China: Information from Professors Kenneth Dean and Michael Szonyi on aspects of Mazu Worship in Fujian province

KIMSTitle:China: Information from Professors Kenneth Dean and Michael Szonyi on aspects of Mazu Worship in Fujian province

In November 1997 the Research Directorate interviewed two scholars from McGill University, Montréal, Prof. Kenneth Dean (6 Nov. 1997) and Prof. Michael Szonyi (4 Nov. 1997), both with extensive knowledge of popular religious practices in Fujian province, China. The two professors provided information on various aspects of Mazu1 worship in Fujian and southern China, including a brief historical summary, description of religious practices, and a discussion of freedom of worship for Mazu adherents and the issue of internal flight alternatives.

         Prof. Kenneth Dean is Graduate Program Director for the Department of East Asia Studies, McGill University, and the author of the 1993 study Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China. The book documents the revival of Taoist ritual practices and communal worship of the gods in Fujian province. For his research he has been visiting the same parts of Fujian province since 1985. He has most recently become involved in a survey of religious practices in about 600 villages in Putian and Xianyou counties of Fujian, in order to demonstrate the degree to which religious practices have been revived, as well as to develop data for historical analysis of the role of Taoism and popular worship in southeast China. A second book is forthcoming on the popular Three-in-One cult, and Dean has published two volumes on stone inscriptions in Putian and Xianyou.

         Prof. Michael Szonyi teaches Chinese history at McGill. His teaching focus includes history from the twelfth to twentieth centuries, with a concentration on the twentieth century, while his research interests are on the local history of Fujian. His 1995 doctoral thesis from Oxford University was on the history of lineages in the Fuzhou region, Fujian. Since then he has been working on the history of a number of cults native to Fujian. He has also studied "plague deities"2 in Fujian and most recently spent the summer of 1997 in Fujian studying the history of reaction to epidemic disease, work which included collecting texts, interviewing, and documenting rituals.

The opinions and views expressed in this paper are those of the scholars surveyed and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Research Directorate or the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB). This Response is not, and does not purport to be, either exhaustive with regard to conditions in the country surveyed or conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

Origins

        Prof. Szonyi refers to a 1984 article by James Watson (please see attached) which explains that different groups within Chinese society have different histories of Mazu. According to Watson, Mazu was first recognized as a goddess in the tenth century (1984, 295). Szonyi explains that the first temples to Mazu appeared around Meizhou in Fujian, with accounts describing her as a goddess protecting seafarers. There are several accounts of her origin. In the most popular story, well-known now in China according to Szonyi, Mazu was the daughter of a fisherman. Her father and brothers were caught in a storm and she appeared in the sky and saved them.3 After she died she became revered as the patron deity of sailors and fishermen. Her legend travelled with the Fujian sailors and fishermen up and down the coast of China, to Taiwan, and throughout south-east Asia.

According to Szonyi, through the centuries Mazu was promoted by various Emperors, moving up through the "bureaucracy" of deities to eventually become "Tianhou," the Empress of Heaven. Mazu worship spread to other areas of China as people from Fujian migrated. For example, according to Szonyi there are Mazu temples in Sichuan province, in the interior, because people from Fujian moved to Sichuan in the nineteenth century. There has also been a Mazu temple in Beijing for several hundred years. Both Szonyi and Dean point out that Mazu or Tianhou has spread to North America as well, and that there are temples in Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver.4 According to Szonyi, North American temples are usually referred to as "Tienhou," the Empress of Heaven, temples rather than "Mazu" temples, since Mazu is a less formal name.

Mazu Religious Practice

        Dean explains that Mazu is one of many deities worshipped in China, and the worship of Mazu is probably best considered as part of a diffused Chinese popular religious practice. Mazu is the chief deity, or at least one of the deities represented in hundreds, if not thousands, of temples in present-day Fujian province. Mazu receives worship from members of the community, or sometimes members of associated temples through temple networks or "division of incense networks." According to Dean, as well as being the patron protector of seafarers, Mazu now is also prayed to for practical needs in everyday life such as avoiding sickness, help through childbirth, recovery from disease, success in examinations and business transactions, and choice of spouse.

Dean explains that in a temple a worshipper can approach a god by burning incense, setting out offerings of food or paper "spirit" money, and kowtowing, which involves kneeling down, prostrating, and touching the forehead to the ground. A worshipper would then pray to or request something of the deity. Usually the response is tested by dropping divination blocks: small, moon-shaped pieces of bamboo or wood that are left on the altars of the temples for this type of consultation. They can either rest face-up (positive response) or face-down (negative), thus giving a sense of the deity's reception of the request. Dean explains that the worshipper can also modify the question, continue to consult, and drop the divination blocks many times with a change of strategy or approach.

Dean also explains that a Mazu adherent would not necessarily be confined to praying to Mazu: many of the temples in Fujian have more than one deity, and many of the villages have more than one temple, while a mid-size town or major city would have many temples. So one locality could have up to 300 gods that are worshipped within it by various people. Dean specifies, however, that in Fujian Mazu is a very popular and widespread deity, and there are probably more temples and statues to her than to other deities in the province. Thus it is common for someone from Fujian to talk about a "Mazu religion," since Mazu is such a popular goddess, but strictly speaking, according to Dean, Mazu is part of a larger pantheon of prominent gods and goddesses.

Besides individual worship, according to Dean, there can also be group worship of Mazu by members of a particular community or a temple-based group. These groups might go on pilgrimage to the founding temple on Meizhou island, for example, in Putian county, Fujian. In some areas a "nested hierarchy" of temples can develop, with groups going on pilgrimages to a series of temples associated with their home temple. Temples can vary greatly in size, from the large temple on Meizhou to much smaller temples reflecting the circumstances of the local region. The largest can be as big as a city block, the smallest a simple one-room shrine. Usually, according to Dean, a temple will have an entranceway, an open courtyard and a back hall—in all, about the same size as a regular Chinese house. At the centre of the back hall is the altar to the principle deity, usually Mazu. Subsidiary or associated deities will likely be on side altars to the left and right of the central altar. A large incense burner will be placed at the front or centre of the temple, the divination blocks will be in the centre altar, and there will be places to the side to lay out offerings and burn paper or "spirit" money to the gods.

Prof. Szonyi adds that typically, Mazu adherents also maintain a small shrine in their homes, and pray, burn incense and make offerings on a daily basis. The shrine might not be specifically dedicated to Mazu, but could include a likeness of the goddess as well as pictures of ancestors and statues of other deities such as the goddess of childbirth and the local god who looks after the village.

Szonyi adds that the celebration of festivals is also important. At the festival of Mazu in the spring people will go to the temple to make offerings. Typically, the festival will include spirit mediums who become possessed by deities, and Taoist priests will also perform rituals. Images of the deity are carried in a procession around villages, or are brought to visit other affiliated temples, while the greatest processions are those in which Mazu returns to her ancestral home. As well, Taiwanese pilgrims will often bring their images back to Meizhou to renew their affiliations with the ancestral temple.

Relationship with Taoism

        Both Dean and Szonyi explain that there is a complex relationship between deity worship such as found in the Mazu cult, and Taoism. Mazu has been, in part, appropriated by Taoism, but also remains part of popular or folk religion as well. Dean explains that the structure of religious organizations such as Taoism in China is very different from Western religious organizations. For example, the Taoists no longer have the organized institutional focus that would be associated with a priesthood in Roman Catholicism or Anglicanism. In southern China they tend to be locally-based ritual specialists in families that pass on their manuscripts and knowledge of rituals through the family line. Their skills would be called upon by local temples and individuals. Thus, one township might have five or six Taoist families responding to these various needs, according to Dean. Dean adds that the Taoist rituals also can be traced back to periods when the religion seems to have been much more organized, with court sponsorship. It was during these periods that the major texts were compiled. From the fifteenth century Ming dynasty, for example, there is a text identifying Mazu as a Taoist deity. Similar scriptures also identify Mazu as a Buddhist deity, and popular scriptures borrow from both sides and present Mazu in light of her local miracles and achievements. According to Dean, there are also state-compiled hagiographies of the goddess that draw on all these sources and add her patriotic miracles to the list. So Buddhist and Taoist ritual specialists commonly perform rituals in communities which may have temples principally dedicated to Mazu. The ritual specialists would involve the goddess and other deities by calling on her to attend the ritual and bless the proceedings

Dean points out that besides the ritual specialists in southern China, who tend to follow their profession through family lines, there are other levels of adherence to Taoism. Temples are open to any passersby who want to come in and worship. The temples have a managerial staff possibly selected by the community or by divination. Staff can include a manager and accountant, a variety of temple-keepers and those responsible for various projects. Since these temples are basically community centres, they are also the place where many decisions are made in the community about investments in infrastructure, about festival organization and religious observances.

Taoism and Religious Associations

        Dean explains that there is an official Taoist Association of China recognized by the Chinese government. However, there are few members in southern China. According to Dean, several hundred years ago Taoism divided into northern and southern schools. The northern school was principally monastic, modelled on Buddhist monastic practices. That form of organization is still common in northern China and has adapted more readily to the official religious associations set up by the government. Dean points out that with a monastic organization it is relatively easy to register people and keep track of their activities, mainly by bringing people from Taoist monasteries into Communist Party positions and vice versa. For example, the White Cloud Temple in Beijing runs a university for training Taoist priests, publishes a journal and works to present an impression that Taoism falls within the confines of the official religious associations. As will be outlined below, Taoism was effectively outlawed for many years and organizations like the White Cloud Temple are trying to rebuild and reorganize it. According to Dean, people are trained there or in other Taoist Association sites, mostly in the north, for two or three years.

However, Dean explains that the southern school of Taoism never developed a strong monastic tradition, but instead developed into the localized family practices described above. Many of these Taoists see no advantage in joining or re-joining the officially recognized Taoist Association of China, considering their treatment in the 1950s and 1960s (see below). Since 1979 they have been able to perform for localities again, depending on local political circumstances, and in many cases have become more prosperous on their own. According to Dean, there is a general suspicion that if they re-join the Taoist Association they might have their activities curtailed once again.

Mazu Worship 1949-79

        Szonyi explains that the new constitution accompanying the formation of the People's Republic of China in 1949 provided for freedom of religion. However, popular practices like Mazu worship were not defined as religion but as "feudal superstitions," and thus were excluded from freedom of religion. In reality, according to Szonyi, all other religious practices were also excluded from freedom of religion from the early 1950s to the late 1970s. Christians, for example, were excluded because Christianity was considered "imperialist religion," Confucianism because it was considered "feudalism."

Dean explains that in the early 1950s the Taoist ritual specialists in southern China were forced to join the official Taoist Association of China. Throughout Chinese society associations were being organized by profession, and the Taoist ritual specialists officially were given as a professional label "proponents of feudal superstition," and were considered to have counterrevolutionary tendencies. However, the Taoist Association of China was originally organized to include these people in political movements, and Dean has found records of the involvement, for example, of Taoist ritual specialists in Fujian in the Anti-Five Pest Campaign in the 1950s, when masses of people were organized to bang pans for hours on end to drive rodents away from cities. According to Dean, the system of official associations for professions was used on a more regular basis to force individuals to attend meetings to study political tracts issued by the central government.

Szonyi reports that for practical purposes in the early 1950s the profession of religious practitioner disappeared, and so the Taoist priests who ran Mazu temples were forced back into the laity. Property owned by temples—for example, fields that provided income for the temple upkeep—was confiscated, as well as the temples themselves. The Mazu temple on Meizhou was later destroyed. Szonyi points out that there had been campaigns launched against "feudal superstition" as early as 1911, and more regularly since 1927, by Republican governments before the founding of the People's Republic. These campaigns also confiscated property and turned temples into public buildings.

From anecdotal evidence, Szonyi believes that private religious practice in one's home was little interfered with until the late 1950s. However, both Szonyi and Dean report that even this private worship came to an end in the early 1960s, when campaigns building up to the Cultural Revolution hit hard in Fujian: temples were smashed or converted to other uses, images and texts were destroyed, and worshippers were imprisoned, humiliated and beaten. For all intents and purposes popular practice stopped. Any worship of Mazu or other deities after the early 1960s was done in extreme secrecy, and those caught were punished. According to both Szonyi and Dean this pattern continued through the campaigns and waves of repression of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), with the main Mazu temples being destroyed.

Dean estimates that the majority of the former Mazu temple managers would have been on the "wrong" side of political movements during the Cultural Revolution. Some might have had the means to avoid direct attack, while others would have suffered. Generally, it was a dangerous time to try to perform any public worship of popular deities, and even burning incense in one's home could lead to arrest.

Mazu Worship Since 1979

        Both Dean and Szonyi indicate that since Deng Xiaoping's experiments with reform beginning in 1979, the climate for Mazu worship in China has improved considerably. Dean notes that new drafts of the constitution included freedom of religion; religion was no longer prohibited, but was not promoted by the state either.5 In the early 1980s, as reforms were relaxing labour and land controls, individuals began rebuilding temples but without daring to seek official permission, being mindful of past repression of "feudal superstitions." According to both Dean and Szonyi, official reaction, when it did come, depended very much on local conditions: some temples were torn down again and those involved in the restoration imprisoned, while temples rebuilt in neighbouring jurisdictions were allowed to stand. Dean explains that the 1980s and 1990s have seen periodic campaigns, such as the 1984 Spiritual Civilization campaign, to close down rebuilt temples, prohibit religious festivals and processions, and keep tabs on those involved—the people collecting paper money, for example, and those burning incense or performing rituals. Dean reports that in Fuzhou there were periods of opening-up and of cracking down, when processions were first allowed and then prohibited, and rituals that were allowed one year could be the basis for a priest's arrest the next. As well, sometimes community leaders were arrested before the start of a festival and had their houses and possessions impounded until they could repay to the community the money raised to run the festival.

The erratic implementation of these policies continues according to Dean, with the degree of openness or repression still varying greatly from locale to locale in Fujian province. Dean reports that the biggest gulf is between activities in the cities and their immediate suburbs, and those in the surrounding countryside. City activity is still much more rigorously policed and religious observances are far fewer than in the countryside. As well, in the cities there is a much stronger tendency on the part of officials to not allow temple restoration or festivals. In different localities in the countryside, however, there has been a great revival of all kinds of popular religious worship across southern China and extending into the north. However, in each instance, according to Dean, it is always a case of testing the waters and struggling with authorities for permission, and running the risk of a sudden reversal and facing arrest. Szonyi reports that he has not heard of Mazu adherents being imprisoned in the last several years. However, within the last few months he has read in a local newspaper of one case in Fuzhou of a large fine being levied against a person who built a Mazu temple without permission, probably with financial backing from Taiwan. The temple was finally converted to a leisure centre for seniors.

In general, however, both Dean and Szonyi indicate that Fujian province has been a leader in the revival of popular religious practice, in part due to its proximity and increasing business dealings with Taiwan. Taiwanese investment in the 1980s was an important factor in rebuilding the main Mazu temple on Meizhou island, according to Szonyi, and the Fujian government has announced plans to invest a great deal more money promoting the site as a tourist and cultural destination.6 As well, a number of statues of Mazu from Fujian were sent to Taiwan in early 1997 on a much-publicized tour.7 According to Szonyi, there is a difference of opinion regarding the Meizhou site: the Fujian government considers it a cultural site and museum, but in fact it is a functioning temple as well. Dean points out that the Fujian government usually hesitates before stepping in to interfere with the revival and that the associated increased business has been directly lucrative for some government officials. Northern Guangdong and southern Zhejiang provinces have also developed a rapid revival of temple construction and reconstruction.

Dean cautions, however, that the Chinese government continues to struggle with a problem of definitions when drawing up policy concerning acceptable religious practices. According to Dean, the government defines religion in an almost Western way: in terms of a religious organization with a specific set of rites, doctrines, and with a very limited and particular set of practices deemed acceptable. In the conclusion to Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast Asia Dean quotes a circular note from the Zhejiang Provincial CCP Committee's Party Rectification Office published in Guangming ribao 1 March 1986 outlining acceptable and unacceptable religious practices. Among the acceptable practices listed for the officially recognized religions of Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Catholicism and Christianity are "prostrating oneself before the image of Buddha, reciting scriptures, burning joss sticks, going to church, saying prayers, expounding Buddhist suttras, giving sermons, hearing Mass, receiving baptism, being initiated into monkhood or nunhood, fasting, celebrating religious festivals, performing last rites, and conducting funeral services." Among practices condemned as "feudal superstitious activities" are "building clan temples, drawing genealogical charts, joining persons of different ancestors to make them bear the same family names...performing rites in honour of ancestors...invoking immortals to exorcise evil spirits, praying for rain, divining by the eight trigrams, telling fortunes by analyzing the component parts of chinese characters, and practicing physiognomy and geomancy" (1993, 174).

Dean argues that Chinese popular religious practices are imbedded in day-to-day life, from the offering of food and burning of incense to ancestors and gods at the family altar, to the community altar of the god of the locality, to the local deities in the community temples. Thus it becomes very difficult to separate out the range of rites and beliefs at stake. According to Dean, the government for example does not want spirit mediums to be part of the religion. These have been common to Chinese religious practice for thousands of years. In one community Dean wrote about, all the boys aged 9-13 were brought into the temple for training in spirit medium possession. A few gifted ones would normally become possessed, while others would chant or help out with dances and rituals. So in Fujian especially, spirit mediums are a widespread phenomenon. The government considers it to be superstitious and unacceptable religious behavior. Thus, in parts of China where it is allowable because local officials choose to turn a blind eye, spirit mediums perform, but in Dean's view it still provides an example of the difference between the government's view as to what is acceptable in religion and the people's needs and expectations.

Internal Flight Alternatives

        Both Dean and Szonyi explain that in China there is now a widely recognized "floating population" of migrant workers which numbers 80 million or more, indicating a de facto breakdown of the old iron-clad government restrictions on internal migration. However, both point out that the household registration (hukou) system remains intact and that this mass migration is still officially considered illegal movement. Thus, although the hukou system is being increasingly ignored as demand for labour rises in major cities, there are many practical difficulties involved in unauthorized migration, including being left out of state-sponsored education and health care, and having no possibility of obtaining permission for childbirth under state family planning policies.

As well, Dean points out that moving to a big city for a short-term construction job probably would not give a person avenues for religious expression, since the curtailment of popular religions is strongest in the cities. Dean also explains that the Chinese rural countryside is still made up of extremely tightly knit communities, and outsiders are not always welcome. According to Dean, historically land ownership was tightly bound up with lineage and community rules. Szonyi adds that since 1949 ownership has been collective with the state as the people's representative, and the reforms of the early 1980s introduced contracts to use land for fixed periods of time. Thus, without government permission, migration to the countryside from the city could be problematic if an individual does not already have family or personal connections.

Szonyi comments that in general, the mobility situation is complex, fluid, and can be expected to change. Until 1979, the biggest obstacle to internal migration was that peasants were assigned to communes, and workers to jobs, in the place where they were registered; it was impossible to make a living outside one's registered home. Increasingly since 1979, new opportunities have been available to work in non-state enterprises for example, which include private businesses but also enterprises run by local collectives. However, according to Szonyi, the majority of Chinese people are still peasants and workers in state-owned enterprises, so for most people the principle economic bar to migration still stands. Szonyi points out that at the November 1997 Communist Party Congress it was announced that state-owned enterprises are to be privatized. In order to accommodate such sweeping change, Szonyi speculates that the central leadership will have to either throw open the movement of labour—which Szonyi feels is unlikely because it would generate social unrest and a mass exodus to the coast—or come up with a new way of regulating it. Szonyi expects changing policies in the next few years, possibly including experimentation with different policies in different places.

References

Dean, Kenneth. Graduate program Director, Department of East Asia Studies, McGill University, Montréal. 6 November 1997. Telephone interview.

_____. 1993. Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast Asia. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Szonyi, Michael. Assistant Professor, Department of History, McGill University, Montréal. 4 November 1997. Telephone interview.

Watson, James L. 1984. "Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of Tienhou, Empress of Heaven, along the South China Coast, 960-1960." Popular Culture in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Attachments

Maspero, Henri. 1981. Taoism and Chinese Religion. Translated by Frank A. Kierman, Jr. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press, pp. 145-47.

Watson, James L. 1984. "Standardizing the Gods: The Promotion of Tienhou, Empress of Heaven, along the South China Coast, 960-1960." Popular Culture in Late Imperial China. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 292-324.

Xinhua. 16 October 1997. "White Paper on Freedom of Religion." (FBIS-CHI-97-289 16 Oct. 1997/WNC)

_____.13 February 1997. "China: Fujian To Turn Meizhou Island Into National Holiday Resort," (FBIS-CHI-97-030 13 Feb. 1997/WNC)

NOTES:

1 There are many spelling variations of Mazu, including Ma Zhu, Matsu, Mha zu, Ma Tsu, Mazu po, and Ma-tsu-p'o. The goddess is also known as Tianhou (Empress of Heaven), which also appears in many variations: T'ien-hou, T'ien Hou, Tienhou, Tienhau, Tianhau, T'ien Fei, and T'ien-shang Sheng-mu.

2 According to Szonyi, these are the gods one prays to when there is an epidemic or illness.

3  Please see the attachment from Henri Maspero for a fuller account of this story and of Mazu's promotion through various centuries.

4  According to Szonyi, North American temples are usually referred to as "Tienhou," the Empress of Heaven, temples rather than "Mazu" temples, since Mazu is a less formal name.

5  For more information on the official Chinese government policy on religious practice, please refer to the attached government "White Paper on Freedom of Religion" (Xinhua 16 Oct. 1997).

6  For more information please see the attachment from Xinhua 13 Feb. 1997, as well as Response to Information Request CHN26563.E of 30 April 1997.

7 For more information please see Response to Information Request CHN26563.E of 30 April 1997.