Why the Earth God Is My Favorite God

Image from here

The best god ever.

As you may remember, recently we'd found out we'd have to move. I was stricken - although of all the things I value, the least horrible to lose is our greatly-cherished living space, I still felt sick at the thought of having to leave it when I didn't want to.

Well, things have changed. Although I don't believe in God, or any gods, at least one of these supernatural nonexistent beings is awesome.

One thing I love about folk religion in Taiwan is that you can participate in it without necessarily believing in it. It's hard to wrap one's head around this from a Western mindset, but there is nothing about Chinese folk religion that has a problem with atheists praying at temples. I suppose it is preferable if you believe in the god, but if your question or problem is sincere and visiting a temple gives you some unnameable comfort, or is done out of family or traditional obligation, the act itself is good enough and the mind does not have to be behind it. If you're in Taiwan, ask your friends or students - some really believe, but you'd be surprised how many are agnostic or atheist or "vaguely spiritual" without any clear convictions, who see no problem in participating in temple rituals.

I know in a lot of Western cultures, worshipping when you don't believe is somewhat taboo. I have heard, however, that in some Jewish circles it's fine: you can be an atheist and still participate in the culturally prescribed rituals, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong there. It seems to be fairly common among cultures where the dominant religion and the culture itself are so deeply intermingled that there is no clear line where secular "culture" ends and "religion" begins.

As I wrote in my last post on the topic:

Side note: one thing I like about Chinese folk gods like Tu Di Gong is that they don't care if you're an atheist. They care that your issue or question is sincere, and that you show up to pray. Even if you don't pray, they may help you. If you do, they may or may not, it depends on their mood or whatever heavenly politics they're involved in at the moment. The idea that an atheist could go to an Earth God shrine in Taipei and pray, despite not believing, is not irreconcilable in this culture. To me this is realistic (either a god will help you or he won't, and praying may help your case, or you may get lucky), echoing how things work in the real world (either you get lucky or you don't). It's a way to make myself feel better, and feel more connected to life in Taiwan. I can do that, and be an atheist. Thanks, Earth God. You're cool.

I also quite like that religion in Taiwan is not a closed-off thing. There's no conversion process. You don't have to attend meetings or go through a ceremony in order to be considered a true believer or "congregation member" of Chinese folk religion. The gods are there, according to local tradition, and you can believe in them or not, pray to them or not (but if your family is traditional you'd better pray to them no matter what, just in case). You don't have to be a believer at all!

And while it's uncommon, and perhaps surprising, when a foreigner goes to a Chinese temple to pray, it's not forbidden, nor is it particularly taboo.

So, when I found out I'd have to move, my Chinese teacher and I went off to the nearest Earth God (土地公) temple, which we were directed to by my doorwoman (who thought it was cute, but wasn't entirely shocked, that I wanted to go). The Earth God isn't a one-off god, every area has its own shrine which oversees property, moving, farming, business and other issues for that area and you have to go to the shrine in your area, so I figured it'd be best to go to the one my doorwoman goes to.

And, lo and behold, that weekend our landlady's sister gave us up to a year to move rather than the original two to three months. Thanks Earth God!

Over the next few weeks, we looked at 5-10 apartments, and liked only one of them. It was in our lane, so the neighborhood was the same. It had a different - not better, not worse, just different - layout. I liked the better-designed kitchen, separate living and dining areas, two large bedrooms (one could be both a guest room and an office), and two recently renovated bathrooms, one of which had a Japanese fancy magic toilet.  The downsides were refrigerator and washer/dryer spaces that didn't quite fit our appliances and some traffic noise, no outdoor casement for my bougainvillea, orchids and mint, and no window looking out on a courtyard.

We wanted to take it, but the agent's fee was one full month paid by us, and we had to move in almost immediately. Yeeeaahhh that's a big ol' sack of NOPE. We told him we were interested, but the highest agent fee we'd ever seen was half a month paid by tenants, and we couldn't move until April. He said he'd "let us know" and then we didn't hear from him for two weeks, so we figured the answer was "no".

About two weeks later I was doing my morning tutoring in Zhonghe (I don't do it for the money). My bus sideswiped a car soon after I boarded, and rather than wait for the next one after traffic cleared, I walked to Burma Street (華新街) for lunch. Then I grabbed a bus to Ximen, figuring I needed to pick up some more Imigran and it would be fun to wander around Red House and the arts&crafts market. I passed a few people bearing huge flags that said "Normalize the Recognition of Formosa State" and took some photos. At some point on my jaunt, my phone battery died.

I didn't buy anything at the market, figuring I needed to watch my cash flow if I was going to have to move at some point in the near future, and grabbed another bus home. This one stopped very close to the Earth God shrine, so I decided it was time to go back and say hello, thank him for his help so far and ask for his continued support. You know, like ya do. 

But this time I was alone, no Chinese teacher. It was a stuffy afternoon, with a pale yellow sun whose light felt blunted by the haze. The sky was that hot Taipei white that is neither cloudy nor fully sunny. I felt a bit weird - being a weekend, there were more people at the temple and I felt watched. Why would she need to pray? I sat at a bench at the far end of the temple enclosure. Is she just tired? Do foreigners go to temples? Hmm. 

Nobody said that - but I could feel it. Or I was making it all up in my head. I don't know. I still have a lot of baggage from growing up in a culture where it's odd both be an atheist and go to a place of worship. Plus, I still wasn't entirely sure a foreigner would be welcome to take part in this cultural ritual, although all of my experiences have pointed to the contrary. 

What's more, I really, really did not want to get involved in cultural appropriation - real or seeming. And I wasn't sure if this counted.

And yet by doing this, I did feel more connected to Taiwan. I live here, my "property" (well, my rental property) is here, and the god looks out over that property, and there's no set of rules on who can pray to him and who can't. I was looking at this as someone who wants to be more connected to the place where she lives and learn about it by living it, not someone who wants to take on the elements from another culture so she can feel cool or special. But I wasn't sure if that would come across to others. So.

I sat on that bench for a good 40 minutes, both gathering the courage to talk to a god I didn't believe in, and waiting until there were fewer people around so I could do so in relative privacy. After swinging back and forth on it, and feeling really out of place in a way I hadn't since I'd first moved to Taiwan 8 years ago, I decided to go for it. 

The way to pray is this: you check the number of incense sticks that go in each burner, and what order they go in. You light the appropriate number (it's usually posted on a sign near the incense). First you stand facing away from the shrine, toward the large burner in front - that usually gets a few sticks, this one got three. You should repeat your prayer. Then you face the temple and pray again. You can murmur but don't speak out. Add a stick to that burner. Then go inside, on the right (the side with the dragon) and pray to the gods inside and put a stick in that burner. Then there's a small tiger god under the Earth God - only at Earth God shrines - he gets a stick too. People looking to succeed in business will put their business cards around the burner down there. Then you exit via the tiger door. When you pray, you should give your name and address so "the god knows where to find you".

I lit the incense, walked to the burners and started the familiar murmur (in Chinese, although one would think the gods could understand any language): My name is Jenna, I live at Fuxing South Road Section....number...I want to thank you for...and I hope you can...

My phone had been out of batteries for about 2 hours at this point. When I got home and plugged it in, within minutes it lit up with a message from the agent of the one apartment we'd liked. The call was time-stamped at about the time I'd been at the temple.

I called him back - we could have the apartment on our terms! Yay!

I punched Brendan's name - he agreed. Let's do this.

I called the landlady's sister. And...

Oh, I was going to tell you. 

You were?

I found another place to live. You don't have to move. I'm OK in this new place.

WHAT?

I confirmed three times: so we can stay? So do we have to look for another apartment? So you won't move in?

Then I confirmed with the landlady, who didn't really know but confirmed later that her sister was telling it true. We didn't have to move.

We don't have to move!

It was probably a coincidence, but the idea that I'd find out right after I'd been to the Earth God temple to ask for his continued help (and to admit I still did not, in fact, want to move although I'd accepted that I'd have to), with the catalyst being a phone call that came at just about the moment when I was praying...that's odd.

A week after that, I got together some Ghirardelli dark chocolate sea salt squares, a box of brown sugar mochi (I hear the Earth God likes sweets, especially mochi) and three tasty ripe oranges. You're supposed to bring three or five things, and if one of them (say, a piece of fruit) is small, you should bring three pieces to make up that one part of your odd-numbered offering.

And the fact that the landlady's sister wouldn't think to tell us we didn't have to move until right after I'd been to the temple, in a way that seems kind of weird (you'd think she'd have called us once she'd made that decision - the whole thing seemed rather sudden) - that's odd too. Odd and wonderful, like offerings numbered one, three, five or seven.

This time the sky was a roiling gray, spraying rain down at random intervals like someone spastically turning a showerhead on and off. It was a Friday - the temple was almost empty. I unpacked my offerings - this time I didn't feel weird about it. The Earth God (who isn't real) did us a real solid (which was very real), he deserved this offering and I was going to give it to him.

Drum Majorettes and the Goddess of the Sea

I sincerely apologize for my extended absence - work has been ridiculous, I've had a lot to do, and something had to give. I hope, though, that I'm baaack now that I have a little breathing room during the week. At least for the next few weeks.

About 2 weeks ago (maybe it was 3? Who even knows) I went to Dajia and Lugang for Tomb Sweeping. In Dajia, Tomb Sweeping happened to also be the day that the Matsu Pilgrimage kicked off, thanks to a coincidence in lunar calendar calculations and the results of the ceremony to ask Matsu, via fortune blocks, on which day she'd like her pilgrimage to be (no joke).  So we went down to see the pilgrims off, rather luckily catching a ride with a student of mine from Dajia who was heading down to sweep a tomb with his family. It saved us having to figure out how to get there in the ridiculous traffic on Thursday. The festival really doesn't get going until Friday afternoon and night, and it poured most of the time, but we had fun anyway, and briefly met up with some of the wanderers and short-cut takers joining them in Zhanghua the next day.




The pilgrimage starts at  Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia - there isn't much info in English but they post pilgrimage information in Chinese here (if you can't read Chinese, get a friend to help you). The dates are decided on Lantern Festival, 15 days after Chinese New Year. This is also the time, if you want to go, to book hotels as they sell out quickly. Try to stay downtown. We stayed here: Dajia Hotel － old, but clean and friendly, very central, and not skeevy at all. Try the taro pastries that come out fresh in the afternoon from the coffeeshop two doors down (next to the fabric shop).

You can spend two nights in Dajia (get there a night early because on the day the pilgrimage starts, traffic is congested and highly restricted - trust me. Spend your time checking out the temples, eating, drinking coffee, whatever - there's not a lot to do in Dajia but you'll be fine. There is a Starbucks, oddly enough). Or, after the pilgrims leave you can go with them, but be warned: they walk for most of the first night and don't rest much until they get to the outskirts of Zhanghua City. You could easily sleep in Dajia, then catch a local train to Zhanghua the next morning, putter around there and meet up with them when they arrive later.

Schedules pop up online of the plans for the Matsu idol, which is carried around central Taiwan, stopping at various temples, for 9 days - but you won't know what it is until just after Lantern Festival.  That said, once the schedule is up it's fairly easy to head to where you can intercept the pilgrimage and take part in it, even for just a short while.

Noah Buchan has already written plenty on this event, so I won't repeat it here. You can read about it here, and read his own account of participating here.



Awwww.





The night before many festivals, a Taiwanese opera will be put on in the open air for the public (Baosheng Dadi's birthday includes this aspect, as well). These guys, who wear more comfortable clothing and do impressive acrobatics, are basically inserted into the plot as something to entertain the masses.





The chairman of Djen Lann Temple (Zhenlan Temple?) is currently in jail for using government money to visit a brothel. The temple itself is one of the oldest and most influential in Taiwan, and is very deeply connected to the old gangs and brotherhoods not unlike the ones explored in Monga, the film about Wanhua gangs in the 80s that came out several years ago. As old as it is, and as deeply tied to community life as it is, I was afraid of violating some cultural or religious taboo akin to wearing one's hat in church or eating a ham&cheese sandwich in the foyer of a synagogue.

Then I saw this guy on his phone up by the idol and behind Thousand Mile Eyes (Matsu's green demon attendant) and realized I was probably projecting Western taboos and could relax.



Marching bands are really popular in west-central Taiwan for such occasions. They usually have a few "sexy" (if that's your taste) bandleaders or drum majorettes.



I am a big fan of old buildings.



Then we wandered over to the Wenchang Shrine (built 1886 in a breezier, less ornate, more provincial Qing Dynasty style - Wenchang Dijun is the god of literature and culture) a little ways out of the most crowded part of the town center, where a pilgrimage group was about to set off and getting a pep talk about the journey. There had been a lantern-painting contest not long ago.













Then back to downtown Dajia where god costumes and fireworks took over the streets and a night-market like carnival atmosphere kept things interesting. It rained a lot, and hard, so we escaped to a nearby coffeeshop several times, running out for food and photos.











I think this is Jigong, but I decided to call him Guido God. He clearly approves of the smoking.



"Sexy" bandleaders.





Things didn't really get started until nightfall (and the rain also got worse). The temple filled with people and there were so many firecrackers going off that the streets were covered, in many places, with a thick layer of red paper and ash. We had to truck, in the rain, 2km out of town on foot (no taxis would take us although the road was not clogged) to get to our hotel for the 2nd night as everything downtown was booked, including our first hotel (which was just called "Dajia Hotel" and is friendly and has great wifi and cable, and despite its looks is old, but is not a love hotel at all).

Our second hotel was a love hotel. Very much so.









Another thing they love at festivals? Glitter cannons. No joke.





Lion dances are common - this one is notable for the sheer number of lions.



And every god loves an LED-bedecked palanquin.









Flags (which pilgrims carry to various temples on the 9-day route) covered in talismans (acquired at each temple) started to appear, this one at a betel nut stand.

Also, GLITTER CANNONS!





Sadly, we did not get any good photos of Matsu coming out of the temple, but I did get a video. There were so many people and I was pushed so far back with rain and umbrellas everywhere that the shots are pointlessly unclear. But as she passed to set out on her 9-day journey, people did begin to pray:



All in all, the Matsu Pilgrimage is different from other temple festivals - it attracts more people, it's not done when the parade departs, it starts officially around midnight (but all the interesting stuff around the temple starts up well before that), and things like marching bands not commonly seen in Taipei and the larger, crazier, more LED-tastic floats make it worthwhile.

Strange Gods

So, as you all know, I'm an atheist. Until recently I was a hardcore "I don't know" agnostic, but certain life events have erased even that glimmer of doubt that the universe is unregulated chaos that forms areas of organization - sometimes very detailed organization - only insofar as the laws of physics encourage it. Chaos makes sense to me, because when I look at the world, I see chaos. The organization I do see is just about entirely explainable by science. I don't see the hand of a supreme being.

That said, I'm interested in investigations into the veracity of religious beliefs or paranormal activity (the same thing, as far as I'm concerned), because study of anything curious and seemingly inexplicable is, well, interesting.

That's why I was fascinated to learn that a former student and now friend of mine participated as a researcher in this study on "Chinese character induction" or "finger reading" when he was a student many years ago. (This blog post by Michael Turton, as well as this paper, are the only English-language mentions online of this study that I could find). According to him, the study was more than just writing on paper and then folding it into a small ball - they put the papers under metal sheets and blindfolded the children, and the children could still use their fingers to "read" the characters and accurately tell scientists what the characters were. And that the characters that could be most easily read were ones like "Jesus", "God", "Buddha" and "Guanyin" as well as some Indian gods, among others. "Matsu"was also fairly strong, but other minor deities or supernatural/mythical beings were either barely readable or unreadable. Common characters (like "book", "coffee", "wash" or "jacket") were not readable. The children apparently reported that they could "see" the characters with their fingers, and they'd present themselves in their minds as lights of various brightness (that's not what the paper says, however, not exactly).

This person now has his PhD and is fiercely intelligent. He's not a wacko. He said that before working on the study, he was about as much as an atheist as me, except that he didn't care enough to label himself. Now, he says, he believes that "there has to be something".

Now, as I said, I'm an atheist. I don't believe any of this. At the same time, I don't think he's lying. I think he certainly did work on that study and he probably did see something that freaked him out. That doesn't mean, necessarily, that this stuff is true, just as "there is a God because I feel God's presence" is not solid evidence that there is, in fact, a God. Not even studies showing that there is a slight uptick beyond regular probability that something will happen - like a relative getting well - if people pray for it prove this.

It's a strange middle ground to be in, when you believe your friend and know he's not crazy, but you are also dead certain that this stuff isn't "real", or even if it is, there has to be a scientific explanation that we're just nowhere near understanding yet. I absolutely do not believe there is anything that can never be explained by science: only things that science as it is now can't yet explain, as it is insufficiently advanced. If there were something in this world that could not be explained by science, why have science to begin with?

It also made me think of something else: see, I have another friend who recently became a Christian (his wife is Christian - they are both Taiwanese). While I personally would not have made that choice, I am happy for him insofar as he's made a choice that he feels is right for him and makes him happy, and that's really what's important. In that way, I fully support him.

This friend and I had had a chat many months ago in which he asked me why I go to all these temple parades and festivals in Taiwan. "Because they're COOL," I replied. "Far more interesting than religious services in the USA, and far more interesting than parades by far."

"But do you actually believe in, say, Baosheng Dadi or Matsu or any of that?"

"Honestly, no. I don't believe that Baosheng Dadi is a real immortal being or a god. He was a real person, but I don't go in for gods."

After that, I thought about it for awhile. I don't believe in God or gods, but if I had to choose between the two, I'd go with the folk gods - be they Chinese, or Hindu gods, or any polytheistic pantheon of gods with specific functions and often difficult personalities with their own desires and whims, likes and dislikes and internal disputes.

Why?

Because, while it still makes no sense that there are these immortal powerful beings who can control events in the physical world, at least one thing does make sense: how the world would be if they were the ones in control. It would more or less match up with what we have now. In Taiwan people regularly consult "fortune blocks" （校杯) - those crescent-shaped wood or red blocks that can give one of three answers - no, yes, or "laughing god" (for the final one, imagine if you said "God, will I die of cancer?" and God answered "ha ha ha!"). The answer they give correlates basically exactly to probability, because it cannot do anything else - and so, yes, the world that we have, with correlates with statistical probability, would align pretty well with those blocks, including the times that the blocks are wrong.

Taiwanese will regularly make it clear that the god they are praying to may choose to answer their prayer or heed their request...or not. It really is up to the whim of the god. If you pray they may listen, and so you've upped your chances, but then if you don't pray, it may still happen. Only Baosheng Dadi or Hua Tuo or Wenchang Dijun can really know, and it is pretty well understood and respected that they act on their own preferences or whims. To me, that also correlates pretty well with the world I see.

Gods in folk-grounded pantheons - be they Hindu, Chinese or whatever - tend to have a lot of internal disputes, weird hierarchies and difficult personalities. When you think of them more as brawling, incestuous, clique-forming and reality-show-imitating natural forces, what happens in life fits perfectly with how you envision them acting. Kids are starving in Africa because the god of food either doesn't care, or is busy doing his sister, or is pissed off, or is otherwise occupied. Not "people are starving in Africa, but hey, GOD LOVES YOU, even the starving ones, but you're still starving because...uh..."

Think about it: bad things happen to good people. All the time. Half of Africa is bad stuff happening to good people. Good things happen to bad people: just look at Wall Street. You could say that God is benevolent and kind and this horribleness is the work of terrible, evil, original sinning humans...

...or you could say that that's just how it is, life sucks then you die, or maybe it doesn't suck, or maybe like most of us it's somewhere in the middle, and it's all random because that's how it seems.

You could then decide you want a religious belief, because you want to believe there is something bigger than you, bigger than all of us. That's great - it's a natural human urge. Even I have it. You could either believe in one omniscient, omnipotent God who loves us all (or create a really angry god who then gets a personality makeover a la New Testament), and then try to twist what you see in the world to fit that belief...

...or you could take what you see in the world and empirically try to deduct what the spiritual/godly realm must be like.

Science works based on the latter principle of deductive reasoning. The former is inductive reasoning, and it's just not how we do science, generally (although it sure is mighty tempting). It makes sense to me to base a spiritual belief system on deductive, rather than inductive, thought and explanation.

So no, I'm still not into this whole spiritual thing, although I find discussing it and thinking about it to be fascinating and worthwhile, and I do respect the beliefs of others (if you wanna be Christian, that's fine by me, as long as you don't tell me what I should believe. I'll even join you at the "Jesus was a pretty awesome progressive dude with a strong moral philosophy that we can learn from even today" party. I'll bring the whiskey. I'm pretty sure that although Jesus was a wine guy, he'd probably like whiskey).

But if someone put a gun to my head and told me I had to believe something - hey, it's happened to people - I'd go with polytheistic folk beliefs. Definitely. At least those jive with what I see.

Preview: Baosheng Dadi's Birthday Celebration 2012

I'm all about the temple festivals (as you know if you read this blog with any regularity). Baosheng Dadi's birthday festival is going on, well, right now: yesterday was the parade, which I attended, and today is firewalking. This weekend there are Taiwanese opera performances at the temple both evenings - line up at around 4pm to get a good seat. 

I'm really excited about the photos I took yesterday, but haven't had time to sift through all 550 of them. Here's a sneak preview, with more to come tonight or tomorrow. With a pro camera that can do rapid fire shooting, I've got entire arcs of motion in some groups of photos that are just amazing, and I did a much better job of capturing motion this year than previous years.

Enjoy - with many more to come!

Those pesky gods!

First off, please don't think from these two links in a row that I actually read the China Post regularly. I am and remain a staunch Taipei Timeser (despite their disorganized articles and occasional typo-ridden headlines) - why? I agree with their political bias. Just like with the Washington Post, I know which way they lean and I'm cool with that, because I agree.

As long as one keeps in mind that the bias does exist and is willing to read news from other sources with other biases to get a better sense of the truth, that's fine.

But all that aside, this was interesting:

Lawsuit thrown out - Gods won't show as witnesses

So Chang Li-tang (former mayor of Tainan) had been active in this monastery. That's pretty normal here; I'm fairly sure my own company donates large chunks of its profits to a Buddhist monastery somewhere on the island. He posted some scriptures online and the monastery board decided that this act angered and insulted the gods. They summarily fired him, but Chang filed a suit for wrongful dismissal.

The suit was thrown out. Why? Because the court decided that they needed the gods to testify as to whether they were offended or not.

Since the gods are not likely to show up, they dismissed the case.