Abstract: This paper attempts to map out the contour of Daoism as a sphere embedded in contemporary Chinese society in a way that is very different from the one informed by the legal/institutional perspective. Based on three case-studies recently conducted in Hebei, Jiangsu, and Sichuan Provinces, the author argues that the rather hierarchical, cybernetic-scheme-like mapping of Daoism that used to be seemingly plausible before the advent of the new millennium is not valid anymore. First of all, there are numero us new types of agents coming in and playing very active roles in this social sphere. The participation of these new types of agents effectively obscured the boundaries between the three categories of agents – the Party/state branches controlling this sphere from the top, the “self-governing organization” of Daoist clergy in the middle, and the mass of clients as the bottom – that cha racterized the older cybernetic-scheme-like depiction and so triggered a s eries of relationship readjustment among them. Moreover, along with the incoming of those new agents, the axis of the configuration of this social sphere and its articulation with the wider Chinese society shows an evident dr ift away from political/ideological control towards economy. Despite the endu rance of the repressive legal and institutional framework, most of the daily practices and discourses that constitute this social sphere are now actually instigated by and organized around the production, marketing, and consumption of “symbolic things” and “things symbolic” with reference to Daoism. Therefore, the author suggests perceiving the contour of Daoism in today’s Chi na as something like a web of neurons, which can well be characterized as an active sector of China’s symbolic economy.
Keywords: Daoism, interpersonal network, symbolic economy, stat e-religion relationship, China
Ever since the Chinese Daoist Association was revived in 1980, it seems to have become a traditional wisdom that the overall situation of Daoism in China can most easily be described as a nested hierarchical sys tem of “self-governing” bodies of officially certified Daoist priests who staff the officially recognized temples affiliating to local Daoist a ssociations. The order and the division of this nested hierarchical system mirrors that of the CCP, just like the “democratic centralism” that dominates the constitution and operation of each “self-governing” body on eve ry level of the hierarchy is also copied from the CCP. Accordingly, the contour of the overall situation of Daoism in Chinese society can be somehow d epicted as having a pyramid-shaped church-like organization situated in the centre, with the similarly pyramid-shaped systems of public authority (the B ureau of Ethnic Minorities and Religious Affairs) and CCP’s relevant branches ( the Bureau of United Front and the Bureau of Propaganda) standing on the top, the lay clients of Daoism constitute the bottom, and the “dispersed dwe lling Daoist priests” ( sanju daoshi, means Daoist priests without permanent temple affiliation) scattering around the margin, almost invisible. For obvious reasons, this legal/institution-centered view has been effectiv ely promoted by the establishment for decades via many publications concerning Daoism. As a result, even some scholars who are very critical about Chi nese government’s constrictive policy towards religions cannot avoid taking the same approach in their depiction of the status quo.
Despite the support from the establishment, the success of the legal/institution-centered view might also be able to be partly explained by its “fidelity” insofar as it reflects the actual distribution of power/capital in Chinese society before the new millennium. Apparently, it is quite true that “dispersed dwelling Daoist priests” was “mar ginal” as they have been and are still active almost exclusively in rural and semi-rural areas and that, before the late 1990s, the clients of urban Daoism largely came from underprivileged population – poor, barely educated, aged women – who could be assigned with the role of silent, static “bottom” from an authoritative point of view. Therefore, despite the well-known facts that Daoism is much more vibrant in rural area and that the subalter n class in contemporary China, whether rural or urban, is anything but sta tic, the biased picture informed by the legal/institution-centered view might s till looks persuasive as it focuses our attention to a very limited number of agencies who possess sufficient political, economic, and symbolic capita l to take any socially significant action, such as the state’s and the CCP’s branches, Daoist associations, temples, and probably a few elite Daoist priests.
However, this paper wants to argue, the simplistic picture pres ented above is now getting further and further away from the reality due to the hasty and overwhelming political, economic, and social change brought about by the economic boom China has experienced during the past two decades. More precisely, the author suggests to appraise the profound transformation of the overall situation of Daoism in Chinese society during the recent years from two crucial aspects – the kinds of agents involving in the social sphere which is called as “Daoism” and the pattern of relationship among these agents. In what follows, this paper will try to illustrate the comprehensive change Daoism as a social sphere has gone through with the ethnographies of t hree interpersonal networks, all of them taking the transmission of Daoism as their main cause, in three different places. By analyzing the ethnogr aphic narrative below, this paper hopes to prove that, firstly, there are many new types of agent coming to involve in Daoism as a social sphere and, secondly, that the pattern of relationship among relevant agents has become to be increasingly cocooned in business instead of administrative terms. Finally, some methodological or theoretical implications of this ethnographic study for further anthropological or sociological studies of Daoism in th e future will be addressed in the conclusion.
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Case 1. Master Rising Sun
The first case to be presented here is a network consisted by the hundreds of disciples of Master Rising Sun. This network is more densely distributed in Hebei, Shandong, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Beijing, but the scope of its operation actually covers the entire eastern half of China – fr om the Heilongjiang Province on the borderland to Russia down to the H ainan Province in the South China Sea. Before going into details, the first thing should be acknowledged about this network is that it is a rather trans-lo cal, mobile, and horizontal network than a localized, sedentary, and hierarc hical one. This network has no “capital city” or “ancestral temple” or any kind of geopolitical center. Although it is true that the spiritual leader of this network, i.e. Master Rising Sun, does enjoy the supreme charism atic authority over all the members in this network and he must stay in somewhere, but he has never exerted this authority to enforce or require anything from his disciples. Maybe because of his self-constraint in handling power has already become a model for his pupils, there is neither strict hierarchical rule nor static order of power/interest distribution among network membe rs. Instead, there is a remarkable sense of equality and the willingness to share among network members. Moreover, despite his old age, Master Rising S un now still travels or even relocates around the massive territory encompassing the whole northern China in order to inspect and to help the several doze ns of temples or firms presided by his disciples. His nomadism undoubtedly st rengthened the equalitarianism and the horizontalization disposition of the network.
The nucleus of this network, Master Rising Sun, was adopted by his master, a practitioner of Quanzhen Daoism in Shaanxi, during the early 1940s as an orphaned baby. Therefore, except during the Cultural Revolution when he was expelled out from the temple where he grown up, he always lives up to the lofty traditional standard for Quanzhen Daoist priest: vegetarianism, celibacy, frugality, and diligence. During the Cultural Revolution, he became a painter cum scribe of an agricultural production brigade due to his talent in drawing and calligraphy. In 1978, immediately after the “Gang of Four” was toppled down, he left the brigade, went hiding in a deserted temple hig h up on a mountain, and resumed his ascetic life. A few years later, he became a legend in neighboring area and began to train disciples. Unfortunately, a t that time, being a legend did not bring him any material reward that could improve his living condition. Similarly, training disciples incurred no eco nomic gain as his disciples at that time were all just as penniless as he was. Consequently, he was forced to migrate from one destitute temple to another one, where the living condition maybe slightly better, every few years. Gradually, he became used to this kind of floating life even though he did not need to worry about finance anymore. Since the late 1990s, some of his filial disciples have achieved remarkable success in their secular career and so began to repay the aged master generously. However, Master Rising Sun insists to preserve his extremely frugal lifestyle and give out all the money he got fr om those well-off senior disciples to those junior disciples who were still striving to establish their own career, whether religious or secular ones. By so doing, he built up a solid network of disciples around himself, which consists of several dozens of temple leaders, artisans, professionals, white-collar workers, and quite a few successful businessmen. Members of this network, wh o stand in a highly moral-laden relationship – “tongmen shixiongdi ” (fellow disciples of a common master) in Chinese terms – with each other, not only share information and opportunities but also conduct joint venture wh en it was needed. Predictably, Master Rising Sun became increasingly busy as he functions both as the mentor and the symbolic capital for each individual disc iple and the ultimate arbitrator of the exchange among the network. As a result, he became a very proficient user of mobile phone at his late 60s since he has to receive and reply dozens of “short” messages per day, which are often quite long as approaching one hundred Chinese characters actually.
Then, what are the things the network actually does? Let’s take two examples. The first example is the founding of Wanli Company – a tiny “cultural company” that is supposed to be able to do all kinds of business relating to education, science, and culture. Regardless of all the complicated considerations behind the plan of Wanli Company, the main idea of it is simply to improve the living quality of Master Rising Sun in a way that looks acceptable to him. Why? First, the aged master refuses to retir e and live on the generous offer from his disciples without doing any job, so his filial disciples cannot but to create a well-paid job for him. Secondly, the old man refuses to use any money from the donation to temple – even if the donation is from his disciples, so his extremely frugal lifestyle won’t be improved at all if he keeps on working in a temple. Therefore, one of th e most successful disciples of his, Mr. Mu, proposed to launch a cultural company and invited him to be the general manager.
It is probably for making the old man believes that this enterprise is a serious attempt to make money through promoting Daoist cultur e instead of a game set up by his filial disciples, the company was found as an affiliate to the Wang’s corporate group, to which Mr. Mu is not the owner but one of the partners. Mr. Wang, the chairman of the Wang’s corporate group and Mr. Mu’s close friend, promised to invest one million RMB on this c ultural company. Then, the Wanli Company began to operate in summer 2009 with Mr. Mu as its legal representative and Master Rising Sun as its general manager.
Under the two headmen, there were four full-time employees in this company: a junior manager and three clerks. The Manager Li, a man in his early 30s, was invited to join this company by Master Rising Sun because h e has ever deeply impressed the Master with his traditional literati style years ago when he, as an agent of another cultural company, get in touch with the Master for some business. The three clerks, Miss Su, Mr. Hu, and Mr. Bai, are supposed to be under the leadership of Manager Li. They all have clearly defined jobs, but, since the company is so small, everybody would do everything wh enever the situation requires. Miss Su, a nephew of Mr. Mu’s wife who just graduated from a college of accounting and finance, is the cashier. Mr. Hu, a graduate student from the department of religious study of the Nankai University, was invited by the old Master to join this company because of his intellectual background. He served as the personal secretary of the old Master, whose main job is collecting and sorting the old Master’s writings. Finally, Mr. Bai, the webpage designer, is supposed to create webpage for the Wanli Company and maintain it. Apart from the four full-time employees, there were three counselors who affiliated to the Wanli Company on part-time bas is. The most senior one is Counselor Cheng, an engineer retired from the Wan g’s corporate group just a few months ago, who has been a devoted practitioner of Daoist inner alchemy for many years. Then, Counselor Wu is a well-versed Quanzhen Daoist priest who was trained by the highly respected Quanzhen Daoist Master Kuang of Lao Mountain (Shandong) and then, having completed his training, moved to work in the famous monastery of the Tiantai Mountain in Zhej iang Province. Despite his young age, Counselor Wu has already published several books on Daoist longevity skills. Finally, the youngest one, Counselor Ding, is actually a professional acrobat who is well-known as the Guinne ss World Record holder of rope skipping and stilts walking.
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Although most of the superficial characters, i.e. the location, spatial layout, appearance, job titles, etc., of the Wanli Company are similar to those of a normal gifts and articrafts shop in China today, its daily practice is in fact far more resemble to that of a small temple. Master Ris ing Sun himself is the ultimate source of all the income this company could earn. Based on his expertise on fortune-telling, divination, geomany, and almanac reading skills, he provided consultant service to dozens of client virtually every day. Almost all the clients are introduced to him via his disciples and so the old Master regarded them as “younger friends” instead of cu stomers. Certainly, he won’t charge any money for his consultant service and so the benefitted clients have to find out some other ways to repay their moral debt to Master Rising Sun. Consequently, some choose to spend generously on the articrafts being sold in the shop, some choose to offer business opportunities that were promised to be high-profit and low-risk, and some eve n decided to pay homage to the old Master and turned themselves into his “ sujia dizi ” (literally, “disciples in the secular world”, means “non-cleric disciples”). In other words, the Wanli Company actually worked pretty much like a “zisun miao ” (literally “temple of sons and grandsons”, means the small temples belonging to the presiding master wherein he can train disciples) belonging to Master Rising Sun. The four full-time employees ac tually functioned like his disciples whose job really is to serve the Master well and to learn from him as much as possible instead of doing any real business independently.
Now, let’s take a glimpse on how the Wanli Company makes money. The story began from a couple of years before the company was found when Master Rising Sun and effectively the entire network of his disciples were involved in the founding of a monastery in memorial of Master Bai Yuchan (1194 - ?) in Hainan Province via Mr. Mu’s connection. During the process, Master Rising Sun got to know and finally initiated the leaders of Gangmao Company, a small trading company based in Hainan that deals mainly articrafts imported f rom Vietnam, such as woodcarvings, carved stones, and lacquerware, to be his non-cleric disciples. Because of this relationship, the Wanli Company has Vietnamese articrafts in store for sale ever since it was found. A few months later, the Wanli did manage to sale out some products from Gangmao thanks to the indirect marketing skill of the old Master. Then, Master Rising Sun gave those leaders of Gangmao some metal and stone carvings made by local artisans according to Mr. Mu’s design as gifts when they came to visit him in Wanli. As we would expect, these non-cleric disciples from Hainan would definitely try to pay back the Master by purchasing a lot more items from Wanli upon their departure. Not long after that, when the Chinese New Year is approaching, the old Master composed and sent out a long text message to all his acquaintances about how to get success in the coming year, in which he specifically men tioned the geomantic effects of metal and stone carvings. Then, several da ys later, Wanli got a sizable order for metal and stone carvings from Gangmao again.
Due to the limit of space, we cannot help but to end the first case here. Now, let’s summarize the key lessons we could draw from this ca se for the main concern of this paper. First, this network is a new type of agent in the social sphere named “Daoism”. Because its members are mostly non-cleric disciples who get married and have their secular career, it is far different from traditional Daoist orders or modern Daoist association tha t are exclusively for professional clergy and must based themselves o n temples. This essential difference leads to other distinctive features such as trans-locality, mobility, equalitarianism, and horizontalizatio n, which stand in a sharp contrast to the local, sedentary, hierarchical, and centralization character of both traditional Daoist orders and modern Daoist association. Secondly, for this network, promoting Daoism is no t just about propagating Daoist teaching but also about the development of the instrument for propagating Daoism – “Daoist enterprises”, whether temples or any other type of profit-making corporation. It plays down or, more precisely, deliberately blurs the distinction between “doing religion” and “doing business”. It should be acknowledged here that this doesn’t mean that it simply uses religion as the means for material gain. At least, it’s just as reasonable to say that it tends to use business as the instrume nt for pursuing other moral values, such as creating a company for filial piety as well as for promoting Daoism.
films makers, pop singers, actress, and CEOs of some large dot. com companies.
Besides, the disciples’ network centering on Master Zhang, the abbot of the historic Tongbo Palace on the Mount Tiantai, Zhejiang, and the one under the aegis of Master Yu, the founding patriarch of the “Southern Wud ang Mountain” in Hubei Province, are also very active during the recent years . Apart from the aforementioned top-level senior Masters, there are hundreds or even thousands of younger-generation Daoist “masters” trying to build up similar network of their own. Mount Mao in Jiangsu, Mount Lao in Shando ng, Mount Luofu in Guangdong are among the most vibrant hubs of those ambitious Daoist practitioners.
Case 2 Watergate Mazu Temple
The second case comes from the Wudu City in Jiangsu Province, a quickly burgeoning metropolitanconsists of over7.5 millionpopulation according to the official statistic data released in 2009. Just as the section t itle has shown, this network is evolved around a temple. Therefore, the readers might draw from historical experiences and expect that it would be a localized, sedentary, and hierarchical network which stands in a sharp contrast to the previous case. However, as we will see below, although this network does have a concrete geographical center – the Watergate Mazu Temple – as its nexus, it is by no means a local-bound or a hierarchical network. Certainly, th e distribution of power, wealth, and knowledge endowments among the constituen ts of this network is just as uneven as any other social grouping could be . But, since there is neither centralized decision-making mechanism nor any binding obligation for the constituents, it’s simply too costly to convert the differences in endowments to any substantial hierarchy. Given the marginal status of Daoism in Wudu, it’s very unlikely that there will be any serious attempt to change the status quo.
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The emergence of this network is actually a part and parcel of the process through which the Watergate Mazu Temple was built. So, let’s be gins with the historical background of this temple. Wudu used to be one of the most reputable centers of monastic Daoism in China for more than a thousand years until the mid-Ming Dynasty. However, since the advent of the Qing Dynasty , the influence of Daoism in Wudu evaporated speedily. As a result, while Daois m has been revived vibrantly in many neighboring cities or counties since the late 1990s, there was no known attempt to rebuild a Daoist temple or to organize a Daoist association in Wudu. The situation began to change in 2004 when the Bureau of Tourism of Wudu decided to restore an ancient Mazu Temple nearby the city’s historic dockland and make the “Dockland Mazu Temple” a tourist attraction. The temple was thus restored and opened to the public in 2005. Unfortunately, this investment turned out to be literally an embarrassment for the Bureau. Despite the huge crowd attracted by its opening ceremony (some 200,000 people according to the police’s record), theDockland Mazu Temple fail ed to attract tourists or pilgrims afterward. Then, there came a rumor saying that the Tourist Bureau resolutely rejected a proposal about handing the temple’s management to the Bureau of Religious Affairs, which virtually implies that the temple willbecome a real Daoisttemple run by priests. Whether this anecdote is true or not, the temple is nevertheless still controlled by the Tourist Bureau and run by several fake Buddhist monks who are actually cheap labors hired by the Tourist Bureau on temporary basis. Now, there is virtually no religious activity being conducted in the temple except the ann ual “temple festival” for celebrating the birthday of Mazu.
The failure of the Dockland Mazu Temple disappointed many “hidd en” sympathizers and devotees of Daoism in Wudu, including some sen ior advisors of the Bureau of Cultural Heritage Preservation who specialize on traditional Chinese arts and crafts, especially on the renovation of ancient buildings and repairing artworks. Hence, these senior advisors began to l obby for the restoration project of another temple – the Watergate Mazu Temp le. Having witnessed the failure of the Dockland Mazu Temple, they formed a strategy to keepaway the negative influence of the Tourist Bureau – to regi ster the Watergate Mazu Temple as a “city-level cultural heritage” instead of a tourist site or religious site and then insert this project into the higher-level project for converting the entire neighborhood sur rounding the Watergate Mazu Temple into a “historic/cultural neighborhood”, which is in turn a part of the Wudu City’s “Eleventh Five-Year Social Economic Development Plan”. Their proposal was soon approved by the municipal government. Not long after that, in 2006, they then successfull y acquired a huge donation for the restoration project from the owner of one of the biggest porcelain producers in China. Based on this pledge, they then m obilized their personal connections in various offices of the municipal govern ment and CCP committee of Wuduto raise fund and resolve all kinds of trouble that have happened throughout the construction process. In the end, the t itles of all the offices that have ever involved in this project, whether by offering fund or offering help, were inscribed on a stone tablet standing in front of the main hall of the temple. It is really a surprise as well as an amusement to see the title of the Bureau of Public Security, the chief prose cutor of all kinds of “superstition” during the past, and the impressive amo unt of donation it contributed is inscribed on the head position follo wed by a long list of governmental and CCP’s units along with some large comp anies or rich businessmen.
The network of political and financial patrons has put all the needed resources and political support in place for the temple’s buildings and its legal status, so the next pressing issue would be to find out t he proper persons to supervise the construction, set up the interior, and run the temple. It is at this point then the network of Daoist priests came to joi n the Watergate Mazu Temple’s network. To be brief: when the construction work has gotten on its track, the champions of this restoration project in the Bureau of Cultural Heritage Preservation began to look for suitable Daois t priests. Then, someone in the Bureau of Religious Affairs responded their requ est by contacting an old-time friend of his, arenowned senior Quanzhen Daoist master in a temple nearby the Wudang Mountain, and asked the latter to recommend suitable candidates. Consequently, the senior master sent a matured disciple of his, Mr. Wu, to be the head priest of the forthcoming temple . Having accepted this assignment, Mr. Wu then mobilized his connection with his old-time fellow disciples, who had dispersed to all over China after their grad uation and have gradually become leaders of smaller temples, to look for suitable partners for this new job. Eventually, the temple was opened to the publ ic at the end of 2008as a genuine Daoist temple run by a group of four Quanzh en Daoist priests come from Hubei, Shanxi, and Jilin.
The decision of the Bureau of Religious Affairs to ask the reno wned Quanzhen Daoist master in the Wudang Mountain to recommend candidates, which leads to the nomination of Mr. Wu and his assistants, is actually a very bold and novel idea if we take the local situation into account. To appreciate the delicacy of this decision, we should firstly acknowledge that Wudu and virtually the entire Jiangsu Province has always been the terri tory of Zhengyi Daoism ever since this denomination was found in the 13th century. Although the Quanzhen did successfully establish some bridgeheads in thi s region especially during the recent two centuries, its influence is ne vertheless still much lesser than Zhengyi Daoism. Therefore, the hegemony of Zhengyi clergy in the Daoist Association of Jiangsu has since been unch allengeable. Moreover, Wudu is very close to one of the three most precious sacred mountains for Zhengyi Daoism – Mao Mountain – and so all the “dispersed dwelling Daoist priests” working in the adjacent suburban and rural area practice some localized, vulgar style of Zhengyi liturgy. So, the decision to nominate Mr. Wu as the leader of Watergate Mazu Temple is no less than estab lishing an enclave of Quanzhen Daoism amidst the heartland of Zhengyi Daoism.
Due to the limit of space, we cannot give an adequate explanation for the reason why the Bureau of Religious Affairs made this decision. After all, what concerns our topic here is rather the result of this decision t o channel in a network of “foreign” Quanzhen Daoist priests. The most apparent result is that neither the Watergate Mazu Temple as a unit nor the members of its crew as individual Daoist priests joined any Daoist association . In fact, both the Bureau of Religious Affairs and the crew of the Watergate Mazu Temple did not want to take the hassle to establish a Wudu Daoist Associat ion because, basically, there is only one small temple with four temple-dwel ling priests in the urban area of Wudu, which is less than the minimum requi rement for initiating a local Daoist association. Meanwhile, the higher-le vel Daoist Association, i.e. the provincial Daoist Association of Jiangsu, is controlled by Zhengyi clergy and so it’s very unlikely for them to provide any meaningful help to this newly found enclave of Quanzhen Daoism. Hence, bas ed on the tacit agreement between the Bureau of Religious Affairs of Wudu and M r. Wu, the Watergate Mazu Temple is still independent from the establishme nt of officially recognized Daoism until today despite the fact that it has been a fully functioning temple for years.
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Apart from the network of patrons and the network of clergy, there emerged yet another network around the Watergate Mazu Temple – a networ k of lay practitioners and devotees of Daoism in Wudu. The axis of this network, an internet forum for the friends of Daoism in Wudu, was found by several active lay practitioners of Daoism on one of the most popular community websites in Wudu a few months before the temple was opened to the public in 2008.
Regardless of all the other differences, the founders (and also the moderators) of this forum are all male in their late 30s to ear ly 40s, natives of Wudu City, university graduates, and leading a very modest l ife in terms of local standard. The origin of their interests in Daoism varies, but, boil down to the bottom, they were all attracted to Daoism by its lo ngevity skills – whether inner alchemy, Qingong, or methods of physical exercise such as Tai-Chi. Later, they gradually developed broader interests for all sorts of things pertaining to Daoism, such as geomancy, divination, litu rgy, theology, and so on. Thanks to the development of internet in China since the late 1990s, they were able to access more and more information about everything Daoism for free and to befriend those who share common interests, which in turn boosted and sustained their passion for “Daoist culture”. Imaginably, t hey are among the lay devotees of Daoism in Wudu whose expectation has ever been flared up by the restoration of Dockland Mazu Temple and then was badly f rustrated by the result. Hence, when they heard the news about the restoration project of the Watergate Mazu Temple, they decided to create an on-line forum to gather the attention of those who are interested in Daoism to monitor the progress of this case.
Luckily, the smooth progress of the restoration project of the Watergate Mazu Temple and especially the nomination of Mr. Wu, a genuine Daoist priest from the Wudang Mountain, as thepresiding mastereffectively relieved theanxiety of the members of this forum. So, the moderators began to make this forum an on-line billboard for the temple as well as a platform to make friends with local people who share common interests in Daoism. For example, they would post the advertisement for the forthcoming festival or important ritual in the temple on the forum and call for the participatio n of all. Then, after the event, they would post a report of the event and relevant materials, such as some devotional poems made by group members at that day, some photos of the day’s event, etc. According to the most active moderator, Mr. Mid-Autumn Moon (his online nickname), this forum can mobilize from a dozen to over one hundred people to show up in the temple’s event, de pending on the importance of the event and whether that day is a public holiday or not. Certainly, this performance is not impressive at all in terms of the sheer number of people. However, for a newly found small temple like the Watergate Mazu Temple, a dozen or so faithful local devotees who are highly responsive to the call for prayer is undoubtedly a very precious asset. Th erefore, these volunteers of the temple became Mr. Wu’s personal friends and, as a gesture of solidarity, invited the latter to become one of the moderators of this forum.
Due to the limit of space, we shall round up the case two here. For the main concern of this paper, this case illustrates two important facts. First, there are two ranges of new agents coming into play in the soci al sphere of Daoism – the governmental bodies that have never or rarely involved in Daoism before and the emerging virtual communities of lay practitioners/devotees of Daoism organized via internet. Apart from the Bureau of Religio us Affairs that has since been in this sphere as the controlling authority, the governmental bodies that get involved in this case include the Bureau of Tou rism, Bureau of Cultural Heritage Preservation, Bureau of Public Security, a nd many other offices of the municipal and district government. More importan tly, these different governmental bodies have different, sometimes sharply contradicting, policies toward Daoism, such as the hidden but nevertheless rea l conflict between the Bureau of Tourism on the one side and the Bureau of Cultural Heritage Preservation with the Bureau of Religious Affairs on t he other. In addition, the approaches of some governmental bodies toward Dao ism have changed remarkably from a generally discouraging, repressive on e to “benign neglect” or even supportive one. As for the virtual community of lay devotees organized via internet, it’s beyond any doubt that it is a comp letely new thing. Apart from the new media – online forum – upon which it is based, its social composition is also a novel one for Daoism. In contrast to the lay devotee communities of local temples that has been a long time tradition for Daoism and is now still vibrant in Taiwan and Fujian, the virtu al community is not based on geographical proximity or any traditional local bound but solely on personal interests. Corresponding to this, this virtu al community is an equalitarian and liberal one wherein the leadership would go naturally to most knowledgeable or most enthusiast ones, which stands in a sharp contrast to the traditional lay devotee organizations that are always hi erarchical and more or less coercive, reflecting the established distribution of power/wealth of that community. On the other hand, we should also acknowledg ed that this virtual network is quite different from the disciples’ network focusing on Master Rising Sun in the sense that, first, it is not a network among fellow disciples of one master so they don’t have the moral-laden “tongmen shixiongdi” relationship with each other, secondly, the members are all middle to lower-middle class white-collar workers who have neither the strong commitment to renounce everything and join Daoist clergy nor the opportunity to turn themselves into the non-cleric disciples of some respectable master. In other words, it is a network of literally interested amateurs of Daoism who don’t have the will or the ability to devote too much for t heir religious interest.
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The other important fact this case has shown is that the whole thing happened outside of the traditional legal-institutional framework for regulating Daoism. The Bureau of Religious Affairs still plays an active role here, but it is not the authority anymore. The Bureau of Touris m, which always played a significant role in the social sphere of Daoism during the past two decades, was excluded by the shrewd maneuver of the Bureau of Cultural Heritage Preservation. Moreover, this project is endorsed by the Eleventh Five-Year Plan of the Wudu City as a constituent part of the municipal government’s image-building program, which is drastically different from the traditional scenario wherein it is always the local Daoist Association who took pains to beg for the approval of their temple restoration project from t he government. Finally, having acquired the tacit understanding of the Bureau of Religious Affairs, neither the temple nor the temple crew has ever joined any Daoist Association or tried to initiate one.
Case 3 the Ninth Heaven.com
The last case is a network among a group of non-cleric disciple s of different Daoist masters that aims to found a dot.com company f or marketing “Daoist culture”. The significance of this case lies in its potential to illustrate how the network of Master Rising Sun’s disciples (case 1) may evolve in the future and what will it lead to if the idea to pr omote Daoism with internet (case 2) was pushed to its extreme.
This network is probably the most organized, disciplined, and s ecretive one among the three cases being reviewed here. The core of this network is a group of six men, of which there are two opinion leaders can be regarded as its mastermind. They came from different places – Sichuan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Yunnan, and Zhejiang – and were non-cleric disciples of different masters. Apart from that, they share a lot of commonalities: they are al l male on their thirties to early forties, graduated from junior colleges or low ranking universities, and have managed to become the owners of tiny ent erprises, such as interior design and construction studio, dealer of arts and crafts, arts and language school for children, and so on, through more than ten years of diligent working. Most importantly, they all became devotees of Daoism after they came across something bad that may endanger their health, family, or career and were “rescued” by some Daoist master. Therefore, the y began to claim themselves as non-cleric disciples of the master who “sav ed” them, although it cannot be sure about whether or not those masters t hemselves have ever teach them anything more than answering their questions, n or can we be sure about whether those masters would identify them as their disciples instead of normal clients.
They came to know each other in 2006 when they attended a well- known Daoist longevity skills course offered by a famous temple in Sichuan. Being deeply awed by the fantastic effects of the skills taught in the cours e, they expressed their wish to the presiding master of the temple – Master Li, one of the most controversial Daoist priest in China today – that they want to be his disciples and to devote their life for the mission of Daoism. However, Master Li seemed to be reluctant to recruit them as his real disciples but did not articulate his hesitation in a clear-cut way since it’s unethical as well as unwise to reject this kind of proposal for a priest. Instead, he suggested them to invent some new ways to promote Daoism that is both efficient and is accessible for people like them. Finally, he promised to offer consultation and sharing some connections whenever they need it, but no more than that.
Master Li’s conservative attitude did not frustrate their enthu siasm. They took his advice seriously and then, through many brainstor ming sessions, they gradually formed a consensus that they should found a corporation for marketing “Daoist culture”. However, they could not achieve unanimity on what exactly the corporation is going to do. Later, their opinions gradually gathered around two options. One is to found a website as an all inclusive virtual community for lay devotees of Daoism. The other is to found a pyramid selling business focusing on marketing Daoist “yang sheng (life-nourishing)” products. The rivalry between these two options lasted for a few months. Finally, they agreed that the first option is more likely to be successful because the market for Daoist life-nourishing products is simply too tough for minor people like them to step in. All the giant companies dealing with Chinese herbal medicine and food supplement in China have alrea dy entered in this field and started to compete with each other. Moreover, th ere are some other established pyramid selling corporations planning to vent ure into this field. So, it will be a suicidal action to invest on this without any huge company as their backing. Therefore, they started to concentrat e on building up the Ninth Heaven Company.
After years of designing, testing, fund raising, and other laborious process, the website “Ninth Heaven.com” was eventually launched in 2011 in a much smaller scale in compared with their original plan. What’s more to their disappointment is that, since they don’t have the fund to make their website a genuinely interactive and entertaining website that can really appeal to youngsters as they wish, their website seems not much different from the other several dozens of website for promoting Daoist cultur e. Nevertheless, it should be acknowledged that they do somehow realize their original idea by creating a series of online forum and literally hire young people who have some knowledge on Daoism to serve as the moderators. In addition, in compared with the other similar websites, their website shows a stronger inclination to make itself an on-line marketplace for all kinds of supply that may interest practitioners and devotees of Daoism, whether professional or n ot. This can also be seen as a realization of their original ideal about creating a communal website for all those who want to experience “Daoist life-style ”, albeit in a watered-down version.
As we would expect, the Ninth Heaven.com is still struggling against net operating loss. Although the founders confidently claimed that, if its revenue growth rate keeps on going as it has done during the past two seasons, its net operating loss will be eliminated by the end of 2012, no on e could predict when it could produce net profit to benefit its investors. So, the fate of this company is still up in the air at the moment. Under such a great pressure, it is notable that the network behind this company, especially its core group of six, would work together very closely with a strong sense of collective discipline.
In spite of many commonalities between the two, this network di ffers from that of Master Rising Sun’s disciples in some important ways. The most apparent difference is certainly that the core members of this network were not fellow disciples of the same master, which implies that the y do not come together because of the seriously moral-laden master-pupil relationship each one of them has with a master and they don’t have the traditionally moral-laden “tongmen shixiongdi ” (the brethren of fellow pupils) relationship between each other, either. In other words, this network is formed upon friendship and common interests – whether spiritual or material – instead of some objectively ascribed identity, which implies that its basic structure is purely horizontal instead of vertical.
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Secondly, although they both end up with similar idea about founding a company to promote Daoist culture, their approaches toward busi ness are fundamentally different. They both regard commercial enterprise as a good means for attaining moral or religious ends. However, for the disciples of Master Rising Sun, the distinctions between means and ends, business and morality, are blurred. The Wanli Company is supposed to be a profit-making enterprise, but it also seems to be an end in itself as it is m eant to be a realization of the filial piety of Mr. Mu and his fellow disciples for the old master. Therefore, the daily operation of the Wanli Company is actually rather similar to a “temple of sons and grandsons” than a typical shop and the staff there is more the pupils/servants of the old master than typical clerks. After all, for the key shareholders like Mr. Wang and M r. Mu, it would be nice if the Wanli Company can earn some profit, but it doesn’t matter if it does not. So, the atmosphere in Wanli is just as relaxed as in a peaceful family. Contrarily, the mission of the Ninth Heaven.com is clearly defined as to make profit by marketing Daoist culture. Since the moral value of the whole enterprise has been defined as “marketing Daoist culture” or, more accurately, “making Daoist culture become popular”, so the foun ders of the Ninth Heaven simply quantify the extent to which they have achi eved their goal as the numbers of monetary income and clicks count. Therefore, for the Ninth Heaven, there is no obscurity between business and morality because good business is the morality. If the Ninth Heaven fails to produce profit, from their perspective, it means that they fail to find out the corr ect elements of Daoist culture that can really appeal to people’s interests. In this case, they must of course be “punished” by the force of market. As a result, the collective discipline among the core group of six and the hierarchical relationship between these shareholders and the other employees are quite evident in the Ninth Heaven, which makes the atmosphere in this company just as tense as in any typical commercial enterprise.
The Ninth Heaven’s attempt to popularize Daoism by unifying business and religious mission is actually not a novel idea at all. As many anthropologists have pointed out, folk Daoism and effectively all kinds of folk religions in China have been saturated with the idioms and practices of market economy, commodity exchange, and consumerism for centuries. The genuine novelty of the Ninth Heaven lies in the population it tries to persuade – the e-generation Chinese males who grown up with cell phones, internet, computer games and rampant consumerism, instead of those who are middle-aged or older, less educated, village dwelling, rather local- and family-bounded, and, especially, women. This new aspiration, i.e. to bring the antiquated, abstr use, elegant and intellectually demanding classic (or monastic) Daoism to ap proach e-generation Chinese males, is consistent with that behind the online forum for lay practitioners and devotees of Daoism found in Wudu City. However, it is a much more obscure, only dimly sensed, idea for the founder s of the online forum in Wudu, whereas in the case of the Ninth Heaven, it is c learly recognized as what the company is all about. Correspondingly, the network in Wudu preserved its character as a non-profitable, loose gathering of amateur volunteers that can contain people of various degrees of intere sts, knowledge, and commitment toward Daoism, whereas the network behind the Ni nth Heaven cannot avoid becoming increasingly like a cult for devoted lay Daoist entrepreneurs only.
Discussion and Conclusion
Through comparing the above three cases with the overall contou r of Daoism informed by the traditional legal-institutional perspective, we can easily pin down the multi-dimensional change happened to Daoism as a s ocial sphere in China during the recent decade. To summarize, we can observe the change via two crucial dimensions: the constituent agents of this sphere and the basic pattern of interaction among them.
Regarding the constituent agents, the most remarkable change happened to this social sphere is the increase of agents – both in terms of the sheer number but also the types of them. Firstly, there are many governmental bodies began to involve in this sphere during the recent decade. Apart from the three administrative systems that are the traditional authorities con cerning this sphere, i.e. the Bureau of Ethnic Minorities and Religious Affairs (of the PRC state), the Department of United Front (of the CCP), and th e Department of Propaganda (of the CCP), many local governmental bodies, especially those on county and township level, started to play sometimes very significant roles in this stage. As the case 2 has shown, more than a dozen unite s of the Wudu municipal government were actively involved in the tale of the two Mazu temples, which includes the Bureau of Tourism, the Office of Cultural He ritage Conservation, the Bureau of Public Security, a series of office s concerning the drafting and reviewing of urban planning and finally the fo rmation of Wudu’s Eleventh Five-year Plan, and many others. In fact, Wudu is definitely not a peculiar case in this regard. In today’s China, we can easily come across similar situation where a similar cast of local governmental un ites play the most active roles in reviving Daoism – albeit in different or even contradicting ways. Secondly, the boundaries between the state- recognized system of Daoist associations and the traditional categories of “dispersed dwelling Daoist priests” and “clients” are increasingly blurred and so there emerged a “lunar halo” around the chartered orthodox cler ic organization of Daoism. The Master Rising Sun of the case 1 is the best example here. Despite his membership in some local Daoist association, he actually lives in somewhere else and employed by a private company inste ad of a temple. More importantly, he has a large number of non-cleric disciples . Some of these non-cleric disciples eventually turned themselves into official certified priests by joining local Daoist association’s affiliating templ es, some others became “dispersed dwelling priests” or residential pries ts of temples that are not affiliated to Daoist association (such as Mr. Gao and his crew in the Watergate Mazu Temple), whereas the most of them simply led secular lives as lay practitioners of Daoism. In other words, Master Ri sing Sun and his non-cleric disciples are constituents of the “lunar halo” of the system of Daoist associations in the sense that they are closely tied to the latter but are not part of it. More importantly, this “lunar halo” is a realm wherein active agents of Daoism assembled instead of a passive reflection of the establishment standing in the center. Finally, the clients of D aoism, which have been somehow assumed as a mass of passive, discrete, and homogenous consumers by the outmoded legal/institution-centered view, have seen a dramatic process of diversification paralleling to the general tendency of Chinese society as a whole.
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Although it is still true that the vast majority of clients of Daoism are of subaltern class, we should acknowledge that there are more and more members of privileged class who command large r political, economic, and cultural capital, such as government officials, entrepreneurs, professionals, well-paid white-collar employees, urbanites, and especially younger males, have joined the rank. These energetic and capable newcomers from privileged class shattered the imagery of a clear-cut upper/lower division between a pyramid-like organized Daoist clergy and a disorganized mass of anonymous clients by inventing a range of novel ways to actively participate in the production of “Daoist culture”. The most committed, talented and resourceful ones among them could turn themselves into non-cleric disciples of some reputable Daoist masters and so become the constituents of the “lunar halo” of the existing Daoist establishment. Otherwis e, they could initiate their own “secular” enterprises for promoting Daoist culture such as the team of six who found the Ninth Heaven.com. As for those who are not that committed, talented, or resourceful, there are also some meaningful options, such as initiating/moderating/participating online forums for discussing Daoist culture or becoming temple volunteers. Beside s, we should also acknowledge here that there are many resourceful agents who maybe not really interested in Daoism as a religion but nevertheless beco me significant champions of “Daoist culture” because of the prospect of commer cial interests, which includes a huge array of corporations trading the material supplies as well as the skillful services pertaining to Daoism such as life-nourishing or longevity skills, geomancy, astrology, alman ac, and so on so forth. Consequently, the contour of Daoism as a social sphere in today’s China has changed from a rather straightforward hierarchical cy bernetic scheme to a complicated and dynamic neuronal map woven with a myriad of interconnected networks.
Indeed, the hierarchical cybernetic scheme is still a truthful depiction of Daoism in China today if we ignore all the real things on the ground and train our attention exclusively on the rather abstract and static judicial and administrative relationship between the officially recognized Daoism, i.e. the system of Daoist associations, and the authoritative branches of the State/Party that directly control it. However, if we are realistic and empirical enough, then it would be simply obvious for us that t he judicial/administrative relationship is nothing more than a ver y limited and remote aspect of the daily functioning of Daoism as a social sphere. What far more relevant and important thing is, actually, business. This remark doesn’t mean to say that Daoism in China today is a kind of business aiming at nothing more than mercenary gain. What it tries to point out is that, f irst of all, most of the agents involved in this social sphere nowadays tend to perceive, realize, and represent their own actions and interactions with each other in business terms, no matter the goal of these activities is money or some other moral values. There is no need to expound this point again sinc e we have already rendered it clearly while discussing the cases of Wanli Company and the Ninth Heaven.com.
Apart from the disposition to cocoon all kinds of serious pursuit in business terms, the above remark also tries to highlight the fact that the structural position of this social sphere, that is, the general pattern of its articulation with the other social sectors of Chinese socie ty, is increasingly fleeing from the political/ideological sector and drifting towards economic sector. Although it is indeed remarkable that the State/Party began to view Daoism as an important asset that can be mobilize d to produce political/ideological benefits since October 2006 and actually put it into practice immediately after this rhetoric change①, it is nevertheless more accurate to characterize the practices of the vast majority of agents involved in this sphere as the efforts for constructing a vibrant symbol ic economy centering on Daoism. That is to say, what the most of the agents are doing now is producing, distributing, marketing, or consuming “symbolic things” derived from Daoism or material things that are charged with symbolic values by referring to Daoism. The phrase “symbolic things” here refer s to things without any other use value except conveying a set of ideas and/or emotions, such as a statute of god, a book, a speech, a plan of interior design, or a piece of music. The most updated and probably also the most essential form of “symbolic things” relating to Daoism is undoubtedly the digitalized information about Daoism being uploaded to and transmitted via internet and cell phone. Certainly, it also includes all the more traditiona l forms such as what we can buy from a shop selling incense, paper money, an d other religious supplies. As for the “material things being charged with symbolic values by referring to Daoism”, it refers to physical things that have use values in its own right but their attractions to the customers do not come solely from their innate use values but also depend on, sometimes heavily, their symbolic values linking to Daoism. Nutrient supplements and herbal medic ines being claimed to be produced according to the magical subscriptions r ecorded in some Daoist classics of longevity skills are the classical examples of this sort. Besides, the all out carnivals or fair being staged simultaneou sly with religious festivals nearby popular Daoist temples are also good examples. The more updated form of this range is theme parks surrounding Daoist pilgrimage sites in scenic area, such as Wudang Mountain and mao Mountain, and “historic cultural neighborhoods” in old towns that are featured by Daois t temples being claimed as “cultural heritage”, such as the Watergate Mazu Temple in Wudu. Apparently, it is in this symbolic economy that is organized th rough business terms, not the cybernetic hierarchical scheme constructed by legal/institutional terms, where we can find out how all the ac tive agents, old and new, “legal” and “illegal”, really do Daoism in China today.
（本文作者：Yang Der-Ruey 原文为正一道教国际学术会议论文 道教之音专稿转载请标注来源）
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