The Rise of a Refugee God: Hong Kong's Wong Tai Sin

by Graeme Lang, Lars Ragvald

In this case study, Graeme Lang and Lars Ragvald describe how plagues, war, revolutions, and industrialization affected the worship of the Chinese god Wong Tai Sin, and why, after his cult was extinguished within China in the 1960's, Wong Tai Sin became hugely successful in Hong Kong.
Originally a healing god, he has now become a generalist, and is consulted by anxious urbanites about love, careers and emigration.

214 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1993

Reviews

[Edward Butler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite the author's secular viewpoint, it's not hard to see the God's own hand at work in this story of the unlikely revival, persistence and success of his cult far from its place of origin and after a lengthy fallow period.