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| Four famous generals from China's distant past, including Yuchi Gong and Qin Qiong now worshipped as "Door Gods" |
A couple of weeks ago I broke the
journey home from Chenjiagou, making a stop in Kota Kinabalu on Borneo island for
a week to visit relatives. One afternoon we took a drive to the small settlement
of Tuaran to eat the noodles the town is famous for. A couple of streets from
the restaurant was an
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| Calligraphy reads- "Jing Gang Subdues the Demon |
unexpected bonus - replete with a colourful ten
storey pagoda, the splendidly named "Temple of Dragon
Mountain"! While the Malaysian-Chinese locals I travelled with described
it as a Daoist Temple, puzzlingly a large sign painted on a wall next to it
described it as Ling San Buddhist Temple?
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| Temple of Dragon Mountain |
In the West it is often assumed
that there are clearly demarcated lines between China's different philosophies.
However, in the day to day lives of the Chinese the lines are in reality more
blurred. Walking through the
temple the philosophies of Daoism, Buddhism and Confucianism co-exist harmoniously:
statues of the Daoism's iconic Eight Immortals and various deified warriors
from the China's distant past; a giant smiling golden Buddha; figures from the
Buddhist classic Journey to the West including Tripitaka and his companions
the Monkey King, Sandy and Pigsy; and a statue of a benevolent looking Confucius
sitting solidly in a prime spot. These are accompanied by many images and
figures from fearsome Jing Gang subduing demons to murals of various dragons
and other colourful beasts, deities and young maidens.
I read an article recently by
Chen Jinguo, a scholar of the Chinese Folk Literature and Art Society, who
suggested that folk religion represents a core element of Chinese cultural
self-awareness. While Professor Han
Bingfang of the Institute for Research into World Religions at the Academy of
Social Sciences in Beijing went so far as to call Chinese folk religion the
"core and soul of popular culture".
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| Confucius |
Chinese martial arts, including
Taijiquan, being an important component of Chinese culture have inevitably been
influenced by these forces. Taijiquan
is often simplistically referred to as a Daoist martial art. A cursory
examination of its names shows that it too draws from this common culture: the
Chen Family Rules are typical Confucian standards of idealised behaviour
adopted by many clan groups; the underlying philosophy of naturalness and of
using softness to overcome hardness are clearly drawn from Daoism; while the
postures in the form such as Jing Dang Dao Dui (Buddha's Warrior Attendant
Pounds Mortar) show the influence of Buddhism. What all three philosophies
have in common is the idea of an integrated universe balancing the three
components of "heaven, earth and man".
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| and the Monkey King! |
