FROM FLESH TO FANTASY: CONTEMPORARY CONCEPTIONS OF THE CHINESE AFTERLIFE ...

634 Pages·2009·17.15 MB·English

FROM FLESH TO FANTASY: CONTEMPORARY CONCEPTIONS OF THE
CHINESE AFTERLIFE IN SPIRIT-TRAVELOGUES AND MYTHOLOGICAL
THEME PARKS

A Dissertation
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of Cornell University
In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy

by
Brian Gosper Brereton
February 2010
© 2010 Brian Gosper Brereton
FROM FLESH TO FANTASY: CONTEMPORARY CONCEPTIONS OF THE
CHINESE AFTERLIFE IN SPIRIT-TRAVELOGUES AND MYTHOLOGICAL
THEME PARKS

Brian Gosper Brereton, Ph. D.
Cornell University 2010

My dissertation analyzes the influence of conceptions and representations of
the religious afterlife on individual and collective action in contemporary Taiwan. The
critical study of representations of the Chinese afterlife has occurred almost
exclusively in their anthropological locus classicus: the ancestral tablet, funerary
ritual, and the underworld (Ahern 1973; Wolf 1974; Cohen 1988). My research, which
builds on these foundtional inquiries, focuses on two alternative and fecund fields of
otherworldly (re)production and representation: recent textual depictions of the
afterlife and mythological theme parks. In this study, I will address both textual
sources and ethnographic data to launch an inquiry into three key research questions
concerning conceptions of the afterlife in Taiwan today: namely, (1) the struggle
between individual desire and collective concerns, (2) the applicability and
adaptability of traditional models of the religious afterlife, and (3) the processes by
which representations of the afterlife illuminate and influence contemporary social
systems. My analytical framework – inspired by practice theory, psychoanalytic
thought, and psychological anthropology – illuminates an otherwise overlooked
integrity in conventional Chinese conceptions of the afterlife and reveals the emotional
correlates of their continuities and changes in current Taiwanese society.
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH

Brian Gosper Brereton currently resides in California with his wife Emily and
daughter Siena. Upon completion of his dissertation he plans on seeking employment
with the federal government or in the field of applied anthropology.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my parents, Bruce and Lisa, and wife, Emily, for their continued
support while writing this dissertation. I would also like to thank my three doctoral
committee members, Professors P. Steven Sangren, David Holmberg, and Jane Marie
Law, for their guidance and thoughtful instruction. Cornell University provided
continual financial support, in the form of Sage Fellowships, Teaching Assistantships,
Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies Travel Grants, and a Hu Shih
Memorial Award. My language skills were honed while supported by a Foreign
Language Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship and my ethnographic research was funded
by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Award and an Aisiang
Cultural Foundation Su Tian-shui Memorial Fellowship (Jinian Su Tianshui xiansheng
nanying xue yanjiu jiang 紀念蘇添水先生南瀛學研究獎). I would also like to
acknowledge the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange
(Jiang Jingguo guoji xueshu jiaoliu jijinhui 蔣經國國際學術交流基金會) for
providing the Dissertation Fellowship which allowed me to finish my research.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH iii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iv
TABLE OF CONTENTS v
INTRODUCTION 1

PART I: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE AFTERLIFE 6
CHAPTER 1: INVESTIGATING ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGION 7
CHAPTER 2: ANTHROPOLOGY AND RELIGIOUS CONCEPTIONS OF THE
AFTERLIFE 36

Part II: A CRITICAL HISTORY OF THE CHINESE AFTERLIFE 72
CHAPTER 3: HISTORICAL CONCEPTIONS OF HELL 76
CHAPTER 4: HISTORICALCONCEPTIONS OF PARADISE 100
CHAPTER 5: POPULAR CHINESE LITERATURE 136

Part III: CONTEMPORARY CONCEPTIONS OF THE CHINESE AFTERLIFE 162
CHAPTER 6: TEXTUAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE AFTERLIFE 166
CHAPTER 7: PHYSICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE AFTERLIFE 222
CHAPTER 8: CONCLUSION 256

APPENDIX 274
BIBLIOGRAPHY 603

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INTRODUCTION
My dissertation analyzes the influence of conceptions and representations of
the religious afterlife on individual and collective action in contemporary Taiwan. The
critical study of representations of the Chinese afterlife has occurred almost
exclusively in their anthropological locus classicus: the ancestral tablet, funerary
ritual, and the underworld (Ahern 1973; Wolf 1974; Cohen 1988). My research, which
builds on these foundational inquiries, focuses on two alternative and fecund fields of
otherworldly (re)production and representation: recent textual depictions and
mythological theme parks. In this study, I will address both textual sources and
ethnographic data to launch an inquiry into three key research questions concerning
conceptions of the afterlife in Taiwan today: namely, (1) the struggle between
individual desire and collective concerns, (2) the applicability and adaptability of
traditional models of the religious afterlife, and (3) the processes by which
representations of the afterlife illuminate and influence contemporary social systems.
My analytical framework is inspired by practice theory (Bakhtin 1981;
Bourdieu 1977; Vygotsky 1962), psychoanalytic thought (Freud 1961; Lacan 1977;
Klein 1986), and psychological anthropology (Ewing 1997; Obeyesekere 1981). By
“practice theory,” epitomized by Pierre Bourdieu (1977) and his concept of socialized
subjectivity or “habitus,” I mean an articulation of the ways in which individual
identity is both product of, and continually produced by, collective social forms.
While practice theory aspires to allow for individual agency within society, the
concept of habitus has been criticized (Fowler 1997) as inadequate to the task of
delineating fully how individual desire and interest motivates social action.
Psychoanalysis, unjustly criticized as just priapic preoccupation or biological
reductionism, promises a means to push beyond practice theory toward a deeper
understanding of how individuals are recruited to the values of their culture. This
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accommodation of practice theory and psychoanalysis will provide a lens into the on-
going dialectic between individual daily life and persistent collective meanings. This
mode of inquiry should illuminate an otherwise overlooked integrity in conventional
Chinese religion and reveal the emotional correlates of its continuities and changes in
current Taiwanese society.
The expressive social importance of Chinese representations of heaven and
hell has attracted the attention of several scholars (Song 1982; Eberhard 1967; Gómez
1996). Yet to date, none of these studies have focused on the means by which such
tales are produced. My investigation proposes to address this hiatus by focusing
specifically on the processes and participants that presently produce these imaginaries.
Taiwan is a densely populated nation where citizens constantly confront moral
dilemmas and personal frustrations, impelled in part by social and political tensions.
These historically particular tensions – along with others of a more general duration
focusing on the family and individual existential concerns – all, I hypothesize,
constitute part of the social milieu from which contemporary representations of the
afterlife are created. But to assert this is one thing, while to show how this comes to be
is another. The combination of textual and ethnographic information I propose to
analyze can contribute uniquely and significantly to precisely such a demonstration.

Spirit-Travelogues
My ethnographic fieldwork, funded by a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation
Research Award and an Aisiang Cultural Foundation Su Tian-shui Memorial
Fellowship (Jinian Su Tianshui xiansheng nanying xue yanjiu jiang
紀念蘇添水先生南瀛學研究獎), commenced with an investigation of contemporary
textual and visual depictions of the afterlife in Taiwan. I focused primarily on the
adherents of a popular religious temple in Taizhong called the Hall of the Sages and
Worthies (Shengxian tang 聖賢堂). These devotees and their former spiritual guide,
2
Yang Zanru, produced two of the most popular morality books in Taiwan today,
Record of a Journey to the Underworld (Diyu youji 地獄遊記) and Record of a
Journey to the Halls of Heaven (Tiantang youji 天堂遊記).1 Morality books (Jordan
and Overmyer 1986; Katz 1999; Duyvendak 1952) have long been distributed for free
and serve as primers on social responsibility for many Taiwanese. These two popular
texts detail horrific punishments throughout sixty-two journeys to purgatory and
magnificent rewards during thirty-six trips to paradise. Though the author, Yang, has
subsequently left this temple to establish a Chan Buddhist monastery nearby, he has
recently illustrated Journey to the Underworld in popular comic book style and still
visits the afterlife at the request of his new parishioners. Taiwan‟s largest Buddhist
monastery, the Light of Buddha Mountain (Foguang shan 佛光山), has also recently
launched publication of a series of religious comic books which feature brutal battles
between muscle-bound monks and despicable demons.
The creators of these texts and artistic representations constantly level
conservative critiques against an ever-modernizing nation (Clart 2005; Pas 1989). In
depictions of purgatory, adult fans of provocative pop music are attacked by enormous
bees, irresponsible drivers are forced by menacing demons to drag heavy carts up
rocky hills in a supernatural Department of Motor Vehicles, and dance hall patrons are
forced to dance on searing-hot iron floors. In representations of paradise, humble and
agriculturally-employed citizens quickly ascend to heaven while haughty residents of
skyscrapers are portrayed as trapped within tombs of iron and steel. These collective
concerns – which clearly express a fear of the future and longing for the past – are best
characterized in the popular saying, “People‟s hearts are not what they once were”

1 While an English translation of Journey to the Underworld is already available, I recently completed a
260-page translation of Journey to the Halls of Heaven (which I intend to make available to the
Taiwanese temple from which it originated and all interested scholars).

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(renxin bugu 人心不古). Yet this collective will often collides with individual desire.
During Yang‟s eighth journey to purgatory, his guide waves a magical rush-leaf fan2
to open the foreboding gates of hell. Yang exclaims, “My dear master, can you please
give me your magic fan to use on earth? I will show people my magic power by using
your fan.” Yang is quickly admonished: “You must not indulge in vain hopes and
immoral thoughts. Why then do you want to ask for my fan? Do you want to show
off?” (Yang 1978:39). Though the creators of these textual and visual depictions
attempt to carefully tread the path between moral education and popular
entertainment, what repercussions are caused by modeling religious figures on brutal
and tawdry comic superheroes?

Mythological Theme Parks
The second ethnographic focus of my dissertation is on Taiwan‟s three
mythological theme parks: the Prefecture that Represents Heaven (Daitian fu 代天府)
in Madou, the Palace of Southern Heaven (Nantian gong 南天宮) in Zhanghua, and
the Pure Land Cave (Qingtu dong 清土洞) at the Light of Buddha Mountain. These
mythological theme parks feature garish sculptural depictions of the afterlife and are
supervised by elderly temple personnel who collect mandatory “donations” and run
each scene‟s animatronics for dating couples who ascend into paradise and rowdy
groups of high-school and college-aged boys, who typically descend to visit
purgatory. Physical representations of the afterlife as tourist destinations are not a new
phenomenon in China. Stone grottoes featuring similar scenes of heaven and hell date
back to before the Tang dynasty (McNair 2000; Kucera 2005) and temples with
mechanized demons have been said to actually scare their visitors to death.3 Until

2 Reminiscent of the fan that Monkey stole in the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West.
3 Goodrich (1964) writes of a popular tale near the start of the 20th century which maintained that a
visitor to Beijing‟s Temple of Eighteen Hells (Shiba diyumiao 十八地獄廟) died from fright when a
demon, mechanically activated by temple personnel, caught his foot as if to drag him to hell.
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