Chapter 5 Localization and Chinese Religion

Religion follows migrants via their cognition, memory and reenactment. Thus, there is cultural continuity along with the transformation due to cogni- tive interaction with local cultures and local interpretations, a transformation that is part of a wide-ranging cultural process that I refer to as localization. In the Chinese Religion of Malaysia, this process stands out in the worship of the Chinese Tudi Shen (Earth God) and of the localized Sino-Malayan guard- ian deity called Lnadokgong (in Hokkien) and Nadu Gong (in Mandarin). The localization process stems from the immigrants’ cultural interaction with the indigenous people, with immigrants from nations other than China, and with different Chinese speech groups encountered here in this new land. In China these speech groups historically live in separate counties or provinces, but in Southeast Asia they may live in the same city. Side by side, they still main- tain their respective speech-group identities, with the groups influencing each other culturally while remaining distinct.

The Earth God

Tudi Shen has its origin in the ancient Chinese worship of sheji (gods of earth and grain) and tudi (earth god). C. K. Yang points out that sheji was “the theistic symbol of the feudal state” and that tudi was the patron of the local commu- nity (Yang 1961, 97), although the ordinary people came to regard the two as the same. By the Han dynasty (206 BC–AD 220), the she (altar of the earth) “was universally found in all counties, villages, towns, and neighborhoods” (Yang 1961, 98). Today, in rural Hong Kong and in Guangdong, it is still common to find the communal shrine of she, sheji or tudishen, all meaning Earth God. In Malaysia, I came across two shrines that specifically honor sheji. Both bear the characters benfang sheji zhi shen (本坊社稷之神) or “the god of sheji of the local area,” meaning the local community. Both are in Sabah: at Bao Gong Temple (包公庙) in Kota Kinabalu, and at Liesheng Gong (列圣宫) in Sandakan. The former temple’s patron deity is, of course, Bao Zheng (999– 1062), the righteous judge of the Northern Song dynasty, who was deified and known affectionately as Bao Gong. The latter temple honors a host of deities including Dabogong, Guandi, Mazu and a few others, hence the temple’s name of Liesheng Gong, or Temple of Various Saints. At both temples, the shrines

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2018 | doi 10.1163/9789004357877_006 Localization and Chinese Religion 63 for sheji are made of concrete and built outside the temples. Beside the sheji shrine at Bao Gong Temple, there is a smaller shrine stage right to the first, one that includes a stone slab bearing the characters taishan shigandang zhi shen (泰山石敢当之神, the god Shigandang of Taishan). Such an altar serves to ward off evils. At the sheji altar in Sandakan, there is a couplet that reads feng- tiao yushun, guotai min’an (with timely wind and rain, the country and people have peace), indicating the sheji function of blessing prosperity and peace for the local community. In Taiwan, the Earth God is widely worshipped in temples, while in the fields and the wild there are small shrines of tudi. In both Taiwan and main- land China, the Earth God worshipped in the temple and at home is known as Fude Zhengshen (the God of Blessing and Virtues),1 the statue of which is normally represented by a bearded old man holding a dragon staff (longzhang, which symbolizes status and power) in his right hand and an ingot (Chinese money) in his left hand. In Malaysia and Singapore, Fude Zhenshen is one of the major deities wor- shipped in temples and at home. However, the Chinese in these countries popularly call this deity Da Bogong (大伯公, Elder Uncle God), or Duabehgong in Hokkien and Teochew. There has been some discussion about the origin of this term of address (e.g., Rao 1952; Xu 1952; Sakai 1981; Cai 1996), and I have discussed the Hakka origin of the term (Chen, Zhiming 2000), as the Hakka in mainland China and in Taiwan call the Earth God Bogong and Dabogong. In Malaysia and Singapore, the Hokkien and Teochew must have adopted the Hakka term to address the Earth God, being familiar with the term as kinship term referring to an elder patrilateral uncle. The southern Fujian people in mainland China and Taiwan do not address Fude Zhengshen as Dabogong, so the use of the label in Southeast Asia is a local development arising from cul- tural interaction among Chinese speech groups. In Kelantan (the state close to Thailand), Duabehgong (Dabogong) is also known by the Hokkien there as Buntaogong (本头公, God of Locality). This is the popular address for the earth god used by the Teochew in Thailand. In Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, Dabogong also refers to deified Chinese pioneers, and in this respect the use of a kinship term is most rel- evant, as in Dabogong (Eldest Bogong), Erbogong (Second Bogong) and so on.

1 In my earlier writings, I have translated Fude Zhengshen as “Righteous God of Blessings and Virtues.” It is difficult to translate the term zhengshen. Shen means “god,” while zheng means “righteous,” “true,” “patron” or “the major one,” as in the major deity honored in a temple, and so on. It seems to me zhengshen here means more “the god.” Thus, I now translate the deity’s name as the God of Blessing and Virtues.