Title: Understanding Material Offerings in Hong Kong Folk Religion Author: Kagan Pittman Source: Prandium - the Journal of Historical Studies, Vol

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Title: Understanding Material Offerings in Hong Kong Folk Religion Author: Kagan Pittman Source: Prandium - The Journal of Historical Studies, Vol. 8, No. 1 (Fall, 2019). Published by: The Department of Historical Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga Stable URL: http://jps.library.utoronto.ca/index.php/prandium/article/view/16211/

The following paper was written for the University of Toronto Mississauga’s RLG415: Advanced Topics in the Study of Religion.1 In this course we explored the topics of religion and death in Hong Kong. The trip to Hong Kong occurred during the 2019 Winter semester’s Reading Week. The final project could take any form the student wished, in consultation with the instructor, Ken Derry. The project was intended to explore a question posed by the student regarding religion and death in Hong Kong and answered using a combination of material from assigned readings in the class, our own experiences during the trip, and additional independent research. As someone with a history in professional writing, I chose for my final assignment to be in essay form. I selected material offerings as my subject given my history of interest with material religion, as in the expression of religion and religious ideas through physical mediums like art, and sacrificial as well as other sacred objects.

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Material offerings are an integral part to religious expression in Hong Kong’s Buddhist, Confucian and Taoist faith groups in varying degrees. Hong Kong’s folk religious practice, referred to as San Jiao (“Unity of the Three Teachings”) by Kwong Chunwah, Assistant Professor of Practical Theology at the Hong Kong Baptist Theological Seminary, combines key elements of these three faiths and so greatly influences the significance and use of material offerings, and explains much of what I have seen in Hong Kong over the course of a nine-day trip. In this paper, I argue the nature of material offerings is rooted in a deep history that is connected between the three religious traditions of San Jiao and has evolved over the course of Hong Kong’s history to satisfy several religious and psychological needs and is in fact still evolving today.

This paper will begin with a brief review of the history of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism as it relates to their development in response to one another and their eventual amalgamation into San Jiao in Hong Kong before exploring the types of material offerings used in the folk tradition and reasons as to why they are used in such ways. My personal analysis of the subject as I experienced it in Hong Kong will be incorporated throughout to provide additional context, case examples and my own conclusions.

A Brief History of San Jiao

Leading up to the conversion of emperor Wu Di to Confucianism in around 138 BCE, the Chinese Han empire operated under a state philosophy of Taoism. The Confucian school of thought promoted a system of morals to promote order and peace within the larger state of China, creating a social hierarchy inspired by the Confucian cosmic order that applied to

1 Kagan Pittman is in his final year at UTM, having majored in Anthropology and History of Religion. He is interested in the anthropology of religion as it relates to public issues. Kagan originally wrote this paper in the Winter 2019 term. In the fall of 2020, he hopes to attend graduate studies at the University of Waterloo for Anthropology.

governments, the public, and their families.2 This philosophy was in direct competition with Taoism, which rejected human efforts to restore peace and order and instead espoused ascetism, wuwei, or effortlessness, accepting ones’ inner nature and not struggling against the chaotic currents of life.3 After the emperor’s conversion, the Chinese state adopted a Yin-Yang-Legalist- Confucian model of thought, restructuring social and political hierarchies, and promoting rites to honor “heaven, earth, ancestors, natural deities, great men [and] patrons of agriculture” using ritual music, dance, offerings and prayer for the purpose of enriching “the harmony in nature among deities and human beings, with the prospect of ensuring fertility and wealth”.4 The rites promoted a holistic understanding of the universe and its living and spiritual inhabitants, promoting a reciprocal relationship between the two groups, and so the state was refashioned as a sacred and necessary component in this new world-structure. Under Confucian rule, Taoism developed into a religion. Believers were offered self-transcendence and the chance at immortality through the worship of deities, public prayer, penance, meditation and mystic practices designed to unify humanity with the divine.5

The Han dynasty fell in 220 CE and Buddhism began to spread across China in the political turmoil. The new religion became popular in Chinese high courts, thanks to its ability to adapt to Chinese values,6 and flourished until the rise of the Neo-Confucian Sung Dynasty (960- 1279) which tried to answer metaphysical and spiritual questions, providing opportunities for moral development and self-transcendence in response to the popularity of Buddhism and Taoism. The continued development of the three religions in response to one another began to blur the lines of distinction for practitioners outside of elite circles who were not educated in the respective religion’s schools of philosophy. Believers were able to practice teachings from each faith syncretically, together in a complimentary fashion, “fulfilling social responsibility as a Confucian in active life, by reading Taoist scripture at leisure time… and at the same time offering prayers with the family in Buddhist temples for special intentions”.7 As the religions became increasingly related, San Jiao institutions began to provide simplified scriptures, ritual opportunities and congregational-style worship not available from religiously exclusive temples, and as such generated a stronger sense of belonging.8

San Jiao is the most explicitly visible popular religious tradition in Hong Kong today. An interesting distinction to note however, is the powerful influence Taoism has over Buddhism and Confucianism in the San Jiao triad in Hong Kong. Chunwah cites a study by Bartholomew P. M.

2 Kwong Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion in Post-Colonial Hong Kong: An Historical Overview of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity (New York: Peter Lang, 2002), 25. 3 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 25-26. 4 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 28. 5 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 28-29. 6 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 29-30. 7 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 31-32. 8 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 32.

Tsui on influential Chinese Taoist groups, in which he recorded the influence of Taoist practices on San Jiao:

[This Chinese popular cult tradition] governs the way of veneration, the bows and prostrations, the way of holding the joss-sticks, and the offerings to make. This tradition also dictates the hierarchy of gods, spirits and other powers, headed by the Jade Emperor. Ideas of purification and dietary rules are also provided by this tradition. The concept of merits and their acquisition by means of rituals is readily accepted as true… The function of the rituals for the dead is simply an automatic deliverance of the dead from the punishment of hell and the ascension into the pleasures of heaven.9

Furthermore, Chunwah reveals that San Jiao temples, like Wong Tai Sin Temple, are registered as members of the Hong Kong Taoist Association.10 San Jiao is organized under Taoism to promote acceptance and the “Unity of the Three Teachings”,11 as Taoism’s philosophical focus on the promotion, prolonging and nourishment of life and its natural course of development offers room for Buddhist and Confucian philosophies. Taoist beliefs in chengfu, or the inheritance of sins,12 is compatible with Confucian notions of sin erasure through honouring the deceased to clean sins from the living,13 and Buddhist understandings of karma and the generation of merit.14

Wong Tai Sin Temple, New Kowloon, Hong Kong. (Photo by Kagan Pittman) In places like Wong Tai Sin, I have seen how the histories of these three religions begin to intersect and how these intersections effect religious practice and sentiments towards material objects, like offerings. Joss money, or paper replica money, began use as an offering for the gods, spirits, and the deceased as early as the beginning of the Three Kingdoms Period from 221

9 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 70. 10 Ibid. 11 Chunwah, The Public Role of Religion, 71. 12 Cecilia Lai Wan Chan, Amy Yin Man Chow, Death, Dying and Bereavement: A Hong Kong Chinese Experience (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2006), 89. 13 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 90. 14 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 101.

to 420 CE,15 and a large variety of paper replicas of everyday objects were first used during the Song Dynasty, replacing ceramic grave goods.16 Today, such offerings and more are used for a variety of purposes, sometimes exclusively and sometimes in combination with one another.

Types of Offerings and Their Use

Over my time in Hong Kong, material offerings were made wherever a temple or shrine stood, and they came in a variety of types. Fruit, drink, incense and paper objects were all used by worshippers and in some cases in different ways, or for different reasons. Janet Lee Scott, in For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, offers an in-depth exploration of the practice of making and sacrificing paper offerings, revealing information that was not known over my trip. For example, humanoid joss paper offerings I identified as servants are known as “Honorable People Papers”, which are helpful people whose purpose is to assist the dead and even deities in a variety of tasks.17

Paper offerings found at the Fook Memorial Hall in Tai Wai, Hong Kong. (Photos by Kagan Pittman) Joss paper offerings come in a great variety of forms beyond houses, servants and cars. They also come in the forms of gold and silver ingots, coins, paper money, modern clothes, foodstuffs, caged birds, dentures and toothpaste. These kinds of offerings are popular during the Yu Lan Festival, or the Festival of the Hungry Ghosts, which takes place on the 15th day of the seventh lunar month on the Chinese calendar.18 The sacrifice of paper offerings is not exclusive

15 Janet Lee Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors: The Chinese Tradition of Paper Offerings (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007), 26. 16 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 105. 17 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 28. 18 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 50.

to mourning the deceased or during festivals but can also be done during difficult times to curry good favour, and worship with sacrifice can be performed any day of the year.19

Paper offerings are often categorized according to the entity being worshipped or appeased, whether a god, ghost or ancestor, and in some circumstances the nature of the ritual determines the types of papers used.20 For example, gold and silver paper are burned for ancestors, longevity gold paper for major deities, white money for lesser deities, ghosts and ancestors, and Hell notes or Hell Money for ghosts and ancestors.21 Even the Buddhists, surprisingly, have their own paper currency offerings called, “Towards Life Money” or “Money to Live”. This faux money is printed with red Buddhist scriptures and is used in Buddhist ceremonies to assist the soul in rebirth. Scott quotes a paper master explaining, “[It is] for those ancestors who are distant, and for those who are the newly dead, for they still suffer in Hell and need this incantation.”22 The Money to Live is typically burned during festivals or during Buddhist ceremonies in the funeral home, and relatives of the deceased may burn tens of thousands of these papers in a single funeral.23

Offerings are also arranged in ways to enhance their efficacy, which can vary between worshippers.24 Scott provides one example:

The assemblages for the gods are designed to simultaneously ask the deity for assistance and express gratitude for favors, hence, all contain Longevity Gold and Honorable People Papers because all worshippers want the gods to bless them with a longer life and more helpful people to assist them during that long life. These assemblages also contain clothing, and White Money, which the deities need to help other unfortunate souls.25

The style of paper offerings has changed over time to reflect what is presently in demand, like car models and fashion, but what has not changed is that most paper offerings and incense must be burnt in their entirety to effectively leave the living world and reach the deceased, although today they are burned simultaneously, rather than by one according to older traditions.26 Some paper offerings are not burned, but “scattered for troublesome ghosts (White Money), pasted or hung into position for ancestors and gods (charms), reverently returned to the temple (Pinwheels), presented as offerings of respect, gratitude, or adornment for the gods (Golden Flowers),” or left on the top of gravestones, like Red Money and Mountain Money.27 Charms for good luck are not always burned, but the ashes of some are consumed in a tea, and Golden

19 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 3. 20 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 24. 21 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 27. 22 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 30. 23 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 31. 24 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 40. 25 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 39-40. 26 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 20, 34. 27 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 35.

Flowers and Pinwheels used to be burned but now aren’t.28 Scott describes that the fire which burns offerings possesses a transformative power that “translates” the paper offering into their representation, and the smoke transfers the offering to the entity which they are offered to.29

Domestic worship includes the offering of incense, flowers and food, with variations between households in the use of each – families may or may not offer flowers or food and use varying amounts of incense for particular deities and ancestors being worshipped.30 Further variations and complications arise if the worship is performed on a holiday .31 During my experience in Hong Kong, objects like fruit, flowers and drinks were used as offerings for deities in miniature shrines by store fronts, as well as within the Buddhist Tsz Shan Monastery.

Offerings to a deity of the land seen in Pichic Bay, Lamma Island, Hong Kong, versus offerings made to a Buddha in Tsz Shan Monastery, Ting Kok, Hong Kong. (Photos by Kagan Pittman) This use of incense is also consistent with what we saw in how individuals used incense before temple altars, offering the essence of the smoke to deities, spirits of the land and other entities. Fruit was likewise offered in the funeral home, temples, monasteries and shrines. Dr. Jue Tao, a monk at the Tsz Shan Monastery, described how for Buddhists the offering of fruit served a dual purpose as not only an offering, but that the seeds of the fruit reminded one about the seeds of karma.32 The planting of good seeds in offering to the deceased, deities and other spirits can generate good karma for both the living and the dead. Dr. Tao’s temple, as well as others on the trip admitted to no longer using incense or using significantly less of it as offerings for environmental purposes, but worshippers don’t suffer a loss in cases like this because the meaning behind material offerings has changed over time and continues to do so.

28 Ibid. 29 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 20. 30 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 43. 31 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 44. 32 Dr. Jue Tao, interview with author, Tsz Shan Monastery, Ting Kok, Hong Kong, February 21, 2019.

Why Offerings are Made and How They Work

Scott quotes Arthur Wolfe’s 1974 essay as describing how the gods are part of a supernatural bureaucracy, “reflecting its earthly imperial counterpart.”33 Although worshippers are not always clear about why they make offerings, some say the gods need these items to aid souls and so offerings are a form of charity and that the gods will return to them what they have offered in useful forms, e.g. faux wealth for real wealth.34 In my readings of Death, Dying and Bereavement by Cecilia Chan and Amy Chow I learned about how the Chinese struggle to articulate their feelings and as a result are known to somatise or physically manifest their feelings of stress and anxiety, and deal with emotions like grief through ritual and other activities.35 In this way, ritual functions to bring closure to the living, simultaneously allowing them and their deceased relatives an opportunity to move on. What is important though is that for the deceased to be installed in the position of an ancestor, and not a hungry ghost, the family must complete purification rites through ritual.36

Ghosts are distinct from ancestors, in that they are like beggars in the world of the living, without family to give them offerings – as such ghosts are typically trouble makers who require appeasement.37 Offerings are the most significant part of funeral rites according to Scott, who notes the deceased as dependents, needing the family to supply the necessary goods and money for a satisfying afterlife or payment before rebirth.38 My experience of the Temple of 100 Names was evocative of this fact, in that people would come to honor deceased individuals they likely don’t even know, leaving offerings of paper money and incense to help lost souls find some peace. In one video recording, I witness a practitioner making offers of incense, bowing and reciting prayers under his breath on behalf of some spirit unknown to me.

33 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 80. 34 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 81. 35 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 2. 36 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 70. 37 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 91. 38 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 104.

Worshipper practicing at the Temple of 100 Names in Tai Pint Shan, Hong Kong. (Video by Kagan Pittman) It is believed that upon arrival in the afterlife, the dead need money to pay a ransom demanded by the “King of Hell” for the soul’s release, as everyone pays to be born into this world with a loan from the bank of the underworld; the paper money burned at funerals and in offering is “symbolic of the merits of the living whose acts of love and giving are like banknotes in hell, drawing interest to free the souls of the deceased into eternal life.”39 Scott describes five themes influencing the use of paper currency: (1) “the perceived superiority of imitations over real objects,” (2) “the need to burn offerings,” (3) “the division of sacrifices into those within and those outside the house,” (4) the one-year effectiveness of rites,” (5) “and the belief that spirits of the dead are always hungry and require offerings.”40 Chow informed us that the nature of incense as an offering provides a form of food or source of energy for the deceased’s spirit,41 and to give these offerings is a charitable act which Scott notes eases the suffering of hungry ghosts and those who died violently.42 When asked what the gods did with such offerings, Scott found no consistent answer, but that “benefits” were redistributed back to the worshipper, meaning paper money would find its way back to the worshipper as real money.43

Dr. Tao described how the offering of fruit served a dual purpose as not only an offering, but that the seeds of the fruit reminded one about the seeds of karma and that in planting good seeds through making offerings one can generate good karma for both the living and the dead.44 For Buddhists, “habitual actions leave behind potentialities of mental and physical constructs in the form of karmic force, which serves as the driving force for their rebirth,” however it is the last thought of this life that determines ones’ next life.45 If the deceased were to reincarnate

39 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 26. 40 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 27. 41 Amy Yin Man Chow, interview with the author, Hong Kong University, Lung Fu Shan, Hong Kong, February 19, 2019. 42 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 21. 43 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 21-22. 44 Dr. Jue Tao, interview with author, Tsz Shan Monastery, Ting Kok, Hong Kong, February 21, 2019. 45 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 97.

instantly upon death, the giving of offerings to the deceased would be pointless, but when exactly the deceased transitions into their next life is a matter of speculation.46 Furthermore, the giving of offerings takes on greater meaning within the San Jiao triad, providing opportunities for merit-making, development of good karma, and redistribution by the gods back to the living. For Buddhists, offerings do not need to be made to just the dead or the gods to help the deceased find a better rebirth. The giving of offerings to monks on the behalf of the deceased is an act generating good merit. Chan and Chow cite the story of Moggallana, who discovered that his mother was reborn in a realm of misery, and so was advised by the Buddha to make offerings to the monks which relieved the suffering of his mother and every sentient being in the realms of misery – inspiring the holiday of the Hungry Ghosts Festival.47

For Taoists, there is a belief that the spirit of the deceased will intervene on behalf of the living, or if left to become a hungry ghost cause great misfortune for their negligent family, and that the sins of the dead can be inherited by the living family (chengfu).48 Paper offerings can be made to appease hostile spirits and ghosts which cause bad luck, illness and other harmful conditions,49 or used to obtain good luck, blessings and affluence,50 or protection from uncertainty and harmful influence.51 An almanac, the Tung Shing, informs one what offerings to use, and vendors prepare packages of necessary paper offerings with some variance determined by the sex and age of the worshipper.52 The Confucians are not so clear about the state of the dead as they do not detail a specific idea of an underworld,53 and instead are more concerned with proper living. As such, the giving of offerings is likely seen as an acceptable superstition in its therapeutic assistance for the sufferer.

Conclusion

Chan and Chow state in Death, Dying and Bereavement that they had not found other parts in the traditional death rituals of Hong Kong elements that encouraged a continuity of relationship between the bereaved and the deceased.54 I believe that the giving of offerings to one’s ancestors is exactly what they claimed to not have found – the prayers toward and offerings given to ones’ ancestors, whether for blessings or to improve the deceased’s afterlife directly results in a continuation of the relationship in the form of give-and-take. Scott also proposes a similar understanding advocating the maintenance of relationships through concern of wellbeing.55 Chan and Chow make note of how traditional funeral services in Hong Kong are not

46 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 100. 47 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 101. 48 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 89. 49 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 54. 50 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 64. 51 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 73. 52 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 56-57. 53 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 90. 54 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 78. 55 Scott, For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors, 4.

intended to deal with psychological matters relating to grief and loss, citing the modern simplification of the mourning process as a hurdle to the bereavement process.56 I admit the simplification of funeral rites in Hong Kong would have a negative impact on the grieving process, but I argue that the continued relationship with the deceased in the give-and-take of offering sacrifice acts as a supplement in which the grieving can feel at ease knowing that in giving offerings to their ancestors they know that the deceased can receive what they need and rest in peace. In this way, living family are directly involved in the betterment of their ancestor’s afterlife. This therapeutic effect however, does not imply that some form of counselling may not be necessary.

A shrine space constructed by a group of "Villain Hitters" stationed by Times Square in Bowrington, Hong Kong, depicting images of Guan Yin, the Buddha, and a collection of Taoist gods, with offerings of fruit, drink, and incense. (Photo by Kagan Pittman) In the larger picture, we see how through the history of San Jiao, the nature of material offerings has been an integral part of coexisting and increasingly syncretic religions, evolving in meaning. It is through the religious intersection of Buddhism, Confucianism and Taoism that material offerings have become integral elements in the religious expression of a culture that is so concerned with notions of wealth, comfortable living, family ties, the afterlife, and rebirth in better circumstances. Material offerings manifest in different ways depending on which tradition of the triad one focuses on most, but when considered within the scheme of the whole of Hong Kong’s folk religion, material offerings, no matter what their form, are designed for use in a give-and-take relationship with the divine and the deceased in a hierarchical system in which everyone is looking to prosper, find self transcendence, and above all, maintain kinship ties that run deep in Hong Kong and Chinese culture.

Bibliography

56 Chan, Chow, Death, Dying, and Bereavement, 78.

Chan, Cecilia Lai Wan, Amy Yin Man Chow. 2006. Death, Dying and Bereavement: A Hong Kong Chinese Experience. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press.

Chow, Amy Yin Man. February 19, 2019. Interview with the author. Hong Kong University, Lung Fu Shan, Hong Kong.

Chunwah, Kwong. 2002. The Public Role of Religion in Post-Colonial Hong Kong: An Historical Overview of Confucianism, Taoism, Buddhism, and Christianity. New York: Peter Lang.

Dr. Tao, Jue. February 21, 2019. Interview with author. Tsz Shan Monastery, Ting Kok, Hong Kong.

Scott, Janet Lee. 2007. For Gods, Ghosts and Ancestors: The Chinese Tradition of Paper Offerings. Seattle: University of Washington Press.