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My experience in China as a student point me to believe that most Chinese kowtow and go to temples for tradition and spirituality rather than institutionalized

My experience in China as a student point me to believe that most Chinese kowtow and go to temples for tradition and spirituality rather than institutionalized religion. The entire article sounds like a westerner applying their cultural values and their sense of righteousness to China. For example: >"But I do think that it does create values that are higher than any government's values - ideas of righteousness and justice that people are inspired by and that will inspire them to action if they feel that they are unjustly treated by the government." (I'm an american born chinese but was brought to China for about 6 years by my mother) Edit: My grandmother is extremely Buddhist, and both my mother and I are nonreligious. Even so, my mother brought me to the Confucius temple to kowtow and light incense, not because it actually did anything, but because it was a move of ancestral respect and tradition.

gaoshan 9y ago
The line you quote is so annoyingly on target of the stereotypical American cultural bias that it just turns my stomach. Most Christians I have encountered in China (and I mean Chinese, not the typically evangelical American "missionaries) fall into 2 broad groups. People that would be at home in American style "prosperity movement" churches and, to a lesser extent, people that seem a little on the unstable side. The Buddhist, Daoist and generally Confucian flavored traditions seems more like legitimate tradition, not what the article tries to claim.
- osicanstos 9y ago
  The funny part is that most of the Chinese (and Korean) Christians that I meet still pray to their ancestors.
  - nsxwolf 9y ago
    That's a completely normal practice in Catholicism.
    - bionsuba 9y ago
      That's not quite true. Catholics pray for their ancestors and pray to the saints when not praying straight to God.
      - nsxwolf 9y ago
        This isn't true. All the saved are saints, even if they aren't canonized. It is reasonable to assume that they are in such a state and thus engage them in intercessory prayer like any other saint.
        bionsuba 9y ago
        Right, but Catholics don't know who are the saved. So, they pray to God and the saints for their ancestors because they might not be saved.
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- nsxwolf 9y ago
  As a religious person that is routinely mischaracterized by others I'm not sure if I put any stock in your ability to characterize Christians in China simply because you've encountered some. Especially when you throw around words like "unstable".
  - gaoshan 9y ago
    I was critical of Christians in China. You are religious. Of course you question my judgement. You and everyone like you presumably does so. It's part of what undergirds your belief system.
osicanstos 9y ago
I completely agree. It makes me wonder if these authors really believe what they are saying or if they are trying to spin a narrative that helps them sell books? The other annoying thing that Western authors on China do is attribute everything to "face" and try to use this point as a huge distinction between Chinese and Westerners.
- Markoff 9y ago
  it's funny considering face stuff works pretty much same in West, just not to that extent as in China, yeah people will admit they don't know something unlike China, but still don't dare to tell someone they are cheap for instance
  - sharun 9y ago
    > people will admit they don't know something Trump is working hard on changing that misconception.
  - brianwawok 9y ago
    I think anyone from Mr money moustache forums will admit they are cheap.
- kbenson 9y ago
  Something I was struck by when reading the Dark Forest trilogy (at least the first two books, as that's all I've finished), is how alien the thinking sometimes comes across as. As my first exposure to Chinese fiction, it was somewhat eye opening. Not just in a different thought process from a different culture, but in how they attribute motives and thoughts to characters from more "western" societies. Oh, it's also amazingly good science fiction. :)
dlwdlw 9y ago
Agree. In China people request help and protection from "Heaven", "God", or "Buddha", but something I noticed is that the behavior is very similar. The protection and good fortune is asked from forces of nature rather than human institutions. Many other religions concentrate power in an institution via priests. (Historically even Buddhism and Taoism had power centralized in monks) "Modern" Chinese religion post cultural-revolution seems alnost suspicious in human intervention in beliefs. Nowadays the power is mostly non-secular (assuaging guilt, providing happiness, contentness) So many people in China actually use religion purely for dealing with uncertainty. Other aspects are handled by culture, like morality and a sense of justice. And they DO have a very long and old culture they are proud of and would most likely resent being described as being sheep that have their sense of value controlled by the government. Events like the cultural revolution and great leap forward created a lot of cynicism towards "soft" values and many families in China revolve around money more than anything else. I think this is inportant to note as religion, though increasing in activity, isn't some sort of desire to be free from opression but a side effect of more and more families and individuals becoming well off and seeking meaning from other areas. Money becomes a false god for them. (Usually children who grew up in wealthy conditions. Personal gods are difficult to switch once you "grow up") And this is how religion everywhere works internally IMO. Being able to survive is the most important and religion comes after. In areas where religion is literally a matter of life and death, then it supercedes economics. The government in China isn't some God handing down meaning for your life, it's a begrudingky accepted part of life like Trump and Congress, or Comcast. People aren't wallowing about with holes in their souls suddenly realizing that Christianity perfectly fits that hole and deciding to topple the existing government. Because religions may displace other religions as sources of belief and happiness but governments are now just sources of money and stability. The interesting things about religion in China to me. (Which almost all western interpretations miss due to an obsession with folding in politics and promoting own worldviews) 1) How the Chinese react to rediscovering the value of soft values as latter generations become less "selfish" due to abundance. Older generations may have fought over bread, but latter generations are ashamed as being perceived as rude people who spit everywhere. 2) How diverse the coming landscape will be. Will more traditional religions grow in size or if more foreign ones will 3) Whether or not different religions will create soft or hard boundaries. I think the idea of being Chinese due to its long tradition will cause boundaries to be primarily soft. I will say that the non-existence of such boundaries currently cause a lot of irrational mob-like behavior like obsession with LV bags or buying all a supermakets salt due to some news story. Different seeds can cluster different crystals which may increase the life outlook diversity of people in China. 4) How much of life's agency will be ceded to them. Religion used to control everything down to money. In the middle east it controls life and death. In strong conservative areas it controls morality. In more liberal areas it allocates happiness and assuages guilt. As the Chinese realize they no longer have to work themselves to the bone while beating their kids to get a good education to get a good job, soft values are being rediscovered. How much will be indluenced by culture, religion, and individual desire for discovery. China is probably the largest body of people rediscovering soft values in the Internet era with all its connectivity. 5) some other stuff... most of my thinking around religion revolves around me just wishing my parents could be happy. They started off very poor and now own many houses but don't seem to be able to derive happiness from anything else. It's more than enough for both themselves and their kids, but as their kids have more gods than just Money, they are coming to tbe realization that the max value they can provide is limited. Becoming a god of money did not make them gods of life and this increasingly becomes apparent as their children accept new gods and problems emerge that Money cannot solve. (Health related, relationship related, emotion related, etc...) So I think there is room in China for a few more Gods.
mc32 9y ago
I agree with that but... There appears to be something different about it. It's different from the cleaning up of graves kind of respectful tradition. Not doing something or doing something not approved in a temple is seen as transgressive. I know people who ordinarily one would consider agnostic, perhaps atheist, but have a kind of ingrained respect for various gods of different things. Maybe there is something akin to the Easter bunny. Parents and kids know it does not exist, but they both keep up pretention in order to have a fun event (for both parents and children). But in this case it's individual/society.
spangry 9y ago
I'm half-chinese, so occasionly will experience things on 'both sides of the street'. I agree that quite a bit of it is a case of 'tradition is tradition' (similar to Christmas for many non-practicing or non-religious folk). But I also think some of these traditions are kept because they serve some highly practical purpose. I've already experienced the standard western funeral a couple of times: death, service, wake, home. My (chinese) grandmother died a year ago and so the whole multi-day Chinese 'funeral' process still feels quite recent for me. At the time, I was struck by how many of the rituals and traditions had very pragmatic reasons behind them. For instance, after the 'open-casket' viewing and the 'service' (sorta), the casket and basically every material possession belonging to or associated with the deceased are removed from the house and the casket is carried in procession to the crematorium. I think the 'house stripping' and casket removal are more than just symbolic traditions; they serve the very practical purposes of (a) forcing everyone to confront the fact that this person is dead, and so grieve while surrounded by friends and family and (b) reduce the possibility of close family members (who might actually live in said house) from 'getting stuck in the past' once the whole ordeal is over (living in a house of memories, if that makes sense). The other part that stands out in my memory was when we went to collect the ashes a day or two after the above. And the bone fragments. Again, the whole family (~40-50 people) is there. In order of closest kin (i.e. eldest son first), each one of you picks up one of the bone fragments and places it in the urn, amongst the ashes. Again, while one could view this as some sort of spiritual ritual, I think the real purpose behind it is, again, to really force you to acknowledge that the person is dead and is never coming back. And so you grieve intensely, but fortunately you do so with your entire family there, all sharing your grief. They really wring it out of you and it's exhausting, but I think it's also very healthy. Although it's difficult at the time, once the entire ordeal is over you're in a much better position to get on with your life. There's a bunch more stuff, but those are the two that stood out the most for me.
woodandsteel 9y ago
The article was referring to Christian churches in China, and Christianity most definitely has values that are higher than the government and that the government is obliged to obey. I don't know much about Buddhism. Does it have universal values? And what about you, boabrain, do you believe there are values higher than the government?

gaoshan 9y ago

The line you quote is so annoyingly on target of the stereotypical American cultural bias that it just turns my stomach. Most Christians I have encountered in China (and I mean Chinese, not the typically evangelical American "missionaries) fall into 2 broad groups. People that would be at home in American style "prosperity movement" churches and, to a lesser extent, people that seem a little on the unstable side. The Buddhist, Daoist and generally Confucian flavored traditions seems more like legitimate tradition, not what the article tries to claim.

osicanstos 9y ago
The funny part is that most of the Chinese (and Korean) Christians that I meet still pray to their ancestors.
- nsxwolf 9y ago
  That's a completely normal practice in Catholicism.
  - bionsuba 9y ago
    That's not quite true. Catholics pray for their ancestors and pray to the saints when not praying straight to God.
    - nsxwolf 9y ago
      This isn't true. All the saved are saints, even if they aren't canonized. It is reasonable to assume that they are in such a state and thus engage them in intercessory prayer like any other saint.
      - bionsuba 9y ago
        Right, but Catholics don't know who are the saved. So, they pray to God and the saints for their ancestors because they might not be saved.
- deleted 9y ago
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- deleted 9y ago
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nsxwolf 9y ago
As a religious person that is routinely mischaracterized by others I'm not sure if I put any stock in your ability to characterize Christians in China simply because you've encountered some. Especially when you throw around words like "unstable".
- gaoshan 9y ago
  I was critical of Christians in China. You are religious. Of course you question my judgement. You and everyone like you presumably does so. It's part of what undergirds your belief system.

osicanstos 9y ago

I completely agree. It makes me wonder if these authors really believe what they are saying or if they are trying to spin a narrative that helps them sell books? The other annoying thing that Western authors on China do is attribute everything to "face" and try to use this point as a huge distinction between Chinese and Westerners.

Markoff 9y ago
it's funny considering face stuff works pretty much same in West, just not to that extent as in China, yeah people will admit they don't know something unlike China, but still don't dare to tell someone they are cheap for instance
- sharun 9y ago
  > people will admit they don't know something Trump is working hard on changing that misconception.
- brianwawok 9y ago
  I think anyone from Mr money moustache forums will admit they are cheap.
kbenson 9y ago
Something I was struck by when reading the Dark Forest trilogy (at least the first two books, as that's all I've finished), is how alien the thinking sometimes comes across as. As my first exposure to Chinese fiction, it was somewhat eye opening. Not just in a different thought process from a different culture, but in how they attribute motives and thoughts to characters from more "western" societies. Oh, it's also amazingly good science fiction. :)

dlwdlw 9y ago

Agree. In China people request help and protection from "Heaven", "God", or "Buddha", but something I noticed is that the behavior is very similar. The protection and good fortune is asked from forces of nature rather than human institutions. Many other religions concentrate power in an institution via priests. (Historically even Buddhism and Taoism had power centralized in monks) "Modern" Chinese religion post cultural-revolution seems alnost suspicious in human intervention in beliefs. Nowadays the power is mostly non-secular (assuaging guilt, providing happiness, contentness) So many people in China actually use religion purely for dealing with uncertainty. Other aspects are handled by culture, like morality and a sense of justice. And they DO have a very long and old culture they are proud of and would most likely resent being described as being sheep that have their sense of value controlled by the government. Events like the cultural revolution and great leap forward created a lot of cynicism towards "soft" values and many families in China revolve around money more than anything else. I think this is inportant to note as religion, though increasing in activity, isn't some sort of desire to be free from opression but a side effect of more and more families and individuals becoming well off and seeking meaning from other areas. Money becomes a false god for them. (Usually children who grew up in wealthy conditions. Personal gods are difficult to switch once you "grow up") And this is how religion everywhere works internally IMO. Being able to survive is the most important and religion comes after. In areas where religion is literally a matter of life and death, then it supercedes economics. The government in China isn't some God handing down meaning for your life, it's a begrudingky accepted part of life like Trump and Congress, or Comcast. People aren't wallowing about with holes in their souls suddenly realizing that Christianity perfectly fits that hole and deciding to topple the existing government. Because religions may displace other religions as sources of belief and happiness but governments are now just sources of money and stability. The interesting things about religion in China to me. (Which almost all western interpretations miss due to an obsession with folding in politics and promoting own worldviews) 1) How the Chinese react to rediscovering the value of soft values as latter generations become less "selfish" due to abundance. Older generations may have fought over bread, but latter generations are ashamed as being perceived as rude people who spit everywhere. 2) How diverse the coming landscape will be. Will more traditional religions grow in size or if more foreign ones will 3) Whether or not different religions will create soft or hard boundaries. I think the idea of being Chinese due to its long tradition will cause boundaries to be primarily soft. I will say that the non-existence of such boundaries currently cause a lot of irrational mob-like behavior like obsession with LV bags or buying all a supermakets salt due to some news story. Different seeds can cluster different crystals which may increase the life outlook diversity of people in China. 4) How much of life's agency will be ceded to them. Religion used to control everything down to money. In the middle east it controls life and death. In strong conservative areas it controls morality. In more liberal areas it allocates happiness and assuages guilt. As the Chinese realize they no longer have to work themselves to the bone while beating their kids to get a good education to get a good job, soft values are being rediscovered. How much will be indluenced by culture, religion, and individual desire for discovery. China is probably the largest body of people rediscovering soft values in the Internet era with all its connectivity. 5) some other stuff... most of my thinking around religion revolves around me just wishing my parents could be happy. They started off very poor and now own many houses but don't seem to be able to derive happiness from anything else. It's more than enough for both themselves and their kids, but as their kids have more gods than just Money, they are coming to tbe realization that the max value they can provide is limited. Becoming a god of money did not make them gods of life and this increasingly becomes apparent as their children accept new gods and problems emerge that Money cannot solve. (Health related, relationship related, emotion related, etc...) So I think there is room in China for a few more Gods.

mc32 9y ago

I agree with that but... There appears to be something different about it. It's different from the cleaning up of graves kind of respectful tradition. Not doing something or doing something not approved in a temple is seen as transgressive. I know people who ordinarily one would consider agnostic, perhaps atheist, but have a kind of ingrained respect for various gods of different things. Maybe there is something akin to the Easter bunny. Parents and kids know it does not exist, but they both keep up pretention in order to have a fun event (for both parents and children). But in this case it's individual/society.

spangry 9y ago

I'm half-chinese, so occasionly will experience things on 'both sides of the street'. I agree that quite a bit of it is a case of 'tradition is tradition' (similar to Christmas for many non-practicing or non-religious folk). But I also think some of these traditions are kept because they serve some highly practical purpose. I've already experienced the standard western funeral a couple of times: death, service, wake, home. My (chinese) grandmother died a year ago and so the whole multi-day Chinese 'funeral' process still feels quite recent for me. At the time, I was struck by how many of the rituals and traditions had very pragmatic reasons behind them. For instance, after the 'open-casket' viewing and the 'service' (sorta), the casket and basically every material possession belonging to or associated with the deceased are removed from the house and the casket is carried in procession to the crematorium. I think the 'house stripping' and casket removal are more than just symbolic traditions; they serve the very practical purposes of (a) forcing everyone to confront the fact that this person is dead, and so grieve while surrounded by friends and family and (b) reduce the possibility of close family members (who might actually live in said house) from 'getting stuck in the past' once the whole ordeal is over (living in a house of memories, if that makes sense). The other part that stands out in my memory was when we went to collect the ashes a day or two after the above. And the bone fragments. Again, the whole family (~40-50 people) is there. In order of closest kin (i.e. eldest son first), each one of you picks up one of the bone fragments and places it in the urn, amongst the ashes. Again, while one could view this as some sort of spiritual ritual, I think the real purpose behind it is, again, to really force you to acknowledge that the person is dead and is never coming back. And so you grieve intensely, but fortunately you do so with your entire family there, all sharing your grief. They really wring it out of you and it's exhausting, but I think it's also very healthy. Although it's difficult at the time, once the entire ordeal is over you're in a much better position to get on with your life. There's a bunch more stuff, but those are the two that stood out the most for me.

woodandsteel 9y ago

The article was referring to Christian churches in China, and Christianity most definitely has values that are higher than the government and that the government is obliged to obey. I don't know much about Buddhism. Does it have universal values? And what about you, boabrain, do you believe there are values higher than the government?