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laleiaSo while brainstorming ideas as to potential mythological and supernatural creatures/villains to populate an original urban fantasy piece that I'm working on, I was skimming through Wikipedia's "Chinese mythology" article for ideas, specifically the bit on Chinese mythological creatures.
(I would like to note how ironic it is that I have much of Greek/Roman/Norse mythology internalized, can bullshit about the "Sidhe" and Celtic mythology, all from osmosis via reading so much fantasy in my entire life, yet I have to resort to Wikipedia when it comes to what can be referred to as "my own mythology." Despite all the 武侠 flicks, and the passing familiarity with the characteristics of 妖精 and 神仙, I still know so little and have to Wikipedia it.)
Anyways, so one thing led to another, and while I was speeding through the 妖精 and 神仙 bits, even resorting to Chinese Wikipedia when information became scarce, it occurred to me that this whole pantheon of mythology (wrong 量词 I know, bear with me) took place within Daoism, if my memory served me right.
And then, while typing "Daoism" into Google, Google did that thing it does so often, where it completes the sentence with "Does Daoism have a main god?"
Curious, I let it auto-complete, and checked out the first link, an Answers.com response which boiled down to ... "No."
And I thought, "That's not right, is it ...?"
I would like to preface this by saying I know nothing about Daoism. It's not my religion. It can only be considered my family's religion in that my family's from China, and almost everyone from China is "a little bit Daoist and a little bit Buddhist."
(And, you know, the way my grandmother, despite having converted to Christianity, still practices Daoist and/or Chinese superstitious traditions such as burning paper money for the dead and leaving food out, only she's adapted them for Christian purposes. So, burning paper money for our grandfather is "for him to use in Heaven" and leaving fruit out on the table all day with incense is so "God can eat it first." I didn't realize this wasn't traditional Christianity until my fourth-grade teacher looked at me, confused, and said "We don't need money in heaven." But that's a totally different story ...)
So anyways. As I was saying. I know nothing about Daoism. But I started thinking about it, in a vague sort of way. I started wondering, why is that the Daoism I keep on hearing referenced in English is ... really different from the stuff that I see on Chinese TV, or on scroll paintings, or in people's homes, that I only learned a couple of years ago is also Daoism.
So when we learned about Daoism in high school in my World History class, we focused exclusively on its philosophical aspects. And I feel like the whole "Daoism" thing has this really mystical aspect here, people think it's cool and mysterious and feel like the "Dao" and the "yin" and the "yang" are this uber-philosophically-exotic concept, and all about being "at one with yourself."
(Which, I don't know anything about Daoism, so that could very well be a major aspect of it.)
In fact, I think the BBC article I briefly skimmed over described "Daoism in the West" as having added all sorts of "new age" spiritual aspects to it.
And then two years ago, I learned that all of the 妖怪 and 神仙 and 王母娘娘 and 玉皇大帝 stuff I've been hearing about in 西游记 and 白蛇传 and 牛郎织女 and 八仙过海, this stuff is apparently all part of Daoism. Daoism apparently has a pantheon of deities, ones I'd heard referenced, only I never realized they were actually Daoist because anytime I heard about "Daoism" in the West, it's always about the "mystic" philosophy, never the religion.
(Also, Side Note #2, I feel like maybe 西游记 is good example of how people in China are "a little Buddhist and a little bit Daoist" since the whole thing is about 唐僧 (a Buddhist monk) getting the Buddhist scriptures, and also 孙悟空 is trapped by Buddha in his hand, but yet the whole first part of the story has 孙悟空大闹天宫, which features all the Daoist gods/goddesses ... so unless I'm missing something, which is very likely, the story puts both Buddhist and Daoist deities right next to each other, which doesn't exactly happen very often in Western mythology, does it? But then, I'm not a Mythology/Theology/Philosophy student, so maybe someone else can enlighten me more about this.)
So my confusion would have been clarified if I had ever bothered to read the Wikipedia article on Daoism, which takes care to note the difference between 道学 and 道家, or philosophical and religious Daoism. This may or may not be a valid distinction, apparently -- Wikipedia informs me there are doubts about dividing the two like this.
So maybe Westerners have focused on philosophical Daoism to the exclusion of religious Daoism. I don't know. I just found it interesting that I'd never even bothered to reconcile the stuff I know in Chinese with the stuff I know in English.
Either way, however, if you're talking about "gods" in Daoism, you'd be talking about the religion, so the Answers.com reply is wrong. Also, dividing Daoism into religious and philosophical aspects, and assuming the West is really only interested in the philosophical bit, doesn't change the fact that all the mysticism that "philosophical Daoism" generated tends to be portrayed on a "religious/superstitious" level. And that people talk about Daoism as one of the oldest religions of China, and refer to Daoism as a religion, but I think usually while describing the philosophy.
And see, I can't give you any examples of this. I can't actually think of a single real-life example or example in the media that explicitly treats Daoism as "exotic" and "mystical." I can only offer up to you the fact that I have only learned about Daoism in English from Westerners, and this is the impression I've received over the course of my life.
(Also, maybe as example of the mysticism, I can offer up to you Western impressions about/references to anything from yin-yang, to tai chi, to feng shui, to a million other things that are probably Daoist at root and have been adopted by Westerners. And I say Westerners, but really my main exposure to Westerns is Americans, as I'm born-and-bred American myself.)
And even if we talk about philosophical Daoism, I feel like it and Buddhism are often put on this religious (or philosophical) pedestal, where people convert to it to be cool, or wish they could convert to it to be cool, and even philosophical Daoism when discussed tends to boil down to "balance" and "harmony" which are both inherently good things, I suppose.
(But see, I've been prejudiced against Daoism ever since 贾宝玉 in 红楼梦 (Dream of the Red Chamber) ditched his wife at the end of the book because he realized Daoism was the One True Way. I think his ditching the material world (a.k.a. his family and dependents and responsibilities) to obtain spiritual balance/harmony/happiness was terrible, and possibly I still hold a grudge about it. Also possibly I've misinterpreted his actions (I didn't read the original after all, I read a translation), but this coupled with that other guy at the beginning of the book who similarly ditched his responsibilities to attain spiritual fulfillment as a Daoist, and I am NOT sold on the whole thing.)
I guess what I'm saying is that there's a darker (or perhaps, more complex?) side to even the philosophical stuff that pop-culture media references don't really examine. Which is nothing new.
(I mean, it must have really sucked to be 庄子's wife or son or neighbor during his horse-son-war debacle, and have to deal with this guy who was apathetic, and didn't get excited or panicked about things like normal people, and instead just shrugged and said, "You never know." Okay, possibly I've misinterpreted the moral of this story as well; I haven't even read this one, just heard my dad tell me it in Chinese, to entertain me when I was bored.)
I guess my whole point is I feel like maybe this is an example of the whole "Cultural Appropriation" debate. I've listened to a lot of people discuss back and forth the issues surrounding Cultural Appropriate, and tried my best to understand it, and maybe this also would be an example of how pop culture subsumes things like Feng Shui, and then the Western (wrong) perspective of how it works becomes the almost-monolithic only way you can find on almost anything in the English language on how it works, and EVERYONE thinks this is what it is, and this is how it works, when in reality, it's so much more complex, and if only you could read the source material in the original language and experience the culture and traditions of the original, you would understand how wrong it was.
But because you don't, this becomes all everyone knows about it.
I think this rant is winding to a close, even though there is so much more I want to say and haven't.
(For example, I would love to talk some more about things like the separation or non-separation of philosophy and religion in China as opposed into the U.S., the difference between the two and whether or not there is a wide gap in the two in the West than in China; also maybe a mini-rant about Tai Chi and 太极拳 and how they are or are not different which would require a little more research; also a note about how things that are New Age-y and superstition-based in the U.S. are valued more than Western science/medicine in China, and how that's interesting; something about Chinese medicine and doctors that practice Chinese medicine and how I would trust them; how much I want to strangle the next book/TV show that says "May you live in interesting times" is an "ancient Chinese curse", among other things.)
And, I would like to say for the record that I recognize my absolute lack of knowledge about Daoism means that probably half this rant is completely invalid and I didn't realize it because I'm not educated enough.
That being said, if anyone has any articles/books they recommend that I can read in my spare time about the portrayal of Daoism in the West vs. what it's like in the East, I'd appreciate it. Nothing with too much academic babble, please, I have a short attention span and a low tolerance for excessive use of the word "postmodernism". Also, less on the theoretical principles of the philosophy/religion itself, and more on its perceptions/portrayals or how it is actually practiced would be interesting.
I am trying to educate myself more on the matter right now by slowly and painstakingly and character-by-character wading through the 百度 article on both 道教 and 道学, because I feel like if I'm going to go with a collaborative-information English-language encyclopedia as reference, I might as well also check out the collaborative-information Chinese-language encyclopedia as reference.
(I would like to note how ironic it is that I have much of Greek/Roman/Norse mythology internalized, can bullshit about the "Sidhe" and Celtic mythology, all from osmosis via reading so much fantasy in my entire life, yet I have to resort to Wikipedia when it comes to what can be referred to as "my own mythology." Despite all the 武侠 flicks, and the passing familiarity with the characteristics of 妖精 and 神仙, I still know so little and have to Wikipedia it.)
Anyways, so one thing led to another, and while I was speeding through the 妖精 and 神仙 bits, even resorting to Chinese Wikipedia when information became scarce, it occurred to me that this whole pantheon of mythology (wrong 量词 I know, bear with me) took place within Daoism, if my memory served me right.
And then, while typing "Daoism" into Google, Google did that thing it does so often, where it completes the sentence with "Does Daoism have a main god?"
Curious, I let it auto-complete, and checked out the first link, an Answers.com response which boiled down to ... "No."
And I thought, "That's not right, is it ...?"
I would like to preface this by saying I know nothing about Daoism. It's not my religion. It can only be considered my family's religion in that my family's from China, and almost everyone from China is "a little bit Daoist and a little bit Buddhist."
(And, you know, the way my grandmother, despite having converted to Christianity, still practices Daoist and/or Chinese superstitious traditions such as burning paper money for the dead and leaving food out, only she's adapted them for Christian purposes. So, burning paper money for our grandfather is "for him to use in Heaven" and leaving fruit out on the table all day with incense is so "God can eat it first." I didn't realize this wasn't traditional Christianity until my fourth-grade teacher looked at me, confused, and said "We don't need money in heaven." But that's a totally different story ...)
So anyways. As I was saying. I know nothing about Daoism. But I started thinking about it, in a vague sort of way. I started wondering, why is that the Daoism I keep on hearing referenced in English is ... really different from the stuff that I see on Chinese TV, or on scroll paintings, or in people's homes, that I only learned a couple of years ago is also Daoism.
So when we learned about Daoism in high school in my World History class, we focused exclusively on its philosophical aspects. And I feel like the whole "Daoism" thing has this really mystical aspect here, people think it's cool and mysterious and feel like the "Dao" and the "yin" and the "yang" are this uber-philosophically-exotic concept, and all about being "at one with yourself."
(Which, I don't know anything about Daoism, so that could very well be a major aspect of it.)
In fact, I think the BBC article I briefly skimmed over described "Daoism in the West" as having added all sorts of "new age" spiritual aspects to it.
And then two years ago, I learned that all of the 妖怪 and 神仙 and 王母娘娘 and 玉皇大帝 stuff I've been hearing about in 西游记 and 白蛇传 and 牛郎织女 and 八仙过海, this stuff is apparently all part of Daoism. Daoism apparently has a pantheon of deities, ones I'd heard referenced, only I never realized they were actually Daoist because anytime I heard about "Daoism" in the West, it's always about the "mystic" philosophy, never the religion.
(Also, Side Note #2, I feel like maybe 西游记 is good example of how people in China are "a little Buddhist and a little bit Daoist" since the whole thing is about 唐僧 (a Buddhist monk) getting the Buddhist scriptures, and also 孙悟空 is trapped by Buddha in his hand, but yet the whole first part of the story has 孙悟空大闹天宫, which features all the Daoist gods/goddesses ... so unless I'm missing something, which is very likely, the story puts both Buddhist and Daoist deities right next to each other, which doesn't exactly happen very often in Western mythology, does it? But then, I'm not a Mythology/Theology/Philosophy student, so maybe someone else can enlighten me more about this.)
So my confusion would have been clarified if I had ever bothered to read the Wikipedia article on Daoism, which takes care to note the difference between 道学 and 道家, or philosophical and religious Daoism. This may or may not be a valid distinction, apparently -- Wikipedia informs me there are doubts about dividing the two like this.
So maybe Westerners have focused on philosophical Daoism to the exclusion of religious Daoism. I don't know. I just found it interesting that I'd never even bothered to reconcile the stuff I know in Chinese with the stuff I know in English.
Either way, however, if you're talking about "gods" in Daoism, you'd be talking about the religion, so the Answers.com reply is wrong. Also, dividing Daoism into religious and philosophical aspects, and assuming the West is really only interested in the philosophical bit, doesn't change the fact that all the mysticism that "philosophical Daoism" generated tends to be portrayed on a "religious/superstitious" level. And that people talk about Daoism as one of the oldest religions of China, and refer to Daoism as a religion, but I think usually while describing the philosophy.
And see, I can't give you any examples of this. I can't actually think of a single real-life example or example in the media that explicitly treats Daoism as "exotic" and "mystical." I can only offer up to you the fact that I have only learned about Daoism in English from Westerners, and this is the impression I've received over the course of my life.
(Also, maybe as example of the mysticism, I can offer up to you Western impressions about/references to anything from yin-yang, to tai chi, to feng shui, to a million other things that are probably Daoist at root and have been adopted by Westerners. And I say Westerners, but really my main exposure to Westerns is Americans, as I'm born-and-bred American myself.)
And even if we talk about philosophical Daoism, I feel like it and Buddhism are often put on this religious (or philosophical) pedestal, where people convert to it to be cool, or wish they could convert to it to be cool, and even philosophical Daoism when discussed tends to boil down to "balance" and "harmony" which are both inherently good things, I suppose.
(But see, I've been prejudiced against Daoism ever since 贾宝玉 in 红楼梦 (Dream of the Red Chamber) ditched his wife at the end of the book because he realized Daoism was the One True Way. I think his ditching the material world (a.k.a. his family and dependents and responsibilities) to obtain spiritual balance/harmony/happiness was terrible, and possibly I still hold a grudge about it. Also possibly I've misinterpreted his actions (I didn't read the original after all, I read a translation), but this coupled with that other guy at the beginning of the book who similarly ditched his responsibilities to attain spiritual fulfillment as a Daoist, and I am NOT sold on the whole thing.)
I guess what I'm saying is that there's a darker (or perhaps, more complex?) side to even the philosophical stuff that pop-culture media references don't really examine. Which is nothing new.
(I mean, it must have really sucked to be 庄子's wife or son or neighbor during his horse-son-war debacle, and have to deal with this guy who was apathetic, and didn't get excited or panicked about things like normal people, and instead just shrugged and said, "You never know." Okay, possibly I've misinterpreted the moral of this story as well; I haven't even read this one, just heard my dad tell me it in Chinese, to entertain me when I was bored.)
I guess my whole point is I feel like maybe this is an example of the whole "Cultural Appropriation" debate. I've listened to a lot of people discuss back and forth the issues surrounding Cultural Appropriate, and tried my best to understand it, and maybe this also would be an example of how pop culture subsumes things like Feng Shui, and then the Western (wrong) perspective of how it works becomes the almost-monolithic only way you can find on almost anything in the English language on how it works, and EVERYONE thinks this is what it is, and this is how it works, when in reality, it's so much more complex, and if only you could read the source material in the original language and experience the culture and traditions of the original, you would understand how wrong it was.
But because you don't, this becomes all everyone knows about it.
I think this rant is winding to a close, even though there is so much more I want to say and haven't.
(For example, I would love to talk some more about things like the separation or non-separation of philosophy and religion in China as opposed into the U.S., the difference between the two and whether or not there is a wide gap in the two in the West than in China; also maybe a mini-rant about Tai Chi and 太极拳 and how they are or are not different which would require a little more research; also a note about how things that are New Age-y and superstition-based in the U.S. are valued more than Western science/medicine in China, and how that's interesting; something about Chinese medicine and doctors that practice Chinese medicine and how I would trust them; how much I want to strangle the next book/TV show that says "May you live in interesting times" is an "ancient Chinese curse", among other things.)
And, I would like to say for the record that I recognize my absolute lack of knowledge about Daoism means that probably half this rant is completely invalid and I didn't realize it because I'm not educated enough.
That being said, if anyone has any articles/books they recommend that I can read in my spare time about the portrayal of Daoism in the West vs. what it's like in the East, I'd appreciate it. Nothing with too much academic babble, please, I have a short attention span and a low tolerance for excessive use of the word "postmodernism". Also, less on the theoretical principles of the philosophy/religion itself, and more on its perceptions/portrayals or how it is actually practiced would be interesting.
I am trying to educate myself more on the matter right now by slowly and painstakingly and character-by-character wading through the 百度 article on both 道教 and 道学, because I feel like if I'm going to go with a collaborative-information English-language encyclopedia as reference, I might as well also check out the collaborative-information Chinese-language encyclopedia as reference.
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no subject
Date: 2010-10-06 07:08 pm (UTC)http://ask.metafilter.com/165427/How-to-be-a-Taoist#2377807
Though, you're probably best off reading up on "Folk religion" or "Ancestor worship" which, usually includes a lot of Taoist stuff as practiced.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-07 06:22 am (UTC)characters or creatures, that might be helpful.
Buuut I can't help you much with the social/anthropological Daoist aspect, sorry. It's a great point to bring up though; I've never thought about the distinction too much-- I guess I consider it sort of like the Ten Commandments, verses the Catholic rituals during mass. Evolution of a way of life? Idk, I'm neither a theologian, or a philosopher, and my Chinese minor was mostly language based.