Has a belief in communist philosophy and politics replaced more traditional religious belief in China today? Has religious practice been pushed aside by the pursuit of new lives as people move from the countryside to the fast-growing cities, with hopes for upward social mobility and more affluent, comfortable lives? Or, for a variety of people and groups, does religious practice still provide a source of meaning, hope, community, and identity?
Answering these questions is, I (Bruce) have to admit, quite beyond my ability. But we often kept running into some form of religious practice while in both Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and that raised questions for us about the role of religion in people's lives today. Sometimes this happened while visiting Taoist temples, some centuries old, some relatively new.
At the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple in Kowloon (part of the Hong Kong area), actually a collection of temples which bustle with activity, one portion offers single people the chance to offer prayers with hopes for a possible mate and marriage. The center figure is a Taoist priest who would conduct a ceremony, with a rope to the left (unseen in this photo) to the figure of a bride, and a rope to the right to the figure of a groom. One gets a foot-long segment of red thread to tie onto the appropriate side.
I couldn't help notice that young women were more likely to be seeking help in finding a husband than vice-versa, judging by the relative amount of threads tied to each side (and by whom I saw doing prayers here, while I sat nearby). Are women more religious? More concerned about finding a husband, in spite of the fact that urban women are now often quite educated and usually able to work for pay? More concerned about finding a good man, perhaps one with fewer traditional expectations on what a wife will be like? (One should remember, too, that a legacy of China's one-child policy, combined with a preference for having a son, has meant a shortage of marriageable women for those men seeking a wife, which should lead men to be the ones needing extra help in finding a spouse!) Perhaps what's significant for the moment is that at least some young people still do seek a source of help finding a partner than is different than "Match.com."
Local people visiting the temple discussed above, and the Che Kung Temple shown to the right, were a mixture of those who came to pray at one of the altars, perhaps petitioning higher spirits for their personal needs, and those who arrived on tour busses to see these more well-known temples. Yet even the "tourists" appeared to be local people (or visitors from other nearby parts of China?); Barbara and I were usually the only "Western/white" folks around, and the temples didn't seem to be "tourist attractions" in a narrow sense. Perhaps some folks were visiting in a spirit similar to some who visit Notre Dame or Chartres in France, with a mixture of seeing the sights and a degree of religious awe or curiosity. Many of the visitors to the Taoist temples did buy incense/joss sticks with which to offer their prayers, and then took "selfies" of themselves with their friends. I was often left with more questions and curiosity than answers! But it did seem that, for many visitors to the temples, there was at least some "religious" intent for their visit. And the temples weren't necessarily old relics, leftovers from past times--the first one above was build in 1973 (!).
We also visited some Buddhist sites, such as temples or nunneries. At the Buddhist temple on the left, in Guangzhou, there were a number of local people offering prayers at one of the altars in a complex dominated by the seven-level pagoda seen here. When I visited again on my own (when Barbara was teaching her class), I peeked through a door into a large hall where people were gathering (including a number of Buddhist monks and nuns, as well as local practitoners), and a woman sent out her young daughter (with some English) to invite me in to join. I sat down, though a few minutes later the daughter came up and said her mom thought it would be better if I were sitting with the other men instead of the women (whoops--hadn't noticed! and even though I have gotten quite comfortable "sitting with the women," in this case, as in other settings calling for certain gender traditions, it seemed respectful to move). The chanting followed a repetitive pattern, going through a printed pattern over and over for several hours. I appreciated the chance to be part of that.
Near the subway stop where Barbara was teaching in Hong Kong was a Buddhist nunnery (the Chi Lin Nunnery), which I visited several times. It seemed to attract a variety of visitors (both the nunnery buildings themselves and the gardens, part of which are seen to the right), but there were also local people who were there to pray at one of the four main altars, each with beautiful images of Buddha and various bodhisattvas. Among other things, it seemed to be a place of peace and rest in the midst of a very urbanizing area (much of it 30-40 story apartment buildings, as seen here).
As Barbara's noted earlier, we also visited several masjids (mosques) in both Guangzhou and Hong Kong. In the photo to the left, we are sitting on the porch of the prayer hall at a mosque which is in an old temple (the pagoda has been converted into the minaret, from which the call to prayer is given!). "Moon" is with us, who translated for Barbara's class but was also generous with her time on other occasions as well; she enjoyed the sound of the call to prayer we could hear from inside, as local Muslim men arrived to pray. Note that Barbara has put on the modest clothing for a visit to the mosque as we've learned is appropriate in our several times in the Middle East. (Note, too, the monsoon-level rains seen in the background!) Muslims are an important part of the Chinese population in some parts of the country; those at this mosque seemed more likely to be newer immigrants. Barbara and Moon had a good conversation with the women who'd come to pray in the women's area before we reconnected outside once again.
In Hong Kong, we visited the Jamia Masjid (seen at the right), established around 1915. Hong Kong had become a British colony about half a century earlier, in connection with the Opium Wars (Britain had been pushing opium sales to the Chinese, who resisted it), and as we learned the Muslims at this mosque were from South Asia (India and what is now Pakistan and Bangladesh had been British colonies), rather than Turkic Muslims historically living in what is now western China. Some were also from Malaya (now Malaysia), also British in those days. One man we talked with was born in India, lived in Canada (part of the British Commonwealth) for some time, and was now in Hong Kong for work.
All of this history reminded us that sorting out religious practice and its meaning in China today is complicated by colonial histories and the modern movement of peoples as China's economy booms. For Muslims, faithful practice seems a matter of identity and community as well as belief.
There is also an important presence of Christianity in China. Some goes back centuries to missionary efforts which paralleled Western efforts to establish economic ties and political influence with parts of Asia. In southern China where we were, efforts to convert the Chinese seemed to be associated with the British presence beginning in the 19th century (following earlier Portuguese efforts). To the left we see Barbara and Moon in front of the Stone Church (the large wooden doors), a cathedral built in a central square in Guangzhou over a period of several decades; there are regular services there, in several languages.
Recent immigration from sub-Saharan Africa, in connection I think with China's relatively recent but significant involvement in several countries there, has also brought both Muslims and Christians from Africa to Guangzhou. I spent part of a day in the neighborhood where many have settled, and from posters had the impression that African-style evangelical Protestant churches were important for part of the immigrant population.
In Hong Kong, I spent some time at St. Andrew's Cathedral (Anglican), seen in the photo to the right. One Sunday I went to two services, one in English (at which many attenders seemed to be women from the Philippines, many who have come as domestic workers caring for the children and homes of relatively affluent Hong Kong Chinese residents). I also went to the Mandarin service (with Chinese officiants and a Mandarin choir) (there is also a Cantonese service). In the church materials, I noticed that there was an outreach both to domestic workers and to migrant workers who do construction, with a focus on Filipinos. (Filipino immigrants, along with Malaysians and Indonesians, seem to be an important part of the low-income workers who, as in the U.S., provide people to do the work which Chinese residents may no longer need or want to do.)
One sign of the Filipina domestic workers is their gatherings on weekends, usually Sundays (when they would have a day off, at least in Hong Kong). We've seen groups gathered in the public parks, or on benches along walkways, to visit, share food, perhaps to fix one another's hair. These are women who might often live in the house where they work, and so seeing one another one day a week seems to be an important time to find support. In this photo, we see one of many groups of women (often about a dozen each) singing church songs in informal worship (in English--the Philippines was a U.S. colony until after World War II, and English has been a common second language, which also makes these women attractive as domestics to a Chinese population which also often has English as a second language as a British colony until 1997, when Hong Kong was returned to Chinese control). Some of the songs, in themes and tone, reminded me of "praise songs" at the evangelical churches I studied during my last sabbatical.
I conclude this post with a photo of the tai chi group whose several score "members" met daily in the morning near our hotel, as it seems at least partly to be a spiritual practice. I spent some time one morning doing my best to do the moves, after Barbara and I had had breakfast and she had zoomed off to class. (I stayed on the edge, in the back, uncertain what I was doing, but several folks smiled at me in encouragement, or perhaps amusement.) Nearly everyone seemed to be 50+, likely retirees, as I'm slowly beginning to see myself as after finishing my last semester at St. Olaf this spring. It's not a bad way to start a day!
I don't know that I've answered my own questions here about the role of religion in China. For many Chinese it may be outmoded, at the side of the road to modernity and success. Some do seem to take religious practice seriously. It may be a matter of faith, or a matter of need, or both. And for some it's also the container for their sense of identity, and community.
All for now. Bruce
Answering these questions is, I (Bruce) have to admit, quite beyond my ability. But we often kept running into some form of religious practice while in both Guangzhou and Hong Kong, and that raised questions for us about the role of religion in people's lives today. Sometimes this happened while visiting Taoist temples, some centuries old, some relatively new.
I couldn't help notice that young women were more likely to be seeking help in finding a husband than vice-versa, judging by the relative amount of threads tied to each side (and by whom I saw doing prayers here, while I sat nearby). Are women more religious? More concerned about finding a husband, in spite of the fact that urban women are now often quite educated and usually able to work for pay? More concerned about finding a good man, perhaps one with fewer traditional expectations on what a wife will be like? (One should remember, too, that a legacy of China's one-child policy, combined with a preference for having a son, has meant a shortage of marriageable women for those men seeking a wife, which should lead men to be the ones needing extra help in finding a spouse!) Perhaps what's significant for the moment is that at least some young people still do seek a source of help finding a partner than is different than "Match.com."
All of this history reminded us that sorting out religious practice and its meaning in China today is complicated by colonial histories and the modern movement of peoples as China's economy booms. For Muslims, faithful practice seems a matter of identity and community as well as belief.
Recent immigration from sub-Saharan Africa, in connection I think with China's relatively recent but significant involvement in several countries there, has also brought both Muslims and Christians from Africa to Guangzhou. I spent part of a day in the neighborhood where many have settled, and from posters had the impression that African-style evangelical Protestant churches were important for part of the immigrant population.
I don't know that I've answered my own questions here about the role of religion in China. For many Chinese it may be outmoded, at the side of the road to modernity and success. Some do seem to take religious practice seriously. It may be a matter of faith, or a matter of need, or both. And for some it's also the container for their sense of identity, and community.
All for now. Bruce
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