French Centre for Research on Contemporary China The Western Misconception of Chinese Religion : a Hong Kong example Author(s): JOËL THORAVAL Source: China Perspectives, No. 3 (JANUARY / FEBRUARY 1996), pp. 58-65 Published by: French Centre for Research on Contemporary China Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/24050177 Accessed: 07-06-2016 19:28 UTC REFERENCES Linked references are available on JSTOR for this article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/24050177?seq=1&cid=pdf-reference#references_tab_contents You may need to log in to JSTOR to access the linked references. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. French Centre for Research on Contemporary China is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to China Perspectives This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Tue, 07 Jun 2016 19:28:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms RELIGION The Western Misconception of Chinese Religion : a Hong Kong example JOEL THORAVAL The difficulty lies in the fact that the components into the “three religions" of the Chinese world. Thus which the cultural universe of these peoples was Any Westerner it is quite naturalinterested that hein shouldChina behas curious heard about of analysed reflected conceptual structures so different the relative strengths of these three great currents. How from Western ones that no Western translation could be many "Confucians" are there in China? How many found for them either. When the European intellectual "Taoists"? How many "Buddhists"? Before long he universe thrust itself so brutally upon the Japanese and begins to suspect that, taken literally, this question is Chinese elites a little over a century ago, the effect was absurd. But unless he is a specialist it is difficult for him traumatic. Japan was the first to create in a remarkably to understand why such an apparently simple question short time, shortly after the Meiji period, coherent and generates such confusing and contradictory answers. complete sets of neologisms by means of which the What follows is an attempt to clarify the problem by essential features of Western schools of thought could be relating the artificial nature of this debate to its historical expressed in the native language. These conceptual arse origins, then selecting a particularly clear example of nals were then progressively introduced into China at the misinterpretation in the shape of two censuses carried end of the Qing dynasty. Today they constitute a major out in Hong Kong a century ago, and offering a simple part of the vocabulary of modern Chinese and Japanese. model to show the difference in the status of religion in Some of these “terminology transfers" are well docu the Western and Chinese contexts. A concluding section mented. The year of birth of the category "philosophy", looks into the reasons for the continued existence of this for instance, has been established at 1874 when Nishi conundrum. Amane (whose contribution was considerable) imposed the use of the two-character term still used today (tet Terminology tranter sugaku in Japanese; zhexue in Chinese)(l). Its itinerary Western puzzlement at Chinese religion or religions is can be followed, especially its entry into China, along nothing new. It has been there since the time of the very with the debates which ensued in its wake (2). first contacts with China. What is noteworthy is that this For the purposes of this discussion, what is important confusion still lingers on today - traces of it resurfacing is to acknowledge the fundamental importance of, and here and there in the scholarly literature. Simple igno the insufficient weight given to, this crucial moment in rance is not the cause but rather a more complex process: Chinese intellectual history. It is fundamentally impor the imposition of European cultural categories from tant in that it required the intellectuals of that time not within Far Eastern cultures. The exportation of Western only to understand the "new ideas" but to reconstruct in "ideas" is not what concerns us here. Clearly a Japanese its entirety their own cultural universe using Western or Chinese scholar faced with ideas which do not exist in categories. his own culture has to fall back on neologisms to try to The random, historically obsolescent application of explain what "romanticism" or "socialism" or "democ these categories has set off discussions, the artificial (but racy" means. More surprisingly, he might have to do the not insignificant) nature of which is often missed. For same for such basic notions as "culture’，，"science", example: Is Confucianism a “philosophy，，or a "reli “politics’’，"economy", “religion’，，“philosophy’’，etc. gion"? After all, despite the differences in the social systems, And the reason insufficient weight is given to this rup traditional cultures of the Far East have always had ture is that these notions of European origin have, for something identifiable as “politics，，or “economics，，or several generations now, been part of the conceptual uni “religion’’. verse of Chinese and Japanese intellectuals, and are 58 CHINA PERSPECTIVES No. 3 JANUARY / FEBRUARY 1996 This content downloaded from 128.103.149.52 on Tue, 07 Jun 2016 19:28:00 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms RELIGION TABLE1: RELIGIOUS AFFILIATION IN HONG KONG -• FINDINGS OF THE 1881 CENSUS A. Religious denominations of the European B. Chinese population of Hong Kong and American resident population and Kau-lung: religions Victoria Villages Total Church of England Baptist Protestant 84 Roman Catholic Congregationalist Roman Catholic 32 Protestant Unitarian Confucian (u-kau) 3985 Presbyterian Calvinist Laity (tsuk-ka) 1 2 2 1644 4 4 1 6 3 Episcopalian Quaker Taoist (sic) 0 4 5 1 1 77 14-5 06 1 Lutheran 7 o 6 6 7 8 8 12 9 5 Theist Mohamedan 8 1 4 9 o 1 16 6 7 6 4 Independent Universalist Buddhist 6 5 3 4 8 11 Methodist None 12 Jewish 50113756 Christian 18 Not stated 51 Malay Jewish 22 Total 3040 Not stated 20479 21251 Grand Total 113462 hardly ever contested. There is therefore nothing unusu by either missionaries or simple members. The other al in the fact that they are applied retrospectively to the advantage is the contrast it suggests with the unique native cultures or that the specificity of Chinese "philos social status of religion in China. A study of two histor ophy" or the history of “the sciences" in Japan are con ical documents from Hong Kong will make this differ sidered subjects worthy of deliberation. What further ence clear. complicates the debate is that by virtue of the universal isation of Western culture these concepts are, simultane Hong Kong censuses unreavealing ously, values: having a “philosophy，，is something to be Among the reports which have been laid before Hong proud of, and few cultures in this day and age would Kong's Legislative Council are the findings, varying in admit to not having one. This attitude is perhaps detail, of the censuses which have been carried out from inevitable and even justifiable (a common language is, time to time over the years. Only two of them, for 1881 after all, a good thing) but what must not be overlooked and 1911，provide information on the religious affilia are the distortions to which it necessarily gives rise (3). tions of the Chinese population (5). It is also in this context that the misunderstandings The findings also cover the religious affiliations of the which Western interpretations of religion in China European population (6)，but whereas the data for the engender can be understood. What, in fact, is this word non-Chinese population falls into well defined cate in Chinese which for a century has been used to translate gories, the data for the native population is, in stark con our concept “religion，，？ It also is a neologism of trast, highly confusing and vague (tables 1 & 2). Japanese origin (4) made up of two characters, zong and The figures for the Chinese population can be easily jiao. The first of these, regardless of its etymology, has compared by reference to the chart (fig. 1). It is not hard several meanings today, signifying ancestor and by to imagine the puzzlement of the colonial administrator extension, descent group, but also sect or school to as he looked at the findings of the 1881 census. It would which a monk, for example, might belong. Thus a Chan have been no surprise to him that nearly one half of the (Zen) monk is an adherent of the Chanzong in population called themselves “Confucians，，(u-kau is the Buddhism. The character denotes the notion of transmis Cantonese pronunciation of rujiao), but what about the sion through belongership, either natural, as in the case fact that over a third called themselves laity (tsuk-ka i.e. of descent from an ancestor, or spiritual, as in the case of sujia)! How could a sociological category represent a a tradition of beliefs created by a master and passed on religious affiliation? Furthermore, if China really was to his disciples. The second character means “teaching，，， the country of "three religions，，，why was the proportion thus the literal meaning of the neologism which trans of "Taoists" and "Buddhists" so small - the latter were lates the Western notion religion is roughly “sectarian even less numerous than the Muslims? Significant also teaching.，， is the fact that nearly one-fifth could not, or did not want One of the advantages of this translation of the term to give a reply.