Andre > Recent Status Updates

Ciji is an NGO? I am pretty sure that this is not how I first encountered the term but it does feel familiar.

His statements about how Taiwan changed in the 20th century seems oddly Han specific, the Aboriginal people are completely ommited. In fact he jumps from the dutch all the while... sort of, to the japanese and then kmt period. The Qing times are entirely ignored.

His understanding of chinese and taiwanese culture draws upon 1 year in mainland china and years in Taiwan? If I were him, I would have said, I know barely anything about chinese culture then. I mean, just in the 20th century alone these two countries must have diverged massively. Due to its island status, Taiwan probably already diverged alot during the Qing reign.

So the belief in fetus ghosts was still present in 1995. I thought it had vanished at that point.

Great... the last chapter was boring as well.

Finally, the conclusion chapter!!!

Did the Unity Sect originate in the republic or why does it say after 1930? Or did it originate during the japanese period?

Boy, this is really boring now.

This touching of a dragon statues' eye with water or rooster blood reminds me of a taiwan practice today where the pupil of a dragon is painted on before the dance begins.

This dragon possession really sounds rather silly to be honest if one woman was the head and the other the tail of the dragon and both were running around.

What does he mean by saying most chinese are skeptical about pai-luan and that it is a taste mainly of the native-oriented and principally of the less educated? Is he saying something against Taiwanese? Because he suddenly talks about Taiwanese and no longer Chinese.

No wonder being a chi wielder was such a good deal for her once her children were old enough.

Yep, that father sounds really sexist. After all, she raised money herself so why give it for her brothers for study.

Done

Were the Boxers really never anti-Qing as this claims?

So now the book is at the sorcery scares with all the que-cutting and apparently the stolen souls were used to animate paper creatures again.

So alot of these transcripts aren't truly transcripts because their vernicular is too high literature and Qing courts relied on confession instead of proof and lots of coercion and fear of torture already created false confession.

Is he talking about the sorcery scares that were present in the Qing empire or some other mass panic?

I really need to keep in mind that religious persecution did exist in the Ming empire and Christianity was just considered another white lotus teaching.

This venerable mother reminds me of the golden mother from some taiwanese sects.

So transcripts of investigations were rare until the mid-18th century and opening the coast for trade led to an improvement for the lower Yangzi region and Fujian, which the literati considered moral decline, even though it was simply so that the society became more complex

years of the apocalypse, chosen people, messianic... boy, that sounds familiar.
And yes, sometimes magicians were outright killed by the people and not given to the authorities.

Was there ever a Patriarch Ma who caused all these spells or was it more of a folkloric/fictional person?

The whole thing about these flying objects called black disasters sounds like people were basically panicking. And if they believed magicians to be responsible for them, I wonder whether there were any lynchings.

So in 1557 there was one outburst of fear due to flying objects called the Black Disasters. Those Disasters were said to be able to transform into all kinds of creatures and by 1557 were thought to be paper objects created by magicians.

So, over time the name White Lotus Teachings was repeatedly associated with rebellion, despicable magical techniques, dangerous millenarian teachings (not only Maitreyism) and even the karma mirror technique. and they may have been attributed to the accused people until much later.

Does this book deal primarily with the northern parts of the Ming empire? Seems like it currently.

A woman called Tang Saier inspired and led an uprising in 1420 that spread to several other counties? And allegedly she was a devout buddhist, recited sutras, predicted the future and could make paper figures come alive. And apparently that makes her nothing more than a successful religious teacher with temporary following and did not have any real organization of lay believers to support her.

Self-mutilation by buddhist monks was common throughout the history of buddhism in china and conctinued to be so during the ming and qing? Wow.

So Maitreyism had played a large role in the fall of the Yuan.