Religious Medley

Growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the buckle of the Bible Belt, the only religion I knew was Christianity. In the Christian church, there was Catholicism and there were a multitude of Protestant denominations. Each one had their own special set of beliefs and interpretations. Of course, we had a couple of Jewish synogogues, but I always thought that one had to be Jewish to go to synagogue. I knew there were other religions in the world, and I assumed they had denominations as well. What I wasn’t prepared for was the blending of religion, philosophy, ancestor worship, and traditional folk religions which had naturally evolved in both Taiwan and Hong Kong.

One of the things I wanted to study when I went to Taiwan was Daoism (see Chinese Odyssey 2.)  One of my teachers at FuJen University found a book for me entitled 老子(Lǎozǐ.) It had the classical text (文言文 wényánwén) and an explanation in the common vernacular (白話 báihuà.) Local friends had pointed out Daoist temples around Taipei and I thought these would be the perfect places to go to learn more about the teachings of Laozi and Zhuangzi. I was taken aback to find what appeared to be a huge disconnect between the Daosim I had been reading and the Daoism that was being practiced as a religion in Taiwan. I learned that in Chinese, what I had read was called 道家 Dào Jiā. What I was seeing in the Taiwan Daoist temples was called 道教 Dào Jiào, the religion of Daoism. What I was told was that although some people in Taiwan adhered strictly to the tenets of Daoism and Buddhism, far more blended one or both of those religions with the various folk religions which had evolved in Taiwan as people from southeastern Fujian came in and joined the aboriginal Taiwanese (原住民 yuánzhùmín) Austronesian people who had arrived in Taiwan some 8,000 years earlier.

Walking around Hong Kong, I found there to be numerous temples which did not call themselves Buddhist or Daoist or Confucianist, but were dedicated to historical or quasi historical figures. General Che Kung aka Chēgōng (車公) helped to suppress a rebellion in the Sung Dynasty. Mo Tai, aka Kwan Tai aka Guān Dì (關帝) is often referred to as the God of War. He was a great warrior during the Period of the Three Kingdoms. My personal favorite has always been Kwun Yum aka Guānyīn (觀音) whose first manifestations were as a male, but who is now most often portrayed as the “Goddess of Mercy.” And since Hong Kong has historically been a home for fisherman, some of the most visited temples are dedicated to Tin Hau, aka Tiān Hòu (天后) who, according to the stories, was a young girl from a fishing village in Fujian.

A popular place of worship in Hong Kong is the Wong Tai Sin Temple (黃大仙祠.) According to legend, Wong Tai Sin (黃大仙) nee Huáng Chū Píng (黃初平) was a poor shepherd who became a Daoist priest in Zhejiang province in the 4^th century CE. One of the largest and most visited temples in Hong Kong, it is dedicated to Daoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism.

The sense of smell may be one of our most powerful connections to the past. That is certainly the case with incense (香 xiāng) burning inside temples throughout China. When walking down side streets in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or mainland China, I smile when I get a waft of incense which burns 24-7 in many temples. Incense is burned to please the gods, immortals, and ancestors. Families often include incense in their praying. They will buy sticks of incense, light several sticks at once, and pray (拜拜 bài bài) by bowing several times in front of an alter holding the burning incense in their hands. I’ve been told that incense also helps to keep away the mosquitoes.

At the Wong Tai Sin temple in Hong Kong, anyone can come in and pray in any of a myriad of spaces. You can also have your fortune read by men and women in Cantonese, Mandarin, and in English. The most popular way of finding your fortune is by using Fortune Sticks (Kau Cim aka 求籤 Qiú Qiān). At Wong Tai Sin, you can have a professional fortune teller help you or you can borrow sticks and do it yourself. There are 100 sticks in a bamboo tube with the #’s 1-100 written on them. There is a way to shake the tube until finally one stick comes out. To make sure that your fortune is correct, you then drop the jiaobei (珓杯 Jiǎo Bēi) blocks. These two wooden blocks are in the shape of crescents with a flat side and a rounded side. The way they land on the floor tells you whether your fortune is suitable or not. Once you’ve determined that your number is correct, you take it to a window and they will give you a poem. It’s up to you and/or your fortune teller to interpret your poem so that it will answer the question you asked. Nowdays if you have your own sticks and blocks, you can do it yourself and go onto a Wongtaisin website for the poems in Chinese and in English.

Chinese Odyssey 19

A stick in a temple

decided my fate.

The mainland of China

would just have to wait.

“You need to go home

to a far distant shore

but we know you’ll come back

to learn even more”