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Home , Ancestor, Anqing, Chinese patriarchy, Ling (Chinese religion), Popular belief, Qimen County

Political and Religious Beliefs in a Ritual of Ancestor in Huizhou,

THESIS

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Wei Liu

Graduate Program in East Asian Languages and Literatures

The Ohio State University

2017

Thesis Committee:

Mark A. Bender, Advisor

Meow Hui Goh

Copyrighted by

Wei Liu

2017

Abstract

Ancestor worship is a common in , China and its relevant ritual practices constitute an important part of local popular . It is now experiencing revival along with a flourishing of popular religion across mainland China in the wake of the reform era. Cultural and religious researchers have generated much interest in this widespread social phenomenon. They explain it as an attempt to fill a “spiritual vacuum” or simply as an effort to garner political and economic benefits. But I argue that we should avoid lumping a great variety of beliefs and practices together under the name of

“popular religion,” trying to explain them as a whole. Instead, we must address the variety of form and theoretical significance of these practices. Examination of a particular form of local ritual can yield new and different insights into a of cultural and social values behind it. This paper studies the symbolic meanings of the objects and behaviors in a style of ritual performance of ancestor worship in a small village of Huizhou area in eastern China. To analyze the symbolic meanings of this ritual and its social meanings, I use the performance approach and social analysis of ideological discourse to point out that there are religious and political intertwined and embodied in these performances. Therefore, the revival of ancestor worship is actually a move to reenact the ancient Confucian tradition of respecting ancestors and its myth of kingly governance and, thus, to cause common people to comply with the dominant political power in the ii modern context. My analysis facilitates the understanding of the vernacular aspect of

Confucian ritual practices in terms of its role in carrying on the tradition, negotiating with the dominant official discourse and maintaining social cohesion.

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Dedication

For my , Mingxia 明霞, who loves me unreservedly

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Acknowledgments

There are many people to whom I would like to express my gratitude for their help during the process of writing this thesis. First and foremost, I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Mark Bender, for his patient guidance, thought-provoking ideas, inspiring suggestions, and tireless efforts in revising the draft of my thesis. Not only has he imparted knowledge but he also has cared about my health, which moves me deeply. I also want to thank Dr. Meow Hui Goh, my committee member, for her helpful comments and criticisms, which have prodded me to think more deeply. Her literature class enabled me to experiment with various theoretical frameworks and analyze the Chinese literature that informs the practices I studied. I must also thank Dr. Amy Shuman, Dr. Kirk Denton, and Dr. Hugh Urban for their valuable advice and beneficial teaching methods. I am grateful to the teachers and scholars in the 227th Annual Meeting of American Oriental

Society for their close attention to my project and advice for further research. I am indebted to all these enshi 恩師 great teachers who have shaped me.

In addition, as the Chinese goes, “When you , don’t forget those who dug the well” (heshui buwang dajingren 喝水不忘打井人). Most of all, I thank people in Qimen, Anhui. When I did my fieldwork there, they welcomed me

v warmly and hosted me considerately. They were willing to provide any help I needed and all the I asked for. They cherished the tradition, carried it on and wanted it to be known. My heart was constantly touched by their kindness and hospitality. At last, I am grateful to my mother who has supported me all through my life.

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Vita

Born February 20, 1990………………...…………………………………….Anhui, China

2008-2012…………………………………………………………..B.A.

2013-2015………………………………………………………….M.A. Anhui University

2016-Present…………………………………………………………..Teaching Associate, Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures, The Ohio State University

Fields of Study

Major Field: East Asian Languages and Literatures

Area of Interest: Chinese Literature, Oral Performance, , and Local

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Table of Contents

Abstract ...... ii

Dedication ...... iv

Acknowledgments ...... v

Vita ...... vii

List of Figures ...... x

Chapter 1 Introduction ...... 1

Chapter 2 Literature Review ...... 11

2.1 Performance Approach and Sociological Perspective ...... 11

2.2 Chinese Folk Beliefs and Practices ...... 15

2.2.1 Ancestor Worship in China ...... 15

2.2.2 Popular ...... 21

2.2.3 Temple Worship in Huizhou ...... 27

Chapter 3 Contextualized Description of the Ritual Performance ...... 34

3.1 Cultural Context of the Performance ...... 35

3.2 Situational Context of the Performance ...... 44

viii

Chapter 4 Ritual Process in the Ancestral Hall ...... 57

4.1 Setting of the Ritual...... 57

4.2 A Basic Understanding of Keys to Performance ...... 61

4.3 Transition in and Formation of a ...... 72

Chapter 5 Symbolic Social Constructs of Ritual Performance ...... 84

5.1 Sentiments of and Estrangement ...... 85

5.2 Politics of Myth ...... 89

5.3 Counter-myth in Social ...... 93

Conclusion ...... 96

Bibliography ...... 101

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List of Figures

Figure 1. The imperial edict……………………………………………………………...47

Figure 2. The government edict………………………………………………………….48

x

Chapter 1 Introduction

China has a long and rich culture of ancestor worship. towards ancestors has been a significant part of Chinese life and is continuously shaping religious beliefs and social behavior. While some scholars have studied ancestral memory in early or premodern China and tried to interpret the cultural towards ancestors by delving into ancient classical texts, far less research touches upon modern practices of ancestor worship.1 This is understandable, since after the People’s Republic of China was founded (1949), worshipping ancestral spirits was labeled as superstitious activity, and, along with , was once weeded out with feudalism.2 The New Culture movement (1920s-30s) and the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) both created ruptures of the continuity of ancestral tradition. However, by looking closer at the Chinese modern context of reviving in local in modern China, we can see that ancestor worship is a fundamental concern in the of many Chinese, in Huizhou area, which my study focuses on. As Lakos notes, ancestor worship, as practiced among contemporary Chinese people, “reinforces core social relationships and values.”3

1 K.E. Brashier, Ancestral Memory in Early China (Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Asian Center and Harvard University Press, 2011). 2 Bryan S. Turner, The Religious and the Political: A Comparative (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 7. 3 William Lakos, Chinese Ancestor Worship: A Practice and Ritual Oriented Approach to Understanding (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010), 3. 1

After addressing the importance of ancestor worship, we still face the cultural complexities of this term, which has an overarching role in governing people’s customs and manners. The ritual of ancestor worship in modern China is defined as “popular religious beliefs and practices carried out by ordinary people in their homes and villages, constituting the basic support for traditional society, culture and values.”4 These beliefs vary from region to region and can lend insight into social conditions in a specific region and large sectors of the Chinese population, as well. There is no uniform or clear-cut definition for “popular religion.” In other words, both Chinese and foreign scholars hold many opinions and ideas about popular religion, reflecting a variety of theoretical backgrounds. For instance, Chinese scholar Jin Ze defines popular religion as

“rooted in the broad mass of the people, along with the expression of this belief in an action. It arises spontaneously out of local cultures and bears the characteristics of the simple and the original. Popular belief is characterized, as regards the forms of its organization, by primitive religion.”5 Another scholar Bing’an does not recognize popular belief as religion.6 There have been many discussions on treating popular religion as or local cultural expressions. For instance, Sinologist

Hetmanczyk argues that the status of popular religion hinges, to a large extent, on the evaluation of local party cadres who decide whether the popular-religious activities are

4 Lizhu Fan, “Popular Religion in Contemporary China,” Social Compass, 50.4(2003): 450. 5 Jin Ze 金澤, “Guanzhu minjian Xinyang de san zhong quxiang 關注民間信仰的三種取向 [Three Tendencies in Looking at Popular Belief],” in Xinyang zhijian de zhongyao xiangyu 信仰之間的重要相遇 (Important Encounters Between Forms of Belief), eds. Zhuo Xin ping 卓新平 Bo Ling 柏玲 and Wei Keli 魏克利 (: Zongjiao wenhua. 2005), 290. 6 Monika Gaenssbauer, Popular Belief in Contemporary China: A Discourse Analysis (Bochum/Freiburg: Projekt Verlag, 2015), 58. 2 labeled as feudal superstitions or classified under the label “traditional culture.”7

Therefore, “popular religion” is used in academic spheres to indicate a wide range of noninstitutionalized religious activities and beliefs. It is hard to clearly state or classify the various government views at various levels or the practitioners’ views on these practices and beliefs.

Even though the definition is unclear, popular religion has recently experienced a revival due to its perceived economic and political benefits. Some scholars interpret the revival of popular religion as a move to fill the spiritual vacuum left by the bankruptcy of communist . The Tiananmen incident led to the loss of the “spiritual pillars” of

Marxism-Leninism and Maoist thought that led Chinese people to unify under the communist regime and willingly themselves for the Communist Party.8 Today few Chinese really believe in the communist ideology and the vacuum can also be explained as a result of implementing market-oriented economic policies.9 The Director of the State Bureau of Religious Affairs, Ye Xiaowen, claimed that the 1990s were a golden for religious revival in China.10 Many people found religious and quasi- religious activities a great comfort to fill the spiritual vacuum, especially for people who

7 Philipp Hetmanczyk, “Administrative Neuerungen gegenüber ‘volksreligiönen Versammlungsstätten’. Zum religionapolitischen Status der Volksreligion in China,” China heute, no.2 (2011):104. Gaenssbauer, Popular Belief, 34. 8 Suisheng Zhao, “Chinese Nationalism and Authoritarianism in the 1990s,” in China and Democracy: the Prospect for a Democratic China, ed. Suisheng Zhao (New York and London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group, 2000), 256. 9 Peter Sandby-Thomas, Legitimating the Chinese Communist Party Since Tiananmen: a Critical Analysis of the Stability Discourse (London and New York: Routledge, 2011), 6-7. 10 John Pomfret, “ Becoming an Issue in Communist China,” Washington Post Foreign Service, last modified July 23, 1999, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/daily/july99/beijing23.htm. 3 experienced sweeping economic and social changes (for instance, laid-off workers).11

Fenggang Yang even pointed out three different markets of religion for people to find solace and satisfy their long-oppressed spiritual needs.12 Adam Yuet Chau suggested that the revival of popular religion in China is a reflection of social and cultural realities in modern China. He has identified specific social factors contributing to the religious revival: the political ambition of the local elite, the economic interests of ritual specialists and the religiosity of the worshippers.13 Against this background, this paper provides an ethnography of the revival of a particular local ritual practice in the Huizhou area (eastern

China) to explore these local phenomenon as instances of the reenactment of Confucian myth or retrieval of cultural memory in the current socio-political context. By doing so, the study presents data grounded in local practice and discusses the social meanings of the revival of local religious traditions in China.

This case study focuses on a small town called Qimen in the Huizhou area, which is famous for its Huizhou culture 徽文化 with distinctive local geographical, social and historical features. This area is ideal for the study of ancestor worship because it appears to have a patriarchal system and that stresses Confucian ethics for respecting common ancestors.14 The government protects the culture in this area. “Huizhou has now been

11 John Wong and William T. Liu, The Mystery of China’s : Its Rise and Its Sociological Implications (Singapore: World Scientific and Singapore University Press, 1999), 12. 12 Fenggang Yang, Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012),45-48. 13 Adam Yuet Chau, Miraculous Response: Doing Popular Religion in Contemporary China (Stanford California: Stanford University Press, 2006), 2-3. Adam Yuet Chau, “Introduction: Revitalizing and Innovating Religious Traditions in Contemporary China,” in Religion in Contemporary China ed. Adam Yuet Chau (New York: Routledge, 2011), 1-31. 14 Here the Patriarchal society is a constructed concept of describing a male dominant society. It was discussed by western and socio-biologists for a long time. Traditionalists like E.O. Wilson treated the male-dominant and female-subordinate model as universal, -given or natural. It was 4 absorbed into municipality, and the Ministry of Culture calls the ancient ‘one

Prefecture and Six Counties’ of Huizhou ‘The Experimental Zone of Huizhou Cultural and Ecological Protection’.”15 In the Huizhou area, the patriarchal system once flourished. Each that shares one name still lives together as a small . They use Neo-Confucian scholar Zhu Xi’s book Family Ritual 家禮 to guide their lives. 16 Certain geographical factors may contribute to sustaining a patriarchal system. Huizhou is surrounded by ranges of mountains that serve as a natural shield to guard against military invasion and filter outside influences. The natural scenery there is very attractive; historically, people were unwilling to leave for other places. At the same time, “more mountains, fewer fields” in Huizhou led to poverty; therefore, people needed to work together and help each other make ends meet. Thus, the patriarchal system contributed to production, regulated behavior and created a favorable social influenced by Darwinian theories, which believed that men survived better in primitive culture because they were more capable than women in hunting and other activities. It was also impacted by Christian , which believed that women were inferior to men due to the way she was created by God. However, feminist anthropologists challenged this androcentric assumption by arguing that the evidence of biological differences among the sexes has been exaggerated by contemporary cultural interpretations. Another influential opinion was raised by Marxism, which argued that the men-over-women social system results from the division of labor, establishment of private property, and the political and economic dominance gained by men. A structuralist Claude Levi-Strauss, thought that man’s dominance was crucial to the formation of culture. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 1-25. Chinese scholarship usually refers to “classic Chinese patriarchy” with the terms fuquan zhi 父權制, literally “system of paternal power,” or jiazhang zhi 家長制, literally “system of headship.” (But in this paper the Chinese word I translate as “patriarchal system” is zongfa zhi 宗法制, which not only refers to a male-dominant society but also a society governed by clan laws and regulations.) They were used in the late 19th century, borrowed from Japanese scholarship, which translated the term “patriarchy” used by Western social Darwinists and students of cultural . Now only Chinese scholars and well- educated people use the word “patriarchy”. Goncalo Santos and Stevan Harrell, ed., Transforming Patriarchy: Chinese in the Twenty-first Century (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2016), 35. 15 Zheng Jianxin 鄭建新, Huizhou yishu 徽州藝術[Huizhou Art] (: Shidai chuban chuanmei gufen youxiangongsi and Huangshan shushe, 2012),1. 16 Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200), Jia li quanji 家禮全集[Anthology of Family Ritual], ed. Xiangshan Liang 香 山梁,Jie Ji Ren Fu 傑吉人甫 and Fan Yulu 番禺陸(Boston: Havard University Library).n.d. 5 environment beneficial to the survival of all. To this end, Huizhou people also developed a set of ethics that could be described as patriarchal. Historically, the most influential is Neo-Confucianism. The (960-1279) philosopher Zhu Xi was one of the most prominent representatives of this . Local people believe he was born in Huizhou, the site of this research. In his works, he stated the importance of building ancestral halls to worship ancestors, and compiling to establish social hierarchy. Zhu Xi and some other philosophers advocated the revival of Confucian ethics to help people become sages in society. Their concerns were grounded in spiritual cultivation: improving nature and harmonizing people’s social relationships.17 His works and other influences from the traditional patriarchal system are the reasons that

Huizhou people put great value on maintaining orderly human relations and upholding

Confucian morality.18 The ritual performance of ancestor worship in Huizhou seems to be in the Neo-Confucian framework because of the profound influence of Zhu Xi and his work Family Rituals. Zhu’s book provides a manual for domestic and and reproduces the key principles underlying the family system, among which is the relationship between ancestors and descendants. Serving as a liturgical text, Family

Rituals specifically describes the procedures of offering to ancestors so that the links of the living and the dead can be renewed.19 Most of the procedures are still followed today in the ritual performance of Wentang Village. Since it is deeply rooted in

17 Allen Wittenborn, introduction to Chu Hsi’s Further Reflections on Things at Hand, A Reader (Lanham, New York and London: University Press of America, 1991), 8. 18 Zhao Huafu 趙華富, ed., Huizhou zongzu lunji 徽州宗族論集 [Essays on Huizhou Patriarchal Clan] (Beijing: Renming chubanshe, 2011), 24-30. 19 Patricia Buckley Ebrey, introduction to Chu Hsi's Family Rituals: A Twelfth-century Chinese Manual for the Performance of Cappings, , , and Ancestral Rites (Princeton, N.J: Princeton University Press, 1991), xiv. 6 the patriarchal society and Neo-Confucian culture, which have and respect of ancestors as their core values, it makes the Huizhou area an ideal place to study the popular religion of ancestor worship.

I went to Wentang Village, , in August 2016 and June 2017. I stayed there for almost a month. Most of villagers in Wentang share the same family name, Chen. The family which organized the ritual performance of ancestor worship hosted me. They kindly introduced to me the basic conditions of their village, their values, and beliefs as well as the and stories circulated around the community.

They also showed me their genealogies on which the history of the Chen clan is recorded.

I interviewed dozens of local people, including a local official who serves in the

Department of Propaganda and the ritualist or tradition-bearer, who keeps the textual template of the ritual process. Some other performers and participants also talked with me and expressed their feelings and concerns. Local people gave me two videos. One was videotaped by the local TV station in 2010.20 The local official showed me this video, which was also put online. In it, villagers annually enact the ritual to revere their ancestors, but this video is special because in that year they had just finished compiling the genealogies and they wanted to celebrate this big event. When I interviewed the tradition-bearer, he told me that this video was complete in recording the main process of

20 The ritual is performed in Qimen dialect instead of Mandarin. Local TV station put a subtitle in this video so that it can make sense to most of Chinese audience. I don’t understand the Qimen dialect, so I rely on the subtitle for understanding. And I consult with the local tradition-bearer about the meanings of this ritual. People from Wentang 文堂村民, Jia Yuan 家園[Homeland], TV series, Huangshan Local TV Station, 2010. 7 the ritual and that it reflected what they do during Spring Festival every year.21 The official also gave me another video made in 2012 when his , as the host, led the local people to revive this tradition of ancestor worship in the ancestral hall.22 That video recorded almost the entire ritual process, including the host’s speech before the formal start of worship. My data come mainly from these two videos and the supporting interviews in the community. In a very productive move, I also visited the ancestral hall and asked the ritual specialist to explain the roles, behavior, and settings to me. With their permission, I recorded their narratives and the interview for the purpose of complementary analysis. Most of my informants are middle-aged men (from 30 years old to 50 years old), including the organizer who also serves in the local government, and the tradition bearer who works in a factory. I also interviewed some men over 60 years old, including the one appointed by the government as the head of the village and the one who knows a lot about local . The performers in this video consist mostly of these two groups of people. Children and young men are encouraged, if not required, to watch the performance for educational purposes. As the host said in the video, he hoped that this ritual could be passed down to younger generations without end. He also mentioned that this ritual started in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) and continued, being greatly valued for more than 500 years until the People’s Republic of China was founded. Its

21 In order to protect the privacy of my subject, I will not disclose his identity and I will call the tradition- bear Xiao Chen. Xiao Chen (a factory worker) in discussion with the author, June 2016. 22 Wentang jizu yishi 文堂祭祖儀式[Ritual of Ancestor Worship in Wentang Village], directed by Chen clan (Huangshang, Anhui: Shanli zhaoxiangguan, 2012), DVD. 8 performance was interrupted only during Cultural Revolution. Therefore, during both the

Ming and Qing dynasties, this ritual was maintained and inherited consistently.23

Qimen County is located in the south of Anhui Province (117°12'E-117°57'E,

29°35'N-30°08'N), bordering on Province. It covers an area of 2257 square kilometers, 4.38% in farm land, 86.58% in forests and woods, and 1.38% for transportation. It is hemmed in by a wide range of mountains and surrounded by many small creeks. It has significant rainfall, especially at the end of spring and belongs to the subtropical monsoon climate.24 Most people living there are Hanzu (the Han ). There is increasing social mobility due to changing conditions. Because of the geography of Qimen, some people do not have enough land for farming and leave the area to go into business. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, Huizhou businessmen were famous around the whole country. Recently, after the reform era, migrant workers were counted for as much as 3,3540 in 2005, 17.82% of the whole population. At the same time, investments from outside and the number of people flowing into Qimen were also increasing. This occurred because of the governments’ planned transition to a market economy, which has loosened central control over food, housing, and jobs and boosted social mobility.25 The is the basic unit of Qimen society, which has long valued family cohesion. Led by the head of the family, other members should love and protect each other and follow the family traditions of filial piety, diligence, and other moral values. Local people often have a deep reliance on the they

23 Wentang jizu yishi, Chen clan. 24 Qimenxian difangzhi bianzuan weiyuanhui 祁門縣地方志編纂委員會, eds., Qimen Xianzhi 祁門縣志 [Local Records of Qimen County] (Hefei: Huangshan shushe, 2008), 1. 25 Qimenxian, Qimen Xianzhi, 52. 9 have formed based on blood ties. In Ming Dynasty, the household extended to five generations living together. In later , the big household was divided into smaller units, and many houses are still closely connected to each other as part of a village social system.26

26 Qimenxian, Qimen Xianzhi, 864. 10

Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Performance Approach and Sociological Perspective

During the past thirty years, have shifted focus from the “text- based” method of studying oral literature (isolated from its context) to the “performance” or “context-centered” method.27 Performance is examined against the larger cultural and social background. To study how performance is placed in a physical and social setting,

Dan Ben-Amos proposes two types of context: the context of situation and context of culture. The context of situation is about where and when the performance occurs as well as some other details of the circumstance. As to the context of culture, it is broadened into the discussion of many indirect or implicit factors such as shared knowledge among participants, customs, tradition, philosophy, religious beliefs, language use, historical consciousness and judicial principles.28 Therefore, performance reveals the beliefs or values that people in a particular community hold in common.

Regarding the analysis of the performance per se, theorists have developed some devices to “key the performance” or delineate the frame. Bateson describes the frame as metacommunicative because there are many communicative interactions that convey

27 Mark Bender, “Keys to Performance in ,” Chinoperl, 19.1 (1996): 22. Elizabeth C, Fine, The Folklore Text: From Performance to Print. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 8. 28 Dan Ben-Amos, “Context in Context,” Western Folklore 52(1993): 216. 11 various explicit and implicit messages. They provide instructions on the interpretation of other messages that are communicated.29 Bauman also argues that by tapping into its cultural repertoire, each speech community can employ “a structured set of distinctive communicative means” (or keying devices) to delineate the performance. He further lists some important means or devices which are “special codes, figurative language, parallelism, special paralinguistic features, special formulae, appeals to tradition, and disclaimers of performance.”30 In addition to the keying devices, John Miles Foley highlights the effect of using idioms which are deeply rooted in the tradition and cultural resources that people in the community share.31 Participants can pick up the linguistic, paralinguistic and nonlinguistic “cues” dropped by performers and understand the meanings created by the idioms which thus add great communicative power to the performance. This paper frames the ritual performance of ancestor worship in Wentang

Village by employing the keying devices mentioned above and other framing devices.

In this aspect, ritual performance is formulaic, highly contextualized and deeply symbolic which allows the locals to act out certain traditional ideas. Ritual is defined as habitual actions which include ceremonial symbols and metaphors. It creates a liminal space which means “a transitional place and time where what we were and what we will be after the ritual ends are mixed and blended”.32 first proposed that liminality is a state of ambiguity in which the liminal personae resist being classified by

29 Jurgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson, Communication. (New York: Norton,1968), 209. 30 Richard Bauman et al. eds., Verbal art as performance (Prospect Heights, Ill.: Waveland Press, 1984), 16. 31 John Miles Foley, The Singer of Tales in Performance (Bloomington: University of Indiana Press, 1995), 93. 32 Martha C. Sims and Martine Stephens, Living Folklore: An Introduction to the Study of People and Their Tradition (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2011), 109. 12 their states and positions in cultural space. They are often deprived of everything familiar and their behavior is normally passive or humble. “It is as though they are being reduced or ground down to a uniform condition to be fashioned anew and endowed with additional powers to enable them to cope with their new station in life”.33 This observation applies to the ancestor worship ritual during which the main ritualist temporarily renounces his high and follows the instructions obediently to kneel down, offer tributes, and circumambulates the performance space. In this liminal space, he represents the whole community to express filial piety and respect to ancestors.

Going through the ritual is a process of gaining moral power. In addition to Turner’s analysis of ritual, I also employ Bruce Lincoln’s study of as forms of social discourse which can reveal the political implications of the local people’s religious beliefs. Lincoln argues that groups or individuals can use myth and ritual as authoritative modes of symbolic discourse to evoke specific sentiments of affinity and estrangement so as to construct social borders.34 In Lincoln’s definition, myth means a type of story that possesses both credibility and authority are employed by different social groups as a discursive instrument to refashion their identities.35 In the process of shaping identity, discourse plays a major role by eliciting the sentiments necessary for social formations.

Lincoln proposes two kinds of sentiments: One is the sentiments of affinity, which means feelings of likeness, common belonging, and mutual understanding, and union within a shared sphere of morality, aesthetics, customs, and other factors. The other is the feelings

33 Victor Turner, The Ritual Process Structure and Anti-structure (Ithaca, New York: Cornell Paperbacks and Cornell University Press, 1997), 95. 34 Bruce Lincoln, (1989) Discourse and the Construction of Society. Comparative Studies of Myth, Ritual, and Classification (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 75. 35 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 24-25. 13 of estrangement like distance, separation, otherness, and alienation. A society is not formed on just one kind of sentiment. Instead, it is the result of the dynamic expression of these two kinds of sentiments. If affinity dominates, the social cohesion is strengthened.

However, if estrangement dominates, the society splits up into smaller social groups.

Lincoln even claims that “it is when separate individuals recall their from (and thus attachment to) a given ancestor that they awaken their (latent) feelings of affinity for, and attachment to, one another… In that very moment and by that very act of memory, they redefine themselves as kin… In this way the past shapes the present, of an ancestor being simultaneously the evocation of a correlated .”36 From this perspective, the ritual performance of ancestor worship under discussion can contribute powerfully to the maintenance of society through ideological mystification, as explained later. This case study of ancestor worship, engages a reenactment of ancient Confucian precepts in a ritual performance entailing subtle, coherent and persuasive religious ideology to get people to comply with the authoritative central government policies. I use both the performance approach and Lincoln’s sociological theories to avoid functionalism and reductionism by arguing that religious ritual is more than a tool for social functions. It exists on its own even as it is used to shape social ideology. Also, I do not simply intend to force Western theories to fit the

Chinese context. On the contrary, the dialogue between western theoretical framework and Chinese texts can shed a new light onto the cultural phenomenon in China and the cross-cultural concept of ritual as well. I find that the Chinese Confucian concept of he

36 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 20. 14

(harmony) echoes Turner’s explanation of “communitas” which means that entities in a ritual share common momentary sentiments of comradeship and connection. Besides, I propose that the repetitive expressions and behaviors and the parallel constructions of performers’ behaviors and positions constitute the form of a ritual performance, a structure that invites different interpretations and waits to be fleshed out in different contexts.

2.2 Chinese Folk Beliefs and Practices

In this part, my review is divided into three parts: ancestor worship in China, popular religion in China and temple worship in Huizhou. It aims to provide a glimpse into the scholarship that includes these three aspects, since ancestor worship is now counted as part of “popular religion” in China.37 It attempts to show a broader view of doing popular religion in China and considers the historical context of this ritual. This review focuses mainly on literature published in English, except for the last part, which is almost absent in the English-speaking world. Therefore, my study is an attempt to fill that gap and introduce more about a Chinese local culture to the western world.

2.2.1 Ancestor Worship in China

Ancestor worship has a long history in China, and many studies treat this subject.

Some of the research on ancestor worship is mainly philological, tracing back to Chinese ancient ancestral memory. Constance A. Cook introduces worship during the eastern

Zhou dynasty and explains that this ritual was at the beginning related to the maintenance

37 Philip Clart, “China,” in The Encyclopedia of Politics and Religion: 2-volume Set, ed. Robert Wuthnow (London and New York, 1998), 126. 15 of stable political and social hierarchy in Zhou society.38 Similarly, Feng Li also argues that ancestor worship constitutes the religious foundation of the Zhou State because it brought the Zhou king into a political alliance with his regional rulers of .39

Keith N. Knapp further discusses how rulers legitimize their political right to reign over the nation through the rites of ancestor worship.40 From their studies, it is easy to see that in its origin, the religious of ancestor worship has played a fundamental role in political power or regime.

More comprehensively, Brashier does textual analysis to unpack the ancient

Chinese thoughts on ancestors. He first argues for an interconnectivity between different idea systems, believing that Chinese people often mix several sets of beliefs to shape their own understanding about the . Addressing the complexity of this issue, he examines the classical texts from various schools of thought instead of prioritizing

Confucianism over others. When treating the ancient texts, he employs a performative perspective to emphasize that the texts we are looking at today were performed thousands of years ago. His study of ritual texts points out that performance scripts can be experienced, dynamically framed, and microcosmically portray the macrocosm. He traces back from the Qin Dynasty to the Wei dynasty to see how imperial ancestors were remembered and forgotten. Brashier comes to the several coexistent and, at the same

38 Constance A. Cook, “Ancestor Worship During the Eastern Zhou,” in Early Chinese Religion: Part One: Shang through Han (1250 BC-220 AD), ed. John Lagerwey and Marc Kalinowski (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 237. 39 Feng Li, Early China: A Social and (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 145. 40 Keith N. Knapp, “Borrowing Legitimacy from the Dead: the Confucianization of Ancestral Worship,” in Early Chinese Religion: The Period of Division (220-589 Ad), ed. John Lagerwey and Pengzhi Lü (Leiden: Brill, 2010), 143-192. 16 time, conflicting interpretations of the existence of an afterlife. He describes early

Chinese thinking as follows: The living and the dead as two distinct and fully cognizant parties that interact with each other. Only when the living demonstrates full sincerity can they get a response from the dead; the medium for their communication is mental; the dead are only a projection or objectified thoughts of the living; the living totally deny the real existence of the dead, and their ritual is only a symbol of remembrance. At last he mentions the Han theory of performative thinking in early China and the symbolic language of ancestral memories. 41

His work is a relatively comprehensive study of ancestor worship in early China.

Although presented in a historical context, his work sheds new light on current studies of ritual performance which have grown out of their historical foundations. Ancestor worship is a complex of different and , and they are very performative and dynamic in governing people’s thoughts and organizing their daily activities. Brashier’s description of the relationship between the living and the dead vividly captures the conundrum of treating spirits in many Han communities that often claim ancestral spirits do not exist at all, yet offer tributes to them. My work also touches upon this phenomenon in the modern context. As Brashier himself admits, his work is limited due to the irretrievability of historical ritual performance, so he had to use imagination when applying the performance theory for analysis. My work, while expounding on the experiential aspect of ancestor worship, draws on first-hand

41 K.E. Brashier, Ancestral Memory in Early China, 1-102, 184-229.

17 information directly from the performers, which aids the understanding of the local

Chinese people’s mentality and beliefs.

In addition to historical study, ancestor worship in China (especially southeastern

China) has been studied through the lens of clan and organization. Ritual is not studied for its own sake, but is integrated into the larger discussion of Chinese society in terms of kinship. Also this kind of research, significant as it is, was at its peak almost half a century ago before Chinese society entered the new era of economic expansion and social transformation. Freedman’s work is regarded as foundational for the study of

Chinese kinship.42

As a social anthropologist, Freedman examines the lineage structure and organization of Chinese society through the lenses of kinship and religious ritual. His data were gathered in Chinese communities in Singapore and Hong Kong and from it he hopes to generalize the significant features of Chinese ritual life. He categorizes worshiped ancestors into domestic and extra-domestic. In the domestic, people have the kitchen god shrine and ancestor altar for worship. In the extra-domestic, the worship of the whole lineage can take place in an ancestral hall and near the tomb. In the hall of the lineage, ancestors are embodied in wooden tablets, tended, fed, and reverenced as superiors by the living. Freedman offers his analysis as models of ancestor worship. He admits that “the term ancestor worship cannot embrace all that the Chinese do ritually to make their ancestors significant in their lives.”43 His model indeed provides insights into

42 Allen Chun, “The Lineage-Village Complex in Southeastern China, a Long Footnote in the of Kinship,” Current Anthropology 37.3 (1996):429. 43 Maurice Freedman and G. William Skinner, The Study of Chinese society: Essays (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1979), 286. 18 looking at various forms of ancestor worship in China, but each place has its own particular features and as time goes by, this model must be influenced by social changes in China. Even he himself calls for further studies to revise, add to or even overturn his model.

Many scholars continue to base their work on Freedman’s pioneering contributions. Emily Ahern borrows Freedman’s theoretical model of lineage organization to examine the social conditions and ancestor worship in a village in

Taiwan.44 Goran Aljmer proposes a structural approach to Chinese ancestor worship. He agrees with Freedman’s discussion of geomancy and ancestor worship and supplies other ritual techniques for further discussion. He argues that visits and return visits are reflected on ancestor ceremonialism since “the New Year rites told about the visits of the dead ancestors to their living progeny.” 45 He then associates ancestor worship with rice production and festivals centering on the theme of transplanting young rice shoots. A more recent study by David Faure puts Freedman’s concept of lineage into historical context. He traces the formation of lineages from the Ming Dynasty to the nineteenth century in the . He mentions that those who claimed settlement rights and entitlement to land were descended from ancestors who had been given those rights by the emperor. Thus, tracking the history of the ancestors is an important method to determine their rights to live on that land.46

44 Emily Ahern, The of the Dead in a Chinese Village (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1973). 45 Goran Aljmer, “The Structural Approach to Chinese Ancestor Worship,” Anthropologica X (1968): 94. 46 David Faure, Emperor and Ancestor: State and Lineage in South China (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2007), 4. 19

To summarize, from an anthropological perspective, ancestor worship is closely connected to the social condition of a lineage in rural China. Studies by Freedman and his followers mainly focus on family organization, agnatic villages, rural economy and many other institutions of Chinese society. Besides them, Tatje and Hsu study variations in ancestor worship beliefs and their relation to kinship. They argue that ancestral practices mirror the kinship behavior among the living.47 Their work is helpful in understanding kinship not only in history but also in many aspects of contemporary Chinese local societies. However, new angles need to be derived so as to take into account the social changes happening today and what ritual performance can tell its present audiences.

More recently, scholarly interest in ancestor worship is in decline. It is rare to see comprehensive studies on ancestor worship, especially for modern Chinese societies.

Lakos discusses this topic at great length in relation to how ancestor worship rituals are an important way to understand Chinese culture. His analytical theory is practice theory which focuses on how and why the practices are practiced as well as their influence.48 His aim is to comprehensively explain the practice of ancestor worship, which is very complex. He traces back its history and tries to give a clear definition of what ancestor worship is, exploring its meanings in all semantic dimensions. He also examines how philosophical and religious thought contribute to a model of what shapes

Chinese people’s worldview. He then moves on to a discussion of the sociopolitical role of ancestor worship in keeping the reciprocity of kinship values. He concludes that the

47 Terrence Tatje and Francis L.K. Hsu, “Variations in Ancestor Worship Beliefs and Their Relation to Kinship,” Southwestern Journal of Anthropology 25.2 (1969):154. 48 William Lakos, Chinese Ancestor Worship, 3-4. 20 ritual practices of ancestor worship are a better way to understand Chinese culture in comparison with the meta-narrative of Confucianism. In his opinion, Confucianism-as-

Chinese-culture is problematic, because Confucianism is a generic western term. “As an important construct within the concept of culture, the religion of China, infused as it is with ancestor worship is a variety of beliefs and practices that depend on no univocal or single text or canon for its inherent logical consistency as a homogenous concept. The

Chinese understand their own culture through a variety of deep and inherent norms related to family, kin and ancestors.”49 It is valuable to admit the width and depth of the influence of ancestor worship in China from the perspective of ritual practices. His attempt at distinguishing between Confucianism as Chinese culture and the ritual practices reflecting China is illuminating. However, he sacrifices specificity for generality or inclusiveness without showing how the specific ritual practices work in

Chinese society. Besides, his discussion is confined to a certain historical period from the very beginning of Chinese civilization until Mao’s reign, without referring to the current

Chinese society.

2.2.2 Popular Religion in China

Many scholars categorize ancestor worship as a subset of popular religion.

According to Stephen C Averill, there are mainly two definitions for popular religion and he points out the problems and advantages between them. One is proposed by Stephen

Teiser who thinks it is a form of religion held by almost all Chinese people regardless of their social status, educational background or specific religious creeds. This definition

49 William, Chinese Ancestor Worship, 123.

21 widens its sphere by including many rituals and religious activities related to spring festivals. But this idea is problematic because it defines popular religion as a static one, neglecting its changes and conflicts between different social groups. Another definition is the religion of common people or those who have low social status, as opposed to the elites. Stephen C Averill says that this definition aligns well with the western scholars’ bottom-up research method, but it also posits questions for subaltern studies. Since common people are often silenced or represented by the dominant discourse, it is hard to hear their real voice.50 No matter which definition is adopted, my research on ancestor worship belongs to popular religion. However, the region I am now studying is deeply influenced by Neo-Confucianism and their ritual adopts Confucian teachings. Therefore, although their ancestor worship is rooted in folk tradition, it doesn’t lose its relationship with the Confucian . This problem of “Can the subaltern speak?” is also reflected in my own study when I approach the common people and inquire about their religious beliefs and practices.51 Their answers often conform to the dominant ideology.

C.K. Yang studies the social functions of religion in Chinese daily life and their organization. He agrees with Max Weber that Chinese popular religion is the mixture of functional . He divides religion into two types: one is institutional religion and the other is diffused religion. In his explanations, and Daoism are institutional

50 Steven C. Averill 韋思諦 ed. Zhongguo Dazhong Zongjiao 中國大眾宗教[Chinese Popular Religion], trans. Chen Zhongdan 陳仲丹 (: renmin chubanshe, 2006), 2-3. 51 I use the term “Can the subaltern speak?” from Spivak’s famous post-colonial study simply intending to express the loss of “voice” or the locus of agency among a subgroup of Chinese people. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, The Spivak Reader: Selected Works of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ed. Donna Landry and Gerald Maclean (New York: Routledge, 1996). 22 while many indigenous religious beliefs and practices are diffused and integrated into secular social systems. The diffused religion relies on imperial system, kinship system and other political institutions to play out its social role. He perceptively observes that the large territory of China is dotted with all kinds of temples, ancestral halls, altars and other places for worshipping, so a religion reflecting social realities has tremendous influence on Chinese society. Yang specifically mentions that ancestor worship is a survival strategy used to solve the problem of emotional breakdown and community disintegration caused by the death of relatives. Through believing in the existence of their , the living can be united and strengthened, so the living and the dead constitute the clan together. He also associates ancestor worship with the Confucian tradition which rationalizes the act of worshipping ancestors. Confucianism does not regard it as a belief in a world, but it at the same time does not rule out the existence of mythic power.52 Yang’s study is a foundational work in analyzing Chinese religion from the perspective of social function. He points out the importance of religion in reflecting , which lays a solid foundation for later research. However, half a century has passed since his work came out, so new social changes need to be taken into consideration.

Recently China has witnessed a revival of popular religion under communist rule.

This social phenomenon grabs much attention in academia since scholars are trying to understand what to make of this seemingly “abnormal” resurgence. Even though the atheist Communist Party has violently suppressed or even attempted to eradicate

52 C.K. Yang, Religion in Chinese Society; a Study of Contemporary Social Functions of Religion and Some of Their Historical Factors (Berkeley: University of California, 1961). 23 in Chinese society, they are still flourishing albeit with some sort of pretense. The sociologist of religion Fenggang Yang introduces the phenomenon in detail. He discusses two forms of in Chinese modern history: enlightenment atheism and militant atheism. The former refers to the attack on religion and traditional culture to uphold and ethics in the May Fourth movement and New Culture movement of the 1920s while the latter one refers to the heavy-handed crackdown on religious superstitions after the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949.53 Even recently, after

Document No. 19 was issued to show limited tolerance towards religions, the religious policies are still very ideologically-driven. Yang then further presents what the heavy regulation of religion will bring about. In his analysis, there will be an expanding “gray market of religion consisting of all religious and spiritual organizations, practitioners, and activities with ambiguous legal status”.54 He argues that people can always find various methods to meet their religious needs. And at the same time, local governments want to boost tourism, overseas investments and protect the “Intangible Cultural Heritage”. That is why those hidden noninstitutionalized religious beliefs and practices or those covered in the cultural cloak are popular today. Ancestor worship belongs to this grey area. 55

In response to religious resilience, Adam Yuet Chau refutes the simplistic explanation that some local Chinese people want to fill their spiritual vacuum through religious activities and argues that a holistic view of spiritual, political, economic and other social factors should be adopted to study religious revivalism. He takes rural

53 Yang, Religion in China, 45-48. 54 Yang, Religion in China, 87. 55 Yang, Religion in China, 107-112. 24

Shaanbei (north-central China) as a case study to explore the cultural logics and sociopolitical processes behind the revival. He thinks that popular religion serves as a venue to express peasant values and desires and garner political, economic and symbolic resources. It also reshapes the state-society relationship in modern China. 56 In another book, Chau also introduces revitalizing and innovating religious traditions in contemporary China at large. He redefines tradition as dynamic, processual and site- specific. In the restrictive frame of traditions, people tap into their potential to create new forms of practices. He also mentions how people try to gain political legitimacy for their religious activities. One strategy is “getting into the official fold” which means to be recognized as officially acceptable religions like Buddhism, Daoism, Catholicism, and . The other strategy is “creative dissimulation” which means to promote religious activities as cultural phenomenon and downplay perceptions of regarding folk religious practices. He also discusses religion as a new field of political and socioeconomic activity and how religious tradition is transmitted, reproduced and created. 57

In a recent study, Chen Zhiqin focuses on the connection between folk beliefs and the movement of conserving Intangible Cultural Heritage. Chen Zhiqin also describes the folk cultural revival: how folk beliefs once criticized as “feudal superstitions” are now thriving among folk groups with limited official recognition. He mainly argues against government intervention into local folk practices and abusive acting that change the

56 Chau, Miraculous Response, 2-3. 57 Chau, Religion in Contemporary China, 1-31. 25 transmission of local culture. He raises sharp questions concerning dislocated agency of practitioners. 58

To summarize, popular religion, which subsumes folk beliefs and , is an inclusive term encompassing all kinds of noninstitutionalized religion or diffused religion. Religion, to borrow Durkheim’s definition, is “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and surrounded by prohibitions—beliefs and practices which unite its adherents in a single moral community”. 59 Popular religion in China is experiencing a revival. It has become a heated topic among scholars who often explain this phenomenon from the perspectives of spiritual needs, political and economic interests and social climate. The above-mentioned studies more or less touch upon the cultural conservation movement, political recognition, the development of tourism, and power struggles between local people and the state.

Under this framework, my study aims to contribute to understanding of religious resilience. As Chau points out, tradition is site-specific. A different region or different local culture can yield a new light on to our interpretations. Also, different religious practices have varied and complicated meanings for local people. Thus, it is unwise to simply summarize and analyze popular religion in China as a whole. Each local expression of folk religion has its own form and generates different cultural meanings.

My study is an in-depth exploration into the tradition and history of an understudied

58 Chen Zhiqin, “For Whom to Conserve Intangible Cultural Heritage: The Dislocated Agency of Folk Belief Practitioners and Reproduction of Local Culture,” Asian Ethnology 74.2 (2015): 307-310. 59 Emile Durkheim, The Elementary Forums of Religious Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 46. 26

Chinese local culture. I find that in addition to the social manipulation of traditional resources for economic and political needs, there is another reason that local people revive their beliefs and practices. It is that a recurring myth deep down in cultural memory is now surfacing and finding expression in the modern social context. Stephan

Feuchtwang describes it as the enactment of past-ness, which involves the question of what is selected to be the past and the question of historicity used to gain political authority.60

2.2.3 Temple Worship in Huizhou

Research that discusses Huizhou ritual performance of ancestor worship to date focuses on the time period of the Ming and Qing dynasties when the patriarchal system was pervasive and flourishing. This is largely because in the Huizhou area, there are a large volume of documents that have been discovered by historians to facilitate the study of historical events. These documents detail a wide range of activities including business, recreation and other communal gatherings. Among all of the studies on Huizhou culture,

Zhao Huafu’s Essays on the Huizhou Patriarchal Clan is one of the most extensive and influential. By referring to a large number of historical records, Zhao discusses the flourishing of the patriarchal system in terms of the construction of the ancestral hall, compilation of genealogies and the organization of collective worshipping. He also digs much deeper into the functions of the ancestral hall in regulating the whole clan and reinforcing the feudal system. In his opinion, ancestor worship is one of the effective

60 Stephan Feuchtwang, The Imperial Metaphor Popular Religion in China (London and New York: Routledge, 1992),22. 27 methods to maintain cohesion and stability of the Huizhou society structured in the patriarchal system.61

In addition to Zhao’s work, there are some scattered studies on Huizhou temples and temple worship. Bian Li comments on the management of economic foundations and sacrificial ceremonies of Huizhou in the Ming and Qing dynasties. Besides describing the ritual procedures in six counties in Qimen, he also points out that during that time hosting rituals is a good way to make investments and earn money, and at the same time the subjects they worshipped were expanded to include all kinds of deities. He then summarizes that the communal sacrifice is managing a business and entertaining deities and people. Therefore, his discussion notes that Huizhou ritual performance historically functions as an entertainment and commercial activity.62

Another scholar He Qiaoyun studies Huizhou ancestor worship in the Qing dynasty by analyzing its economic foundations, features and influences. She mentions that there are three kinds of worship, namely ciji 祠祭, muji 墓祭 and huiji 會祭 which respectively mean temple worship, worship near the tomb, and worship supported by a communal organization. She particularly discusses folk customs related to the ritual of ancestor worship. The belief system of local people is a syncretism of Buddhism, Daoism and other local religions, so when they worship ancestors, they also worship other deities at the same time. They also value the geomancy to the extent that they vie for “blessed

61 Zhao, Huizhou zongzu lunji, 114-115. 62 Bian Li 卞利, “Mingqing Huizhou de zongzu guanli, jingji jichu jiqi jisiyishi 明清徽州的宗族管理、經 濟基礎及其祭祀儀式[Management, Economic Foundation and Sacrificial of Clans in Huizhou in Ming and Qing Dynasties],” Jounal of Social 6 (2006), 171. 28 land” to locate the tombs of their ancestors.63 These factors, however, have created the possibilities of power struggles and resource competitions. Moreover, He Qiaoyun finds that ancestor worship was even connected to festive ceremonies and opera performances.

Local people believed that ancestors in the other world could still share the festival atmosphere with them and enjoy watching the opera. 64 Her study puts together many historical facts and evaluates the relationship between ancestor worship and other social- cultural factors, especially the Neo-Confucianism and some folk traditions. These concepts prevalent in Qing dynasty still covertly influence people’s there and how they organize the activities of worship.

Some of other studies also emphasize the worshipping activities in history. Jiang introduces the development of Chinese sacrificial culture in ancient times and then narrows down to a discussion of origin, type and financial support of Huizhou temple offerings in the Ming and Qing dynasties.65 Similarly, Zhan also studies ancestor worship in Huizhou temples in the Ming and Qing dynasties, but his focus is mainly on a statute that stipulates the strict regulations of managing the temple and the procedures of worshipping. He also mentions the influence of a famous Neo-Confucian work Jia Li 家

禮 on the statute and its features and functions.66 Chang also examines the Huizhou patriarchal system in the Ming Dynasty and its relationship with clan temple and ancestor

63 He Qiaoyun 何巧雲, “Qingdai Huizhou jizu yanjiu 清代徽州祭祖研究[The Research on Ancestor Worship of Huizhou Area During Qing Dynasty]” (Ph.D. dissertation, Anhui University, 2010), 185-192. 64 He Qiaoyun, Qingdai Huizhou jizu yanjiu, 154, 161, 166. 65 Jiang Huiping 江慧萍, “Mingqing shiqi Huizhou zongzu jisi yanjiu 明清時期徽州宗族祭祀研究 [Study on Huizhou Ancestral Temple Worship in Ming and Qing Dynasties]” (master’s thesis, Anhui University, 2014). 66 Zhan Haibo 詹海波, “Mingqing shiqi Huizhou zongzu ciji guiyue tanjiu 明清時期徽州宗族祠祭規約探 究 [Study on Huizhou Ancestral Temple Worship Statute in Ming and Qing Dynasties]” (master’s thesis, Anhui University, 2016). 29 worship. He argues that the Ming dynasty is the turning point in developing ancestral temples in the Huizhou area. Concerning ancestor worship, there is another worship form called Muji 墓祭, carried out near tombs. 67 Zhao and Chen take Huanglongkou 黃龍口 village, Qimen county as a case study to describe the history of a local clan and its emphasis on ancestor worship in the Ming-Qing dynasties. They also analyze the economic foundations for maintaining the worship ritual. They conclude that although the patriarchal system is declining and may even have disappeared, the ancestor worship which takes filial piety as its core continues today, fully demonstrating the powerful influence of Confucian culture. 68

Although most of studies focus on ancestor worship in the Ming and Qing dynasties, there are still some studies touching upon lived ritual practices nowadays. Dai introduces the general conditions of ancestral temples, communal activities in the temple and the patriarchal clans of Huizhou. 69 In the last section, his attention is drawn to the contemporary situation of ancestral hall and clan culture. He mentions that ancestral temples were once destroyed or revamped for other purposes during communist political movements. In response to Mao’s revolutionary directions, people abandoned clan culture which was seen as a symbol of the “feudal class” and as “shackles worn by

67 Chang Jianhua 常建華, “Mingdai Huizhou zongci de tedian 明代徽州宗祠的特點 [Features of Huizhou Ancestral Temple in the Ming Dynasty],” Jounal of Nankai University (Philosophy and Social Science Edition) 5 (2003), 101-106. 68 Zhao Yimei 趙懿梅 and Chen Huili 陳慧麗, “Huizhou zongzu de muji jiqi jingji jichu—yi qimen huanglongkou wangshi zongzu wei li 徽州宗族的墓祭及其經濟基礎—以祁門黃龍口汪氏宗族為例 [Ancestor Worship Near the Tomb in Huizhou clan and its economic foundation—exemplified by Wang clan in Huanglongkou village, Qimen County],” Journal of Teachers College (Social Science Edition) 33.1 (2014): 15-19. 69 Dai Chang 戴暢 ”Huizhou citang yu zongzu wenhua chuanbo yanjiu 徽州祠堂與宗族文化傳播研究 [Study on Huizhou Ancestral Temple and Clan Culture]” (master’s thesis, Northwest University, 2015). 30 farmers.” But he further argues that the clan culture and the temple did not disappear completely and are only experiencing a transformation. In his opinion, tourism and economic benefits have become the driving force behind this cultural phenomenon and commercialization has distorted clan culture. People hold activities in the ancestral hall to cater to the interests of tourists, even sacrificing their honesty by selling fake cultural artifacts.70

His concern is echoed by Qingfu a folklore expert who critically notes that in order to apply for national Intangible Cultural Heritage status, local people in Qimen county videotaped a ritual of ancestor worship which was to his astonishment faked. He was indignant when finding that in the video, young people were dressed up as old men.

He claimed that it was not a real ritual performance, but merely an eye-catching show to grab commercial benefits. He even grieves at the inability to present a true Huizhou act of worship, which in his opinion is precious intangible culture inherited from past generations.71 Despite his fair criticism, he neglects the very important essence of worship in ancestral hall. As local people told me, in the past, worship was a performance for ancestors to watch and participants showed their virtuous deeds to an invisible audience. Although faking a ritual performance is suspect, such actions may reflect some core values of worshipping which is a public event for attention. While mimicking an ancient ritual pattern, the ritual enactment is in fact deeply tied up into the current social-

70 Dai, Huizhou citang yu zongzu wenhua chuanbo yanjiu, 33-36. 71 Qi Qingfu, 祁慶富,“Feiwuzhi wenhua zhenhun zaiyu “huotai chuancheng”—you ‘huizhou ciji’ yinfa de yidian sikao 非物質文化遺產真魂在於“活態傳承”—由‘徽州祠祭’引發的一點思考[The Essence of Intangible Cultural Heritage is Lived —Thoughts Provoked by Huizhou Temple Worshipping],” Consensus 1 (2009): 49. 31 political constructs. As a feudal system is replaced by a socialist one, can we expect an exact replay of rituals in the Ming-Qing era?

Overall, most of the studies of Huizhou worship put their emphasis on historical facts in the Ming and Qing dynasties in terms of how rituals represent the social condition and human worldview during those times. On the one hand, the historical researches have great value in elaborating the cultural foundations in which contemporary rituals are rooted. Just as Faure and Liu argue in their article, “the development of patriarchal clan system in Huizhou and its surrounding areas represented the political changes and economic growth of the nation and along with it, the state rituals experienced transition and spread to local societies, changing the whole relationship between the state and the local identification…practices in a clan were shaping a local social order which was closely connected to the state orthodox.”72 In other words, the state ideology was transmitted to the local communities which were resultantly molded, shaped or structured in conformity with the ideal of the state. This sheds a light on the current situation as the similar rituals of ancestor worship come to life again, which might also indicate socio-political interactions and power struggles between locals and the state.

On the other hand, historical studies are not enough to fully understand the present revival of the rituals in the Huizhou area. More work must be done to contribute to the understanding of why and how local people return to this “once-dead” tradition. This

72 David Faure, 科大衛 and Liu Zhiwei 劉志偉, “Zongzu yu difang shehui de guojia rentong-mingqing huanan diqu zongzu fazhan de yishi xingtai jichu 宗族與地方社會的國家認同—明清華南地區宗族發展 的意識形態基礎[Clans and State Representation in Local Society: The Ideological Foundation of the Development of Clans in South China During the Ming and Qing Periods],” Historical Research 3 (2003): 3. 32 flower of folk tradition has been ripped out of the obsolete patriarchal system and planted in the new soil of socialism, so it is reasonable to wonder what kind of fruits it can bear.

33

Chapter 3 Contextualized Description of the Ritual Performance

Richard Bauman claims “the act of performance as situated behavior, situated within and rendered meaningful with reference to relevant contexts.”73 In regards to the community hosting the ritual studied in this thesis, “contexts” can refer to both the larger social and cultural background of the community and also the exact time and place of a particular ritual performance. Context is important in decoding the meanings of a ritual and revealing the cultural messages transmitted by practitioners. Just as says, “Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.” The

“webs” indicate culture and the analysis of the semiotics of an item of culture is an interpretive act in the search for meaning. 74 Thus, the ritual performance of ancestor worship is not an event isolated in time and space. On the contrary, people reestablish and re-enact this ritual in dynamic interface with the present cultural surroundings. The concern in this thesis is how local participants connect to the tradition, act out, embody, and explore local beliefs, and react to regulatory policies while at the same time, reshape their cultural landscape.

73 Richard Bauman, Verbal Art as Performance, 27. 74 Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 5. 34

3.1 Cultural Context of the Performance

Based on a number of studies, Qimen county has come to be regarded by many

Chinese scholars as a place deeply immersed in a system of Confucian-based ethics which takes filial piety as the core form of the ritual tradition: “Conduct the funeral of your with meticulous care and let no sacrifices to your remote ancestors be forgotten, and the virtue of the common people will incline towards fullness.”75 To this end, locals often build ancestral halls and compile genealogies as ways of showing respect to ancestors and creating harmony within the community. The ancestral hall is a structure in which the family can invite ancestral spirits to rest and enjoy the sacrifices made to them. Historically, almost every local clan has one or more ancestral halls, and the astounding number of halls once dotting Huizhou area ranks high in Chinese history.76 Though few have survived the ages intact, the halls were not only grand in scale, but also exquisite and elegant in design. Even today, from the few remaining halls, one can still catch a glimpse of their glorious past. Local informants told me that people often spent lavish amounts of money to construct and maintain the remaining halls.

Typically, the halls were located on valuable land with good geomantic signs, often at the foot of a hill beside a stream.

In Qimen County, the ancestral hall is also where lineage members have collective activities like conducting ancestral worship, meeting and discussing issues in

75 It is written on The Analects 《論語·學而》 曾子曰：“慎終，追遠，民德歸厚矣。” Confucius, The Analects, trans. Yang Bojun and D.C.Lau (2008, reprint; Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2011), 6-7. 76 Deqi Shan, Chinese Vernacular Dwellings (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 44. 35 the community, and declaring laws and rules to regulate community members.77 Most importantly, at every special date, including spring, autumn and winter sacrifices, as well as the Hungry Ghosts Festival (zhongyuanjie 中元节), local people offer like pork and lamb to their ancestors. During the worship, is played and incense is burnt to create a solemn and sincere atmosphere. After the worship, all the clan members regardless of social class and wealth come together to enjoy the dinner, thus solidifying community cohesion. Historically, there was another function for the hall: to be a legal court in the clan. During the Ming dynasty, if anyone disobeyed clan regulations, the head would summon him and mete out punishments in the ancestral hall. It is said that

“Filial piety is the foundation to all human relations; those who are not filial must be sent to the ancestral hall, rebuked earnestly and punished seriously.”78 However, today the hall is no longer a court where misbehaviors are punished. This is the direct result of the establishment of Communist Party government offices after 1949 in order to regulate people’s thoughts and behavior. Thus, moral education based on Confucian ethics were officially replaced or unofficially displaced by Marxist ideology.

Compiling genealogies is another important part of organizing the community.

Genealogies detail the history of a local descent group including its achievements and proliferation, connected to the declaration of ultimate origins and eloquent statements of

77 Daniel L. Overmyer, Religion in China today (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 77. Chang Jianhua 常建華, “Mingdai huizhou de zongzu xiangyuehua 明代徽州的宗族鄉約化[the Village Regulations of Huizhou Kinship System in Ming Dynasty],” Study of Chinese History 3 (2003): 150. 78 It is recorded in Xinan Chengshi Hezu Tiaogui 新安程氏阖族条规 [Regulations for Cheng Clan in Xinan] as“不孝不弟者，众执于祠，切责之，痛惩之” Zhao Huafu 趙華富, Huizhou zongzu lunji, 115. 36

Chinese patrilineal kinship ideology.79 As Freedman puts it, “[a] ... is a set of claims to origin and relations, a charter, a map of dispersion, a framework for wide- ranging social organization, a blueprint for action.”80 Genealogies bear witness to the development of a clan, so they embody the blood ties and bond family members together.

Compiling genealogies is “a very significant performative act to produce the social relationships that these descent groups are honoring.”81 They bear Chinese and local cultural roots of collectivism and hierarchical control in a neo-Confucianism framework which utilizes genealogies to contribute to unifying communities, stabilizing the patriarchal clan system, reminding people of their common origins, and contribute to handing down cultural . When I was in the village, local people told me that their genealogies were destroyed during the Cultural Revolution and they desired to compile them again. The person who initiated reviving the rituals once said, before his death, that no matter how hard it was, the work of re-compilation must be done for it is a moral act of responsibility to the ancestors and descendants.

As is recorded in their genealogies, the Chen ancestors said, “A genealogy is the foundation of a person. If it’s not clear, the world for him is upside down without proof of his identity…if a man knows his mother without knowing his father, he is following the way of beasts; if a man knows his father without knowing his ancestors, he is following the way of birds.” Zhu Xi said, “Ancestors all hope their descendants to prosper and descendants all hope to carry on the aspiration of their ancestors; however,

79 Frank N. Pieke, "The Genealogical Mentality in Modern China," The Journal of Asian Studies 62 (2003): 104. 80 Maurice Freedman, Chinese Lineage and Society Fukien and Kwangtung Monographs on , no. 33 (London: Athlone Press; University of London, 1966), 31. 81 Frank, The Genealogical Mentality, 104. 37 the way of heaven or fate is unfathomable as to when it is flourishing or declining, so there are followers, but they cannot actually put it into action; there are practitioners who cannot attain the goal; and there are successful men who are chosen by Heaven.

Therefore, the compiler of genealogies is the one who is called by Heaven and entrusted with the mandate.”82

From this text, it is seen that compiling genealogies is highly regarded as carrying out the mandate of heaven and it is fundamental to a person’s identity. In a broader view, the communication between ancestors and descendants should not be severed or impeded because human beings have the moralistic nature of filial piety; the clan’s fate depends on the ancestor’s blessings; and it is the will of the Heaven to keep a clan flourishing. That’s why people in Wentang Village display their genealogies before the ancestors when they start worship.

In order to discuss the cultural context of the ritual performance of ancestor worship in Qiman County, I need to introduce the “performance-scape” in the Huizhou area, which means noting the various performance traditions active in the local landscapes that form an often interconnected web of oral performance traditions, many of which share similar themes, intertextual motifs, means of performance, and rhetorical strategies.83 To study the performance-scape is to show within the cultural landscape where a certain ritual is situated. The following is a brief recounting of the major traditions I have become aware of either by firsthand observation or other sources.

82 Chen clan in Wentang 文堂陳氏, Wentang Chenshi jiapu juan zhi shou 文堂陳氏家譜卷之首 [Genealogies of Chen clan, Volume 1], (reprint, movable-type, 2009) 2. 83 The concept of “performance-scape” was proposed by Mark Bender in his discussion of Yue opera. Mark Bender, “Women Playing Men: Yue Opera and Social Change in Twentieth-Century ,” The Chinese Historical Review 17.1 (2010): 120. 38

Historically, there was a ritual of declaring a community pact and family rules enacted right after villagers held an ancestor worship event in the ancestral hall, as local people told me. They gave me access to a written template used in connection with this ritual. The written text clearly records the process and arrangement of the ritual, along with the reasons and results of holding it. According to the text, the ritual host read aloud,

“The Community Pact and Family Rules of the Chen Family of Wentang “which was written down by the Chen ancestors and acknowledged by the first emperor in the Ming

Dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang 朱元璋. Local people told me that it was a solemn moment when all community members stood together to listen to imperial edict and community leaders’ teachings. After that, wrongdoers were punished and virtuous men were praised in this rite so as to rectify customs and discipline the younger generations.

The whole ritual centered around the imperial edict of the first emperor of the

Ming dynasty Zhu Yuanzhang. The performers of the ritual stood around the written edict in accord with their roles. Then all the villagers were seated in the hall, with the elderly in the first row, the middle-aged in the second row, and the youth in the third row. The ritual performance unfolded by the clan leader Zu zhang 族長 read aloud the imperial edict and local interpretations of the edict content. The participants also enacted detailed regulations and laws which touched upon ceremonial formality, solutions to neighborhood disputes, and protection of the local environment. The ritual, organized by local clan leaders within the male-dominant power structure built on models of the centralized feudal monarchy and patriarchal structure, aimed at enhancing people’s awareness of moral degradation and proactively taking measures to supervise them to

39 lead more virtuous lives in accordance with traditional Confucian values. The template of this ritual was passed down to later generations who needed to honor their ancestors and obey their ethical instructions. It required people to dress and behave properly, to hold authority in awe, and to be obedient to the authoritative words which comprise the utterances in this ritual. Although this ritual is seldom performed now and even in revived form does not occupy the social space it once did, its formal nature and key values still impact people and their performances today.

The ritual template as the implementation of the community pact and family rules, implores the locals to follow its prescripts in the letter and spirit of the kingly way. The

“kingly way” (wangdao 王道) is an index of benevolent governance. The concept was first venerated by Mencius. He thought acting in a kingly way meant to govern the nation through the practice of virtue.84 Mencius claimed that when people can feed their living and bury their dead without any regret, the kingly way begins. He also detailed that a ruler needs to pay special attention to education, emphasizing filial and fraternal responsibilities so that elderly people can wear silk and eat meat and commoners are fed and clothed well. These being achieved, there is nothing preventing the ruler from attaining the kingly way.85 If the “kingly way” is upheld, beneficial effects will spread across the society, so the kingly way is held as an ideal governance to observe the way of

84 Chun-Chieh Huang, East Asian Confucianisms: Texts in Context (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2015), 48. 85 It is recorded in Mencius. 孟子·梁惠王：養生喪死無憾，王道之始也……謹庠序之教，申之以孝悌 之義，頒白者不負戴於道路矣。七十者衣帛食肉，黎民不饑不寒，然而不王者，未之有也。 Shisanjing zhushu zhengli weiyuanhui 十三經注疏整理委員會, eds., Shisanjing zhushu zhengliben 25: Mengzi zhushu 十三經注疏整理本 25：孟子注疏[Compilation of the Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the Thirteen Classics 25:Commentrary on Mencius] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2000), 12. 40

Heaven and gain blessings. The text also harks back to the instructions in famous ancient classics Zhou Li 周禮 and beneficial customs in and Yin/Shang dynasty like the rite of supporting the elderly (namely San lao wu geng 三老五更), showing filial piety to parents, loving and , and farming the land. The intended effect of these rites was the safeguarding of country and family.86 The prescripts set good examples for later generations to follow so that the way of Heaven could be observed and blessings be gained. The textual template places the governance of the Wentang community in the light of this ancient concept of kingly way. It also cites The Book of

Songs and Confucian teachings to show that wise people need to follow the path of Zhou, the path of the “great way” 大道 and the eminent men of three dynasties.87 The text recalls the prior events of good governance to teach about events to come, treats historical events in terms of the present context, and concludes with the principles of prosperity and decline. It warns that people pay a price for their disregarding of the system of the former kings. But if persons make efforts to carry out moral education and help people learn through rites to follow the kingly way, the proper foundation of

86 San lao wu geng 三老五更 is recorded in the Book of Rites (Liji Wenwang shizi diba 禮記·文王世子 第八): 適東序，釋奠於先老。遂設三老、五更、群老之席位焉。Moving to the school on the east, the of Heaven unfolded and offered sacrifice to the aged in previous ages. Immediately after that, he prepared the seats for three old men and five experienced men as well as a group of the aged present there. Zheng Xuan 鄭玄 believed that sanlao 三老 and wugeng 五更 are two old men. The Son of Heaven took care of them to show the virtue of filial piety and love. However, Kong Yingda 孔穎達 argued that sanlao 三老 and wugeng 五更 mean three old men and five old men respectively. No matter which explanation we adopt, this ritual behavior invariably expresses the tradition of respecting the aged. Shisanjing zhushu zhengli weiyuanhui 十三經注疏整理委員會, eds., Shisanjing zhushu zhengliben 13: Li ji zhengyi 十三經 注疏整理本 13：禮記正義 [Compilation of the Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the Thirteen Classics 13: Rectified Interpretation of Book of Rites] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2000), 758. 87 It is recorded in 《禮記·禮運》 孔子曰：“大道之行也，與三代之英，丘未之逮也，而有志焉。” Confucius replied: “I couldn’t see the implementation of Grand Course and the good governance of sage kings in Xia, Shang and Zhou Dynasties. I really yearn for that.” Shisanjing zhushu zhengli weiyuanhui, Shisanjing zhushu zhengliben 13, 766. 41 governance can be established. The text expressly conveys the idea that the purpose of carrying out this ritual of moral education is to preserve the kingly system and revive the prosperous past. 88

From the discussion above, it is easy to see that the historical ritual constantly referred back to events in prior historical eras as the rationale behind their deeds and undertakings, as does the ritual of ancestor worship of today. People in the Ming dynasty wanted to revive the reign of Zhou and the sage kings that have long been lost. Their ritual followed the teachings of the kingly way and the way of Heaven as keys to maintaining flourishing communities. This feature of the kingly way tends to historically contextualize the ritual of ancestor worship that I will discuss later on. It is deeply rooted in cultural memory and is a recurring myth that finds various expressions in different historical periods. Even today when imperial kings are a thing of the past, the concept of the kingly way still reigns and is reconstructed in society under governance of the

Communist Party.89 The historical memory of some key Confucian values are still held within the community, manifested in various ways, including latency.

Currently, in some other villages near Wentang, villagers at times perform Mulian opera and Nuo opera. Forms of so-called “Mulian opera” are common in parts of southern China, based on a Buddhist story which has been transmitted by prosimetric

88 Radical Confucians argues that China’s renaissance means to return to the pre-Qin times or the Zhou period which is regarded as the of Chinese history. Therefore, the revival of the golden age is the return to the essence of Chinese civilization and the essence is claimed to be Confucianism by cultural nationalism. Dessein Bart, “Contending for the Truth: Confucianism in the Contemporary PRC,” in Contemporary East Asia and the Confucian Revival, ed. Natasa Visocnik and Jana S. Rosker (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 193. 89 Cheng Chen, The Return of Ideology: The Search for Regime Identities in Postcommunist Russia and China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016), 110. 42 narratives (oral and written) and opera, including a written version written by Ming dynasty playwright Zheng Zhizhen 鄭之珍.90 The plot concerns how Mulian, a filial son rescues his mother from the depths of hell with the help of Buddha. It is usually performed during temple fairs and religious festivals or other community events, and during lunar leap years or natural disasters in order to expel evil spirits and pray for blessings. Today the performance has both ceremonial and entertainment functions. By incorporating the use of vulgarities and folkloric slang, the opera vividly communicates moral lessons on filial piety in a Buddhist story. In 2015, villagers in Lixi 厲溪 and Limu

栗木, two villages in the Qimen county, were invited to Hong Kong to stage a Mulian opera in a commercial theater. Similarly, Nuo opera, arising from a widespread ritual tradition which involves the wearing of wooden , is also performed to drive away harmful supernatural beings, disease, and evil influences, and to petition for blessings from a host of deities. In Qimen, performers often wear ferocious masks as they sing, , and offer sacrifices. Both Nuo and Mulian opera have been selected as items of

Intangible Cultural Heritage by units of the Chinese government and are presently considered, constitute an important part of Chinese , though their religious aspects are often downplayed. Yet, from these performances, local people to some extent do reveal their beliefs about ghosts and deities. It is surely not accurate to claim that people in Qimen are atheists united under the leadership of the Communist Party. Instead, their beliefs are syncretized with various religious traditions and form their particular form of

90 Qitao Guo, Ritual Opera and Mercantile Lineage: The Confucian Transformation of Popular Culture in Late Imperial Huizhou (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2005), 152. 43 popular religion. This background can help us more accurately understand the ancestor worship ritual and local people’s attitude towards it as discussed below.

3.2 Situational Context of the Performance

The physical setting of performance tells how it is situated in a specific time and place among a group of people, thus constituting an important aspect of the patterning of ritual performance. It generates various semiotic cues which are combined and interacted to create symbolic meanings in the opening of a ritual space where transformative power is at work. The ritual of ancestor worship takes place in the small community named of

Wentang Village in western Qimen of the Huizhou area. The largest and most influential family is the Chen family which recently used movable-type printing to make copies of their hand-written or orally reconstructed genealogies for preservation. When the copies were completed in 2009, villagers held a ceremony during spring festival to present in public the genealogies as a memorial to their ancestors. In one video, the host said this tradition had a history of 500 years but it was interrupted after the People’s Republic of

China was founded, and it was not until 2010 that this traditional ritual was revived. He also emphasized the importance of this ritual in transmitting the heritage, strengthening communal unity, and reinforcing cultural identity. Moreover, this ritual of ancestor worship was claimed to be a distinctive Intangible Cultural Heritage in Anhui Province and was greatly valued by the various levels of government.

In Huizhou, the rituals occurring in the ancestral halls are said to be built during the Ming dynasty. The halls have their own distinctive architectural features. The ancestral hall in Wentang Village is named Yongxi Tang 永錫堂 which is a name form

44 the Confucian Book of Odes, meaning “unceasing blessing of having filial .”91 The

Ancestral Hall is flanked by two arches through which people can enter a small courtyard. The arches separate the ancestral hall from other parts of the village, setting it apart as ritual space. On top of each arch is engraved two phrases: “difficult to know”

(zhinan 知難) and “easy to do” (xingyi 行易). The phrases indicate that villagers value the importance of knowledge or the cultivation of because good behavior is a natural result of right attitude and proper . The ancestral hall is divided into three separate spaces: Yimen (the second main entrance in government offices of the Ming and

Qing dynasties), the hall of offerings, and the living hall. The design is in line with the traditional structure of ancestral shrines. The ancient builders imagined it to be like a ruler’s residence, with a courtyard in the front and a private chamber in the back. 92 The ground in the hall of offerings is elevated one step higher than the yard in front of Yimen, and the living hall one step higher than the hall of offerings. The highly respected ancestral tablets are placed in the living hall, while the hall of offerings is used for communal activities. When one walks through Yimen, they can see two courtyards within, expressing the idea of Sishuiguitang 四水歸堂 in Chinese geomancy. The phrase can be symbolically interpreted as meaning that rainwater which flows from the surrounding roofs and dripping into the courtyard is wealth accumulated by the clan from

91 It is recorded in the Book of Odes 《詩經既醉》孝子不匱，永錫爾類。It means “there is no lack of filial sons; blessings will be conferred on you.” Shisanjing zhushu zhengli weiyuanhui 十三經注疏整理委 員會, eds., Shisanjing zhushu zhengliben diliu juan: Maoshi zhengyi 十三經注疏整理本第 6 卷：毛詩正 義[Compilation of the Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the Thirteen Classics Volume 6: Mao Shi Zheng Yi] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2000), 1285. 92 宗廟之制：古（學）[者] 以為人君之居，前有朝，後有寢。 Cai zhonglang waiji, 4.20a (“Duduan” 獨斷) K.E. Brashier, Ancestral Memory in Early China, 81. 45 outside. High walls enclose the courtyard to delineate a divine space, creating a solemn and majestic ambience. Guarding the main door of the hall are two statues made of white marble, which people call pillars of heaven and earth (qiankun zhu 乾坤柱). A tradition- bearer told me that they also symbolize the sun and the moon, a combination of ying and yang; thus indicating that the space within is a meeting place for the living and the dead.

At one side-door stands a stele on which many names of virtuous men within the Chen clan who contributed to the maintenance of the hall.

The ancestral hall can be regarded as a matrix of performative texts, serving as a multi-faceted semiotic object which has multiple signifying functions, especially the items of embedded speech. Local people put up red paper written with black ink characters on the wall to articulate moral codes and auspicious “Spring couplets”

(chunlian 春聯) to express their concerns and wishes. This architecture and the related texts thus become a social construct made by local insiders to apply to specific frames of reference.93 Decoding these texts in association with the architecture leads to the construction of a cultural artifact through which meanings of ritual practices are interpreted. On the front wall of the hall, local people put up red paper and write short paragraphs of admonition to declare moral guidelines for villagers to obey. These figures contain the content:

93 Benjamin Harshav, Explorations in Poetics (California: Stanford University Press, 2007), 115. 46

文堂乡约家法 The Community Pact and Family Rules of Chen Family of Wentang

孝順父母 show filial piety to parents

尊敬長上 show respect to the elderly

和睦鄉里 live in harmony with neighbors

教訓子孫 discipline younger generation

各安生理 properly handle work and life

毋作非為 get rid of misconduct

Figure 1. The Imperial Edict

47

文堂村村規民約 Village Regulations and Communal Pact of Wentang Village

廉潔奉公 熱愛祖國 honestly perform official duties; love the mother land

遵紀守法 長講道德 abide by the law; highly value morality

尊老愛幼 孝敬父母 respect the elderly and care for the young; show filial

piety to parents

尊妻愛幼 鄰裏團結 respect your and love the young; achieve harmony in

neighborhood

勤勞致富 誠信無邪 be better off through diligent work; be honest and innocent

抵制迷信 遠離賭博 resist superstition; keep your hands clean in gambling

優生優育 文明生活 improve prenatal and postnatal care; have a civilized life

禁止吸毒 爭當楷模 forbid drug-abuse; strive to set a good example

愛護林木 保護環境 protect forests; protect the environment

修橋補路 文明出行 repair the bridge and road; behave properly on trips

鄰裏互幫 防賊偷盜 help each other in neighborhood; guard against thieves

禁毒藥魚 珍愛生態 forbid poisoning fish; protect the ecological environment

Figure 2: The Government Edict

Local people told me that the text of the six instructions (in Figure 1) was based on a historical imperial edict issued by the first Ming emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang. Just as

48 mentioned above, there was a traditional ritual of implementing the community pact and family rules which centered around this imperial edict. At that time of the writing, the customs of Wentang Village had deteriorated, and villagers indulged themselves in bad habits and even committed crimes like theft and robbery. Some noble Chen ancestors wanted a return to high morality, so after gaining support from the government, they drew up the public moral teachings and carried them out as ritual. The whole ritual centering on the imperial edict was modeled on Neo-Confucian teachings. The textual template of this ritual was passed down to later generations in order to honor their ancestors and obey their ethical instructions. Today, local people still honor this imperial edict by placing it on the walls of ancestral halls reproducing the historical ritual context, which encompasses the village in the ancient concept of kingly way.

As to the Village Regulations and Communal Pact of Wentang Village (in Figure

2), it is more like a government edict in modern context. Although it similarly emphasizes morality, it adopts concepts promoted by the Communist Party. Local people told me it was written all by themselves instead of being forced by governments. Chinese governments have stated very clearly the goals of Socialist New Countryside

Construction which are to increase productivity and wealth; to improve customs and make villages clean and tidy; to realize democratic governance.94 The report given by

Chinese agricultural minister describes the achieved in implementing the current policy of Socialist New Countryside as well as the plan for future development. It

94 Yang Shuqing 楊樹青, “Dali tuijin shehui zhuyi xinnongcun jianshe 大力推進社會主義新農村建設 [Promote the socialist new countryside construction forcefully],” News of the Communist Party of China, accessed March 7, 2017, http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64156/64160/5043786.html 49 reiterates the importance of protecting the ecological environment and promoting cultural and ideological progress. Chinese governments crack down on any form of corruption, protect the local traditional culture and lead people onto the path of pursuing healthy civil life which includes advancing scientific knowledge, resisting against superstition, and breaking away from the shackles of corrupt customs.95 Also the instruction of improving prenatal and postnatal care in the poster is another important Chinese governmental policy to prevent people in rural areas from abandoning female infants and infecting diseases. Therefore, this text is an echo to the central government policy.96

Another important textual feature of this hall is the decoration of spring couplets written on red paper. They are two-line verses in rhythm and in symmetry of its delivery.97 They have rich meanings that set up a geographical, historical and sociopolitical framework for the ritual. This ancestor worship is required to be performed in the fourth day of spring festival every year. During the most important festival,

Chinese people often put up spring couplets to usher in the new year. For Chinese people, it is a special symbol of auspiciousness and prosperity and a vivid expression of their

95 Han Changfu 韓長賦, “Guowuyuan guanyu tuijin xinnongcun jianshe gongzuo qingkuang de baogao 國 務院關於推進新農村建設工作情況的報告[National Congress’s Report on Advancing the Socialist New Countryside Construction],” last modified December 23rd, 2014, http://www.npc.gov.cn/npc/xinwen/2014- 12/23/content_1890469.htm. 96 I call the first text imperial edict because local people told me so. They called it shengyu 聖諭 although it doesn’t look like a real edict. It is regarded as an imperial edict in folk belief. Then I use “government edict” this term to draw a comparison between the two. 97 I collected and recorded all these couplets during my fieldwork in 2016. Although the video I analyzed was made in 2010 and 2012, the time span of 5-7 years didn’t change the content of the couplets very much. Local people told me that in the couplets, the essence of loyalty, filial piety, righteousness and propriety is almost the same. All the texts including the two texts of imperial edict and government edict as well as the spring couplets were all handwritten by local people with Chinese calligraphy brush. 50 wishes.98 In this ancestral hall, the couplets also serve as a window to provide a glimpse into their collective interest, hope and belief.

In the geographical dimension, the couplets tell the superior location of this ancestral hall. On the center of Yimen are pasted several spring couplets. Above the door hangs a horizontal scroll bearing the inscription of “resourceful land and outstanding talents” (dilingrenjie 地靈人傑). Under it is the couplet saying, “behind the hall are hundreds of screens where a dragon comes out and bring a spring lasting for ten thousand years; in front of the hall is a curtain facing mountains whose beauty lasts for ages.”99

“Dragon” in Chinese idiom has an auspicious meaning of “promising children” or

“prominent people” because “dragon” was a symbol favored by emperors in ancient

China. Spring means a of hope, warmth and growth. Two time phrases “ten thousand years” and “ages” actually mean forever. This couplet expresses villagers’ wish for everlasting prosperity of this community. Local people told me that behind the hall is a mountain called Lailong Shan 來龍山 which literally means a mountain where dragon comes out. In front of the hall, there is another mountain called Chao Shan 朝山 which is shaped like three Chinese characters yiwanjin 一萬金 (ten thousand gold). A once circulating among local people was that if three places (including this Chao Shan) converged in one point, therein an emperor would arise. Reading this couplet, I can sense the eager pursuit of official success because they perceive the site of temple as a blessing

98 Ronald G. Knapp, China's Living Houses: Folk Beliefs, Symbols, and Household Ornamentation (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1999), 94-96. 99 It is “堂後百屏來龍萬年春; 祠前一簾朝山千古秀”. 51 land that can bring up many promising children finding favor in emperors. They also try to keep the blessing from fading away.

Another dimension is its historical inheritance which illustrates the historical development of this ritual and the history of the segmented lineage. Above all, the most important couplet, as local people told me, is the one hung at the center of the hall of offerings because it should not be replaced while other couplets may subject to change. It says, “Since Ming dynasty, the fourth day after New Year eve will be the date to perform the ritual and the regulations stay unchanged for thousands of years; generation after generation since it was first established, people wore the same style of clothes without any changes.”100 This ritual was initiated in the Ming dynasty and preordained to have certain forms. The age-long tradition already set the date and requirements of the performance for the later generations who are not supposed to tamper with them. There is another couplet which elaborates on its historical origin. It is “ceremonies of offerings in the spring and autumn are practiced in accordance with ancient rites and music; patriarchal clan system delineates different generations and branches of a clan”.101 It maps out the important rules that govern a patriarchal system: the ritual of sacrifice and the genealogy. Although it doesn’t mention genealogy explicitly, for people living in

Huizhou, the goal “zhaomu ordering scheme” (zuozhaoyoumu 左昭右穆) is often achieved through compiling genealogies. This scheme is the means of clarifying and distinguishing the relationship between father and son, near and distant relatives, young

100 It is “癸朔四日由隆庆六年而后循规蹈矩千秋约法长存/派衍九门自大观三载以来发非开基万世衣 冠勿替”. 101 It is “春祀秋尝遵万古圣贤礼乐/ 左昭右穆序一家世代源流”. 52 and old to avoid confusion.102 These couplets clarify the beginning of the ritual long time ago and the method that the clan has been using to keep the memory of the past generations and demarcate the intricate .

In addition to the historical significance of the ritual, the high respect for ancestors and the honor of the whole lineage are also unfolded in some couplets. On

Yimen, a couplet is “In here were renowned scholars of Neo-Confucianism, writers and calligraphers; spread is the fame of high-ranking officials with an affluent and luxurious life.”103 It indicates that from ancient time until now, Chen family has brought up many talented scholars and prestigious imperial ministers, who lent glory to this noble family.

Another One is “Shared is the family tradition of propriety and righteousness; divided is

Ancestry into various clans and bloodlines.”104 A third one is “Clan branches out and its fame reaches far; familial groups long enjoy blessings from ancestors.”105

These two describe that different familial groups can date back to common ancestors no matter how they spread out and they can still find unity in the division. In the living hall, there are also several couplets on the pillars, which convey similar meanings. One is

“With filial sons and grandchildren we have unending blessings pass on; exploits and virtues of our ancestors exert far-reaching good influence.”106 They also put a horizontal scroll (hengpi 横批) to summarize the couplets, which compose of four characters “to bring honor to ancestors” (guangzongyaozu 光宗耀祖). From these couplets, a sense of

102 John Lagerwey and Pengzhi Lu, Early Chinese religion: The Period of Division (220-589 AD) (Leiden: BRILL, 2009), 123. 103 It is “理学名儒翰墨家/钟鸣鼎食公侯第”. 104 It is “礼义共家风/颍川分世族”. 105 It is “支分源里流芳远/派启文溪世泽长”. 106 It is “子孝孙贤世泽长/祖功宗德流芳远”. 53 honor and responsibility is fully projected to encourage later generations to carry on the good tradition of this clan and become talented people that have fame and wealth.

The third dimension is the sociopolitical content of these couplets, which praises the wise governance of the Communist Party and central government. On Yimen, a couplet writes “Strong is our socialist nation because of the peace and security of our country; good is people’s government due to logical administration and harmonious society.”107 It focuses on the present favorable political situation where the nation is prospering and people live in harmony thanks to CCP’s reign. Walking through the

Yimen, one can find another couplet which writes “Grasses and trees in China are bathed in soft wind and timely rain; vast territory of motherland is revived in the reign of sage- kings Yao and Shun.”108 Here the images of grasses and trees metaphorically indicate

Chinese common people and soft wind and timely rain vividly express the benevolent governance and gracious help from Chinese government whose reign is compared to the most harmonious historical period of legendary sage-kings. These couplets focus on contemporary situation where the clan tradition finds its expression. A history of honor and achievement of the Chen clan shines upon the current political reign of Communist

Party, naturally alluding to governor-commoner relationship aligning with minister- emperor relationship in history.

To summarize, the setting of this ritual lays out a three-dimensional temporo- spatial construct which connects ancient archetype with modern interpretations, human activity with ecological environment, and the living world with the world of the past

107 It is “国泰民安到底社会主义强/政通人和还是人民政府好”. 108 It is “九州草木共沾时雨春风/万里江山重现尧天舜日”. 54

(“embodied” in the ancestors in the spirit world), thus paving the path for the reenactment of a traditionally recurring myth in a different social context. The time of this ritual performance is during the New Year Festival which is very special because it marks the end of the past year and the beginning of a new lunar year. It reveals a metaphor of regenerating life and restoring a messy state to an orderly one, thus transforming a concrete time into a mythical time.109 The New Year Festival is when people go back home, get together and have family reunions. It is always related to the return of the dead among the living. Some Chinese have a memorial sacrifice to their deceased beloved ones as if they were still alive and with them.

Besides the regeneration of life, it is also a time of imitating cosmogonic act. In the most important couplet, it says “Since Ming dynasty, the fourth day after New Year eve will be the date to perform the ritual”, so this ritual is the cyclical recurrence of what has been done in ancient China. As it is described above, in Ming dynasty there was a movement of cultivating people’s mind and improving their morality. At that time, they witnessed a decline of good customs paralleled with a rise of misconducts and crimes, so local elite made every effort to restore the social order through ritual performance. In another couplet, the phrase “a revival under the reign of sage-king Yao and Shun” is a reference to the reign of sage-kings (often regarded as founding or even of

Chinese nation) in primeval age to evoke a yearning for a divine order or kingly governance. This imitation of the traditional or the episodes of the legendary kings’ reign legitimizes their behaviors by alluding to an extrahuman model, an

109 Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the or Cosmos and History, trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), 21. 55 archetype. Thus, the temporal generative structure of this ritual tells a mythical moment of the passage from chaos to cosmos which can be found in a divine archetype.

The place of this ritual performance the ancestral hall reflects the architectonic symbolism of the center which is a sacred temple the royalty resides.110 Implied in the spring couplets, their narration of the dragon-rising mountains, the famous scholars and ministers in history, the clear demarcation and divine order of relationships as well as the honorable reciprocity between ancestors and descendants altogether transform the profane space into a transcendent space which is shared by both the living and the dead.

Embraced by meaningful mountains and chosen according to geomancy, this architecture the hall is enveloped in divine ambience, a place to concentrate all blessings from nature and ancestors. Besides, a couplet mentions the “zhaomu ordering scheme” which situates the whole community in a web of orderly relationships and this ritual frame is inherited generation after generation. All the couplets pasted up on almost every pillar of the hall are actually the symbolic pillars of the sacred space of the center. They convey the hope of getting more and more filial sons and regenerating the structure of worship forever. It is a place prepared for the passage from the profane to the sacred, from death to life, from man to the divinity. In a word, the temporal-spatial construct of this ancestral hall is similar to how Eliade understands ritual as an imitation of a celestial archetype created by earlier generations.

110 Mircea, The Myth of the Eternal Return, 12. 56

Chapter 4 Ritual Process in the Ancestral Hall

This chapter will describe and analyze the content of the video tape of an ancestor ritual obtained from the local television station, and enhanced by interviews I made with locals in the summer of 2016. The chapter begins with a description of the setting of this ritual and is followed by an analysis which frames the performance by using the theoretical framework of keying devices and explains the liminal process performers are going through.111

4.1 Setting of the Ritual

Before the ritual begins, local people burn the paper money and incense, and light firecrackers in the yard before the ancestral hall. In order to liven up the atmosphere, they play traditional instruments like the suona 嗩吶, gong and drum in the form of shifanluogu 十番鑼鼓112 which are popular in Southeast China. The music produced by these instruments is categorized by Chinese ethnomusicologists as a kind of “chuida music” (“blowing and hitting”), consisting of an ensemble of wind and percussion instruments. The music is performed during various occasions in community life, one of

111 In this paper, I use performers with caution. I don’t want to suggest that they are entertaining themselves or others through this ritual. Instead, performers here indicate actors that participate in this ritual. 112 It originally means ten kinds of musical instruments are played together in the percussion ensemble during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), but now it is a kind of ensemble music without requiring the presence of ten instruments. Xiuwen Peng and Hsu Phoebe, “Chuida Music of Sunan,” Asian Music 13.2 (1982): 31. 57 which is the worship of gods and ancestors. They also place one table in the offering hall

(where people make the offerings) and one in the living hall (where the banquets and other activities are held). They put three statues and a large amount of food on each table.

The statues are popular gods of , emolument, and longevity (fu xing 福星, lu xing 祿星 and shou xing 壽星). The meanings of the triad are quite rich. Fu indicates divine gifts or assistance. In Zheng Xuan’s (127-200) annotation for the Book of Odes, fu is obtaining an official position and lu is to receive some form of renumeration. Fu and lu are often used together to mean any kind of bestowed gifts or favors. Shou is longevity, which is conceived of as a heavenly blessing. These three gods are non-sectarian and are recurrent forms in local folk beliefs in many parts of China.113

In the performance video-taped by the local television station, there is a shot of five black pointed pieces of wood on the table in the offering hall. They symbolize the five gradations of rank in the ancient Chinese official system.114 In addition to the objects and food, people also hang a piece of cloth on the front of the table in the living hall. On the cloth are four golden characters, jinyu mantang 金玉滿堂, which is a common

Chinese idiom. It literally means “splendid hall full of wealth” and metaphorically means

113 Mary H. Fong, "The Iconography of the Popular Gods of Happiness, Emolument, and Longevity (Fu Lu Shou)," Artibus Asiae 44.2/3 (1983): 181-196. 114 In Book of Rites/ Royal Regulations (Liji Wangzhi 禮記·王制), it says “王者之制祿爵：公、侯、伯、 子、男，凡五等。” which means “According to the regulations of emolument and rank framed by the kings, there were the duke; the marquis; the earl; the count; and the baron - in all, five gradations (of rank).” Shisanjing zhushu zhengli weiyuanhui 十三經注疏整理委員會, eds., Shisanjing zhushu zhengliben 12: Li ji zhengyi 十三經注疏整理本 12：禮記正義 [Compilation of the Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the Thirteen Classics Volume 12: Rectified interpretations of Book of Rites] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2000), 386. I use James Legge’s translation. Ch’u Chai and Winberg Chai, ed., Li Chi Book of Rites: An Encyclopedia of Ancient Ceremonial Usages, Religious Creeds, and Social Institutions Vol.1, trans. James Legge (New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1967), 209.

58 great fame and rich knowledge. Paper dragons are another important element of the scene, and are displayed on each side of the hall. Clan members also put up two portraits on the central wall that separate the living hall and the hall of offerings and three on the wall that separate the living hall and an inner room for ancestral tablets. According to locals, one of the first two figures is the founding emperor of the Chen dynasty (557-589) in the period of the Northern and Southern dynasties and the other is the first emperor in

Han dynasty. The locals regard these figures as foundational clan ancestors. Figures on other three portraits are more recent, and are considered the direct founding ancestors of

Wentang Village, one of which established the community. In the hall of offerings, between the portraits are two red satin banners and under them are three iron cases holding genealogies. On each side there is a chair.

Various roles and interrelationship between these roles, both social and behavioral, figure in the ritual performance. All the performers are male and most of them are in their middle age. They are called lisheng 禮生 which means “masters of rites.”115 In Ming and Qing dynasties, lisheng were appointed to assist the performance of rites in the court during the Imperial Sacrifice. In the local ancestral hall, the ritual master zhuji 主祭 is an elderly man, around 70 years old.116 He does almost all the

115 Lisheng defined in Ming-Qing texts, were ritual specialists who guided the ritual performances of weddings, funerals, sacrifices, and other ceremonies. Yonghua Liu, Confucian Rituals and Chinese Villages: Ritual Change and Social Transformation in a Southeastern Chinese Community, 1368-1949 (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2013), 48-49. An official dictionary in Qing dynasty clearly defined lisheng as “the persons who stand along and call out the rites of rising, kneeling, and kowtowing when sacrifices are offered in saintly temples and halls of early worthies” Niato Kenkichi 內藤乾吉, ed., Liubu chengyu zhujie 六部成語註解[An Annotated Dictionary of terms of Six Ministries](: Zhejiang guji chubanshe, 1987), 90. 116 Although I call him a ritual master, actually his role is an obedient one and he does what the speaker requires him to do. The speaker is the real “master” of the scene. 59 sacrificing activities during the whole process, aided by four assistants who are called peiji 陪祭 (each of them has his own role, as explained later). But in doing so, he must listen to the instructions of a speaker who announces what to do step by step. The speaker who is called sijiang 司講 in Chinese holds the crucial role in conducting the ritual.

Facing the speaker stands a performer who keeps silent throughout the process. Apart from these assistants, there are also six capable men who stand next to each other on each side of the table. They are familiar with the etiquette required during the ritual process.

All of the performers wear the same costume: a black hat and a black gown. Another important role is the siqin 司琴 who plays musical instruments, following the speaker’s announcements and leading the actions of the other performers. These performers also have other important roles according to the indigenous exegesis I will introduce later. The audiences are mainly made up of villagers in the community. Men, women and children crowd the ancestral hall and surround the ritual participants to attentively view the ritual activities.

Before the performance starts, the ritual leaders must burn paper to sacrifice to

Heaven, which they deem as presiding over all creation. When the ritual begins, the speaker and one silent helper enter the offering hall and give a fist-and-palm salute (the typical of an open hand covering the closed fist). The two then step up onto the chairs in front of the portraits and the speaker instructs in a steady and loud voice to “set off firecrackers and play music”. The speaker continues, asking the siqin players to perform, one beats the drum three times, one taps the gong three times, and several play three movements on the suona. Then the speaker instructs the assistants to find their own 60 positions and stand straight. The ritual master takes his place, followed by four assistants.

After all the performers are on scene, the speaker continues to announce directions to steer their behavior. He declares that the ritual master should wash his face and circumambulate the table to observe the food. The ritual master is also asked to burn incense three times and every time before he offers incense, he needs to wait for the speaker’s announcement. After burning incense, the ritual master should strictly follow instructions of the speaker to bow down to the ground and offer tributes. At last, after burning silks, the speaker declares the “ritual is over and the assembly is dismissed”. It is the end of the official ritual and the attendees can now leave. The speaker and the silent helper step down from their chairs and leave, saluting each other in the same way with hand over clenched fist as at the beginning.

4.2 A Basic Understanding of Keys to Performance

According to Richard Bauman, “Performance is a mode of language use, a way of speaking…[it] becomes constitutive of the domain of verbal art as spoken communication.”117 In other words, performance is framed with various keying devices to speak to audience or transmit the message and information for communicative purposes. Bauman categorized these devices into different types, including special formulae, language use, paralinguistic features, parallelism and appeals to tradition. On the linguistic level, performers use archaic words and jargon to enhance their communicative competence. In terms of paralinguistic features, they rely on shifts in register, gestures, posture and other behaviors to express unspoken meanings.

117 Bauman, Verbal Art, 11. 61

Bauman points out that a special formula is inherent in the performance to begin and end the narration.118 It functions as the marker of a genre and indicator of the relationship between performers and audience. It also has some referential functions. In

Wentang Village’s ritual of ancestor worship, the formulae not only signal the beginning and ending, but almost guide every procedure of the ritual. Words uttered by the speaker form the formulae of the ritual which present the whole process from the beginning to the end. The formulae also foreground the special status of the speaker and his relationship with the audience and even other performers. He stands on a chair and directs everyone’s actions, in control of the whole ritual. It shows that he is lifted above others and his eyes could see every corner of the place. He gives orders and demands everyone else to obey, setting himself apart from other performers. By assigning roles to each performer, he is no longer himself, but rather the spokesman of ancestors wielding the power of tradition.

His prolonged voice brings the audience to the mystic realm of meeting respectable ancestors. He not only controls the temporal process of the ritual, but spatial process as well because of his assertion of sacrificing to the ancestors prove the reality that ancestors are dwelling among them. It thus opens up a new realm where the past and the present merge, and the living people reach out to their dead ancestors (or symbolically, the revival of the dead tradition). When he steps down and closes access realm, he goes back to ordinary life and recovers his normal role in daily life. By setting up the formulae of ritual performance, he constructs spaces of the sacred and determines the audiences’ entrance into and exit from those spaces. The sacredness of spaces further leads to

118 Bauman, Verbal Art, 21. 62 creation of a subjunctive world where “otherness” exists and can be invited into the living world.

In the formulae of this ritual performance, the speaker relies on a set of special codes to ensure its smooth progression, which have very distinct linguistic features and symbolic meanings. “Special linguistic usage is taken often as a definitive criterion of poetic language”.119 The language use of a speech community varies from region to region. There is no definite analytic frame of reference for all the performance, but analysis of each individual performance can provide a glimpse into deeply-rooted local concepts. In this particular case of ancestor worship, the linguistic features of verbal communication are identified as rhetoric devices of repetition, archaism, idioms, and symbolic sign of a number. During the main part of the ritual, the speaker repeats a basic unit of instructions to organize the ritual. That unit revolves about the offering of tributes, which is further unfolded into a series of instructions of kneeling down, burning incense, bowing down, and offering wine, money and soup. This mode of offering tributes to ancestors is repeated three times during the process of ritual. And in this basic unit, there is also repetition of instructions like reiterating “burning incense” and “bowing down” three times. “Through repetition, ritual establishes a formal context above and beyond any particular content or meaning of the event, gesture or locution.”120 In this patterned repetition, the meaning of worship is abstracted into a strong formal element, devoid of content, to call for alternative significations. The “emptiness” of the repeated formalities

119 Bauman, Verbal Art, 17. 120 Adam B. Seligman and Robert. P Weller, Rethinking Pluralism Ritual, Experience, and Ambiguity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 98. 63 validates the substantial offering to the bodiless being (ancestors), thus escorting the audience from one world of significance and meaning to another. As I will discuss later, local people also explain this ritual as a form of minister offering tributes to emperors, so the same form of repetition actually generates varied interpretations and provides a potential space for participants to experience otherness and a multi-layered world of existence.

When the speaker repeats instructions, number three frequently appears, explicitly or implicitly. At the beginning, he orders several performers to play instruments three times and later he orders the ritual master to repeat several ritual act three times. He himself also repeats the series of instructions of sacrificing three times. Number three takes an important place in Chinese thinking. Its basic meaning is derived from the trinity of heaven, earth and man. In Chinese worldview, “man, by virtue of his intermediate position between heaven and earth, corresponds to the number three.”121 Chinese take great pleasure in gathering parallels of threes and they require that three offerings must be made when ancestors are worshipped because three indicates the balanced relationship between man and heaven-earth. In Chinese history, there are also three fundamental relations in all human interactions: bonds between the Emperor and the People, the Father and the Son, and the and the Wife. It shows that man lives in harmony with surroundings and deals with interpersonal relationships properly. Another important aspect of the use of number three lies in its meaning of multiplicity. Doing anything three

121 Wolfram Eberhard, A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols: Hidden Symbols in Chinese Life and Thought (London: Routledge, 2006), 359. 64 times implies that it has been done many times. Therefore, repeating the ritual act three times means to offer enough sacrifices.

As to the language use in this ritual, there is an attribute of archaism since the speaker employs ancient Chinese words or classical Chinese idioms to achieve the effect of traditionality and the esoteric. In order to give instructions in the authoritative tone, he speaks short phrases in classical Chinese which are very forceful and old-fashioned.

Seldom used in daily life, they are too serious and formal, but they fit in this occasion where people yearn for their ancestors with reverence. Obsolete as they are, this usage of words is still readily understood by most of the people on the spot. From the functional point of view, the choice of words is aimed to bring audience out of their familiar environment into a new realm of solemnity and majesty so as to cultivate their emotion and influence their mind. At the same time, these words must make sense to them and provide knowledge and guidance. Otherwise, the audience would get lost in the unintelligible context, unable to follow the instructions. Therefore, the speaker uses the language which is neither vernacular nor elusive. It is an in-between state to elicit respectful response from the audience effectively.

During the ritual performance, when the ritual master and his assistants kneel down before the portraits of ancestors, one of the assistants on behalf of all the community members read two congratulatory messages to ingratiate themselves with the ancestors. The tradition-bearer told me that reading these sacrificial texts is a symbolic act of ancestors ordering a representative to speak out their blessing on the descendants.

The first one is read on behalf of the generation of sons. It mainly talks about the history

65 of Wentang Village which can be dating back to Song dynasty when the first ancestor

Shun Chenggong starts to farm on this land and expands into a large family. “Chen family has long kept to the traditional values of loyalty and filial piety, and in the later generations, famous ministers and scholars came forth in large number. They have left rich inheritance for their descendants. Their fame and grace should be remembered and all the descendants keep silent before ancestors in reverence. Generation after generation, they benefited from ancestors’ virtuous work. Therefore, by no means could this ritual of worship be replaced or discarded”.122 This passage, replete with archaic words and phrases, is sung in Qimen dialect. As a eulogistic message, it aims to please the ancestors and invoke a sense of pride and pleasure in people’s heart.

Similarly, the other passage of blessings later read by the assistant, represents the generation of grandsons. He says that all the ancestors who have passed away bless us so that various blessings abound in us. Then he further details what kind of blessing will come upon them. “You will get more filial sons and filial grandsons and have a good harvest because the Heaven will respond to your request; your plants flourish on the land and you will have a long life.”123 From the content and language use of these two passages, it is inferred that the sacrificial texts integrate a plea for ancestors, praise of their virtuous work and a confirmative answer from ancestors. In other words, it is an interaction between descendants who express admiration and their forefathers who bestow blessing. In order to exalt ancestors and engage in this dialogue, performers naturally choose the language used in the ancient time. The reading and singing of two

122 People from Wentang, Jia Yuan, 2010. 123 Ibid. 66 congratulatory messages facilitate the communication between ancestors in old days and descendants at present, bridging the gap between this world and the world beyond.

Along with the language spoken by performers, some paralinguistic features are worth mentioning. One of them is the shifting between speaking, singing and music.

Shifting is defined as “change from one sort of genre, style, register, mode, means or communicative channel to another.”124 The variety of shifts between different components of performance captures audience’ attention and appeals to them to contemplate the propriety of addressing ancestors. The ritual is mostly composed of the monologue of the speaker and the compliant behavior of other performers. However, there is shift from speaking to singing when the assistant on behalf of the ritual master starts to read congratulatory message. When spoken registers shift, there is further a shift between stylized “dedicated registers of speech.”125 When the speaker announces the instructions, he speaks accented Mandarin, but when reading messages, the assistant speaks Qimen dialect which sounds more local and incomprehensible to outsiders. The assistant narrows the ritual into the internal affairs which resists outsiders’ intervention.

Their choice of words is also differentiated. The speaker aims to make known his instructions to all the people there; however, the assistant is a representative to express gratitude towards ancestors in praise of their grace. The speech of assistant is more archaic than that of speaker, thus bringing the audience farther in their experience of meeting with ancestors and their discipline. The archaism actually generates a sense of

124 Mark Bender, “Shifting and Performance in Chantefable,” in The Eternal Storyteller: Oral Literature in Modern China, ed. Vibeke Bordahl (Richmond: Curzon, 1999), 182. Dell Hymes, “Ways of Speaking,” in Explorations in the Ethnography of Speaking, ed. Richard Bauman and Joel Sherzer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 433-434. 125 John Miles Foley, The Singer of Tales in Performance,16. 67 mystery, so ritual process is replete with changing stylized registers of speech, which produces varieties within monotonous form of repetition. Another shifting occurs between speaking and music. After the speaker announces the basic unit of instructions of sacrificing and the main performers start to circumambulate the table, the music is played along with their walk to space out repeated instructions. The function of music is to arouse the delightful feelings in audience’ heart, thus balancing the sternness caused by rigid form of repetition and reference to archaic expressions.

Another important paralinguistic feature is performers’ gestures and behaviors following instructions of the speaker. Upon hearing the order, the ritual master needs to do accordingly and due to the old age, he is often supported by two assistant performers to accomplish all the ritual acts. When he is asked to burn incense, it is the assistants who pass the incense onto his hands and after he holds the incense for a while, assistants take over the incense and put it in the altar. It is the same for offering wine, money and soup.

Kneeling before the table, the ritual master only needs to hold these tributes slightly above his head. There are four assistants on each side of the table. The ritual master passes tributes to the one near him and he then passes them on to the one next to him. The last assistant who is nearest to ancestors’ portrayals and tablets places them on the table.

The ritual master occupies the central position during the ritual because he is surrounded by assistants to lead them to accomplish the sacrificing. All the other performers only do the auxiliary work. His act has the symbolic meaning that he is the representative of the whole community. It is his offering that endues the ritual with the real meaning of worship. He responds to the speaker with his compliant behavior, demonstrating great

68 respect and obedience. While the speaker is the spokesman for ancestors or living tradition, the ritual master represents the descendants and their code of conduct. It thus strikes up a dialogue between the ancestors and descendants. For most part of the communication, the ritual master is silenced and he can only give physical response, submitting to the absolute authority of ancestry who died a long time ago but still keep talking today. Besides, when the ritual master is on one side of the table and ancestors’ portrayals and tablets on the other side with other performers standing beside and all the offerings placed on the table, it is like a , an invitation for ancestors to come down and enjoy the food and daily necessities.

Throughout the ritual, the feature of parallelism figures prominently in their performance. Leech calls it “foregrounded regularity” which hints at “the potential continuities between elaborate, scheduled, public performances, involving highly marked performance forms and other contexts for discourse.”126 This ritual of ancestor worship is suffused with parallel constructions. For instance, there are equal number of performers standing by each side of the table. They repeatedly salute each other by using the typical gesture of an open hand covering the closed fist. There are two performers standing on the two chairs, one on each side. They are the speaker and another performer who doesn’t speak or do anything else during the whole process of ritual. It seems that his only function is just standing there to make the performance symmetrically balanced. Besides, when performers start to circumambulate the table, except for the ritual master who is in

126 Geoffrey Leech, A linguistic Guide to English Poetry (London: Longmans, 1969), 62. Bauman, Verbal Art, 18.

69 the middle, they are divided into two groups and walk side by side. When the ritual master offers tributes to ancestors, on each side stands equal number of assistants. For one thing, all of these parallelistic structures contribute to the beauty of the performance and add to the aesthetic values. For another, they reflect the basic doctrine of the mean

(zhongyong 中庸) which means to achieve the state of equilibrium and harmony so that a happy order will prevail and everything nourish.127 It is also the philosophy of properly dealing with social relations. Traditional Chinese culture puts much emphasis on hierarchical differentiations between monarchs and subjects, fathers and sons, and as well as some abstract relationships like the remote and the close, the noble and the base, most of which are included in this ritual.128 The doctrine of mean aims to harmonize these relationships to avoid going to extremes. When performers find their positions and address each other in a proper way, the balance in all parallelistic constructions of social relationships is achieved and the order prevails.

The tradition-bearer provides an indigenous exegesis of symbols in this ritual performance. He said the form of this ritual is called jinji 京祭, a state ritual performed for emperors. Because their ancestor Chen Baxian 陳霸先 is an emperor of Chen dynasty in the period of northern and southern dynasties, they adopt this form of performance.

Also they think it is a grand occasion, so a dignified performance must be staged. In this ritual, each performer has his own special role. The speaker and the silent performer

127 James Legge, The Life and Teachings of Confucius: With Explanatory Notes (London: Trü bner, 1867), 284. 128 Xiaotong Fei, Gary G. Hamilton and Zheng Wang, From the Soil, the Foundations of Chinese Society a Translation of Fei Xiaotong's Xiangtu Zhongguo, with an Introduction and Epilogue (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 66. 70 standing on the two chairs play the role of jindianchuannu 金殿傳奴, the court eunuchs serving the imperial majesty. One of their responsibilities is to summon ministers who honorably present themselves before the emperor. The ritual master is the leader of the community. The assistants are called yinzan 引贊, zhongjunzan 中軍贊 and zhuangyuan

狀元. Yinzan is the leading role of ancient minister of rituals; zhongjunzan is a role of messenger to accompany the general. The other two assistants are Number One scholars in the highest civil and military imperial examinations. In the ritual, it is the civil scholar who reads the sacrificial texts. As to the military scholar, if there is someone who is disobedient in the clan, he is responsible to mete out punishments. It is said that in the past, the whole community held the ritual of ancestor worship in the morning and dealt with communal affairs in the afternoon. They disciplined their children by rewarding the well-behaved community members and punishing those rebellious ones. So wu zhuangyuan the military scholar takes that role of regulating the community members. At last, siqin, people who play music are among servants who do chores or errands. Besides, music in the ritual is also very important. At the start, the speaker asks servants to beat drum, tap gong and play suona three times. It signals the beginning of an important event.

Everyone needs to find his position and be serious. The music during the ritual means that the emperor should enjoy the music when he partakes of the feast. There is also symbolic meaning for the two strips of red satin hanging on the wall which separate the hall of offering and the living hall. When the satins are rolled up, it means the emperor is resting in the living hall. If they are unfurled, it means the emperor is back to the table and enjoying the food. To summarize, through their explanation, this ritual is like a 71 minister on behalf of his big family presenting himself before the emperor. He also prepares the food and eats with the emperor. This scene of meeting ancestors is thus alternatively explained as a submission to imperial power.

4.3 Transition in Liminality and Formation of a Communitas

The ritual process unfolds as a passage or transition which is marked by three phases: separation, margin and aggregation.129 When the speaker and the silent performer step onto the chairs, elevating themselves to a higher position above all the others, they inaugurate the ritual space and separate it from their ordinary daily life. All the performers wear a black gown and black hat and show ancient Chinese etiquette which are rarely seen today. The speaker makes announcements in quaint classical Chinese and orders some serving roles to play music. The symbolic behaviors signal the departure of this group from the early fixed point in the social structure and from the previous set of cultural conditions. Whatever their former occupations and social positions are (farmers or officials), now they are all lisheng (masters of rites). They pass through this ritual realm without having any attributes of the past and coming state. After their previous possessions are stripped off and they enter this limbo phase, they are fashioned anew and endowed with additional power to adapt to the postliminal structure. It thus creates a liminal space where the social and cultural transitions occur.130

In the liminality, the liminal personae can neither be classified nor be clearly defined. They are mere entities in transition.131 One of the most important features of

129 , The Rites of Passage (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960), 10-11. 130 Turner, The Ritual Process, 94. 131 Turner, The Ritual Process, 103. 72 liminal personae is the ambiguity and indeterminacy around their condition and identity.

Here table and food are arranged like a family reunion between the living people in the community and ancestors who have died long time ago. According to local people’s explanation, the performer reads congratulatory messages because ancestors ask him to bless the descendants standing before them. Therefore, it is inferred that to praise ancestors’ virtuous work and to offer them with daily food and commodities are a special kind of communication between the living and the dead. These symbolic behaviors and objects actually open up another state of life or another mystic space where the living and the dead share the same table, food and even the same language. When the congratulatory messages are read, ancestors are assumed to listen and respond. That is probably why they use the archaic words and expressions. They need to use a language intelligible to their ancestors who spoke classical Chinese in ancient times. Thus, in this situation, all the entities are either dead or alive and no one can tell whether they are in this world of descendants or in the other world of ancestors. The ritual abolishes time and transforms space so that the line between death and life, archaism and modernity, substance and spirit is totally blurred.

Another important feature of the liminal personae is their submissiveness and .132 It is especially true for the ritual master who follows the speaker’s instructions obediently without agency. When the speaker talks, he is the personification of self- evident authority of tradition and he represents the authority of ancestors (who are thought to be watching). His authoritative voice vocalizes the Huizhou culture’s moral

132 Turner, The Ritual Process, 103. 73 values, social norms, attitudes, sentiments and interpersonal relationships. He can require the complete obedience of the ritual master to obey the axiomatic values of society. The social and cultural rules governing their behavior demand the ritual master to comply with the ritual code of serving the dead as if they were alive. Therefore, he is proscribed to kneel down humbly and to do exactly what he is ordered to do. Facing the age-old ancestors, the ritual master is deprived of any title or any power, and is expected to have complete submission to the authority. His reaction to the speaker is like an obedient coming to his father. “The ancestor cult is the transposition to the religious of the relationships of parents and children.”133 Through the childlike submissiveness, the ritual master along with other performers are all refashioned into ethically superior persons

(junzi 君子) who have rational thinking, balanced emotion and prudent behavior.134 The speech in the liminal space not only functions as communication but also release power and wisdom. It imparts ontological values to liminal entities through the ancient teachings imprinted on the ritual and the ideal of orderly relationships embodied in it as well. It is one of the goals of Confucian ritual. “Ritual is a tool for perfecting the self and harmonizing society…the complex coordination of gesture, facial expression, and verbal formulae, an integration that in turn required thorough attunement to the ideas embodied in the rites.” 135

133 Charles M Leslie, Anthropology of Folk Religion (New York: Vintage Books, 1960), 19. 134 Antonio S. Cua, Encyclopedia of (New York: Routledge, 2003), 330. 135 Michael Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2001), 189. 74

All the liminal entities actually form a relatively undifferentiated communitas which consists of equal individuals submitting together to the general authority.136

Although performers take different roles in the liminal space, they are essentially the same in the unstructured space since they all follow the instructions of the speaker. From the surface, they are members of a big family who altogether make offerings to their common ancestors. From their explanation, they are all subordinates who serve the imperial majesty. In a broader sense, if including the audience, this ritual creates communitas within the whole village which is free from all its former entanglements of social hierarchies. They are all descendants of common ancestors and submissive to the shared knowledge of traditional admonishments. There is a blend of Subservience, homogeneity and comradeship among them. As Turner points out, “it is a matter of giving recognition to an essential and generic human bond without which there could be no society.”137 People in this ritual space share the human bond that is independent of their various social, political and cultural identities. They experience the lowliness of the submission together and are all elevated to the high moral positions to evoke a communitas of ethically superior persons.

Therefore, after going through the ritual process and aggregating again, the ritual subject (be it individual or corporate) comes back to the structural world. Ideally, each participant, whether ritualist or audience member, finds their own position and recovers all the rights and obligations of the community. The ritualists are thus supposed to

“behave in accordance to the certain customary norms and ethical standards binding on

136 Tuner, The Ritual Process, 96. 137 Turner, The Ritual Process, 97. 75 incumbents of social position in a system of such positions.”138 In a word, people participating in this ritual are expected to better live out the morality and fit into the structured society. In the last phase, all the lisheng (masters of rites) walk out of the ancestral hall and burn silks. The speaker claims that it is the end of the ritual and participants are dismissed. The speaker and the silent performers step down from the chairs, salute each other as they do in the beginning, and walk outside. These gestures mark the closure of mythical space and an end to the liminal process. Some of the ritualists return to the positions in the local Communist Party and others go back to tend their fields. They go through the transition process in the ritual and come back to the reality where those ethical beliefs are embodied.

Local informants did not tell me directly and clearly what this ritual meant to them and what effect it could bring upon them or the whole village. They only briefly noted it was to remember the ancestors. However, they quite often expressed their dissatisfaction towards the declining morality in current society. Several uttered the same complaint, that “people now only care about their self-interest and how to make money while turning a blind eye to the collective affairs.”139 One of them pointed at the ditch in front of his house and said that this ditch connected almost every house in the village and benefited the whole village. Once there was clean water flowing in the ditch so that people could wash clothes in it and guard against fire. However, recently it is filled with rubbish and hardly flows, and no one is willing to spend money and time to dredge it. A similar concern is that three ancestral halls have fallen into disrepair and people are

138 Turner, The Ritual Process, 95. 139 Xiao Chen (a factory worker) in discussion with the author, June 2016. 76 reluctant to protect their common heritage because they don’t want to spend money.140

There was only one person who had the authority to rally the whole community. He was the former host of this ritual and also a local elite, but he passed away two years ago. He was a renowned and influential figure in the village. Before his death, he always shouldered the responsibility to organize local people to enact collective affairs for the welfare of the whole community. “But people always evaded obligations and turned away from him,” said his wife. “He struggled against the worsening folk customs and tried to restore morality.”

As a reversal to the social reality of deteriorating morality, the ritual transforms the liminal entities into ethical ones who fully demonstrate loyalty (zhong 忠), filial piety

(xiao 孝), integrity (jie 節) and righteousness (yi 義), the four characters put up on the walls of the hall of offering. As noted, the form of this ritual was developed from Zhu

Xi’s Neo-Confucian thoughts which emphasize the ritual’s important role of self- cultivation.141 In his book Family Ritual, Zhu Xi used three bonds and five moral norms142 as guidelines and stipulated the manual for the performance of cappings, weddings, funerals and ancestral rites.143 People in the Huizhou area have long adhered to the teachings of Zhu Xi and agree that if human ethics are not clarified and the normative

140 There are four ancestral halls in the Wentang village. Except for Yongxi, the other three named Guangyu, Dunben and Yiben (光裕堂，敦本堂，一本堂) are all deserted due to lack of care. 141 Zhao, Huizhou Zongzu Lunji, 413. 142 Sangang wuchang 三纲五常: the three bonds (san gang) means the guidance of monarch for minister, the guidance of father for son and the guidance of husband for wife. The five moral rules (wu chang) include benevolence towards fellowmen, moral integrity, courtesy and observance of social norms, wisdom in thoughts and behaviors and faithfulness in one’s words. Jesús Solé-Farràs, New Confucianism in Twenty- First Century China: The Construction of a Discourse (New York and London: Routledge,2014), xxii. 143 In compiling this book, Zhu Xi drew on Confucian ritual classics and also made some modifications and adjustments. He aimed to promote the performance of more authentically Confucian forms of the rituals. Ebrey, introduction to Chu Hsi's Family Rituals, IX. 77 kinship order is in decay, folk customs are getting worse. They think Family Ritual records the moral values of respecting ancestors, harmonizing the clan and hierarchizing family members. The local Wentang genealogies echo this thought to prove the importance of performing proper rituals, maintaining the ancestral hall and compiling genealogies. All the performers in this ritual (lisheng) are selected according to their virtues and fames in this village. They must be filial sons in their families and they don’t harbor disrespectful attitude towards others. Therefore, after the ritual space is open, these common people are no longer themselves, but a group of lisheng (masters of rites) in the imperial court to guide the proceedings of ritual. They bask in the aura of ethical fame and bring the whole community to meet the moral guidelines laid out by tradition.

First of all, there are two virtues loyalty and filial piety intertwined in their behavior of submitting to the authority. On the one hand, when the ritual master offers tributes and kneels down before the ancestors’ portraits and the assistant performer reads aloud the eulogistic message, they position themselves as obedient sons to respectfully show their love towards their forefathers. They also express their deep wish to have more filial sons just like what they themselves mean to their ancestors. The wishes coded in their gestures and words demonstrate the long-lasting moral value of filial piety. On the other hand, as the local tradition-bearer explained, this ritual is for ministers to meet with emperor. When performers completely submit themselves to the authority, they actually act out the subordinates’ allegiance to the imperial power. The ritual master carefully observes the court rites and waits for the speaker (who plays the role of a eunuch) to summon himself. It is a concrete expression of loyalty. In addition to these two important

78 virtues, there is also the subtle conveyance of the values of integrity and righteousness.

People salute each other in an appropriate way and keep every requirement of orderliness in the interpersonal interactions. The role of military scholar who metes out punishment stands beside the ritual master, as a symbolic figure of supervision over the performers to ensure that there are no improper or evil behaviors. Then they are able to set a moral example of integrity and righteousness for their children. To sum up, the persons represented by the ritual master humble themselves in this ritual to gain moral power and authority. This is the power of the weak and their obedience proves their qualification to be a junzi (ethically superior man).

These men with good morality form a sense of communitas organized in a divine order in accordance with age-old Confucian tradition. Confucian ritual places high value on the virtues that govern one’s relations with his fellow-men.144 According to Confucian canonical tradition, virtuous thoughts and feelings are closely related to their outward expressions in the regulated music and ceremonial.145 The term for ritual is called li 禮 whose meaning is elusive. Li is often translated into “etiquette, politeness, or the rules of propriety”. It is also rendered as “ceremony, presents and offerings” and even acquires a religious aspect of “worship”. In Li Ji, a Confucian classic, there is an inseparable relationship between music, ceremonial, morals and the art of governance.

“禮、樂、刑、政，四達而不悖，則王道備矣。

144 Reginald F. Johnston. Confucianism and Modern China, The Lewis Fry Memorial Lectures 1933-1934 (Ann Arbor: University Microfilms International, 1984), 101. 145 Ibid. 79

When ceremonies, music, laws, and punishments had everywhere full course, without irregularity or collision, the method of kingly rule was complete.

君子曰：禮樂不可斯須去身。致樂以治心，則易、直、子、諒之心油然生矣

。易、直、子、諒之心生則樂，樂則安，安則久，久則天，天則神。

A superior man says: 'Ceremonies and music should not for a moment be neglected by any one. When one has mastered completely (the principles of) music, and regulates his heart and mind accordingly, the natural, correct, gentle, and honest heart is easily developed, and with this development of the heart comes joy. This joy goes on to a feeling of repose. This repose is long-continued. The man in this constant repose becomes (a sort of) Heaven. Heaven-like, (his action) is spirit-like.

是故樂在宗廟之中，君臣上下同聽之則莫不和敬；在族長鄉裏之中，長幼同

聽之則莫不和順；在閨門之內，父子兄弟同聽之則莫不和親。故樂者，審一以定和

，比物以飾節；節奏合以成文。所以合和父子君臣，附親萬民也，是先王立樂之方

也。

Therefore in the ancestral temple, rulers and ministers, high and low, listen together to the music, and all is harmony and reverence; at the and village meetings of the heads of clans, old and young listen together to it, and all is harmony and deference. Within the gate of the family, fathers and sons, brothers and , listen together to it, and all is harmony and affection. Thus in music there is a careful discrimination (of the voices) to blend them in unison so as to bring out their harmony; there is a union of the (various) instruments to give ornamental effect to its different

80 parts; and these parts are combined and performed so as to complete its elegance. In this way fathers and sons, rulers and subjects are united in harmony, and the people of the myriad states are associated in love. Such was the method of the ancient kings when they framed their music.”146

From these paragraphs in Yue ji 樂記, it is seen that ceremonies and music are crucial to the cultivation of people’s mind and their influence even reaches to heaven.

They bring the divine down to earth and raise humanity to be heaven-like. There is an interconnection and interaction between the human world and the spiritual world, achieved through the music and ceremonies. Yue ji also mentions the way that ancient kings bring about the harmonious governance. In its description, all the people, no matter what social roles they have, listen to the music in the ancestral temple attentively and achieve the ultimate state of harmony (he 和) which is the communitas proposed by

Turner. It is also the state of kingly governance which unites everyone and everything under heaven in love and harmony. Therefore, ritual and music are the way of achieving self-cultivation, harmonious relationships and kingly governance.

In this ritual performance of ancestor worship, local people give full play to music and ceremonials, demonstrating the realization of divine order in kingly governance.

146 It is recorded in “Li ji Yue ji 禮記·樂記,” Shisanjing zhushu zhengli weiyuanhui 十三經注疏整理委員 會, eds., Shisanjing zhushu zhengliben 14: Li ji zhengyi 十三經注疏整理本 14：禮記正義 [Compilation of the Commentaries and Subcommentaries to the Thirteen Classics 14: Rectified interpretation of Book of Rites] (Beijing: Beijing daxue chubanshe, 2000), 1264, 1328,1334. I use James Legge’s translation. Ch’u Chai and Winberg Chai, ed., Li Chi Book of Rites: An Encyclopedia of Ancient Ceremonial Usages, Religious Creeds, and Social Institutions Vol.2, trans. James Legge (New Hyde Park, New York: University Books, 1967), 97, 125, 127-128. 81

They play chuida music before the ritual begins and continue to use musical notes as guidance in the process. Local people explain it as the music which the emperor listens to and takes pleasure in. Also the form of this ritual is arranged to please the emperor. They place five wood on the table which indicate five gradations of rank in ancient Chinese official system and also write four characters on a cloth to illustrate that it was once a family of great fame and wealth. They also use paper dragons as decoration. These objects imply that this family finds favor in the imperial power. According to the indigenous exegesis, they eat with the emperor at the same table and offer tributes to the emperor. Since the emperor as the son of heaven sits enthroned, all the relationships between people, heaven and earth are brought into order and harmony. Father is father and son is son; king is king and minister is minister, which is an ideal government.

Therefore, when the liminal process of the ritual is closed, it is expected to reach a point that the moral authority is greatly reinforced. It is a counter power to the unsatisfactory reality to solidify the social and cultural foundation. The strong and positive ancestor cult in Wentang Village is essentially an expression of the strong ties with the past, great respect for age and obligations between superiors and subordinates.147

The subjects (represented by the ritual master, accompanied by other performers and even the whole audience) after going through the liminal space, are produced within the

Confucian cultural configurations and traditional teachings. They react to the authoritative voice with a docile body because the power of ritual institutions and practices requires them to strictly follow instructions and resultantly operate on their

147 Tatje and Hsu, “Variations in Ancestor Worship Beliefs and Their Relation to Kinship,” 163. 82 body to reach the goal of discipline. They are elevated to the high moral status. Through the ritual performance, they reenact the ancient tradition of Confucian ethics including respecting the ancestors and achieving kingly governance. The ritual transforms liminal entities into junzi (ethically superior men) who conform to virtues of loyalty, filial piety, integrity and righteousness. All the junzi form a community which centers around the imperial power and divine order; and bears the imprint of traditional wisdom of right conduct and proper etiquette.

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Chapter 5 Symbolic Social Constructs of Ritual Performance

The ritual performance, when located in the social context, often has symbolic expressions of social realities and greatly influences social formation as well. It serves as a powerful discursive instrument to shape and reshape society. Social solidarity has always been primary and ritual can help maintain social cohesion. Discourse often relies on ideological and sentiment evocation to achieve the purpose of constructing a society.148 The prevailing sentiments held by people often draw social boundaries because society is formed by a group of people who see themselves as a collectivity while others are seen as outsiders. To invoke these sentiments, people tell narratives of myth and perform ritual as a form of discourse.149 They use mythic history to establish their communal identity and justify their status.150 In this case of Wentang Village, people utilize their common ancestors, the traditional ritual forms and historical relics to construct a distinctive community, while still connected to the origin of Chinese nation.

However, the established myth in this ritual performance glosses over any inconsistencies in relations or dissent against authority among the local clan members who accept the dominant discourse. On the other hand, when the locals act out their religious beliefs, they run counter to the official government policy of Atheism. Their performance thus

148 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 9. 149 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 9-10. 150 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 23-24. 84 constitutes a countermyth to the government’s ideological persuasion. The dialogic relationship between the dominant discourse and local narrative thus sheds light on how unnoticed power struggles are presented at the grassroot level, hiding in a seemingly harmonious state of cohesion and stability.151

5.1 Sentiments of Affinity and Estrangement

Discourse maintains a society by calling forth a following and elicits the sentiments necessary for social formations. A “society” consists of a group of people who share the same moral sphere, aesthetics, customs and other factors. A certain discourse is weaved out of various sociopolitical and cultural threads to construct an imaginary social border. Discourse can “evoke feelings of likeness, common belonging, mutual attachment, and solidarity—whatever their intensity, affective tone, and degree of consciousness—and, on the other hand, those corresponding feelings of distance, separation, otherness, and alienation.”152 These factors are called affinity and estrangement, respectively. For almost every society, social sentiments are mixed ambivalently. There is no such a society with purely one sentiment, be it affinity or estrangement. Instead, when a social border is clearly delineated, estrangement predominates over affinity; and vice versa when the ideal of social integration and solidarity is pursued. In a word, society is a synthetic entity in dialectic confrontations or tensions between the thesis and antithesis involved in its formations.153 In this small

151 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 11. 152 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 9. 153 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 21. 85 village, the ritual performance and its related narratives play the role of discourse, evoking the sentiments of affinity through ancestral reverence.

The ancestral invocation is achieved through the ceremonial speech acts, emblematic objects, gestures, narratives, figures, pictures, and other allusive cues, thus rallying people together as a familial group and defining them as kin.154 In this specific ritual of ancestor worship, the ancestral hall, spring couplets, congratulatory messages and the objects placed on the table altogether shape the sentiments of affinity. As the hall stands at the center of public life in Wentang Village, it becomes a sacred place for local people’s congregation. Its architectural features express its function of uniting the Chen community together. It has separate halls for different purposes, just like a big house holding the ancestral tablets as if ancestors were still with them in the living hall. The courtyard in each hall is for collecting rainwater which symbolically draws all the blessings from all directions to the center. And the two statues in front of the main door indicate the union of living and dead. Therefore, this place is marked as a center of identification for people who are surnamed Chen. They can find their connection to the common ancestors and experience their blessings. It is the same for the portraits of ancestors and spring couplets in the hall. It becomes a locus of identification since it’s traced back to the founding fathers of this community and even the forefathers of all the

Han people. The identity of these ancestors is anchored in historical facts and collective cultural memory, witnessed by the ancestral hall, and recorded in their genealogies and the living tradition. Couplets also tell when and where this community came into being

154 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 20. 86 and how it flourished and branched out in its historical development. The long term result is a segmentary lineage system which is linked to the panoramic view of all Chinese people who share the Chen family name. Thus, from the narratives in their hall, clan members first identify themselves as a member of Chen family and then position themselves within the majority of Chinese people who take Yao, Shun and Han emperor as their ancestors.

Through the identification with common ancestors, the ritual evokes feelings of social intimacy. With all the food placed on the table and red satins used to indicate the time of having dinner or rest, the setting is like a family feast, to be enjoyed by all in attendance. The four characters “jin, yu, man, tang” project an imaginary big and wealthy family that all can take pride in. When the performer reads congratulatory messages to effect showers of blessings from Heaven, clan members listen to the history of their community and accept blessings for either their sons or their grandsons. Dragons emerge constantly as a popular image to create an imagery bloodline dating back to the imperial family. And the ritual constantly reminds audiences of the virtuous work that has been done by their ancestors and the tremendous, group-affirming influence of their fame.

These experiential moments evoke a sense of pride and honor in their hearts and thus bring them closer to each other as an honorable community. Besides, the shared ethical system molded on Confucian tradition also adds to their social bonding. As lisheng (ritual masters) guide them through the procedures of ritual, and formulate the proper behavior as a filial son and a loyal minister, they are thus transformed into a group of ethical entities regardless of the disparity of social status, reaching the common moral goal of

87 loyalty, filial piety, integrity and righteousness as well as the Confucian value of the cultivated mind. Going through the liminal process of this ritual, all the local people are involved together in an experience of their glorious past, the Confucian tradition, and an embodied genealogical connection to the prominent figures in their clan. In this way, their moral codes are reinforced and their interrelationships are strengthened and bound by common cultural ties.

Although this community is dominated by sentiments of affinity, there are still sentiments of estrangement persisting between constituent subgroups due to factors of population composition and literacy. The ritual constitutes a reverence for ancestors of the Chen family which naturally rules out people with other . Indeed, Wentang in history was a social aggregate of Chen people, but now they are mixed with people from other villages, especially women who entered the community because of .

When I asked these people about their opinion of this ritual, they simply said their family name was not Chen, so it was none of their business. Also some women told me it was an event for men and they seldom cared anything about it. Young people I asked feel the words said in the ritual are difficult to understand and they feel they lack the high level of literacy and cultural competence to fully grasp the meanings. They think the ritual is impalpable and mysterious, related to “creepy” spirits (shenshen daodao 神神叨叨). By such attitudes and opinions cleavages form in the society which result in sentiments of estrangement. Therefore, this ritual of ancestor worship, has different social effects on different people, producing the movements of thesis and antithesis in the formation of social boundaries.

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5.2 Politics of Myth

In addition to the social formation within the community, the ritual performance also puts it in touch with the greater Chinese society. This ritual can be interpreted as a reenactment of Confucian myth of kingly governance in a modern Chinese social context since it utters the political loyalty as well as serves as religious worship. It is molded on

Confucian ritual which has certain forms designed to cultivate people’s minds.

Implemented in current times this ancient ritual form is laden with present-day political implications. The ritual expresses both explicitly and implicitly that the ruling

Communist Party plays the role of the traditional Son of Heaven and thus implements the imperative of kingly governance. An overwhelming message is that people should be loyal to their rulers.

In the setting of this ritual, the messages of the spring couplets explicitly attribute the strength of the nation to the wise governance of the Communist Party. The couplets even refer to the sage kings—the legendary figures who are claimed to be the founding fathers of the Chinese nation. These traditional authorities represented on the couplets are set in juxtaposition with couplets praising the authority of the contemporary Communist

Party. The act of imitating the traditional archetype generates a new myth in society.

Lincoln summarizes Bathes’ definition of myth which is characterized as “a second-order semiotic system, that is, a form of metalanguage in which preexisting signs are appropriated and stripped of their original context, history, and signification only to be infused with new and mystificatory conceptual content of particular use.”155 Lincoln

155 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 3. 89 further defines myth as a small class of stories that possess both credibility and authority and he argues that different social groups refer back to their mythic past as a discursive instrument to refashion and reconstruct their identity.156 Therefore, myth gives historical intention a natural justification, perpetuate the claimed truth and strengthen the authoritative power. Mythical significations are a natural tool for ideological expressions to impact a society. In this case, the historical legend of kingly governance finds its expression in Wentang society. In their opinion, just as the sage-kings bring the kingdom in order and unite people with one heart and , so does the Communist Party bless its people with beneficial policies. This parallel sets the political tone for their ritual performance, which means that the ancestral hall is not a pure place for worshipping ancestors, but also infused with the political discourse.

In addition to the praise of kingly governance in the sage-king simile, there is also an imperial metaphor implied in the revival of this tradition. It is firstly reflected on the main door of the ancestral hall. There are two red paper banners of instructions which juxtapose the imperial edict in Ming dynasty and the government edicts of CCP. One embodies the tradition. Local people treasure the six instructions that were passed on from the first emperor of Ming dynasty because they constitute an important part of their cultural memory. These words denote the noble ancestry of this community and delineate the moral space in which a society can be maintained. Historically, by emphasizing the values of harmonious relationships, the emperor actually legitimized his reign and

Roland Barthes and Susan Sontag, A Barthes Reader (New York: Hill and Wang, a division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1982). 156 Lincoln, Discourse and the Construction of Society, 24. 90 realized the kingly governance. As he sat on throne, his teaching of ethics put everything in order and in accordance with the will of Heaven. Thereby, people lived in peace and his government would not be overthrown. The other banner is a local interpretation of government policy. It gives full expression to the campaign of socialist new countryside construction promoted by the central government. Writing this regulation positions local people as firm followers of the Communist Party policy to root out corrupt customs and carve out a moral space. It also shows that when the government walks on the right path, people can live a moral life and all kinds of blessings are bestowed on the interpersonal relationships and human-nature relationships. Therefore, it is a metaphorical extension from the imperial emperor to the central government of the Communist Party. The moral space of ancient times mythically overlaps with the moral space of today’s government discourse, giving full expression to the kingly governance as a historical recurring myth.

As a result, it is not difficult to understand the imperial metaphor of this ritual performance. It is not only a religious ritual but also a sociopolitical . The roles enacted by the various performers are a vivid reflection of the local people’s loyalty to the dominant political power. Indeed, they told me the act and form of remembering ancestors is like a minister eating with an emperor. However, the presence of the emperor is not an empty signifier if this ritual is contextualized. On the contrary, it is politically mystified as the reign of the Communist Party. The kingly governance is reincarnated in the government’s dominant political discourse. For the local people, there is a simple wish to retrieve their glorious past when they were a big family and closely connected with imperial power. One of them told me that the two statues are worth much

91 money (around 1.3 million US dollars) and then continued to comment on the image of dragon on the statues. This form of ritual could only be used by the imperial families or those who were special in the eyes of the emperor, making it a symbol of social influence and status. Another person mentioned that the name of this ancestral hall “Yongxi Tang” was given by the son of the Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang. In their nostalgic narration, this hall is a metonymic site that means honor, favor and privilege granted by the imperial power of Chinese history. It serves as strong evidence for their past prosperity and perpetuates their collective memory of following the path of the imperial ruler. This wish of following the emperor, if placed in modern context, is a tendency to follow the dominant official discourse.

In reality, the locals seek the government’s favor due to political and economic advantages. The clan members don’t have enough money to maintain the ancestral hall.

They said they hoped government can provide financial support of up to tens of thousands of yuan. When I was doing fieldwork there, one corner of the hall caved in due to a rainstorm. The responsible person was deeply concerned about repair work and where to get the money. Villagers told me there was another village nearby called

Taoyuan 桃源 whose sacrificial rites at the ancestral hall obtained the imprimatur of

Provincial Intangible Cultural Heritage, so they received funding to renovate and decorate their halls. Now the Taoyuan people aim to transform their village into an attractive tourist city. Local people in Wentang Village talked about their condition in comparison with Taoyuan, expressing their wish to earn more money and fame.

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Another aspect is social recognition. Wentang locals hope to attract more public attention. In 2015, China Central Television interviewed people in the village and spoke highly of its ritual as a symbol of patriarchal clan culture.157 It demonstrates how local people carry on the Neo-Confucian tradition and virtues of respecting ancestors. A local official wants Wentang to be titled as a “beautiful village” (meili xiangcun 美麗鄉村) which can be more widely recognized by the Chinese society. Therefore, the traditional form of ritual performance potentially has a political and economic purpose. The discursive enactment of the mythic past is an instrument of wooing contemporary rulers and providing economic boon.

5.3 Counter-myth in Social Reality

Despite the above observations on the power of myth and ritual enactment, what local people practice is actually contrary to what they claim to believe, serving as a counter-myth to the dominant CCP discourse. According to my interviews, I suggest that most of them do not believe that ancestral spirits really exist. When I asked my informants about the spiritual being, they tended to brush the idea of spirits off as something that does not exist. The ritualist brought my question back to the moral issue.

He said it was only an event to respect ancestors and educate children to be respectful to their parents. He only explained the ritual performance as a way of showing filial piety.

Also, when discussing the legend of the mountain before the ancestral hall, some informants told me the trees there should be protected because if a tree was felled, the

157 Bian Xiaoyan 卞曉妍, “Wentang chenshi: gufa jisi jianzheng zongzu wenhua fuhao 文堂陳氏：古法祭 祀見證宗族文化符號[Chen Clan in Wentang: Ancient Sacrifice Symbolizes Clan Culture],” Yangshi Xinwen 央視新聞 [National TV News], last modified April 29, 2015, http://www.chens.org.cn/sept2009/Article/Print.asp?ArticleID=2819. 93 community would lose a capable man.158 When asked if it is a superstitious belief, one ritualist laughed it off and said it was only a belief made up to educate people to better protect the environment. However, another person retorted that it was the reality that they lived in. Therefore, they carefully evaded the politically charged word “superstitious”.

Since 1949, the Chinese government has promoted waves of campaigns suppressing

“feudal superstition” which in theory denies popular religious belief. “In the party’s discourse, popular religions are not recognized as ‘religion’ but as heterodox teaching or evil .”159 The atheist Communist Party disapproves of beliefs in divinity or supernatural spirits. As it has clamped down on the superstitious activities repeatedly in the past, despite the current acceptance and promotion of many items of Intangible

Cultural Heritage that have some connection to ritual worship, local people continue to utilize the dominant official discourse to cover their religious belief with reasonable and justifiable cause.

However, their actions betray this intention since they behave as if there were supernatural beings reigning over them. At the very beginning of the ritual, they burn paper and sacrifice to Heaven because the ritualist said Heaven is the Most High to them.

Some villagers kneel down before ancestors’ tablets and portraits, praying for protection and help. When reading the eulogistic messages, the ritualist mentioned that it meant the ancestors ask him to bestow blessings on the descendants. If, as they claim, they don’t admit the existence of spirits, nor do they expect their protection, what they practice

158 Coggins in his book notes the relation between upkeep of fengshui forests, population transience, and lineage stability in regards to earth god shrines in Wuyishan, Fujian. Christopher Coggins, The Tiger and the Pangolin: Nature, Culture, and Conservation in China (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2003), 21, 45-46. 159 Li Lan, Popular Religion in Modern China: The New Role of Nuo (New York: Routledge, 2016), 226. 94 clearly contradicts their claims. Their behaviors speak loudly of their belief in supernatural beings. Although they carefully conceal this belief beneath the surface of tradition, actually there is a very thin line between religious worship and traditional custom. Or to be more precise, tradition is a shield to ward off the ideological attack on superstitious activities. Their practice constitutes a counter-myth that innocuously undermines the myth of atheist reign constructed by the Communist Party. Just as

Foucault argues, “the characteristic feature of power is that some men can more or less entirely determine other men’s conduct—but never exhaustively or coercively…There is no power without potential refusal or revolt.”160 Even if the myth ideologically persuades people to obey and submit to government, it still leaves room for resistance. People are not completely subsumed by the ideology at work, but retain their agency to a certain extent to experience a suppressed urge for the act of worship.

160 Michel Foucault, “Pastoral Power and Political Reason,” in Religion and Culture, ed. Jeremy R. Carrette (New York: Routledge, 1999), 152. 95

Conclusion

As noted in the introduction, since the early 1980s China has seen a revival in popular religion. People practice their religious beliefs in various forms. They renovate their temples and bring back to life the ancient rituals of worship. This phenomenon can be attributed to multifold reasons including benefits of a growing and maturing economy, government tolerance, and people’s desires for spiritual satisfaction. However, popular religion cannot totally shake off the taint of illegitimacy, and thus practitioners tend to brand rituals and associated beliefs as items of cultural conservation and traditional heritage. This paper is an attempt to understand this complex social phenomenon by taking Wentang Village in Huizhou area as a case study.

In this small village, local people follow the ancient template of Ming dynasty ritual to recover the ritual of worshipping ancestors. They adopt the form of Confucian ritual, dressing themselves up as masters of rites to guide people through process of worship. This opens up a mythical space which transcends time and reenacts the

Confucian myth in a modern context. It erases the boundary between the immanent and numinous worlds so that the descendants can meet their ancestors in worship as well as retrieve their glorious past as derived from the bloodline of the imperial family. Their performance centers on emperor and ancestry which in actuality has perceivable

96 implications on current life situations. At the center of imperial power is an exemplar of kingly governance described in the Confucian classics. It means that when the king sits upon the throne and carries out the will of the heaven, the world is maintained in good ethical order. From the varied texts within the physical and symbolic space of the ancestral hall to interviews with local people, it can be inferred that the Chinese

Communist Party is comparable to the ancient sage kings, who embody the ideal governance of the people. Therefore, in the ancestral hall ritual there are interlocking religious and political realities in the dynamic process of clan worship of the ancestors which at the same time is a social group worshipping the reign of the central government.

The ritual performance has functions of keeping social cohesion and generating a new political myth of kingly governance in modern China so that people are brought into line with government policies. On the one hand, despite the existence of some sentiments of estrangement, the sentiments of affinity arising from ancestral invocation largely make people identify with common ancestors and share a relationship of intimacy. It strengthens the unification of this social group. On the other hand, they utter their hope to follow the dominant official discourse when they write the spring couplets and juxtapose the imperial edicts with government edicts. As representatives of clan, the main participants also express the belief in kingly governance in the ritual performance of ancestor worship. They position themselves first as loyal subordinates to imperial power and then as loyal followers of the Communist Party. But at the same time, their practices actually tread the fine line between superstitious activities and cultural heritage. They try to act out their religious beliefs in a legitimate way and avoid ideological taboos. It leaves

97 room for them to counter the myth constructed by dominant discourse of an atheist ruling party which was once heavy-handed in clamping down on religious beliefs.

I also nuance Lincoln’s theoretical framework to better analyze the religious ritual conducted in the ancestral hall of Wentang Village. I have used a folkloristic performance approach and Bruce Lincoln’s theory of ritual practice, to show different aspects of the ritual. The performance approach contextualizes the religious practices and frames them in a tangible process. After going through the liminal process, these entities are shaped into more ethical entities who bear the imprint of Confucian moral values including loyalty, filial piety, righteousness and integrity. I suggest that the experiential aspect of the ritual performance is religious practice in its own right and has its own meanings.

People, as embodied beings, experience the ritual and fulfill their desire to worship from the religious worship per se. But in another perspective, this ritual has certain social impacts which should be properly addressed. I suggest that Lincoln puts too much emphasis on the social function of ritual which he considers simply as a discursive tool to gain authority. Based on this case study, I wish to consider an experiential dimension to his understanding of ritual, seeing ritual as not only functioning in society but above all functioning in a human spiritual world and the dynamics of acquiring divine power.

Besides, this case study also complicates Lincoln’s theory by interpreting the interaction of myth and countermyth in a different way. In his opinion, different social groups construct different to have control over each other, to persuade people of their authority and bring about revolutionary events. However, I observe that in the Chinese village of Wentang, people indeed adopt the myth constructed by the Communist Party to

98 whom they vow their allegiance, but they also manipulate government policies and reserve a space of resistance. In a word, I would not say ritual is the discourse per se.

More aptly, it functions as a discourse in a social situation. Also, within this particular social group, both myth and countermyth form a space of dominance and resistance.

At last, when I apply Western theory to explaining Chinese culture, I can find echoes in Chinese philosophy. Victor Turner’s liminality and communitas are fully expressed in Chinese ceremonies and music which actually aim to create an egalitarian society in harmony (he 和). However, this harmonious society does not totally eliminate the social hierarchies. In fact, in the Five Relationships that are the basis of the Confucian hierarchy, the ruler and subjects, and father and son must find their own social positions which entail certain responsibilities and obligations to those above and below them.

Some are high while others are low, but they can all be united in love and harmony. Bell calls East Asian societies “both rigidly hierarchical and strongly egalitarian” because they have many hierarchical rituals to reinforce each person’s social status while emphasizing the equal distributions of wealth.161 Interestingly, this phenomenon originates in the traditional Confucian rituals and teachings. The concept of he still influences current

Chinese policies as governors constantly propose the idea of constructing the socialist harmonious society. Therefore, there is correspondence between Victor Turner’s theory of performance and the Confucian ritual in its expression of harmony.

A final point I wish to make concerns Bauman’s theory of keying devices and performance. When tested within this Confucian ritual, it reveals that the framing

161 Daniel A. Bell, China’s New Confucianism: Politics and Everyday Life in a Changing Society (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2008), 38. 99 techniques of repetition and parallel constructions of the performance actually create a form devoid of specific content and thus invites different interpretations. We can see that one ritual combines two intertwined interpretations of the emperor’s feast and ancestral worship. I tentatively conclude that the reason for the ancestral hall rituals to be kept through generations and be recurrent in different social discourses is because of their repeatable form which, like a dancing , is incarnated in different contexts to be understood and interpreted.

Therefore, to sum up all the discussions that I have made above, this ritual performance of ancestor worship in Wentang Village is a retrieval of cultural memory about the common ancestors and more importantly about locals’ historical connections to imperial power. In the ritual, they relive their glorious past of following the kingly governance implemented by the emperor—the Son of Heaven, which is a Confucian myth expressed in modern context to shape the social responses of the group. It reflects and also triggers locals’ eagerness to follow the dominant official discourse of Chinese

Communist Party and win its favor. This ritual evokes the sentiments of affinity among locals in the community of Wentang so that social cohesion is greatly enhanced.

However, it cannot rule out the permeation of sentiments of estrangement which creates cleavages in a society. At the same time, this ritual constructs the political myth of obeying ideological instructions while reserving a space of counter-myth for resistance. It is because their desire for worshipping and the collective memory they have long cherished cannot be nullified by any form of oppression. What it needs is the right time and suitable conditions for resurgence and revival.

100

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