also the seeking to a big cultural unification, considering as well that a political unification was an even more pressing reality. Popular religion aspect of the offers to deities forms a solidified and big united front统一战线. And also, the faith in Mazu or the culture of Mazu plays an important role. Chinese People’s political consultative conference’s president Gu Qinglin in 2004 on the occasion of the foundation of the” chinese Mazu cultural association” wrote a representative letter of congratulation in which he affirmed that “Mazu culture is in China an important part of chinese traditional culture, it belongs to every chinese all around the world, helping to promote also a communication bridge and a link between the two sides of the Taiwanese straits”.”Mazu temples associations all around the world and the teams promoting Mazu’s culture, those are going to inherit the excellent chinese virtue, overseas Chinese people got integrated to each other because of it, giving a big contribute as well to promote exchanges between China and Taiwan,. “ To Mazu are given different functions and roles, it’s called also “the goddess of the strait peace”, “minister of world’s united front”. “The Mazu´s cultural exchange society” also uses Mazu as an emblem of a sports met representing the dove of peace and a propitious symbol. This kind of cultural exchange guide is also called “united-front performance文化（信仰）搭台，统战唱戏”. Of course China and Taiwan persist to exchange Mazu´s culture, bringing along a rise of the religious exchange, on one side promoting the pilgrimage and seeking one´s roots in mainland of Taiwanese believers, on the other side pushing forward a step for the renew and the opening of mainland popular religions temples, causing also increasingly desensitization脱敏化. In particular is the cooperation of Taiwanese temples (for example the Taichung county´s 大甲镇镇澜宫 ), letting chinese temples economically develop, becoming an important example to study and imitate. In regard to our understanding of popular religions, the cultural tradition has got an equivalent function. But, when we observe the cultural exchange model of “文化（信仰）搭台，统战唱戏”, we must pay attention to the “just one Mazu, each formulates in his own way” problem. On one side we have different interpretation for different Taiwan mainland areas , on the other side China and Taiwan stand for unity. When the model of “文化（信仰）搭台，统战唱戏”guiding model will be replaced by “文化（信仰）搭台，统战唱戏” auto-guiding model , we should pay attention anyway to the fact that united front custom could resist the cultural exchange. In recent years as the deities of ancestral temples in mainland China has no more the function as guards (离境巡台的活动), which was considered the most important achievement of the “united-front”, 从而生硬地改变了“祖庙—子庙”拟亲化的礼数和法统，诸如“分灵”子庙须至祖庙“进香”，祖庙神明分身最多只在本境界“绕境”的旧统. For example, in 1997 the Meizhou´s “Min(Fujian) trade promotion association” Mazu patrol for 102 days; in 2006 Guandi (God of war) temple in Shanxi duplicated respecting gods patrol stations in three and a half year; in July 2009 it was esteemed a “fixed station” in Taiwan; in July 2009 the King Guanze (广泽尊王) in Nan ‘an visited (巡香)Taiwan for a month; in April 2010 the great emperor of “green rock loving help” palace(青礁慈济祖宫保生大帝) visited Taiwan main island. This kind of model of “visit to pilgrimage” remote from the masses , rather than saying that it´s a perform of an area´s culture, it is better to say that it´s a symbol of politics, some of them are even transforming into a “cultural farce”. When it´s continuously weakening the orthodoxy and the transcendent aspects of temples , then we could immediately see the contradiction between authority power and the localism proper to those temples”, of course it consolidates the cultural antibody of Taiwan mainland and the politics consciousness. Behind what looks like a loose religious cultural exchange, the deficiency and the alienation of Mazu´s belief, along with the lack of religious mass ceremonies, it´s hard to raise the cultural feeling of “each formulates in his own way, one Mazu一个妈祖，各自表述) or “ 2 Mazus” (the religious Mazu and the political Mazu). When in 2007 in Taiwan Jiayi county´s Kaitai Mazu “开台妈祖” performance went abroad for the first time reaching New York to take part in “UN for Taiwan” project, we wonder if there was any emotional excitement behind the preach at “Mazu, minister of the world´s united front”. For this reason, the resuscitated popular religions reproduced the old “cultural dress”, it could be that our understanding of chinese culture or chinese rules is getting better and better, right now it´s too soon to draw a conclusion. In 2003 the research institute of world´s religion “Academy of Social Sciences 社会科学院” in their “Report about the problems of Fujian popular religions” fully discussed on the difficult conditions brought by “religion´s united front”:
During the eighties the Mazu´s fever in Fujian´s popular religions activities has to be
Considered first of all as a need for handling Taiwan relationship. Ten years later in regard to
Mazu cult and similar popular religions activities , we can interpret the action
trying to solve Taiwan problem in two ways. One way is considering over 10000 Taiwanese pilgrims
visiting the temples to worship the deities in the last ten years, then all the biggest
Mazu temples draw support from having a status of “orthodox” temple “正统”地位,
This would cause the reaction in Taiwanese people getting a new desire of a sooner unity, so there would
be explained the other names given to Mazu, like “the spirit of peace and strait” or “minister of world´s
united front”. The other way is considering that during the last ten years, since the Taiwan Independence
Movement arose a lot, and a pacific reunification became uncertain, the most important “reunification
Factions were not those who believed in Mazu, and the independentist were not necessarily Mazu non
Believers; the motivation of the Taiwanese crowd paying respect to the gods is the feelings of identification
with chinese culture.
If we consider the latter factor just as amplifying the feeling of a religion, and the national consciousness
In regard to cultural identification, independency or reunification influence seems to be too limited and
relative, but then the former one should also be limited and relative, it means that too optimistically
Mazu cult, cultural identification, and reunification were putted at the same level; when the first
Interpretation comes from the mouth of Mazu´s temples superintendents, we still need to consider
The political status that the temple has got, fighting for sovereignty and economic interests.
In 1991 there were two Sino-Japanese mountaineering “parties” in Tibetan area on the holy mountain, the Lama and Tibetan people, they were all unexpectedly chanting, because a conqueror´s act is considered a blasphemy towards the spirited-mountains. And there is a mixed feeling of joyful and tragedy towards the 17 people who died trying to climb the mountain. And the question of Sino-Tibetan culture is still like this, how can they endure the misunderstanding of chinese cultural traditions? For this reason, China and Taiwan´s policy is always trying to highlight the factor of “same origins-same culture同宗同源” and the mutually beneficial aspects, but the “united front” and “religion” have different roles to play, along with the local government searching for interests/benefits, as a consequence they get a strange feeling. Maybe, 或许，渐行渐近与渐行渐远不过一念间耳. In the 17th century the speech in occasion of the liberation of Korea sounded like “today under the chinese rules, the independency belongs to our country now”, so far the dispute between China and Korea over the spiritual culture is still evident, why has to be the memory of our own culture so obstinate ?
Third, under the wind of globalization and indigenization, after a long time Catholicism and chinese popular religions having contacts, they still compete each other. Facing the difficult position of desensitization´s prisoners囚徒困境, despite Catholicism has got the advantage of the “orthodoxy superiority话语正义优势”, robbing is not a good strategy彼此“打劫”并非最优的战略均衡. We have actually the public and the private aspect of a religion, why can´t it turn into a peacefully coexisting“信仰共在” cultural pattern? This deserves more investigations.
In regard to reciprocal agitations between chinese popular religion and Christianity (the main branches are Catholicism and Protestantism) ( doesn´t it represent a clash between cultures?), we should trace back to end Ming dynasty/ beginning of Qing dynasty “etiquette´s dispute礼仪之争”. “etiquette dispute” genesis came up during the 10 year of Ming dynasty Wangli Emperor (1582), when the Jesuit scholar Li Madou利玛窦 published his missionary work “ Confucianism against Buddhism辟佛补儒” , at that time Christian churches criticized Li Madou, labeling as “superstition” the chinese offering sacrifices to ancestors and to Confucius. Till the middle of 17th century the Catholic books written in chinese became a way to get rid of Buddhism and Taoist traditions. At the beginning of 20th century a scholar from the Jesuit society in Shanghai named Liu Shiqiu compiled a series of books called “chinese superstitions”, in which he criticized traditional believes and customs. It´s full of Christianity principles and mixed chinese popular religions, in particular it speaks about conflicts and misunderstandings of popular religions, with the Boxer rebellion during the end of Qing dynasty it achieved the highest grade. The professor Ju Luyao´s research says that the most significant motivation that led to the Boxer rebellion traces back to Shandong province, in Guan county´s Liyuan eighteen villages town, there each Christian associations was in close relationship to each other. In Liyuan village we could see since the eighth year of Qing dynasty the contradictions of “imperial temple disputes 庙堂之争”, and from then they got worse and worse. In regard to the so-called imperial temple庙堂,“庙”means Jade emperor temple，and “堂”means Catholic church. The Jade emperor temple was built during the reign period of emperor Shengzu in Liyuan town, and it got many free schools inside, it was the place for procession ceremony for gods for the town and the suburbs. The priests of these associations built 30 communities during Tongzhi, a Qing reign period, and from these the school of Jade Emperor temple was founded. On the 29th of the first month of the lunar year, in Liyuan village a detailed list of religious communities was drawn up:
立清分单：冠县邑北境梨园屯圣教会、汉教公因村中旧有义学房宅一所、护济义学田地三十八亩。日久年深，风雨损坏，墙垣坍塌，无力修葺。今同三街会首、地保公同商议，情愿按四股清分。汉教三股，应分田地三十八亩，圣教会应分房宅一处，上带破厅房三间，破西屋三间，大门一座，计宅地三亩零九厘一毫，以备建造天主堂应用。（《教务教案档》第五辑）
Then the religious communities were entrusted to the missionaries, the missionaries then demolished by themselves temple residences and church´s façades. The villagers were indignant, they reported that to the gentry´s heads; the missionaries were envied in Chinaas minister, the bishops exerted pressure on officials local government, for this reason it turned out into a dispute between villagers, churches and government, and each of them carried on organizing activities and playing jokes on each other, at the end the situation got uncontrollable, till the broke out of Boxer rebellion in 1898. During the end of Qing dynasty, in the middle of the dispute on popular religions in Liyuan county, traditional religious beliefs and Christian religion differentiated each other with the names of “chinese teaches” and “Confucian churches” “汉教”和“圣教会”, there were different identification to religions, politics and ethnic groups that mutually mingled, it was a very intricate situation, so that religious performances became politic and ethnic performance. Zhuo Xinping says:
The so-called “etiquette-dispute trace back to the thoughts that western
brought to Asia, not respecting chinese culture and traditions,
and this thing brought to conflicts between politics and culture.
The result was that China started again to reject western culture, and
Open-door policy changed again in a close-door policy. This was for China
A painful lesson
If we look back at Liyuan county puzzle, that represent the basis for the boxer rebellion, it was not that astonishing, it meant rather that though china´s civilization conflicts exist no more, we still need to analyze the problem of these relationships, and it´s a problem concerning chinese mainland popular religions that we could not evade. The common religious substratum 信仰共在 it´s a historical certainty, and all the precautions took by the government creating the “religions rules法（政）规教随” (by which government manage religious affairs, religious associations and missionary organizations, religious activities and so on) and the “religions canon教规政随” ( by which government manage religions affairs, a draft in which are contained all the rules the religious sects should respect to adapt themselves to tradition) should have led to a mutual respect, how could the harmony between politics and religion be promoted?
Just like Zhuo Xinping and Liang Liangcheng said talking about the relationship between Christianity and chinese culture: “ the relationship between Christianity and chinese culture has to be seen in two different ways, one aspect is the improvement of Sino-Western relationship , and that´s a outside factor, the other one is the way by which China relates to Christianity and Christianity to China, this is an internal factor” . Zhuo sentence has centered the point. So far the academic circles surveys say that, when Christianity radically got into traditional lives and attempted to transform the cultural landscape, it changed also “religious life” and “religious experience”, and as a consequence it produced a series of cultural misunderstandings and clashes. In regard to Christian churches and chinese popular religions relationship, scholars and academic´s opinion are always different. In recent years Sunyefang “economical science foundation孙冶方经济科学基金会” report about the new Christian churches making propaganda in chinese small villages, talking about the present conditions of small villages where chinese popular religions and Christianity are contrasting, there´s a lot of critiques towards Christian teaching causing problems in those cultures. If we say that the government still maintain a “nervous policy政治紧张” towards new Christian churches, then we can see that also the people adopt as a reflection this kind of “nervous culture文化紧张”, representing the origin of our traditions got suppressed for a long time, that´s how this feeling of frustration and debility derives from. The author declares referring to chinese village religions, “western religions all keep a kind of “outshining other branches” feature一枝独秀的格局, Taoism and Buddhism although before the reform have rejuvenated , their conditions have withered, just minor details of it rejuvenated actually, the reconstruction of the whole religious system is not possible, it´s in rapid decline”, northern areas are especially like that. New Christian churches brought village families conflictual and tensed situations, they created village society divisions, rewrote modern chinese history, weakened the main parts of traditional culture, intervened in village society and political affairs. For this reason, the government should change ideas in regard to traditional beliefs , should support popular religion; religion policy should be less strict, and so should be also in regard to general believers; and eventually enlarge inspections and controls towards western religions. Zhuo Xinping claims: ”if we observe Christianity in chinese society has very often something to do with politics, for this reason we can say that Christianity choices the policy, the problem is which kind of policy is it choosing, this is a crucial point in China today…it´s especially the western churches that keep on deciding policies, and very often they don´t decide following chinese principles, but very often they adopt a conflicting attitude towards china, china got disappointed by christianity” . Of course, this report express a chauvinist and anti-Christ point of view, his objectivity is impartial, but this kind of strong “melancholic culture” reveals the difficult conditions of popular religions and popular beliefs under the mainstream ideology proper to christianity. This kind of cultural status expresses the fact that chinese cultural tradition and Christian rational understanding (of it)is still far away. Of course the non-chinese point of view should not be ignored as well, namely chinese christians keep on having a “foolish破迷” attitude, one way to interpret it can be their wrong feelings derived from political pressures or religious persecutions; another way can be considering the use of language by government to criticize popular believes or religious sects or comparing christianity with democracy, freedom, human rights and so on, as well as considering our culture as emphasized and excessive. The work of Zhang Yinan “ popular religion and the harmfulness of government power民间宗教对官权的危害性” has a great significance, it talks about popular religions resisting to government authority, confused emperor policy in the late Qing period, the struggles popular religions had to handle, that corroded government power, the christian gospel became a way for chinese popular religions to resist, since popular religions didn´t have any experience in resisting, christianity gave them . Despite the author´s derives from his personal faith and met because of that ideological critics, his original idea didn´t raise the power of traditional ideology discourse, the result instead was that it turned unexpectedly into a “collaborationist discourse话语共谋”. Similarly during the first period the chinese christian associations took books to carry on their “foolish activities 破迷运动”, along with the fundamentalist trend some village churches took, this similarly embodies “modernity discourse现代性话语” that stays along with “linear historical vision线性历史观” and occupied a commanding position, using critics weapons to continue to suppress the legitimacy and the rationality of chinese popular religions. This kind of bizarre “collaborationist discourse 话语共谋” strategy is the result of the “supremacy discourse 话语霸权” during the colonization period, expressing a trend of being considered as “orthodox 话语正义” having two basic connotations: one is to adopt the language consciously or unconsciously the western adopted “insisting on religion freedom 坚持宗教自由”, “resisting at religious persecutions反对宗教迫害the freedom is religion is granted if and only if there´s only one god; the second one is the language of propaganda “opposing the reactionary secret societies” and “opposition to medieval superstitions”. Those differences strengthen continuously the so-called “high or low level of religion 高端信仰”与“低端信仰”, the first one is the religious freedom, that´s of primary importance; the second refers to witchcraft and superstitions, and has a connotation as “opposing the ignorance反愚昧”and “illuminate the people再启蒙”. The result of this “collaborationist language” is building the “religious pessimism信仰悲情” and the “religion mission 信仰使命”, from this it derives the “heterodoxy in religion 宗教异端化”and the “government religion policy宗教政治化”. Religion is no more a personal matter, but it assumes a connotation of the struggle between the West and China; aren´t these “glad tidings” brought by chinese christians? Sure, the language in these contexts shows that China is falling into the pattern of modernity. Using the French author Gao Wangsang saying, we can just in a bizarre wax think about the Asiatic christianity. The modern critics are directed against traditions, as if it naturally posses the criterions of legitimacy and rationality. When we will get used to the image of a religion symbolizing modernity and improvement , as if we are forgetting the chinese middle ages “female slave theology神学婢女”, we will listen respectfully to the incoherent talks of who´s speaking about freedom, democracy and human rights. But, just like christianity doesn´t have certain connections with values like democracy, freedom and human rights, at the same extent chinese traditional religions don´t have a feudalistic, superstitious and looking backward connotations, at the same time we also have inherited, innovated and achieved the basic rights for the religious respect. If we would forced to make a comparison, we could consider all the popular religions activities(like gods temple fairs) , ceremonies and rites (like going on pilgrimage offering incense) as the essence of the territory they´re coming from and the ceremonies specialists as who, before the deities, witnesses of and operate for democracy, this is exactly the point that sinologist found most surprising. In the concept of “cultural China文化中国”, what we need most is chinese Christianity’s attitude not putting supremacy on itself and not getting overbearing/aggressive as well. About the problem of this meeting between christianity and chinese popular religions, what we need to stress is the chinese thought about “harmony but still different和而不同”, the so-called “chinese mood and the world´s field of vision本土情怀与全球视野”, we have temple fairs, but we also have churches, we stress the main body of our culture, but we also have to respect the diversity of our culture. After all, a chinese ethnic group which is refusing the “chinese mood本土情怀”, has the same value as the other无异于“文化自宫, but still is going to lose his sustainable development. The question about stressing just the main body part of a culture is still a problem of “protecting ethnic groups 保族, 保种”,is still a chinese guarantee to the outside world, showing no problems with a multi-faced culture, resisting to the autocracy of a supreme culture. Of course what we need to analyze, is that the assimilation of christianity in China will bring to a openness of chinese culture. Just like Bing Gelei said:
There´s no Buddhist activities which were imported by India, we just have
A strong influence of Indian Buddhism, it´s a form that fits just the chinese Buddhist disciples.
Two different culture persons, each one just being his own essence,
There´s an abyss which separates the two. If we think of chinese and Indian people being Buddhist disciples,
They´re still very different to each other. If these two persons have read the same classical texts, have
adopted the same creed and same precepts—but they two different mind/spirit 不同的心灵, each one will
follow his own different way.
Xishi has maybe too much intensified the problem of the adaption of christianity in China. But in regard to ”harmonious but still different和而不同” and “非我无所取”, the problem of different cultures getting mixed we´ve got to have a high self-confidence in our culture: in times of globalization, whichever impulse against christianity, is absolutely not a proper manner a open-great-impressive country must have, and the indigenized christianity in China isn’t necessarily the same as a western religion or culture, since it has to take root/adapt in China it will become a rational and local reality, namely christian teachings will absorb chinese culture as well, if and only if chinese cultural system will be open to it. And if the “indigenization” and “territoriality在地化” of christianity will be seriously adopted , it could also facilitate the rethink of China in this globalization time bringing forth new ideas. But chinese cultural system has after all a popular tradition essence, in the process of becoming aware of our own culture, in the meeting with different types of christian teachings we can also learn how to get acquainted with it to bring new ideas to our tradition. Of course there´s more fundamental problems like the strong “exclusiveness/elitism 排他性 “ and “monotheism” proper to christianity, but if christianity decided to criticize and not to trying to reach a compromise with other kind of religion forms, isn´t then its cultural attitude just like “religion contains doctrine宗教包容主义”? The Buddhism in China seems to have same form, from “christianity in China” to a “chinese christianity” there´s still a long way to do.
3: THE LEGITIMATION OF CHINESE POPULAR RELIGIONS
Till now the scholars who had investigate chinese religions, especially those who studied the problem of popular religion in China, have always had a violent approach. We´re trying in this chapter to look back and rethink about it
1, religions´ habit
In recent years, new problems about chinese religions, new struggles, new thoughts, still occupy a central point in scholars dispute. Anyway the matter of chinese religion form, rather than talk about it as a problem of principle, it would be better to define it as a humanity concern problem. In the dispute on the balance between religions, there are often irrational prejudice, the studies lack of good investigation on the different kind of religions attitude and different society variables, for this reason their thoughts are coarse and hastily made. The origin of it has two backgrounds: one derives from the prejudices proper to the “linear thoughts线性化思维” against chinese popular religions, and the critics and expectations trying to regulate religions government policy; the second is because of the problems the new christian churches brought and the “cultural awareness文化自觉” proper to china´s value system-. Just like the French author Gao Wangsang said: “chinese religions policy, rather than saying it´s against religions, it would be better to say that it´s a renew of religions parameters, a refresh that´s acceptable, it´s like putting a boundary between orthodox religions and those who should be rejected, that should throw the nation in the modernity.” About the rigidity of putting limits between different kind of religions, 宗教在中国民间的形态是否可以被视为宗教的问题，又重新提上议程 . Just like Yang Qingkun wrote: “ the decentralization of religions (in particular popular religions)” and the “institutionalization of some religion sects (the reactionary secret society)” could be brought into nation policy, and could at the same time become a kind of “本能的文化焦虑” . But if we think deeply at it, not considering the unique situation of the relation between government and religion in China, then it´s evident it´s gonna lose its specific cultural meaning. What the thesis should bring to, in relation to the collective chinese culture and the feeling of a particular period, is a new rethink of the resistance to medieval superstition and religious activities. More precisely, the thesis of “religion habit宗教生态论” is just a humanity matter coping with changing time, it´s just an idea in chinese new trend of thoughts that will not bear any fruit, that´s all. If we look at it as a new creative scientific topic, it will be unavoidably a scientific narcissism. A cultural topic that has a great significance is expressed in “report about Fujian popular religion关于福建省民间信仰问题的调研报告” written in 2003 by chinese academy of social sciences on world religions researches, first of all it starts from “religious view of life” to analyze the question of popular religion, and it depicts it as a “non institutionalized religious attitude非制度化的宗教形态”, promoting the “standardization and the scientization科学化、规范化” of religious affairs management:
When we have to do with popular religion, we shouldn´t criticize them as ”utilitarian” and
“secular” 世俗性”和“功利性, we should instead talk about his religious aspects, we should
Keep its religiosity sacredness and cultural orthodoxy神圣性”及“文化正统意识,
From the chinese development strategy religion was introduced in each level of
Government religious affairs management, following the criterion of “market access市场准入”
And the “entertainment rules游戏规则”, so that are founded the integration setting rules
For popular religions, and let them have more effective role in building “religious
Cultural system宗教文化生态系统”. Building this system doesn´t mean just “select” the cultural
And traditional resources and find out the cultural affinity in the society, but also
To let he constitution rules grant religious right of freedom, reducing religions, safeguarding
The stability of chinese mainland associations(社会?), saving the image of chinese policy from outlands,
Keeping the balance and the competition between religions.
Of course, this report about the political change concerning popular religion, has a definite function. The politics in Zhejiang, Fujian, Hunan has made an highly effective work experiment on popular religions. However, the non-institutionalized religions still have to fit the religious system and that is pending from the new rethought. One of the author of the report, Jinze Chen Jinguo, has reached a further point in the discussion about popular religions. Jinze said, we should think no more at ideology and political affairs, but simply put religion in the cultural system. During the development of chinese society, we must pay attention not only to the “five big institutionalized religions”, but also to non-institutionalized ones and the popular religions. Comparing Protestantism in two small towns in Yugan county, Jiangxi province, the religion shows not to be in “space-time-balance空间性失衡”和“时间性失衡”. The so-called “space unbalance” means a religion not equally distributed over the territory. Firstly, between Protestantism and popular religions there´s a geographical disequilibrium. Secondly, this disequilibrium shows a trend in religions development of “ordinary” or “extraordinary” 常态化”与“非常态化 features. The so-called “time unbalance” means religions in different developing stages. First if all this derives from the proclaims of the ruling party and the dominant ideology “oppose to medieval superstition” and “反宗教房股势力” , becoming the heaviest pressure; secondly, Protestantism opposed itself to “superstitions”, to worshipping , it made this to strengthen its religious orthodoxy, and this was the second heaviest pressure. In 2006, Mou Zhoujian wrote “model of religious culture in China 宗教文化生态的中国模式”, “we need to resume and develop chinese religious model, we need from a new historical perspective to completely rejuvenate chinese fine culture, including every kind of “sane” religious culture, each of them should have a role to play, calling for the establishment of a religious studies branch, as religion one of the ten most important standpoint of China is. In 2010 “chinese journal 中国民族报” there´s a good article on “religious equilibrium宗教生态平衡” , publishing the statement of vice-director of religious affairs department of Yunnan province “keeping popular religions in the religions equilibrium system 民族民间宗教信仰对于宗教生态平衡机制的维系”, stressing the importance of renewing and refreshing the equilibrium in chinese religious system. There was another article called “religious unbalance under the influence of Protestantism - an example of investigation on religions in Yugan county, Jiangxi province,宗教生态失衡对基督教发展的影响——以江西余干县的宗教调查为例” , stressing the meaning of religion in western culture referring to the decentralization of religions in China, giving examples to verify if traditional religions kept quite good its original territory, if they´re equally distributed in the territory; Protestantism usually develops quite slowly, but in this case, it could develop really rapidly. Of course, all of these statement on religion system, caused many critics from academic circles. For example, the researches by professor Liu Peng, director of “social science researchers net 普世社会科学研究网” about religions legalization, publishing with his pseudonym “against the wind 逆风” “the loose of equilibrium in religion system”, directed against the category of “chinese teaching” Chen Jinguo used to refer to critics of chinese popular religions, seriously rethought the logical problem that´s behind the equilibrium between religions. In his introduction he also advocates a meeting for all the different religious thesis: “according to a commonly accepted system image, chinese religions showed not to be balanced, that´s almost not yet discussed. Opening the religious “market”, giving popular religions legitimacy to coexist and develop, that´s really urgent. We should open this religious market, recognize popular religions and legitimate them, and bring them into the official religious system. That became a great task in religions department and academic circles. “But, on the contrary, the government is attacking popular religions supporting in this way the development of Protestantism, causing this disequilibrium, the motivation of this political tactic comes from cultural origins. The non-balance of the religious system reflects religions different vitality. The government is in this way contributing to some extent to the growing of Protestantism in China, restraining the development of popular religions, and this political strategy reflects also another subjective prejudice. For this reason, the government should abandon this linear thought, it should adopt a religion legislation, and it should let religious freedom and the separation of church and state become a rational concept, and finally by means of “invisible hand 看不见的手”let the balance of religions arise. And also, Mou Zhoujian, Jinze and Chen Jinguo stressed the importance for popular religions of “rectification of names 正名” and “desensitization 脱敏” from a high point of view, giving prominence to “collaborationist language 话语共谋”, derived from modern nationalism di
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