Religious Commodifications in Asia: Marketing Gods

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RELIGIOUS COMMODIFICATIONS IN ASIA

This book examines the key issues arising from the convergences and divergences of religion and market forces in Asia. Bringing together a group of leading scholars from Asia, Europe, Australia and North America, it explores religious commodifications and their consequences across Asia’s diverse religious traditions. The book covers important themes in the anthropology and sociology of contemporary Asian religion. It draws theoretical implications for the study of religions in the light of the shift of religious institutions from traditional religious beliefs to material prosperity. The fact that religions compete with each other in a ‘market of faiths’ is also at the core of the analysis. The contributions demonstrate how ordinary people and religious institutions in Asia adjusted to, and negotiated with, the penetrative forces of global market economy into the region’s changing religio-cultural landscapes. An excellent contribution to the growing demands of ethnographically and theoretically updated interpretations of Asian religions, this book will be of interest to scholars of Asian religion and new religious movements. Pattana Kitiarsa is currently Visiting Fellow in the Southeast Asian Studies Programme, National University of Singapore. He has published both in Thai and English in the fields of Thai popular Buddhism and cultures, politics of development, transnational labour migration, Thai boxing and films.

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ROUTLEDGE STUDIES IN ASIAN RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY

DECONSTRUCTION AND THE ETHICAL IN ASIAN THOUGHT Edited by Youru Wang AN INTRODUCTION TO DAOIST THOUGHT Action, language, and ethics in Zhuangzi Eske Møllgaard RELIGIOUS COMMODIFICATIONS IN ASIA Marketing Gods Edited by Pattana Kitiarsa

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RELIGIOUS COMMODIFICATIONS IN ASIA Marketing Gods

Edited by Pattana Kitiarsa

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First published 2008 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2007.

“To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2008 Editorial selection and matter, Pattana Kitiarsa; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog for this book has been requested ISBN 0-203-93787-2 Master e-book ISBN ISBN10: 0–415–43738–5 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–93787–2 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–43738–7 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–93787–7 (ebk)

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CONTENTS

vii ix xiii

List of figures Notes on contributors Acknowledgements

Introduction: Asia’s commodified sacred canopies

1

PAT TA NA K I T I A RSA

PART I

A commodity approach to the study of Asian religions 1 Asia and the global economies of charisma

13 15

ROBERT P. W ELLER

2 New spiritualities, the media and global religion: da Vinci Code and The Passion of Christ

31

BRYA N S. T U RN ER

PART II

Modes and techniques of the symbolic economies 3 Commodifying blessings: celebrating the double-yang festival in Penang, Malaysia and Wudang mountain, China

47

49

J EA N D E BERNA R DI

4 Kuan To: the vegetarian festival in a peripheral southern Thai shrine ER IK COH EN

v

68

C ON T E N T S

5 Materializing merit: the symbolic economy of religious monuments and tourist-pilgrimage in contemporary Thailand

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M A RC ASK EW

6 Buddha Phanit: Thailand’s prosperity religion and its commodifying tactics

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PART III

The multiple effects of religious commodifications 7 Spirits of consumption and the capitalist ethic in Vietnam

145

147

OSCA R SA LEMI N K

8 ‘Merchandizing’ Hinduism: commodities, markets and possibilities for enchantment

169

V I N EETA SI N H A

9 McDonaldization and the megachurches: a case study of City Harvest Church, Singapore

186

JOY TONG KO OI CH I N

10 Islam as a symbolic commodity: transmitting and consuming Islam through public sermons in Indonesia

205

A K H M UZ A K K I

11 Commodification of religion and the ‘religification’ of commodities: youth culture and religious identity

220

RONA LD LU K ENS -BU LL

235 261

Bibliography Index

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FIGURES

Chapter 3 3.1 Three star gods representing long life, status and prosperity displayed in a God of Prosperity Templer in the Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve, Singapore, 2005 3.2 Two sides of a wallet-sized card sold at Fung Ying Seen Koon, Hong Kong, showing the Bushel Mother and the year god who is the Great Year of the three years shown, 2004 3.3 Bushel basket offerings prepared for celebration of the ninth day of the ninth lunar month at Zixiao Palace, Wudang Mountain, 2002 Chapter 4 4.1 Pong as leading spirit medium, conducting a prayer at the ‘bridge crossing’ ritual (2002) 4.2 Pong as the medium of the deity Li Ti Kue, the sian mau (drunken god), one of the ‘eight sian,’ high Teochiu deities, drinking lao khao (rice liquor) at the Tall Lantern Pole-raising ritual preceding the Invitation ritual for the Nine Emperor Gods (2004) 4.3 Spirit mediums kneeling as the krathang thup of the Nine Emperor Gods returns to the shore upon the deities’ arrival (Invitation ritual) (2004) 4.4 The medium of Kuan Peng distributing branches of the Tall Lantern Pole to adherents upon the conclusion of the festival (2003) 4.5 Spirit medium being dragged over glass shards (2002) 4.6 Spirit medium dancing over fire lit on glass shards (2003)

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56

58

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79

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81 83 84

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F IGU R E S

Chapter 5 5.1 Thailand’s southern borderland and main pilgrim-tourist sites 5.2 Malaysian tourists visiting Hat Yai’s Kuan Yin complex 5.3 The Kuan Yin Statue atop its pavillion overlooking Hat Yai 5.4 Depiction of Meng San’s first vision in the cave (from temple booklet) 5.5 Singaporean tourists paying respects to the Thao Maha Phrom, Hat Yai 5.6 The display of merit – seats outside the Kuan Yin Pavillion, Hat Yai

96 98 99 108 112 116

Chapter 10 10.1 Celebrity preacher with no traditional santri background but becoming the icon of Preacher Idol TV Show

211

Chapter 11 11.1 Ronald Bertapa 11.2 Freedom Fighter Ronald 11.3 Halal Beer Ad 11.4 Stickers for Sale on Malioboro 11.5 Islam is Cool! 11.6 Door Sticker 11.7 Sleeping Cat 11.8 Silly Camels 11.9 Middle Eastern Mummy

224 224 225 228 230 230 231 232 232

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CONTRIBUTORS

Marc Askew is associate professor in the School of Social Sciences, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia. An anthropologist and historian, his research focuses on Thailand and Laos, where he has undertaken primarily ethnographic studies of urbanism, border spaces, the state and representations of cultural heritage and, more recently, the cultural dynamics of political identities. His recent work includes articles and chapters on pilgrimage and prostitution in South Thailand, and among other books, he is author of Bangkok: Place, Practice and Representation (Routledge 2002) and co-author (with W.S. Logan, and C. Long) of Vientiane: Transformations of a Lao Landscape (Routledge, 2007). He is currently preparing a book manuscript on election campaigns in southern Thailand: Performing politics in South Thailand: Symbols, Solidarities and the Democrat Party Ascendancy. Erik Cohen is the George S. Wise Professor of Sociology (emeritus) at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has conducted research on various topics in Israel, Peru, the Pacific Islands and for the last 30 years in Thailand. His major research interests are tourism, folk religion, folk crafts and social change in Thailand. His recent publications include The Commercialized Crafts of Thailand (Curzon, 2000), The Chinese Vegetarian Festival in Phuket (White Lotus, 2001) and Contemporary Tourism: Diversity and Change (Elsevier, 2004). He serves as the editor of two book series, ‘Studies in Contemporary Thailand’ and ‘Studies in Asian Tourism’ for White Lotus in Bangkok. He presently lives in Bangkok. Jean DeBernardi is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Alberta. Her research interests focus on Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and Chinese religious culture, and publications include Rites of Belonging: Memory, Modernity, and Identity in a Malaysian Chinese Community (Stanford University Press, 2004) and The Way that Lives in the Heart: Chinese Spirit Mediums and Popular Religion in Penang, Malaysia (Stanford University Press, 2006). In the last decade she has conducted ix

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C ON T R I BU T OR S

ethnographic and archival research on Christianity in Asia, and she is completing a monograph entitled If the Lord Be Not Come: Evangelical Christianity and the Brethren Movement in Singapore and Malaysia. Since 2003, she has been conducting research on ‘Remaking Daoist Practice in Transnational Networks: Religious and Cultural Pilgrimage to the Daoist Temple Complex at Wudang Mountain, Hubei Province, PRC’ with support from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. During the 2004–2005 academic year, she was a MacCalla Research Professor in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Alberta. Joy Tong Kooi Chin is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology, National University of Singapore. Her research interests include religion, politics and society in Malaysia and East Timor. Pattana Kitiarsa is visiting fellow in the Southeast Asian Studies Programme, National University of Singapore. He holds a doctoral degree from the Department of Anthropology, University of Washington in Seattle, USA. He taught in the School of Social Technology, Suranaree University of Technology (Nakhon Ratchasima, Northeastern Thailand) before joining the Asia Research Institute (NUS) as postdoctoral research fellow, and later visiting research fellow from January 2004 to December 2006. He has published both in Thai and English in the fields of Thai popular Buddhism and cultures, politics of development, transnational labour migration, Thai boxing and films. Ronald Lukens-Bull is associate professor of Anthropology and University Honors Fellow at the University of North Florida. He was a Fulbright Senior Specialist at Walailak University, Nakohn Srithammarat, Thailand at the time of the conference. His significant publications include A Peaceful Jihad: Negotiating Identity and Modernity in Muslim Java (2005). His research interests focus on youth, education and Islam in contemporary Indonesia. He lives in Jacksonville, Florida with his wife and two kids. Akh Muzakki is a lecturer at the IAIN Sunan Ampel Surabaya, East Java. He holds a masters degree in Islamic Studies from the State Institute for Islamic Studies (IAIN) Sunan Ampel in 2001, a Graduate Diploma in Southeast Asia (Grad Dipl [SEA]) from the Australian National University (ANU) in 2003, and a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) from the same university in 2005. During 2002–2005, he was a tutor of Indonesian Language and Culture at the Faculty of Asian Studies of the Australian National University (ANU), and was also a tutor of the Indonesian Language and Culture Program in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of New South Wales at ADFA in Canberra. He

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has written, for journals and daily newspapers, several articles on Indonesian Islam with a range of focus from Islamic law, Islamic fundamentalism, Islam and politics, to Islam and local culture. Oscar Salemink is Professor of Social Anthropology and head of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam. He studied anthropology and history in Nijmegen and Amsterdam (the Netherlands), and received his doctoral degree from the University of Amsterdam, based on research on Vietnam’s Central Highlanders. Between 1996 and 2001 he held positions with the Ford Foundation in Thailand and Vietnam. Recent publications include Colonial Subjects: Essays on the Practical History of Anthropology (coedited with Peter Pels – 1999); Viet Nam’s Cultural Diversity: Approaches to Preservation (editor – 2001); The Ethnography of Vietnam’s Central Highlanders: A Historical Contextualization, 1850–1990 (2003); The Development of Religion, the Religion of Development (co-edited with Anton van Harskamp and Ananta Kumar Giri – 2004); and ‘Transnational construction of localized struggle’, a thematic issue of Focaal – European Journal of Anthropology (co-edited with Halleh Ghorashi and Marja Spierenburg – 2006). His current research concerns the revival of local religion in Southeast Asia in a transnational context and the anthropology of human security. Vineeta Sinha is associate professor and teaches at the Department of Sociology at the National University of Singapore. She obtained her MA and PhD in Anthropology from the Johns Hopkins University. Her research interests include the critique of concepts and categories in the social sciences, the history of the social sciences, teaching of sociological theory, sociology and anthropology of religion, the Hindu Diaspora and the political economy of health care in medically plural societies. She has recently published her first book, A New God in the Diaspora? Muneeswaran Worship in Contemporary Singapore (Singapore University Press and Nordic Institute of Asian Studies 2005). Some recently published journal articles include: ‘Problematizing received categories: Revisiting ‘folk Hinduism’, ‘Popular Hinduism’ and ‘Sanskritization’’ (Jan 2006, in Current Sociology); ‘Persistence of “folk Hinduism” in Singapore and Malaysia’ (Nov. 2005, Australian Religious Studies Review); ‘Theorising talk about “religious pluralism” and “religious harmony” in Singapore’ (2005, in Journal of Contemporary Religion). Bryan S. Turner was professor of sociology at the University of Cambridge (1998–2005) and is currently professor of sociology in the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. He is the research leader of the cluster on religion and globalization, and is currently writing a three-volume study of the sociology of religion. He edited the Dictionary

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of Sociology for Cambridge University Press (2006) and published Vulnerability and Human Rights (2006) with Penn State University Press. Professor Turner is a research associate of GEMAS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris), an honorary professor of Deakin University, and an adjunct professor of Murdoch University, Australia. His first book on the sociology of religion was Weber and Islam (1974). Robert P. Weller holds a PhD from the Johns Hopkins University. He is currently Professor of Anthropology and Research Associate at the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs at Boston University. He has written numerous works on Chinese political, social and cultural change. The most recent books include Discovering Nature: Globalization and Environmental Culture in China and Taiwan (Cambridge 2006) and an edited volume called Civil Life, Globalization, and Political Change in Asia: Organizing Between Family and State (Routledge 2005).

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

In late November 2005, the Asia Research Institute (ARI), National University of Singapore (NUS) invited a group of international scholars, comprising mainly anthropologists and sociologists of Asian religions, for an intensive two-day Workshop on ‘Religious Commodifications in Asia.’ The papers presented and the discussions which took place during the event were exceptionally thought-provoking and fruitful. This volume is the product of that workshop. It features both theoretically insightful and substantively important accounts of the cultural processes that are tied into the commodification, marketing, and consumption of major religious traditions in contemporary East and Southeast Asia. This event would not have been possible without the courtesy and generosity of various organizations and people. Funding and organizing support for the workshop were provided by the ARI. The editor is grateful to the administration team, especially Tony Reid, Alan Chan, Bryan Turner, Vineeta Sinha, Manjit Kaur, Valerie Yeo, Alyson Rozells, and Henry Kwan. Contributions from keynote speakers, paper presenters, panel moderators and discussants, and participants were instrumental to the event. I wish to acknowledge the wonderful inputs from the following colleagues and friends: Aris Ananta, Marc Askew, Nir Avieli, Coeli Barry, Chen Kuan-Hsing, Chua Beng Huat, Erik Cohen, Jean DeBernardi, Deepthi S., Assa Doron, Fan Lizhu, Ronald Lukens-Bull, Peter Jackson, Juliette Koning, Michael Montesano, Akh Muzakki, Oscar Salemink, Purwo Santoso, Josefar Schriever-Baldoz, Joy Tong, Bryan Turner, and Robert Weller. Comments and criticisms from anonymous readers helped considerably in creating a publishable manuscript from the workshop papers. Marc Askew, Charles Keyes, and Bryan Turner are particularly helpful to read through and provide comments on the introductory chapter. I am indebted to the contributors of this volume for their strong commitment to this publication project. My sincere thanks go to Dorothea Schaefter for her

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encouragement in materializing this volume. Phoyai Suriya, Nan, Tan, and Tukta are always with me in my long academic journey.

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PK Kent Ridge Crescent Singapura December 2006

xiv

INTRODUCTION

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Asia’s commodified sacred canopies Pattana Kitiarsa

The central theme of this collection is religious commodifications in Asia. It contains essays that share common goals in assessing and determining the cultural mediations that affect the convergence and divergence of religion and market forces, and the socio-economic and cultural impacts they have produced in contemporary East and South-East Asia. Many contributors to this volume have employed an ethnographic approach to understanding and portraying the wide range of market-oriented changes in the Asian religious landscape, ranging from the worship of Chinese gods and goddesses to vegetarian festivals, tourist pilgrimages, Buddhist- and Catholic-based amulet trading, Islamic stickers and sermons, spirit medium cults and a selection of popular films. This volume argues that ‘commodifying the sacred’ does not lead to a critical decline of religiosity as argued by secularization theorists (see Hammond 1985; Wilson 1996). Rather, it characterizes the variable ways that relationships between religion and the market are configured. We highlight the significant continuation of religious influences in Asia amidst the powerful trends of modern or even postmodern market cultural upheavals. Religious commodifications are complex historical and cultural constructions, notwithstanding their obvious commercial features. They are produced in specific cultural contexts, and thus, require an understanding of cultural frameworks in order to unlock their symbolic and socio-economic significance. Commodifying processes are highly inventive and specifically embedded in the local-global trajectories of the market economy and postmodern religious explosions. Religious commodifications do not necessarily lead to religious malaise or produce new religious forms and movements that oppose the institutionalized beliefs and practices of religious organizations. The essays in this volume represent a largely ethnographic approach to studying religion as a market commodity, offering significant contributions to the anthropological and sociological study of Asian religions in globalization contexts. At the same time, the volume also promotes a theoretically engaged comparative approach to interpreting religious changes in Asia, by digging 1

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deep into the textures and meanings of religions as they are practised in everyday contexts. Although all societies in Asia have experienced considerable socio-economic and cultural change in the modern period, the conspicuous convergences between religion and the market economy have not produced identically-patterned impacts everywhere in the region. The societies studied here nevertheless share some common themes and patterns, which are centred on rituals that are expressive of the ‘moral law of cause and effect’ (DeBernardi, Chapter 3), in the production, circulation and consumption of ‘charisma’ (Weller, Chapter 1), ‘merit’ (Askew, Chapter 5; Pattana, Chapter 6) and the production of symbolic goods ‘in the spiritual market’ (Salemink, Chapter 7). Diffusing religion via a commodity market, commanding media coverage, as well as redefining ritual procedures have reaffirmed the prosperity of religion’s prominent place in the everyday lives of Asian people. We borrow the famous metaphor of ‘the sacred canopy’ from Berger (1967) to mark some diverse religious beliefs and practices in contemporary Asia. By sacred canopy, we mean a world which is religiously defined, which provides moral order and spiritual sanctuary to humans and their society. Berger argues that humans cannot ‘step out’ of this canopy. To step out of it simply means ‘to step into a chaotic darkness, into anomy, possibly into madness’ (Berger 1969: 134). Religion, in whatever form it may be conceived and practised, represents diverse sacred canopies that create interiorized communal bonds as well as impose morally sacred orders both at the cosmological and everyday mundane levels. Religion, after all, is ‘the human enterprise by which a sacred cosmos is established’ (Berger 1969: 26). The ‘sacred’ mode, as distinct from its ‘mundane’ counterpart (to draw on Durkheim’s classic formulation) helps humans cope with the ‘fundamental problems of existence’ (Geertz 1973). Berger’s metaphor has its root in the very basic idea of the sacred in the Durkhiemian sociology of religion. The sacred, according to Berger, means ‘a quality of mysterious and awesome power, other than man and yet related to him, which is believed to reside in certain objects of experience’ (Ibid.). The sacred does not necessarily exist on different cultural and cosmological platforms, separated from the mundane routines of everyday life. It is only ‘sticking out’ (Ibid.) of ordinary occurrences. Activity, experience, or thing become sacred when they are ‘convinced of as being infused in one way or another with sacred power’ (Ibid.: 27). Berger’s metaphor and definition of the sacred gives us some broad pathfinders to locate our discussion of the changing religious landscapes in Asia. In this volume, the Asian sacred canopies include both officially institutionalized religions (e.g., Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, or Islam) and traditional or folk religious beliefs and practices (e.g., worship of Chinese gods and goddesses, spirit cults and other forms of popular religion). They have formed ‘the never completed enterprise of building a humanly meaningful world’ (Berger 1969: 28). However, there are at least two problems deriving from an attempt to articulate Berger’s metaphor and his explanations 2

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concerning the sacred. First, the canopy metaphor seems to present an impression of piously religious individuals and societies in an ever secularizing world. Religion has produced some engrossing influences over the modern private and public life. Second, what happens to the sacred canopies when they encounter the forces of the capitalist economy and other modern secular changes? Can the sacred retain its powerful grip on consciousness and practice in the midst of global market onslaughts? These problems are central to the development of anthropology and sociology of religion, at least since the mid-nineteenth century. They have been widely discussed and debated by generations of scholars and intellectuals since Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, R.H. Tawney, Max Weber down to Peter Berger himself and his contemporaries. Their answers to these problems can be summarized in what Bryan Wilson (1985) calls the ‘secularization model,’ which dominated the field of study in the 1950s and 1960s. It is theoretically appropriate to situate religious commodifications in Asia within a broad conceptual spectrum of secularization and its countermodel. This commodification is deemed to turn religion into marketable goods, bringing them into various scales and modes of market transaction. Such a process apparently runs against the rationalized position adopted by secularization theorists, who predict the significant decline of religion as an influential determinant of social action (and consciousness) when society and individuals experience modernization and rationalization. It is a state where ‘society moves from some sacred condition to successively secular conditions in which the sacred evermore recedes’ (Hammond 1985: 1) as evidenced in phenomena such as: the decline of public belief in God; the decline of belief in the supernatural; the decline of church membership and church attendance; and Evangelical Christianity (Bell 1977; Brierley and Wraight 1995; Hadaway, Marler and Chaves 1993; Hunter 1987). In other words, the underlining proposition of the theory is that ‘modernization necessarily leads to a decline of religion, both in society and in the minds of individuals’ (Berger 1999: 2). Among the advocates of the theory, Wilson argues that the ‘inherited model’ of secularization does not predicate the disappearance of religiosity, nor of organized religion. Instead, ‘it merely indicates the decline in the significance of religion in the operation of the social system, its diminished significance in social consciousness, and its reduced command over resources (time, energy, skill, intellect, imagination, and accumulated wealth of mankind)’ (Wilson 1985: 14). To Wilson, the secularization theory focuses on the operation of the social system and the functions of social action in this system. It is the system that has increasingly secularized and rationalized itself. He cites beliefs in the supernatural as a prime example, showing that they ‘may not disappear, either as rhetorical public expressions or as private predilections, but they cease to be the determinants of social action. Men learn to regulate their behaviour to conform to the rational premises built into the social order; action must 3

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be calculated, systematic, regulated, and routinized’ (Ibid.: 19). Wilson’s thesis has been strongly contested. The opponents of the secularization theory, such as Berger (1999: 2–3), point out that these views on secularization ‘turn out to be wrong’ and are ‘value free.’ Secularization theorists tend to overlook the resilience and subtlety of religion in the face of the powerful forces of modernity, notably the rise of modern nation-state and the world capitalist market economy. The theoretical stances adopted by the secularization theorists stand out in sharp contrast to the evidence provided in this volume for the persistence and resilience of the religion that are harnessed by contemporary Asian religious markets. Since the end of World War II, criticisms towards secularization has been most strongly evident in works by scholars carrying out their research in the rising capitalist economies, especially in the US and East Asia, particularly Japan.1 Key arguments in countering the secularization theory seem to point to the fact that Weber’s classical statement of ‘the disenchantment of the world’ (Weber 1947: 155) is only partially true. In this particular respect, Weber and those who have inherited his thoughts are off target in their predicting religions’ decline at the hands of modernization. Instead of ‘the separation of the secular and the religious’ and ‘the loss of religion’s influence over the course of secular event’ (Beckford 1985: 127), religion has responded to the forces of modernity on opposite terms. The more society is rationally modernized, scientifically educated, technologically advanced and economically prosperous, the more people tend to be enchanted or re-enchanted by their committed faiths. Among many recent works, the secularization model (or hypothesis) is fiercely contested by Berger’s later work, ‘Desecularization of the World’ (1999), in which he boldly denounces the ‘mistakes of secularization theory’ amid the resurgences of religions worldwide toward the end of the last century.2 Lyon confidently declares that ‘secularization as a meta-narrative is dead’ (2000: 137). With the exception of Western and Northern Europe, America, Asia and the rest of the world are ‘as furiously religious as ever’ (Berger 1992: 32). It has been argued that the USA has become even more intensely religious (Davie 1999: 76). Religion has served as a moral and ethical frame of reference to comprehend the rise of capitalism in the US since the late nineteenth century. When Weber visited the country in 1904, he was impressed by how Protestant ethics and strong religious affiliation among European immigrants had ignited America’s rapid economic growth. He described the US’s religiously-informed economic phenomena as ‘church-mindedness in America’ (Weber 1947: 303). Religion, he noted, was ‘always posed in social life and in business life which depended on permanent and credit relations’ (Weber 1947: 303). In the late 1950s, Schneider and Dornbusch (1958) had already noted the influence of ‘prosperity religion’ in the US economy and society. In their analysis of 46 best sellers of inspirational religious literature published in the US between 1875 and 1955, they concluded 4

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that prosperity religion, which promotes success, wealth and good health, had flourished in modern times. Four decades later, Bruce (1990) used his case study of ‘televangelism’ to show that Weber’s famous ‘Protestant work ethic’ model could not adequately explain the religiosity among economically deprived and socially marginalized populations in the US. It is the sacred or miraculous powers offered by the prosperity teachings of televangelism and its health and wealth gospel that most appeal to those affected by economic deprivation. Prosperity religion in the US retained its attractiveness, aided by competitive marketing strategies, up to the present decades (Roof 2001). Using Jesus in Disneyland as a metaphor of the postmodern religious landscape, Lyon argues that ‘religion or, rather, spirituality, has undoubtedly become a consumer item’ (Lyon 2000: 138). Eurocentric secularization theories have not gained effective momentum in studies of Asian religion, despite wide and serious concerns in these countries over the impacts of modernization (or westernization), and industrialization since the decades after the Second World War (Bellah 1965a; Davis 1980; Hefner 1998; Keyes et al. 1994). Weller (Chapter 1 of this volume) is definitely correct in his opening remark when he states that ‘the ghost of Max Weber looms large over any attempt to think about religion and capitalism . . .’3 Notably it was Weber himself who drew attention to the limited applicability of his Protestant-orientated modernization/secularization model for Asia. In The Sociology of Religion, he observed that ‘for various popular religions of Asia, in contrast to Protestantism, the world remained a great enchanted garden, in which the practical way to orient oneself, or to find security in this world or the next, was to revere or coerce the spirits and seek salvation through ritualistic, idolatrous, or sacramental procedures’ (Weber 1963: 270). Weber made a prediction way ahead of his time when he noted that: no path led from the magical religiosity of the non-intellectual classes of Asia to a rational, methodical control of life. Nor did any path lead to that methodical control from the world accommodation of Confucianism, from the world-rejection of Buddhism, from the world-conquest of Islam, or from the messianic expectation and economic pariah law of Judaism. (Ibid.) Indeed, there are ‘rational paths’ that lead Asian religions to achieve some intimate relationships with the market economy through modernization processes. Bellah, drawing a parallel of Weber’s Protestant work ethic, argues that Tokugawa religion must be given credit for contributing to the miraculous rise of the modern Japanese economy. Religion played an important role in its political and economic rationalization. His thesis is that the ‘Japanese religion never tires of stressing the importance of diligence and 5

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frugality and of attributing religious significance to them, both in terms of carrying out one’s obligations to the sacred and in terms of purifying the self of evil impulses and desires’ (Bellah 1957: 196). In one of his key edited volumes, entitled, Religion and Progress in Modern Asia, Bellah (1965a) and his colleagues expressed their deep concerns over the modernization’s dubious impacts on Asia’s traditional values and cultural identities; especially among post Second World War new nations. He argues that ‘progress, in the sense of increased learning capacity, is essential if Asian societies are to cope successfully with the modern world’ (Bellah 1965b: 222). Furthermore, Bellah (1965b: 202–215) categorizes four types of religious response to modernization in Asia, namely, conversion to Christianity, traditionalism, reformism and neotraditionalism. Completely absent from Bellah’s typologies is the religion-market interactions. He does not foresee the emergence of ‘market cultures’ (Hefner 1998), which are fundamental to the rise of Asian capitalism. Perhaps, secularization theory was simply too dominant, or Asia’s religious market had yet to emerge during the post-war decades. Asia’s prosperity religions like Japan’s new religious movements and endemic religion (Foard 1994), Korea’s resurgence of shamanism (Kendall 1996), India’s prosperity cults (Sivananda 1990), Taiwan’s amoral cult (Weller 1987, 1994), Thailand’s commercialization of Buddhism (Jackson 1999a,b; Pattana Kitiarsa, Chapter 6) or Vietnam’s cult of goddesses (Taylor 2004) and persistence of supernaturalism (Do 2003), had not become fully visible in the post war Asia. In other words, religious commodifications were only in their embryonic state during the heydays of secularization theory. Tensions of market economy and modern life styles to forge fundamentalist responses were not as immense as in contemporary decades. This volume places the cultural process of religious commodifications in Asia along the lines of the ‘desecularization of the world’ (Berger 1999) and the powerful thrusts of the globalization process (Beyer 1994; Weller, Chapter I). Commodification helps redefine religions as market commodities as well as exchange in the spiritual marketplace. It is further expanded by the transnational connections of religious organizational and market networks. According to The Oxford English Dictionary (1989), the term commodification was coined and used in the English-speaking world only in the mid-1970s despite its linguistic forebear of commodity having existed since the fifteenth century. Commodification is defined as ‘the action of turning something into, or treating something as, a (mere) commodity; commercialization an activity, and so on, that is not by nature commercial’ (OED: 563). The objects which were within this market-oriented process when the term was first introduced, include art works, labour, land and healthcare. The increasing popular usages of the term indicate how ‘market relationships have expanded’ and how ‘consumer culture has spread’ (Strasser 2003: 7, 8). One of the thought-provoking elements in the OED definition of commodification lies in its ending phrase ‘ . . . not by nature 6

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commercial.’ This phrase implies that commodified goods, activities, or services which are not originally or usually conventional ‘stuff’ in the consumer market are now commodified. As such, commodifying and selling them in the market place goes against commonly and culturally held values and interests. Strasser (2003) argues that ‘things and activities which are “not by nature commercial” are special, and commodifying them . . . can get a culture into trouble’. In other words, commodification of a ‘not by nature commercial’ subject like religion is an unusual cultural development, even if the process takes place in the intensively postmodern cultural contexts (Bauman 1998; Lyon 2000). Is it true that commodifying ‘not by nature commercial’ goods or activities, for example, religious symbols, ‘can get a culture into trouble’? We challenge this hypothetical observation. Commodification processes can be socially and culturally disturbing and disrupting, unless symbolic market intimacies, or extents and degrees which blend religious and economic values together, are put into consideration. The capitalist economy has proven an effective means to inject enormous market values into the ‘social life’ (Appadurai 1986) of the sacred and make them the ‘religious enterprises’ (Askew, Chapter 5; Bourdieu 1998: 114). The commodification process makes consumer religion, in which ‘the sacred is able to sustain itself outside of organized religion within consumer culture’ (Featherstone 1991: 126). We agree with Loy’s (1996: 1) argument that the market ‘is becoming the first truly world religion, binding all corners of the globe more and more tightly into a world-view and set of values whose religious role we overlook only because we insist on seeing them as “secular” ’ (Loy 1996: 1). The market influence on religious landscapes does not automatically result in some definite forms of secularization. Rather it gives birth to some diverse inventive forms of religious underpinnings of what Sinha (Chapter 8) describes as ‘the possibilities of enchantment’. Weller sums up the point neatly that ‘secularization occurs only alongside, for lack of a better term, we might call religionization’. In short, ‘religionization’ creates more than ever the intimate processes in which religious meanings and their sacred aura have become commodities being manufactured, exchanged and consumed through the market mechanisms. In this volume, we propose that religious commodifications constituted crucial dimensions in contemporary Asia’s religio-cultural forms. They have produced prosperity faiths that draw their support from conventionalized popular worship and piety, manifested through an intensive commercialization of symbolic or religious goods and services that are arguably not by their nature commercial. These commodifications have turned the key symbols and potent artefacts of Asian religions into economic goods and objects of religious desire in the market of faiths. The religious commodifications have operated in the market that has rapidly manifested itself in a burgeoning ‘symbolic economy’ of spectacular monuments (Askew, Chapter 5) and ‘global 7

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economies of charisma’ (Weller, Chapter 1). We explore an array of religious commodification phenomena in Asia by purposefully focusing on some emerging theoretical and methodological approaches, modes and techniques of commodifications and their multiple impacts on economy and society. First, religious commodifications in Asia require some engaged approach to reflect upon these transcultural and transnational religious confluences. Despite an explosion of recent publications on subjects like religious desecularization (Berger 1999), global religion (Beyer 1994; Turner Chapter 2), postmodern religion (Bauman 1998; Davie 1999; Heelas 1998; Lyon 2000), religion and popular culture (Stout and Buddenbaum 2001), and spiritual marketplace/consumer religion (Featherstone 1991; Roof 1999), the religion-market commodities nexus deserves some more concerted theoretical attention. This is the subject of discussion in the chapters by Turner and Weller. Taking the commodity approach to the study of religion has revealed some paradoxical logics of commoditization. Both chapters lay stress on the self-conflicting natures in the religion-market economy junctures. When Asia’s major religious traditions are commodified, they do not lose their symbolic power and efficacy. They intimately embrace the suffocating forces of the market. Weller argues that, in religious commodifications, ‘markets become the dominant form of distribution, instead of just one of many forms’. Similarly, for Turner, the markets or commercial developments of religious symbols and themes in the popular culture are paradoxical because, while contributing to the circulation of religious phenomena, the popular religious markets challenge traditional, hierarchical forms of religious authority. Methodologically, our approach is ethnographically grounded by nature. It guides us to observe contemporary religious changes in parts of East and South-East Asia by engaging in and contextualizing our discussions in local as well as global discourses concerning the upsurge of religion in the everdominating capitalist economy. Our understanding is that every religious tradition, in varied degrees and modes, has to contend with the inevitable penetration of market economy. As noted by Weller, our everyday life is no further secularized, but the ways we bless and embrace our endeavours in life with showers of prayers, amulets or worship wishing to achieve good health, wealth and a decent life, have become common ‘paid-for experiences’ (Agnew 2003: 12) for people across the regions. This is the reason why Turner suggests that ‘religion has to be sold, alongside other cultural products’. We demonstrate aspects of how Asian religions are made commodities and how people make sense of their commodified sacred canopies through our ethnographic stories. Second, religious commodifications operate within an array of shared modes and techniques. Our contributors set to explore modes and techniques of religious commodifications ranging from rituals of blessing (DeBernardi), vegetarian festivals (Cohen), tourist pilgrimages to sacred monuments and 8

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places (Askew), to combinations of ‘merit-making’ industry (Pattana Kitiarsa). The list does not mean to exhaust examples of religious market activities, which are different by place, region and religious tradition. Both DeBernardi and Cohen deal with Chinese popular religion as it is practiced in China and South-East Asia. Material wealth, good health and efforts to make money are central, but not solely, to the flourishing of religious commodifications. Strong beliefs in fate and luck are essential to the efficacy of the rituals, which is believed to generate ‘practical benefits’ (Reader and Tanabe 1998: 2) for the devotees. DeBernardi notes that, ‘people can be instrumental in performing meritorious acts to secure future happiness for themselves and their descendants, but still must depend on their fate and moral luck if they are to have the best possible outcomes’. Cohen interprets the devoted acts of a group of local Thai spirit mediums, who were recruited to participate in a Sino-Thai vegetarian festival with less degree of commercialization contents, as ‘a festival of self abnegation, which stands in opposition . . . to the increased commercialization of Thai society.’ For him, not every public festival excessively emphasizes the business exchanges of money and religious goods. In his case study, he shows that the same religious mode and technique of merit-making could be subverted and employed to negotiate and express their ethno-economic class identities. The chapters by Askew and Pattana argue that religious commodifications in some contexts need multiple modes and techniques to operate. For Askew, the tourist pilgrimages from Malaysia and Singapore to Thailand’s lower South involve the politics of place-making (monumental and religious sites) by local authorities and of conscious religious merit-making by local and international visitors. The symbolic economy surrounding the religious sites contains ritualized acts with complex meanings. Indeed, it is a specific form of economy, which relies on ‘a source of symbolic capital that acts . . . to reinforce simultaneously their desire for existential well-being and their ethnic identity’. Like Askew, Pattana Kitiarsa argues that the concept and methods of merit-making is crucial to understand the overall implications of the commercialization of Thai Buddhism (phuttha phanit). Adopting Comaroff and Comaroffs’ (1999, 2002) occult economy model, he displays multiple venues and techniques, for example, magical Buddhism, amulet industry, spirit medium cult, lottery industry, fortune-telling business, pilgrimage and festivals, which have created religious marketplaces to fulfill people’s desire for wealth, health and happiness. He also suggests that religious commodifications must be taken within the historical and cultural discourses involving some elitist views accusing money-oriented religious activities leading to the widely discussed state of Thai Buddhism in crisis. Finally, religious commodifications in Asia have produced ranges of impacts on economy and society. Agnew (2003: 12) argues that the power of the commodification process lies in its ability to ‘convert “all of life” itself into a “paid-for experience” ’. Situating Asia’s ‘paid-for experience’ into its 9

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diverse cultural and religious contexts, religious commodifications have provided social and economic ramifications, especially in the countries in transition from socialist to capitalist economy, like Vietnam, and in places where market economies are in a more developed stage, like in Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines. Salemink shows how spirits of consumption and capitalist ethic have become prominent features in Vietnam’s spiritmedium cults. In post Doi Moi rituals, ‘people employ a variety of culturally specific strategies to ensure their health and wealth’. They engage in risk endeavours in everyday life, while posing strong desires in spiritual security through the market-driven popular religious beliefs and rituals. Sinha uses a case of how Hinduism is merchandised in Singapore to argue for the ‘possibilities of enchantment’ and the re-situating and redefinition of the ‘Hindu universe in everyday life’. Market and its profane means of profit-making do not deteriorate faith and morality among the diasporic Hindu community. They rather support the ‘enchanted worldview’ and help Singaporean Hindus making sense of their ethno-religious identities as subjects of multi-racial Singapore. Singapore’s other case of paid-for religious experience is evident in the fast-growing memberships and attendants of ‘megachurches’. Tong adopts Ritzer (1993)’s ‘McDonaldization’ model and effectively shows how the American prominent capitalist business concept and organization (see Watson 2006) are utilized by a successful megachurch in the Island Republic. The megachurch is a key instance of the commodifications of prosperity gospel at the institutional level, where strong modern business organizational skills are matched with charismatic leadership. Tong implies that successful financial and organizational managements make megachurches a consumer commodity attractive to spirituality-hungry young Singaporeans. As in the Philippines, Asia’s only Catholic-dominated country, Singaporebased megachurch confirms Giggies’s (2003: 172) observation of the intertwining of market and Church in the mid-nineteenth century in the US, where ‘Christians looked to the market as a critical source for experiencing and publicizing a sense of sacred identity’. Commodifications of Tagalog Christianity are deeply embedded in the country’s religious cultures. Like in Buddhist Thailand, folk or popular Catholicism also makes a strong presence in the spiritual marketplace through the commodifications of Catholic amulets and memorabilia. Chapters by Muzakki and Lukens-Bull show instances of how Islam is commodified in contemporary Indonesia. Two possible modes of commodifying Islam are the tele-public sermons and popular consumption of religious stickers. Muzakki argues that Islam public sermons are indeed a kind of symbolic commoditity. It is a ‘much easier way of making money’ for Islam religious teachers, who capitalize on their religious knowledge and public-speaking skills via the aide of modern media, like TV. The issues of media and the religious commodifications are further explored in the 10

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chapter by Lukens-Bulls, whose work focuses on the popularity of religious stickers. He stresses that consuming and circulating stickers among young Indonesians connote what he calls ‘the ideologization of commodities’. Audiences and owners of the stickers are placed ‘ . . . into a world of Muslim identity and allows them to “broadcast” a certain version of Islamic practice with ease and convenience’. Stickers, produced and sold as a religious commodity, obviously speak publicly and encouragingly to the Indonesian Muslims, not only to reaffirm their faith, but also to reshape their social and civic identities amidst the new growth of Islam in the post New Order regime. This volume does not claim an overall representation of religious commodifications in Asia in terms of the full coverage of geographical areas and religio-cultural traditions. Instead, it randomly presents a selection of religious commodifications in East and Southeast Asia. Its scope and focus adequately complements some major recent works concentrating on religion, state and modernity in these two regions. Religious legitimation of the new Asian states’ power is widely discussed in the late 1970s and 1980s (Smith 1978; Somboon Suksamran 1982). However, a more theoretically engaged volume, entitled, Asian Visions of Authority: Religion and the Modern States of East and Southeast Asia (Keyes et al. 1994) is, by far, one of the seminal works on the subject. They develop a notion of ‘crisis of authority’ to explain the confrontation and collusion between the state’s modern visions of nation-building and the traditional religious communities. The crisis results from the ‘very success,’ not the incompleteness, of nation-building projects undertaken by the states. ‘By seeking to regulate, control, or even suppress religious practices, states have stimulated people to look to religion for authority in criticizing, resisting, and challenging those who control state power’ (Ibid.: 15).4 In a way, the crisis of authority and the persistence of primordial religious practices represent the reconfiguration of a desecularization thesis, proposed by Berger (1999). Progress, development and even the dictation of the capitalist market economy do not necessarily ‘relegate primordial attachments to religion to the personal rather than the public sphere’ (Keyes et al. 1994: 15). Lee and Ackerman (1997: 134) argue from the case study of Islam in Malaysia that ‘religion did not disappear as Malaysia modernized. On the contrary, the processes of rationalization and secularization reinforced religious expressions, giving them new meanings and organization. The notion of “sacred” took on more political meanings, and cultural identities became inseparable from religious practice’. Similar claims against secularization thesis from Asian popular religious experiences have also appeared in recent literature (see Evers 1993; Reader and Tanabe 1998; Shahar and Weller 1996). Religious commodifications have begun to attract serious analyses by scholars covering commodifying instances of many religious traditions, such as the commercialization of Thai Buddhism (Jackson 1999a,b), the com moditization of haj among Thai Muslims (Chaiwat Satha-Anand 2005), 11

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gambling and worship of amoral gods in Taiwan (Weller 1994, 1996), the practical benefits of Japan’s common religion (Reader and Tanabe 1998), and the resurgence of shamanism in the market economy-oriented South Korea (Kendall 1996). Approaching Asian religions as market commodity has gradually been escalated to the centre of ‘market cultures’ (Hefner 1998) which is fundamental to understanding the rise of capitalism in the religiously-rich and diverse continent. Religious beliefs and practices are important to ‘capitalism’s embeddedness’ in the region. Argued Hefner (1998: 29), ‘market processes are everywhere meditated by a host of facilitative structures’ and we confirm that their influences have strongly shaped and will reshape Asia’s religious sites in the future.

Notes 1 The secularization theory has particularly strong corresponding evidences in Europe, especially Northern and Western Europe, where beliefs in God and religious influences in public life have been drastically decreased. Davie (1999: 76) points out that ‘as Europe’s economic and political life developed, religion diminished in public significance; religious aspirations were increasingly relegated to the private sphere’. 2 In his early works, Peter Berger set out his career as an advocate of secularization theory. He even discussed the conception of ‘the secularization of consciousness’ (Berger 1969: 107). However, a few decades later, he has had a ‘change of mind’, resulting in ‘the abandonment of the old secularization theory’ (Berger 1999: 299). For him, secularization is ‘the direct and inevitable result of modernity’ (Ibid.), whereas the current extremely powerful upsurges of religious movements around the world force him to rethink his theoretical direction and has produced some important contributions to the desecularization model (Berger 1999). 3 Lyon (2000: 8) notes that ‘Max Weber was right to see Christianity – acting as its own gravedigger’. 4 On a different subject and scope, Tanabe and Keyes (2002) have further developed the concept of ‘crisis of modernity’ to make sense of social, religious and cultural upheavals in contemporary Thailand and Laos.

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Part I

A COMMODITY APPROACH TO THE STUDY OF ASIAN RELIGIONS

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ASIA AND THE GLOBAL ECONOMIES OF CHARISMA Robert P. Weller

The ghost of Max Weber looms large over any attempt to think about religion and capitalism, especially his suggestion that Calvinism’s unique attitude toward the world helped catalyze industrial capitalism in the West. Once that change had occurred, according to Weber, capitalism no longer needed religion, because the system itself formed an ‘iron cage’ that shaped our lives. That is why he happily illustrated the ‘Protestant ethic’ with quotations from the quite irreligious Benjamin Franklin (Weber 1958: 48–54). One branch of social science expanded this insight (as well as others dating mostly back to nineteenth-century social thought) to predict a general secularization of the world. Another tried to generalize the argument about the role of Protestantism to the rest of the world by looking for the functional equivalents of Calvinism, as in the claim that Confucianism led to Asian market success by promoting values that were pre-adapted to the market. Neither of these approaches has been as fruitful as Weber’s original work. In part, they foundered on the shoals of empirical evidence. In the entire world, for example, clear secularization has occurred only in Western Europe, and even there perhaps only in institutionalized religion rather than a broader sense of spirituality. The turn to Confucian values as an explanation raised the problem that an earlier generation of Weberians had cited many of these same values to show why China lacked the potential for market success. It also covered over enormous variation in cultural values within and among Asian societies. Both branches of post-Weberian theory suffer from thinking of religion as a changeless unity, a huge block of granite that either helps build a foundation for capitalism or is bulldozed away by new secular values. Like all culture, though, religion changes and adapts within its world of institutional possibilities. Both secularization theory and the expectation that religions like Daoism, Buddhism and Islam would be barriers to modernity failed empirically because religions evolve, both shaping and being shaped by their environment. Such change always occurs, but there are several broad

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processes that influence them in ways that may be unique to modernity and capitalism.1 First, the financial underpinnings of religions have to adapt as markets become the dominant form of distribution, instead of just one of many forms. The details, of course, will vary widely. The greatest crisis occurs for religions that were closely tied to non-market economies, often either land-holding or forms of direct taxation. The land reforms that swept the world in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries undercut temple finances in many parts of the world, and had especially severe effects on the great Buddhist and Catholic monastic traditions. Required tithing and other forms of direct taxation also declined as strengthening states monopolized that power. Some states taxed on behalf of religious institutions (as in several northern European countries), but this mediation by the state is already an important change. Other kinds of religious finance fared better, usually because they had weaker institutional ties to earlier economic and political systems. Some income always came from market mechanisms (which long predate capitalism throughout Asia), as when temples sold amulets, or provided cures, or offered blessings for the dead. Some also came from voluntary donations, although new legal codes governing them would somewhat change the context. These mechanisms come to dominate under capitalism – requiring major changes from Buddhist monasteries in most cases, but not so much from Chinese popular temples, for example. Globalization has further opened religions up to kinds of competition they have not always faced before, but has also allowed some to expand their financial base in quite new ways. A second broad process is secularization. As I said, secularization as an empirical description of the world is wrong, but the term is still useful in describing a particular pressure of modernity. Everyday life in most of the world is no more secular than it used to be, but politics in most countries is undoubtedly more secular. With Islam providing only a very partial exception, states have given up their claims to divine right or to be part of a broader cosmology of power that includes religion. Some states may support particular religions, but that is far different from seeing themselves as inherently religious entities. This has increasingly been the case everywhere since the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century growth of secularism among Western elites, resulting for example in national constitutions all over the world that guarantee some form of freedom of religion. One of the most powerful pressures in this direction has been the pluralization of lifeworlds with modernity – global information flows, migration and the withdrawal of state monopolies on religion have forced every tradition to face the inconvenient reality of alternatives. In fact, the language we have to discuss this is probably inappropriate. Secularization occurs only alongside what, for lack of a better term, we might call religionization. 16

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That is, in much of the world, an aspect of daily life became marked off as ‘religion’ only when the ‘secular’ had been created to challenge it. I have, for example, occasionally talked to informants who worship spirits every day, but do not know the Chinese term for religion. Thus to rephrase: we do not have secularization, so much as a combined process of secularization and religionization, each inseparable from the other. The final process I will mention is the interaction of markets and morality. All the classic social theorists noted the relationship between capitalism and the rise of new social values, including individualism, utilitarianism and rationalization. These values tend to undermine more communitarian ties of kinship and neighbourhood. We associate this argument above all with the work of Karl Polanyi, but it shows up just us much in Marx on alienation or Durkheim on anomie (Polanyi 1957). This change often appears to the people involved as a move from a moral world to an amoral one, community to selfishness, ethics to greed. As Berger, Berger and Kellner put it in the title of their book, modernity creates a ‘homeless mind’ by undermining all comfortable assumptions about the world, by uprooting us mentally as well as physically (Berger et al. 1973). This puts us squarely in the realm of religion, which can respond in various ways. Most obviously, it can either embrace the new system or reject it. Even these responses can come in very different forms. A religion can, for instance, celebrate the perceived amorality of the market by offering riches through deals with its own amoral spirits. Or, it can find a positive morality in the market, as with the so-called prosperity cults. Rejections of the market can also come in quite mild forms that accept the market but hope to ameliorate its excesses by encouraging non-market morals and sometimes the non-market economy of charity. Others, of course, offer far more radical utopian alternatives that seek to reshape the world in a religious image. In this chapter I will address only two aspects of these problems. First, I will document the range of responses to the problem of market morality, mostly for the Chinese societies that I know best. As I will discuss, religions face comparable issues whenever markets and commodities play a significant role, even long before capitalism proper. With capitalism, modern nationstates and intensified globalization though, we see a situation ripe for the blossoming of many different kinds of religious reactions to the market. While I cannot properly answer it, I will speculate on the question of exactly when the various kinds of religious response seem to thrive. The second issue concerns the relations between the religious and economic world systems in an era of rapid globalization. I am interested especially in globalizing charismatic movements, because they have to face the dilemma of how to maintain charismatic authority when direct contact with the source of charisma becomes impossible. Most movements attempt some kind of commodification of charisma through mass production of artefacts or videos, 17

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but this process undermines the sense of authenticity so central to the idea of charisma. One very common answer is to establish a ‘home’, even while attempting to appeal universally. Often these charismatic centres fall well outside the major financial and population centres of the world, creating a sort of religious core in the economic periphery, which itself is an important comment on the market.

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Religions and markets There is nothing new about religions needing to face markets and their associated institutions like contracts and the commodification of goods and labour. Such processes have been important for millennia, and the religious culture of all state societies has faced the market with some combination of resistance and accommodation. That is, the relations between commodification and religion come with market cultures generally, and not capitalist culture specifically. Christianity was unfriendly to the market in many ways – recall Jesus and the money lenders, and the discomfort with charging interest that it shares with Islam. It also developed an intimate tie to the feudal economic base, in which markets played only a tangential role. Even at the height of those developments, though, many features of Christianity lived comfortably with the market. For instance, the Church sold indulgences and there was a thriving market in religious artefacts. The cults of the saints provided a form of votive worship that worked almost like a contract. In return for wishes granted, supplicants would make a return gift, like a ceramic arm in exchange for a healed one. China also had an official state cult that left little room for market culture. Both its funding and its cosmology depended on a political ideology that gave little prestige to markets. Recall that merchants were the lowest of people in Confucian thought, and that at some periods they were not allowed to take the imperial examinations. On the other hand, the state in late imperial times allowed an enormous free space for other forms of worship. Local community temple cults were by far the most widespread form of worship, and here the attitude toward the market was very different. Typically run as share-holding corporations, these temples raised funds from a combination of donations, informal taxation and selling services. They hosted votive cults that resembled the Christian ones (or similar traditions in Indian temples and in some forms of Islam), with repayment to the gods typically taking the form of gold medals for the gods to wear or sponsoring operas for them to watch. The comfort with the market is especially clear in the use of paper ‘spirit money’ (mingqian) which pervaded all aspects of contact with the spirit world. The form of this money varied widely, but it could include everything from paper imitations of gold and silver ingots to copies of currency saying ‘Bank of Hell’ (in English) in the British colony of Hong Kong. 18

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As an aspect of market culture, this side of Chinese religion tended to expand and respond during periods when the commodity economy grew rapidly, even well before the world capitalist system fully entered China in the nineteenth century. One such period occurred in the sixteenth century, at the end of the Ming Dynasty. At that time a set of five deities called the Wutong metamorphosed into gods of wealth by combining the first Ming Emperor’s attempt to rationalize worship across the country with an aspect of the cult that saw the five deities as amoral spirits with an intemperate interest in sex and cash. The story itself shows the complex possibilities of Chinese religion, but the details are less important here than the general flow of the cult, toward an acceptance of market profit as an appropriate goal of worship (Guo 2003; Szonyi 1997; von Glahn 2004). Something similar, but a bit more sinister, happened again two centuries later, in the same lower Yangzi area. This had long been China’s most commercially developed region, and the commodity economy was again booming in the eighteenth century. This time an epidemic of accusations of soul stealing rocked the area, as rumour told of people murdered in order to provide profit through occult means (Kuhn 1990). Far from being the remnant of some kind of pre-market mentality, such amoral or immoral cults had intimate ties to market expansion. The twentieth century brought a spate of cults around the world that responded in a similar way to the market – seeing it as amoral at best and evil at worst, and accenting those spiritual resources that most take advantage of the situation. The best known is probably Michael Taussig’s study of devil worship and the baptism of money in Colombia (Taussig 1980). He documents beliefs that market profit stems from deals with the devil, either directly or by baptizing money in place of an infant. The un-baptized infant is doomed to an afterlife in hell as a result, but the money gains the uncanny ability to return to its owner after being spent, bringing more money with it. Although the details differ significantly, John and Jean Comaroff also trace the rise of witchcraft accusations in post-apartheid South Africa to the unfettered market forces of late capitalism (Comaroff and Comaroff 1999). Taiwan saw a version of something similar in the late 1980s, with the rise of a set of temples to ghostly spirits that would do anything at all in exchange for payment. The most famous was to a set of unidentified dead bodies and a dog, collectively called the Eighteen Lords. This was pure feefor-service religion with no morality in the way (Weller 1994: 113–183). This period saw Taiwan’s transition to a developed economy by most standard measures, but its earlier growth based on cheap labour was ending; the thousands of small enterprises that powered the economy did not have sufficient capital to move into other kinds of industry, and the government still limited investing abroad or in China. The result was a lot of money invested in unproductive possibilities like land speculation and the stock market, or an illegal lottery that boomed during the period. Getting rich appeared for 19

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the moment more as the result of luck and opportunism than intelligence and hard work. The cult began to fade within a decade. By then the new possibility of overseas investment had massively changed the situation for many people, and Taiwan’s entrepreneurs became some of the most important investors in the Chinese and Vietnamese economies. These temples to amoral deities faded from the limelight as the kind of Wild West capitalism they highlighted became less salient to most people’s experience. These kinds of movements accept the market, sometimes celebrating it (like the Eighteen Lords temple) and sometimes damning it (as in witchcraft accusations), but always seeing it as fundamentally amoral. Other kinds of movements accept the market in an altogether different kind of way. They see market activity as fundamentally in harmony with sets of moral values, and moral values as the key to market success. Even more clearly than Weber’s Calvinists, who saw economic success as one possible outward sign of being among the elect, these groups associate market success directly with religious activity and its associated moral schemes. The best known of such groups are the ‘prosperity religions’, especially those growing out of evangelical Protestantism, which thrived in so many places from the twentieth century on. Correct faith becomes the key to financial success, and the followers have a duty to consume as much as to produce (Coleman 1995; Hackett 1995). There is nothing uniquely Protestant, however, about the general idea of religious values leading to market success. Consider the Way of Unity (Yiguan Dao), a salvationist and syncretic sect that first thrived in Republican-era China. It eventually became illegal under both Communist and Republican governments because of its secret activities and suspected collaboration with the Japanese occupation (Jordan and Overmyer 1986: 216–218). Nevertheless, it thrived in Taiwan (where it was finally legalized in 1987) and has spread out among Chinese communities globally from there. The group claims about two million followers. While this number is surely generous, the Way of Unity is unquestionably a large and important religious force in Taiwan and in many other Chinese communities. Like some similar groups in China and Taiwan, the Way of Unity expects its members to give a stern and thorough moral accounting of their lives. These groups typically require the active management of moral capital, with an emphasis on self-discipline, work and the good management of property and relationships.2 While the Way of Unity stresses its retention of conservative Confucian values, it places them always in the context of practical concerns, especially health and wealth. With its own array of inspirational public speakers, the group claims that a disproportionate number of successful businessmen are members. Their most prominent example is the shipping and airline tycoon Chang Yung-fa (Zhang Rongfa), who attributes his own spectacular success to membership in the sect. No systematic research has been done to examine this, but journalistic accounts suggest 20

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some element of truth. They point to the unusually clean and orderly workplaces, neat dress and clean speech from workers, and efficient use of resources. Chang’s Evergreen Shipping has a reputation for an anti-union and authoritarian leadership style, but also for paying high salaries with excellent benefits (Shenmi Jiaopai Chongshi Tianri 1990; Zhao 1992). Like worshippers of the Eighteen Lords, members of such sects fully welcome the market, but unlike the Eighteen Lords group, they also see this as a market fully consistent with conservative moral values. There is another possibility, of course, which is to recognize a fundamental amorality of markets, and to offer alternatives. This is quite common, and typically comes both in new forms and from traditions that predate the dominance of the market economy. Such reactions away from the market can take a kind of ameliorative form that accepts the market and tries to add a missing morality. They can also take a much more radical and utopian form that rejects current economic and social organization altogether, like Aum Shinrikyo’s attempt to survive the immanent apocalypse by creating isolated and self-sufficient communities. Here I will mention only one common aspect in many of these groups – the emphasis on philanthropy as both financial base and moral outlook. Philanthropy typically accepts the role of the market as a generator of wealth, but recognizes that markets are inadequate to meet certain kinds of needs, like education, health care, sanitation, or poverty relief. Philanthropic religious groups typically set up a supplemental economic system to siphon money out of the market economy and to redistribute goods through other mechanisms. The goods provided could be religion itself, that is, the donations go to support the religious institution directly. This is extremely common, and long predates capitalism. It has become increasingly important under capitalism, however, because religious institutions in many areas have lost control of earlier sources of income like land-holding or government support. The result is religious groups that expect their members to make money in the market, but to support them beyond the market. Many such groups, however, significantly expand the scope of philanthropy to the benefit of people who may not even be members. Such traditions also began well before capitalism proper, but seem to have undergone new growth in periods of market expansion, especially beginning in the nineteenth century.3 Sometime around the middle of that century, Christian groups all across Western Europe and North America took up charity as a central cause, often with women in the key roles (Pope 1977; Scott 1990; Smith 1981). They were explicitly attempting to fill the moral vacuum they saw in the market economy – not just meeting pressing social needs but uplifting public morality. As comparable economic forces have come to dominate around the world, similar reactions have not been unusual, and we see important new charitable movements in all kinds of religions. 21

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In the Chinese context, the most important of these has been Taiwan’s Ciji Merit Society (Ciji Gongdehui, currently rendered in English as Tzu Chi Foundation, and sometimes also as the Compassion Merit Society). Ciji was founded by a charismatic Buddhist nun in 1966, but expanded very rapidly in Taiwan in the 1980s, just as the island was growing wealthy. By the early 1990s they claimed over four million members in dozens of countries. The few clergy supported themselves by making handicrafts, and the vast bulk of the donations went to charity, primarily medical aid and disaster relief. They urge their millions of lay followers to volunteer in these projects, and not just to give cash. They have built a university, a medical school and two state-of-the-art hospitals. They run free clinics in poor urban areas of many countries as well as Asia’s largest bone marrow registry. They have provided food and medical help after natural disasters all around the world. Their centre, the Still Thoughts Abode, lies just outside the small city of Hualian, on Taiwan’s relatively poor and backward eastern coast. In many ways like those earlier Christian movements, Ciji offers a morality to ameliorate the perception of a heartless market and the empty lives of modernity. They draw on both the Bodhisattva ideal of helping all sentient beings before achieving nirvana and on a very conservative set of Chinese values, especially those associated with women, like nurturance. It is not a coincidence that most of the followers are women, typically from families that have done very well in the market (Huang and Weller 1998). Their success has also encouraged numerous other religious groups (including the Way of Unity, mentioned above) to emulate their non-religious activities, like founding universities or giving out medical aid. Ciji is not a prosperity cult – it offers happiness rather than wealth and promotes action outside a market context. It accepts capitalism and relies on wealth generated through markets, but its primary goal is to create a world of alternate values and actions. What determines which of these many possible interactions between religion and market will appear? When are markets celebrated and when rejected by religions? When are they seen as moral and when not? We are still a long way from having clear answers to these questions; I will attempt only a few preliminary thoughts here. First, we need to bear in mind that these are not mutually exclusive alternatives. One of the most important trends of market modernity almost everywhere has been the decline of statesupported religious monopolies. The pluralization of life worlds has created all kinds of religious alternatives, even where very few existed in the past. Even someplace like Saudi Arabia, which promotes a state-sponsored Islamic orthodoxy, is also home to powerful alternate readings of Islam. China, whose state policy has long been unfriendly to religion (although considerably less repressive now than before the market-based reforms of the 1980s), nevertheless has a full range of religious alternatives. Second, it seems likely that we will see the most pluralization where institutional control over religion is relatively weak – Protestant areas more than 22

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Catholic ones, politically independent churches more than established ones, Chinese popular religion more than Buddhism, and so on. In particular, religions that celebrate the amoral or immoral side of the market, like the Eighteen Lords cult, seem far more likely to occur only at the interstices of more institutionalized religious traditions, beyond the scope of priests or madrasas. This is one reason Taiwan has been such a fruitful generator of religions. We also see this kind of flexibility, though, when an entrepreneurial temple owner in Bangalore decides to do pujas for motorcycles or add helicopters to his rituals (Srinivas 2004b). Third, and most speculatively, perhaps the religious celebration of market amorality – Taiwan’s Eighteen Lords, Colombia’s baptism of money, South Africa’s rumours of zombie labour – is most likely in periods that combine rapid economic transformation, opportunity and frustration. Moralizing alternatives like Ciji instead may arise when growth is steadier and more predictable. I hesitate to try to push these speculations further, but perhaps the typology is at least a way to begin to explore the kinds of variables that may lead to the historical importance of a given form at a particular time.

Charisma in an age of mechanical reproduction Let me turn now to my second broad issue – the relations between religion and economic globalization. Globalization, like markets, is nothing new. Religions have long moved with diasporas, and universalizing religions (the ‘world religions’) have long spread along trade routes, as with the spread of Islam to East Asia. The novelty is more in the scale and speed of globalization now, especially with new technologies (from telegraphs to the Web) that have accelerated communication far beyond the speed the human bodies can move. Here I will discuss only one aspect of this problem: the influence of scale on religious movements with charismatic leadership. I will draw especially on Taiwan’s Ciji movement for this, but with frequent reference to other groups around the world.4 Charismatic groups that grow beyond the bounds of possible face-to-face contact have to address a particular problem in how to maintain charismatic authority. The classic Weberian solution – rationalization of charisma into bureaucracy – risks losing the power that drives the group. How, to paraphrase Walter Benjamin, do you solve the problem of charisma in an age of mechanical reproduction? Benjamin argued that mechanical reproduction caused fundamental changes in the perception and ultimately in the production of works of art. A unique object, generally visible to only small numbers of people, suddenly becomes something available to all. This causes the original object to lose its authority: ‘That which withers in the age of mechanical reproduction is the aura of the work of art . . . One might generalize by saying: the technique of reproduction detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition’ (Benjamin 1935: 218). 23

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In an era of globalized religions, even jet-set leaders like the Dalai Lama or Pope John Paul II cannot possibly maintain the direct connection between their personal or positional charisma and their followers. What happens, in other words, when video becomes a primary carrier of charisma? What can hold such a religion together, and how do the structures and flows of religious world-systems relate to economic world-systems? We are still a long way from having good answers to these questions, but at least it should be possible to suggest a few likely avenues to explore. To begin with, circulation of charisma can occur through objects, which is much easier than circulating the charismatic people. Such objects range from the rare and powerful (bits of saintly bones or clothes, remnants of enlightened Buddhist clergy, and the like) to mass-produced trinkets from souvenir stands near important temples. Tulasi Srinivas has documented the range and circulation of such objects for the Sathya Sai Baba group, which is centred in India but has a global following (Srinivas 2004a). These range from trivial items like T-shirts to treasures like jewelled rings, crosses, or lingams that Baba has materialized for favoured members of the group. Followers tend to rank these items by their closeness to the original charisma of the leader. The rings have an enormous amount, photographs less, and pure souvenirs only a bit. Some, like photographs or screen savers, can simply be downloaded. The way followers differentiate among these objects reveals the inherent problems in this method of globalizing charisma, however. In contrast to what Benjamin argued for works of art, the reproduction never fully substitutes for the original. Thus the most mass-produced items, the ones with the least unique and personal contact with the leader, have the least value. Charisma does lie in all these objects. It can be reproduced mechanically, but its density and authority seem to dissipate with each reproduction. To make it worse, the very fact of reproduction raises the spectre of authenticity. As items circulate, how can one tell just how much charisma inheres? Was a particular photographic print actually held in the presence of Baba? Is that really one of the rings he materialized? Or, for that matter, did the Shroud of Turin ever touch Jesus? These problems of legitimacy suggest that the circulation of objects may never suffice for such movements, even when it plays an important role. A second kind of strategy is to substitute people for the charismatic source, instead of objects. Lieutenants can greatly increase the range of travel, bringing top leadership to a much larger group than would otherwise be possible. Ordinary followers themselves can also reproduce the charisma of their experience of the leader in a small way by offering testimony. Giving testimony may have begun as an emulation of Christian practice, or perhaps has been independently invented to solve the problem of global charisma. Either way, it is now very widespread in sects of every description. 24

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These techniques help resolve the problem of authenticity in the circulation of objects, but they have the problem that the charisma is always second-hand. The lieutenants are not the leader, and even the most powerful testimony still provides only a vicarious experience for the listeners. Broadcast media provide another kind of alternative, where the leader can be directly present all around the globe. Still, this has the same qualities as travelling lieutenants or returned pilgrims – it completely resolves the problem of authenticity, but its electronic images dilute the power of the original charisma. Some power nevertheless inheres even in flickering images on television screens and computer monitors. Many people who join Ciji talk about their first experience of Zhengyan, the leader, coming from watching her on video and being moved to uncontrollable sobs. Oral Roberts, a pioneer of Protestant television evangelism, reportedly used to hold his hand up to the camera, allowing the power of the Holy Ghost to heal viewers directly through the airwaves as they touched their television screens, placing their hands against the image of his. Nevertheless, even these relatively successful examples cannot match the power of direct personal experience, any more than a CD can match a rock concert. A more direct solution to the problem of charisma at a distance is for the leader to travel, constantly making the global rounds of various branches. This is increasingly difficult as groups expand, but certainly has been an important technique for the current Dalai Lama, recent Popes and many leaders of smaller groups. In many other cases, though, this is impossible. Zhengyan has a heart ailment that prevents her from travelling abroad, and thus she has never visited any of the overseas branches. The late Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menacham Mendel Schneerson, stayed in New York and let the world come to him. No leader of a large movement can go everywhere, but this kind of travel out from the centre can be very effective. Certainly the Dalai Lama’s travels have been a key to the world-wide following that has developed for Tibetan Buddhism. Banned from his historical base in Lhasa, of course, he has had little alternative. On a smaller scale, Ciji uses the technique very effectively within Taiwan. Over the years the group has institutionalized the practice into monthly tours of the island, which they call the ‘walk’ (xingjiao, sometimes also called ‘following the master’s walk’, sui shixing). Zhengyan and her entourage do not actually walk, but the term harks back both to the Buddha spreading the dharma on foot after his enlightenment, and to the Chan practice of sending monks out on foot to learn from the world. To some extent, it also recalls Zhengyan’s own wanderings around Taiwan before she settled in Hualian. All of these centrifugal flows of charisma – where the power flows out from the centre to its periphery – are inherently limited, however. The physical limits on any leader’s mobility (even Sathya Sai Baba, who occasionally materializes instantly across long distances) mean only a small number of 25

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direct adherents can have direct contact with the source of charisma through centrifugal travel. The flow of objects, testimonies, acolytes and television signals can reach them much more widely, but also thins the charisma and reduces its power. That is why most groups rely on centripetal flows even more heavily than centrifugal – bringing followers to the centre, rather than the centre to the followers. Given the limits on Zhengyan’s mobility, for instance, this is the most important mechanism for maintaining leadership for followers outside of Taiwan. Zhengyan can visit her followers abroad only through the pale reflections in videos and tape recordings, or through the filter of lower leaders. As a result, followers are even more mobile than the leader, and often express their longing to ‘return’ to Hualian, even if they have never been there. For similar reasons, pilgrims converge on Sathya Sai Baba’s ashram or on sites of more institutionalized charisma like the Vatican or Mecca. Let me expand on the Ciji case. Followers around the world call the main base at the Still Thoughts Abode in Hualian their ‘home’. For anyone in a Ciji uniform, the first greeting from one of Zhengyan’s disciples on arrival in Hualian is a warm ‘You’re back!’ Many of them, of course, have never been there before, but the metaphor of the Abode as home still dominates, even though almost no lay followers actually live in it. The main residents in 1998 were Zhengyan, her eighty-six monastic disciples, and about twenty novices. The millions of others who consider the Abode to be ‘home’ can only hope to stay for visits of a few nights. The idea of Hualian and the Abode as home resonates with the images of motherhood and nurturance that pervade the movement. Many followers see themselves as continuing traditional women’s roles as household caretakers and defenders of family values, while their husbands go out drinking or are away on business (Huang and Weller 1998). Crucially, however, they pull this ethic out of the realm of household and childcare, and bring it to the entire world of needy people. At the same time, they find a home of their own in Hualian. The uncontrollable tears in the presence of Zhengyan are in part a recognition of her role as nurturer to them all – the tears of a child finding the arms of her mother – even as followers try to emulate that role in relation to suffering and deserving people beyond the movement. The image of the Abode as home is particularly striking for its contrast to typical images of Buddhism as a ‘homeless’ religion, characterized by wandering, by a severing of worldly attachments, and by the metaphor of leaving home (chujia) to refer to joining the clergy. The majority of Ciji’s overseas followers are Taiwanese, and nearly all of them are ethnically Chinese. Many of the Taiwanese who join the movement are true cosmopolitans. They are doctors, lawyers, businessmen and professors who tend to be multilingual and well travelled. Ciji’s primary drive overseas is thus not simply to serve the ethnic community. Instead it serves many of the same purposes as it does within Taiwan – it offers people 26

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a powerful set of values to live by in a commercial world, and it offers women an organization with both global and local impact. Most of the overseas followers thus had not centred their lives around a distant homeland in Taiwan before they joined the movement. Some are not Taiwanese at all and for others Taiwan is just one node in a multi-centred life. Ciji did not organize prior ties to a homeland, like an ethnic association, so much as it created a new set of ties to an invented ‘home’ in Hualian. It offers an answer for modernity’s ‘homeless mind’, a response to frustration with the disciplines of economic rationalization, alienation from political and other bureaucracies and the rootlessness of modern experience. Ciji allows people to physically return ‘home’ (though neither they nor they ancestors have ever lived there) and hence spiritually gives them their identity. As an example of centripetal movement, let me describe a summer retreat for Ciji youth groups, held in 1998.5 The most common form of these retreats is ‘civility camp’ These camps feature an introduction to Buddhism, Ciji, traditional values and morality, and especially adaptation to a Ciji life style. They are designed to transform youngsters from self-absorbed and amoral people to ascetic, mindful and civilized members of the movement. A typical camp involves about fifty people from different places, who arrive independently at the headquarters. In 1998, the rite of passage began at registration, when each arrival received a youth corps uniform. By the end of the session, the participants had given up their individualized clothing for identical light blue polo shirts and white pants, and they were lined up in columns according to their ten-member small groups. A youth corps officer led each small group, along with three commissioners – one ‘papa’ and two ‘mamas’. The first program began after lunch, with a series of comedic dramas to explain the rules of the program. This was the last time they would sit as a passive audience during the four-and-a-half day retreat. They moved on to a session on Buddhist civility, where the head of the youth corps, a young disciple of Zhengyan, gave a severe speech about her disappointment with the Ciji youth. After spending so much money and time on thousands of young people each summer, she said, they just went back home and rejoined pop culture. After chastising the crowd, she began her lessons in etiquette: table manners, salutations, prostrations and the general advice to ‘walk like a breeze, stand like a pine tree, sit like a bell’. She walked around the group correcting posture or gently teasing some about their long nails or hair. The commissioner parents’ also joined in these corrections. The evening program featured more rules – how to make the bed, hang drying clothes and so on. The participants found themselves lined up in their uniforms again by 5:30 the next morning, performing the sorts of exercises and songs they probably had not done since elementary school. At breakfast they learned 27

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to chant the Buddha’s name when entering the dining hall, which they would do solemnly at all the rest of their meals. Again the head of the youth corps inspected posture, nails and hair. She read the name of every deviant out loud, and invited them to be trimmed. She said this was voluntary, but the boys cut their long hair and the girls tied theirs in braids with Ciji blue ribbons. With the physical transformation of their previous identity complete, the psychological transformation could begin. The first event was a lecture on filial piety, supplemented with several short films on the unreserved love of parents for children and on the great love of Ciji. The class broke into small groups to share their reflections. Sobbing sounded here and there, and several spoke long and tearfully to the speaker or to their groups about their own confrontations with their parents. The speaker nevertheless concluded by saying that ‘feeling moved is less important than moving into action’. With their previous behaviour and sense of self called into question, the students spent most of the rest of their days in talks on Ciji missions with many high-ranking staff and veteran youth corps members. They spent half a day in the Abode listening to testimony of the hospital volunteers. They learned how to perform silent melody, and began making tea and traditional handicrafts as part of a ‘Ciji Humanity Class’.6 Each day ended with a group ‘sharing’. By the fourth day, the same nun who had spoken so severely to the students at the beginning now gently said, ‘We see our future in you, and we hope you see us as your direction’. There was no need of further correction as they ate lunch that day. By afternoon, the participants were suggesting ways they could contribute what they had learned about the Ciji missions to their schools and the larger society. At the candlelight evening farewell party, they split into their small groups and again exchanged reflections and confessions. They no longer talked about wrongs they had suffered, but about their own inconsiderate behaviour and their gratitude toward their team papa and mamas. The ultimate experience occurred the next morning, when after an hour of rehearsal for the final ceremony, Zhengyan herself offered them a sermon and lit their candles. Their leaders urged them to ‘share the burden on Venerable Zhengyan’s shoulders’. At the end of the ceremony, as Zhengyan walked down the central aisle to leave, the students vowed: ‘Highest One (shangren; i.e. Zhengyan), we will always follow in your footsteps’. They had rehearsed this moment, but still spoke with streaks of tears on their cheeks. As they followed their leader out of the room, the students crossed the final threshold of their experience, even as they still thrilled with their recent vow. The officers disappeared, and the orderly columns of students dispersed into crowds on their way to the train station. Unlike the registration day, however, they were now homogenized from head to toe in their uniforms, and to some extent in their approach to their future lives. The youth camp experience is a rite of passage intended to create a new identity, 28

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as often occurs in large-scale charismatic movements (Lindholm 1993: 113–116). The need to solve the problem of charisma at a distance leads to the creation of new central places like Hualian, which are necessary for the kinds of centripetal and centrifugal movement that we have seen. This is unexpected, because there is a jarring fit between the universalizing idea that a religion is true for all times, places and peoples (shared by almost everything I have discussed), but that one particular place is more important than all others. This is especially true of Buddhism, with its general rootlessness and downplaying of all attachments. It is no coincidence that the charisma of important early leaders has somehow infused itself into particular locations, creating centripetal attractions for many universalizing religions: Jerusalem, Mecca, Rome, Lhasa and even Hualian.

Homes for the mind All universalizing religions seem to use varying combinations of the centrifugal and centripetal movements that we have seen in Ciji. From Sai Baba to the Pope to the Lubavitcher Rebbe, important religious leaders have realized that even in this era of mechanical reproduction, where they can communicate with millions through broadcast media, their personal presence carries far more charismatic weight than any possible video image. Why charisma seems to thrive in the economic periphery seems more puzzling. Charismatic central places organize social interaction according to a different logic and a different geography from the economics of trade. Unlike political or economic central places, which are fractally similar as one moves up or down the hierarchy, charismatic leadership exists only in one place, and the centre is thus a fundamentally different kind of place from all the branches. Furthermore, many charismatic central places, like Hualian, are relatively peripheral both politically and economically. Part of their claim to power, after all, is exactly their reliance on non-political and non-market forces, and physical distance from other forms of power helps make the point. Zhengyan’s personal history is a journey from more developed to poorer and more marginal areas of Taiwan, and Ciji offers the same spiritual journey to its followers. The location (and even the name) of the Still Thoughts Abode is not just an accident of Zhengyan’s history. Its position away from global and national centres of power is central to its appeal as an answer to the experience of modernity. Charisma creates its own kinds of centrality, but not with complete independence. It shapes political and economic connections, at the same time as it is shaped by them. It puts itself on the global map that hitherto marked its grid lines in the channelled flows of finance and the division into nation-states. The case of Ciji’s ‘home’ in Hualian is just one example of the many types of interaction between a religion and a globalizing commodity economy. 29

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Its combination of non-market economic flows and charisma has encouraged its development of a religious core at the economic periphery. Sathya Sai Baba has evolved in a similar direction, and surely we could add to the list. On the other hand, there is much less reason to think that prosperity cults would be attracted to the periphery in quite the same way, since they fully embrace the market. Groups that embrace the amorality of the market, at least at first glance, appear not to globalize in the same ways at all, and to thrive less in the periphery than in the interstices of the heart of the market economy. All of this, however, will need much more comparative research. My goal here has been much more modest – simply to suggest a possible typology of forms of interaction between religions and commodity economies, and to explore in more detail one of those forms in a global context.

Notes 1 I use ‘capitalism’ here to indicate the dominance of the economy by market processes, and the associated changes in labour and capital. This is roughly the period that Weber called ‘industrial capitalism,’ rather than ‘mercantile capitalism,’ which has a far longer history. 2 For an earlier historical example of such a group, see (Berling 1985: 208–218). 3 The commercial expansion of the late Ming in China also seems to have led to an expansion of Buddhist-based philanthropy. See (Smith 1987). 4 A portion of the material in this section is taken from an essay I co-authored with Chien-yu Julia Huang (Weller and Huang in Press). 5 This draws heavily on the ethnographic work of Julia Huang, with her permission (and my thanks). See, for example, Huang (2001). 6 Silent melody is a standard Ciji performance genre, in which signing for the deaf is choreographed into a kind of dance. It is performed whether or not deaf people are present.

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da Vinci Code and The Passion of Christ Bryan S. Turner

Introduction: Urban mythologies There are obviously porous boundaries between religious fiction and religious fact. Films and popular fiction compete spiritually and culturally for the ‘religious imaginary’ in ways that religious intellectuals and institutions find hard to comprehend, even less to control. In this discussion, I compare two recent but very different examples from popular culture namely Dan Brown’s The da Vinci Code which came out in 2003 and Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ which was launched on 25 February 2004. The former angered the authorities within the Catholic Church, because it appeared that many lay people were attempting to follow the trail for the Holy Grail in imitation of the novel’s main story line, and in many Asian societies it was seen to be politically disruptive as well as religiously offensive. Brown’s book became the target of several ‘scholarly’ criticisms such as Darrell Bock’s Breaking the da Vinci Code (2004), and the subject of a legal charge of plagiarism. Both the book and the film enjoyed large global sales. Nine months after it appeared, there were four and a half million copies in print. Brown’s other novels have also been enjoying high sales. The Passion was also a major commercial success. It had within two months of its release generated box office receipts of around $387 million. The film was directly promoted at the grass roots by ministers of Evangelical churches, conservative Roman Catholics and Charismatics. This mass marketing strategy had the support of local church leaders who encouraged their congregations to attend, often through blockbooking tickets (Maresco 2004). The film was also promoted through various ancillary markets. More than one million ‘witness cards’ were printed and circulated in support of the evangelical aspect of the film. The soundtrack was promoted by Sony Music and Integrity Music. Four million copies of the film were sold on the first day of its release, and The Passion. Photography from the Movie has gone into its eighth printing and sold over 650,000 copies. 31

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Brown’s book by contrast is controversial as a challenge to Christian, especially Catholic, orthodoxy. For example, many of the claims within The da Vinci Code have some affinity with scholarly arguments from within feminism and feminist theology about the subordination of feminist themes within traditional Christian theology. Feminist criticism of the patriarchal assumptions of Christian theology have had a long history from Simone de Beauvoir, Carol Christ, Mary Daly to Julia Kristeva, and in The da Vinci Code these feminist themes became one aspect of Brown’s successful novel. The Passion was staunchly compatible with orthodox Catholicism, but it too caused public controversy, mainly around accusations of anti-Semitism. The launch of the film of The da Vinci Code in 2006 received highly negative evaluation at the Cannes film festival and was eventually banned in various Indian states, in China and elsewhere in Asia, receiving orchestrated complaints against the fictive claim that Jesus had married Mary Magdalene. The da Vinci Code book and the film as aspects of contemporary popular culture are in many respects a mirror-image of each other. Text versus film; anti-Catholic versus orthodox Catholic; and sophisticated versus naïve. What they have in common is the representation of religion as a powerful dimension of popular imagination, but they are also popular representations that circulate as commodities outside the official religious domain, and hence outside the control of orthodox authorities. With the launch of the film of Brown’s book, both were competing in the global market for profit. In China, where the film was banned in June 2006, it is alleged that it had already earned US$13 million for the state film industry. My thesis is simply that popular culture constantly appropriates religious symbols and themes, and that these commercial developments are paradoxical, because they both contribute to the circulation of religious phenomena, but at the same time they challenge traditional, hierarchical forms of religious authority. Madonna in many ways is the principal example of these developments, since she is simultaneously an ironic and iconic figure (Hulsether 2000). Of course, Gibson sought the approval of religious leaders before shooting and releasing his film, but he cannot control the unintended consequences of the film once it is in circulation. While my argument is that popular religion corrodes the formal authority of official religious institutions by simply by-passing them, The Passion belongs to a traditional and well established genre of popular representations of Christ in postcards, domestic paintings and films. In this sense there may be nothing in particular ‘new’ about popular religion. Before turning to the substance of these two instances of popular religion, we need to consider how sociologists have recently approached these issues.

The ‘new paradigm’ in the sociology of religion In the last two decades, a new theoretical paradigm has been promoted in American sociology of religion, which has been variously called the new 32

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paradigm, the religious markets approach, or the economic interpretation of religion. This paradigm is associated with figures such as Rodney Stark, Roger Finke, Laurence Iannaccone and R. Stephen Warner. This ‘new’ approach is often contrasted disparagingly with ‘old’ European theories of religion, and the comparison in some ways also carries the political connotations that followed the Iraq war in which pacifism was associated with out-of-date or antiquated European values, and chicken-hawk supporters were associated with new and dynamic Europe. This disparaging critical tone pervades the debate about these paradigms and they will not easily go away. European sociology, it is alleged, has been too much focused on the meaning which social actors require to make sense of life, and by contrast the new paradigm is concerned with the ‘economic’ dimensions of religious behaviour, including both demand for and supply of religious beliefs, practices and objects. We can for the sake of efficiency simply list these contrasted positions in order to begin to explore the issue of popular religion in relation to the rise of consumer culture. Before engaging with this description of the new paradigm, we should note that behind these developments in the theory of the American religious marketplace stands the figure of Alexis de Tocqueville, who was, as an ‘old’ European, struck forcibly by the extraordinary religiosity of Americans during his famous journeys around the ‘new’ society. In his Democracy in America (1835–1840), Tocqueville dwelt on the reconciliation of popular religiosity and democracy. While in Catholic France the relation between church and state had produced endless conflict, in America the moral force of popular religion was important in creating social harmony. Tocqueville as a European was not interested in ‘true’ religion, but in the social and political benefits of American religiosity. Later European visitors, including Max Weber and Ernst Troeltsch, were struck by this contrast between secular Europe and the religiosity of America. Weber arrived in 1904 for the World Congress of Arts and Science in St. Louis and published an article in 1906 on the ‘churches and sects of North America’ (Loader and Alexander 1985). The legacy of Tocqueville’s analysis has of course been somewhat transformed by subsequent inter pretation to emphasise the role of religious pluralism, self-realization, individualism and voluntary association membership as manifestations of the democratic revolution, as essentially the democratization of religion (Wolin 2001). The assumption that everybody has religious opinions and that all opinions are equally valid has produced the American religious marketplace, where priestly authority and ecclesiastical hierarchy do not find comfortable locations. In this sense, writers like David Martin (2002) are correct to see Methodism with its commitment to the priesthood of all believers, lay participation, emotional subjectivity and congregational autonomy as the harbinger of religious modernization, the logical outcome of which is the proposition that everybody has his or her own personal religion. 33

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What does the new paradigm claim to be? First, whereas traditional European social theory had emphasized the centrality of secularization to modernization, the new paradigm takes note of the resilience of religion, not only in the United States but globally. In European sociology, Bryan Wilson (1966) in Religion in Secular Society claimed that the churches were in rapid decline as a result of a general process of secularization and in Contemporary Transformations of Religion (1976) argued that religion (i.e. Christianity) had survived in America at the cost of its content. David Martin’s work on secularization provided a more complex picture, but he too was struck by the contrast between America and Europe in his A General Theory of Secularization (1978). Authentic, that is orthodox, religious belief and practice could only adjust to modern society by ejecting any demanding beliefs and practices, and embracing popular culture, that is through a process of compromise. Wilson was well known in British society for his conservative views on education, youth culture and the universities. This political conservatism was also evident in his critical views of American popular religion as a corruption of authentic religion. By contrast, American sociologists, such as Talcott Parsons, were impressed by the strength of religion in the United States (Turner 2005). The apparent revival of fundamentalism globally has reinforced that viewpoint, and the ‘old’ European theory of inevitable secularization has been on the defensive. Second, the new model directs research attention towards the function of religious or spiritual markets in which there is a competition for ‘brand loyalty’ from consumers of religious meaning, practices and objects. The notion of spiritual markets has been explored empirically and systematically by Wade Roof in, for example, Spiritual Marketplace (1999). It is impossible to understand religion in contemporary America without taking into account the impact of the ‘baby boomers’ on religious practice and consciousness. Roof made an important contribution to the study of religion and generational change in his A Generation of Seekers (Roof 1993), in which the post-war generations were religious seekers, but also eclectic in their religious ‘taste’. The ‘culture wars’ of the post-war period re-organized the map of mainstream religion in North America just as it challenged establishment culture generally. Employing life histories and a panel study, Roof argues that the boundaries of popular religion are constantly redrawn under the impact of large post-war generations, facilitated by an expanding religious marketplace. American denominational pluralism is a spiritual marketplace that, in the absence of an established church, encourages organizational innovation and cultural entrepreneurship. The market for religious innovations is a response to massive social change in contemporary America, in which an expanding consumer culture has produced the consuming self as the principal conduit of expanded consumerism. In the market-place of seekers, Roof identifies five major subcultures: dogmatists (e.g. fundamentalists and neo-traditionalists); mainstream believers; 34

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born-again Christians (including evangelicals, Pentecostalists and Charismatics); metaphysical believers and seekers; and secularists. While Americans may invest less time in voluntary associations and are less certain about traditional Christian values than previous generations, they are significantly involved in spiritual searching that has produced a deeper emphasis on self-understanding and self-reflexivity. As the baby boomers came to maturity, they moved out of the narcissistic culture of the 1960s into a deeper, more serious ‘quest culture’. If traditional religious cultures depended heavily on the continuity of the family as an agency of socialization, the transformation of family life and the entry of women into the formal labour market have radically destabilized religious identities and cultures. Despite this research of individualism, choice and religion as a consumer life style, religious conservatism continues to thrive, and more liberal forms of Christianity appear to be in retreat. While Roof has explored American spirituality beyond the boundaries of institutionalized religion, he is primarily concerned to understand the appeal of the conservative churches. The reasons that explain the success of conservative Christian churches are perhaps somewhat obvious. Conservative Protestants have more children, and discourage contact with people who are childless or divorced. People in conservative churches retain their membership, because they want their children to be raised through a religious education. We can understand why people stay in conservative churches, but why proportionately do more liberals join conservative churches than vice versa? Why are the mainline churches such as the Presbyterians and Methodist denominations in decline, while the more conservative denominations such as Southern Baptist Convention and the Assemblies of God are flourishing? One classic explanation for success was provided by Dean Kelley (1977) in terms of a theory of the costs of commitment. Kelley’s thesis is that the content of a religious message is less important for success than the demands it places on its members. Costliness is measured by control over members’ lifestyles, the development of a strong church and the seriousness of religious commitment. Kelley’s successful churches require a totalitarian and hierarchical form of authority and homogeneous communities; such successful congregations are unlike liberal religious groups that impose few sanctions on their members. Kelley’s thesis has been widely influential. However, Joe Tamney’s research provides only partial support for the strong church thesis. Tamney (2002) argues that conservative congregations support a traditional gender division of labour and conventional gender identities; in a society deeply divided over gender issues, such reassurance is psychologically attractive. Second, in a relativist culture, the certainties of religious teaching on morality are psychologically supportive. Finally, traditional religious orientations may serve to articulate political commitments around major issues relating to abortion, gay and lesbian sexuality, education and the 35

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family. Tamney concludes, however, by accepting Roof’s notion of modern society as a spiritual market-place in which the loyalty of congregations cannot be taken for granted. Religion has to be sold, alongside other cultural products, and Tamney found in places such as Middletown that the religious market was volatile, with people moving in and out of congregations in search of an appropriate niche. These ideas about religious markets, demand for religious services, and consumption of religious phenomena are influenced by rational choice theory as an approach to modern spirituality. The paradigm has two interesting substantive claims: Rodney Stark and Roger Finke (2000) argued in Acts of Faith; and Roger Finke and Rodney Stark (1992), The Churching of America 1776–1990, that the religious demand for meaning is more or less constant across time – that is, religious wants remain more or less static. Hence variations in religious behaviour are influenced by supply rather than demand. Religious pluralism in America, by offering innumerable outlets for religious taste, promotes greater involvement. The theory, therefore, makes a useful distinction between demand for and supply of religious products and services. The paradigm effectively explains the proliferation of religious groups in the United States, the switching between denominations by customers, the inflationary character of the market and the resulting hybridisation and experimentation that is characteristic of modern religiosity. Of course these religious markets are also global, because com modities and beliefs can travel rapidly. These markets cannot be controlled by religious authorities. While sociologists have (for good reason) become obsessed by religious fundamentalism, popular religion also flourishes alongside and in competition with fundamentalist faith and practice. However, fundamentalism succeeds because of their strictness, that is, by the very demands they make on people. Iannaccone’s argument (1994) is that religions of highdemand such as Jehovah’s Witnesses aim to avoid the free-rider problem by monopolizing the commitment of their followers. Separation of church and state. Finally, the new model raises important questions about the elitist assumptions in such dichotomies as official and popular religion, the great and little tradition, or virtuoso and mass religion that have been common in ‘old’ European theories. In the history of western thought about this division, it is interesting to consider Jacque Derrida’s ‘Faith and Knowledge’ (1998) – an article that closely follows Emile Benveniste’s Indo-European Language and Society, in which the word ‘religion’ (religio) has two distinctive roots. First, relegere means to bring together, to harvest or to gather in. Second, religare means to tie or to bind together. The first meaning points to the religious foundations of any social group that is brought together, and the second meaning indicates the disciplines that are necessary for controlling human beings and creating community. The first meaning includes the role of the cult in forming human membership, while the second 36

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embraces the regulatory practices of religion in the discipline of passions. This distinction formed the basis of Kant’s philosophical analysis of religion and morality. In Religion within the Limits of Pure Reason Kant (1960) distinguished between religion as cult which seeks favours from God through prayer and offerings. This type of religion brings healing and wealth to its followers. By contrast, religion as moral action commands human beings to change their earthly behaviour in order to lead a better moral life. The implication of Kant’s distinction was that (Protestant) Christianity was the only true ‘reflecting faith’, and in a sense therefore it provided the model for all authentic religious intentions. Kant’s distinction was fundamentally about those religious injunctions that call human beings to (moral) action and hence demand that humans assert their autonomy and responsibility. In order to have autonomy, human beings need to act independently of God. In a paradoxical fashion, Christianity implies the ‘death of God’ because it calls people to freedom and hence the Christian faith is ultimately self-defeating. These Kantian distinctions were eventually developed as sociological concepts in the sociology of Max Weber (1864–1920). In the Sociology of Religion (1966), Weber constructed a distinction between the religion of the masses and the religion of the virtuosi. While the masses seek comfort from their gods, especially healing, the virtuosi fulfil the ethical demands of a religious way of life in search of spiritual enlightenment. The religion of the masses requires saints and holy men to satisfy the needs of ordinary men and women, and hence charisma is corrupted by the demand for miracles and spectacles. More importantly, Weber distinguished between those religions that reject the world by challenging its secular conventions (such as inner-worldly asceticism) and religions that seek to escape from the world through mystical flight (such as other-worldly mysticism). The former religions (primarily the Calvinistic radical sects) have had revolutionary consequences for human societies in the formation of rational modernity. The implication of this tradition is paradoxical. First, Christianity (or at least Puritanism) is the only true religion (as a reflecting faith), and second, Christianity gives rise to a process of secularization that spells out its own self-overcoming. This distinction was particularly important in Weber’s analysis of Buddhism in his The Religion of India (1958: 206), where he described ‘ancient Buddhism’ as ‘a specifically apolitical and anti-political status religion, more precisely a religious “technology” of wandering and of intellectually-schooled mendicant monks’. The new rational-choice paradigm has important, and testable, features (Beckford, 2003; Warner, 2004), but is it a new model? The concept of a spiritual supermarket was originally developed by Peter Berger in his analysis of the crisis of religious plausibility. Secularization and the crisis of plausibility were produced by individuals shopping around to solve their spiritual needs. Berger (1969: 137) wrote that ‘the religious tradition which 37

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previously could be authoritatively imposed, now has to be marketed. It must be “sold” to a clientele that is no longer constrained to “buy”. The pluralistic situation is, above all, a market’. It is not entirely obvious that the new paradigm is new, but it has the advantage of forcing one to think about how religion is marketed, and how it has become a commodity alongside other consumer objects.

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The ‘da Vinci Code’ as intellectual tourism The Code is overtly a traditional detective story in which the hero Robert Langdon and heroine Sophie Neveu uncover the real secret behind the apparently senseless murder of the ‘renowned curator Jacques Sauniere’. The plot involves the ancient attempt to disguise the true meaning of the hunt for the Holy Grail, the subordination of a feminine cult in Christianity, the true identity of Mary Magdalene and the sinister involvement of the Catholic order of Opus Dei in a series of brutal killings. The story is that Leonardo da Vinci was a prominent member of a secret society whose purpose was to protect the true history of the Christian faith until the world is ready to receive that message. The book traces the role of cryptology in hiding the secret message of Christianity. Leonardo da Vinci invented a portable container of these secret documents. The novel explores how Langdon and Neveu, more or less by accident and perseverance, hit upon the hidden meaning of Christianity and the importance of the da Vinci code. The book is an account of the uncovering of the cult around Mary Magdalene. The hidden secret of Christianity is that Jesus was married to Mary and that his divinity was not accepted until the Council of Nicaea in 325. This marriage is part of the hidden theme of Leonardo’s Last Supper in which Mary sits on the right-hand side of Jesus. The novel involves a series of confrontations between the hero, the French police and Opus Dei, all of whom are either attempting to find the truth behind the murders or attempting to protect the truth about Jesus and the origins of Christianity. At another level the novel is an intellectual romp through (old) European religious and intellectual culture. Langdon is a Harvard Professor of Religious Symbology and much in demand from the organizers of lecture tours and controversial presentations, as we discover at the beginning of the plot. The novel is in this sense intellectual tourism. The reader is transported to high-culture travel locations – the Louvre, Hotel Ritz Paris, the Opus Dei headquarters in Lexington Avenue, New York, Westminster Abbey and through various academic disciplines that are part conventional and part bogus – symbology, theology, cryptology. The book is composed of very short chapters and simple sentences. It is an ideal holiday novel that can be read on an aeroplane, in a train, or waiting in a hotel lobby. It is episodic, fragmented and disjointed like the story itself, and like the lives of modern 38

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CEOs. The novel invites us to join a pseudo-world of intellectual puzzles about the Church, western history, ecclesiastical history, cryptology, theology and ‘symbology’. The novel has just enough connection with actual academic debates to make it credible. For example, there is enough connection between Brown’s ‘feminist thesis’ and the work of Carol Christ to give the underlying assumptions of the novel a connection with feminist scholarship. Carol Christ’s She Who Changes (2003) invites us to imagine the divine as feminine, and Rebirth of the Goddess (1998) advocates a change from God to Goddess as an intellectual strategy for transforming western theology. The idea that orthodox Christianity has subordinated women and feminine theology to a patriarchal faith is well embedded in feminist theory. As a popular novel the Code crosses the border lines between pulp fiction, academic debate and polemic, giving the reader a vicarious sense of participation in a sensational world of high intrigue and high culture. The book repeats arguments that are found in feminist and other perspectives in theology. Indeed the book was accused of plagiarism, but the charge against Random House for infringing copyright was dropped in April 2006. These proceedings were followed by other plagiarism allegations: for example, from art historian Mikhail Anikin who claimed that a lecture given by him in America, in which he argued that da Vinci was a theologian and that the Mona Lisa portrait was an allegory of the Christian Church, formed the basis for Brown’s story. Thus far, Dan Brown and Random House have survived these legal charges and allegations, which have of course only served to keep the book in the public eye.

The Passion as pornography The Passion is part of a genre of ‘the Christ film’ such as Cecil B. De Mille’s The King of Kings, Pasolini’s The Gospel according to St Matthew and Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth. The film is therefore representative of so-called ‘biblical epics’ (Babbington and Evans 1993). While Brown’s novel has caused some embarrassment to the Catholic authorities, Gibson’s film is unquestioning in its representation of an official version of the Passion. In fact, of course, the New Testament has relatively little to say about the actual crucifixion of Christ, and hence Gibson has relied on ‘The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ’ which was a detailed account of the violent death of Christ. Written in 1833 this was in turn based on the visions of a nineteenth-century nun Anne Catherine Emmerich. The film was shot in Italy, the characters speak in Aramaic and Latin with English subtitles, and the principal actor James Caviezel is strikingly beautiful. The film is mainly concerned with the flogging, scourging, torture and final death of Jesus. There is little relief from the violence and the scenes and photography are modelled on the dramatic painterly techniques of Caravaggio (see Caravaggio’s Christ at Ennaus from the late sixteenth century). 39

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The film is in fact a medieval passion play with modern cinema technology. Its pornographic representation of violence comes eventually to challenge the overt attempt to remain true to the ‘reality’ of the crucifixion. Gibson’s film was in addition seen to be implicitly anti-Semitic, and thereby remained true to its medieval counter-parts. The film manages to avoid the fact that Jesus and his disciples are also Jewish, and have more in common with the High Priest than they do with the Roman colonialists. In this sense it was also problematic for the Church’s public relations. De Mille claimed with some justification that more people understood the story of Jesus of Nazareth as a result of seeing his film than through any other medium apart from the Bible itself. While the realism of The Passion is in part reminiscent of Pier Pasolini’s Marxist version of The Gospel according to St. Matthew (1964), Franco Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth (1977) and Martin Scorses’s The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), however, the blood-splattered figure of Christ in Gibson’s film is also similar to the image contained in famous Isenheim Altarpiece of Matthias Grunewald (died 1528). The figures in The Passion are like medieval representations, not emotionally complex. The Jewish religious leaders are opulent and corrupt. Pilate is a subtle politician who would help Christ but cannot. The guards are essentially (British) thugs. Satan is a chilling alien, and Caiaphas is sinister and corrupt. Again like a medieval play, the film assumes that the audience understands the plot and the characters. But because Gibson does not fill in any background details, it is in fact not clear why Jesus receives so much punishment from the guards, or why the ordeal lasts so long. A Christian audience knows that Christ died to save us from our sins and that for the doctrine of the immanence of divinity and the resurrection of the body, Christ has to experience the pain and suffering of mankind; however, the extent of the flogging is still puzzling. The ‘excess’ violence in the film is in this sense pornographic; the theme of physical brutality runs throughout Gibson’s previous block-busters – Braveheart, Mad Max and the Patriot.

The da Vinci Code and The Passion in Asia The film version of the Dan Brown book has had a turbulent reception in Asia. Clearly there have been important parallels drawn between the Brown book and the Cartoon crisis over the publication in a Danish newspaper of images that are regarded by Muslims as offensive. In May 2006 the conservative African Cardinal Francis Arinze was reported to have said that ‘There are some other religions which, if you insult their founder, they will not be just talking’. Consequently Catholics were encouraged to lobby their governments to have the film banned. On 16 May India’s Central Board of Film Certification cleared the film for distribution, but by late May and early June many Indian states – Nagaland, Punjab, Goa, Tamil Nadu and 40

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Andhra Pradesh – had come under pressure from Catholic leaders and eventually they had banned the film, fearing civil unrest. While the Indian authorities were initially willing to accept the film for distribution, with the legal disclaimer that it was a film of a ‘fictive nature’, Christian leaders such as Father Franco Mulakkal from the diocese of Jalandhar claimed that it was ‘highly offensive and intolerable to all Christians’. Indian political leaders feared that the film might fuel civil disturbance. Pakistan followed this pattern, banning the film on 4 June. While banning the film had political reasons, there is a theological argument against the film that unites Muslims and Christians. The Koran recognizes Christ as a prophet. Indeed there is a long tradition in Islam, associated with figures such as the great Sufi teacher Ibn Arabi (1165–1240), that all religions have divinely inspired messengers who should be respected. Since The da Vinci Code is seen to be offensive to the legacy of Jesus as a prophet, it is also offensive to Muslims (Chittick 1994). In Pakistan the Culture Minister Ghulan Jamal said the film was blasphemous and that since Islam teaches respect for all the prophets, the degradation of Christ involves an offensive to Muhammad. In China the Film Board issued the film before it had been shown at Cannes and it allegedly made US$13 million before it was banned as a result of pressure on the Party to ban the film. Rev. Jean Baptiste Zhang Shijiang, director of the Hebei Faith Press Newspaper with a circulation of 50 000, said the film was ‘not in accord with the truth’. China’s state-backed Catholic Church urged its members to boycott the film. The Patriotic Catholic Church told the Xinhua press agency that the film was against Catholic teaching. Although the state has no reason to protect Catholicism from the film industry, the film was eventually banned because it presented a political risk. Christian leaders from across the region meeting in South Korea argued that, in many Asian countries where Christians are in a minority, showing the film would damage their faith. In fact one of the few countries to show the film was Thailand. The film was approved by Thai official censors but in May, after protests from Christian groups, the Board agreed to remove some of the subtitles from the film to avoid causing offence. It is not surprising that The Passion has had a very different reception. In the Philippines the bishops had a preview in March at the Glorietta Mall in Makat City. Archbishop Fernando Capallo of Davao warmly welcomed the film. While the bishops noted that the film tells us nothing we don’t already know from the Gospels, the portrayal of Mary is especially moving. The Catholic leaders commented that Mel Gibson may well prove to be the best evangelist of our time. Both films are in Asia seen to be either shocking or unacceptable with respect to the figure of Mary. Critics of Dan Brown’s book have concentrated on the marriage of Jesus to Mary Magdalene as the most distasteful dimension of the story, thereby ignoring many other controversial aspects 41

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of the narrative. At the same time the Catholic hierarchy in the Philippines welcomed Mel Gibson’s film because it captures exquisitely the tenderness of the Mother of God. Both films therefore relate to the nature of women and family life and for that reason they have political implications. In China, those political implications were too problematic in the case of the film version of Dan Brown’s novel. In Thailand, because the Christian minority is less than one percent of the total population, the film was not seen to be especially problematic. While these films have had very different receptions, they are both important illustrations of the social influence of the commodification of religion in a global film economy.

New technologies New media technologies have contradictory effects, but they provide alternative, deregulated, devolved and local opportunities for debate and discussion, and hence they make an indispensable contribution to a democratic civil society. The new media are important politically and sociologically, because they have the unintended effect of corroding traditional forms of authority that are either based on oral transmission or on print-based forms of textual learning, that is linear, hierarchical and repetitive. Knowledge based on oral transmission and memory, on the one hand, and print-based knowledge on the other are associated with traditional forms of authority and certain pedagogical technologies that produce a disciplinary self. It is at present ironically unclear what disciplinary regimes, if any, are required in a knowledge society. The God of the Abrahamic religions disclosed Himself, not through rational discussion, but through revelation, the carriers of which were charismatic figures: Moses, Jesus, Mohammed. However, in a post-prophetic time, revelation can be approached routinely by human beings through the written word – the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament and the Koran – and increasingly through religious websites that offer advice and free-flowing interpretation. With what Weber (1978: 246–254) called ‘the routinization of charisma’, these religious cultures of the Book required scribes and scholars who interpreted the Word and passed on knowledge through repetitive forms of learning. Before the invention of printing, memorizing these revelations was an essential requirement of the survival of a religious community, and recitation was proof of piety. Traditional Islamic and koranic learning are classical illustrations of a print-based religious culture that has promoted oral transmission through a discipleship relation with elders and religious teachers. Their traditional elites required specialised hermeneutics as the basis for their authority of interpretation. The Koran, which was according to tradition originally written down on the shoulder blades of camels, now is available in a multimedia environment. The Mosaic code, which was according to tradition originally written on tablets of stone, now is available 42

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in the story line of innumerable Hollywood films. Children grow up in a learning environment in which multimedia techniques are taken for granted. Educational programmes for Muslim children regularly use animation to present Islam in a modern context. My discussion of the media, religion and authority has concentrated therefore on the contradictory effects of information technology at the local level where the circulation of cassettes and video clips was initially an efficient method for religious revivalism. At the same time, the flexibility and volume of this religious traffic in information threatens to swamp traditional voices. This contradiction is nicely expressed by Ronald Niezen (2004: 168) in his superb ethnographic study of religious fundamentalists in the Songhay village of Dar al-Salam in the Republic of Mali: ‘In the Muslim world in particular the billboard now competes with the Book as the purveyor of truths to live by (or, according to some, of dangerous falsehoods to resist by every means possible), not to mention the cultural influence of television and the Internet’. Modern religions have also benefited considerably from modern technology. The Passion of the Christ probably did more for the revivification of Christian commitment in America than innumerable Sunday sermons, and also did much to revive Christian anti-Semitism. A new brand of Christianity has emerged, particularly in America, that is based on TV evangelism and the commodification of the Christian message, and fundamentalist Islam has been assisted by the use of cassettes to record and transmit the sermons of radical clerics. The recent death of Pope John Paul reminded us that he was the first media pope, who fully recognized the power of the media in shaping attitudes and beliefs. Interestingly the Pope employed much of the media paraphernalia of a TV celebrity, including the famous ‘Popemobile’. Although modern fundamentalism benefits considerably from the global communication media, there are important differences, as Marshall McLuhan (1964) warned us, between a world constructed on print based knowledge and learning, and a social environment in which texting is probably the most important means of communication for young people. While globalization theory tends to emphasize the triumph of modern fundamentalism (as a critique of traditional and popular religiosity), perhaps the real effect of globalization is the triumph of heterodox, commercial, hybrid popular religion over orthodox, authoritative professional versions of the spiritual life. Their ideological effects cannot be controlled by religious authorities, and they have a greater impact than official messages. In Weber’s terms it is the triumph of mass over virtuoso religiosity.

Conclusions: Images of Jesus Although there is an important difference between traditional print society and the modern world of media technology and consumerism, popular 43

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images of Christ have been around a long time. Precisely because we have no description of Jesus the man, artists through the centuries have been more or less free to speculate. Whereas the Byzantine world depicted Christ as the divine king with the emblems of majesty and power, a romantic picture card image of Christ was favoured by the Victorians. William Holman Hunt’s depiction of Christ – The Light of the World (1852) – is reassuring and familiar, whereas Vincent van Gogh’s Pieta is disturbing and mentally tortured. Images of Jesus follow historical fashion and embody contextualised assumptions (Kitzinger and Senior 1940). Why then does Gibson dwell so heavily on the physical punishment of Jesus – a man whom we do not get to know or understand in the film? It is the destroyed body – the wound – that occupies the screen, not the divine Jesus who is to save our souls. The film while looking backwards to medieval miracle plays also speaks to modern times. First, we live in a world where our TV screens are filled with news of people being blown up in Iraq, shot in Palestine, tortured by corrupt regimes and kidnapped and raped in Latin America. In popular culture, there is an almost inevitable combination of violence towards the female body and consumption – a combination most readily developed in Asian sexual tourism. This tourism is part of a more general commodification of the body (Marzano 2006). Indeed, the human body has become the vehicle of our political instability. I have elsewhere called this ‘the somatic society’ (Turner 1992), by which I mean that the major political and social issues of modern society tend to be translated into a debate about the nature of the human body. The political debate about the religious objections to stemcell research in the United States would be one illustration in which the debate reflects a deeper ethical concern about the nature of humanity, the possibility of enhanced ‘prolongevity’ and the relationship between generations. The stem-cell debate becomes as it were the site of multiple political and ethical questions. Second, we can read the film as a story of ethnic conflict between Jews and Romans, in which the conflicting groups speak a language that is unintelligible to the other side. This ethnic conflict is overlaid with religious differences between different interpretations of the truth. This is in part why the film is seen to contain an anti-Semitic theme. When Mel Gibson was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol in 2006, it was alleged that he made violent and vile anti-Semitic comments to the arresting officers. The incident had the effect of reinforcing the view that the film presents racial images of Judaism that are problematic. Third, it involves a clash of nationalisms and a struggle with colonial rulers Gibson’s film itself has a critical political edge in associating colonialism with Roman occupation of the Holy Land. It is in this sense a film with both a conventional Christian message – the inhumanity of man against man – but it is also decidedly modern – a film about identity politics, ethnic 44

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cleansing and the clash of nationalisms. Both films are bringing religion into the centre of popular culture, but they also in many ways corrode and corrupt the traditional hierarchical relationship between the sacred and the profane. As such they constitute what Philip Rieff (2006) has called a ‘deathwork’ in contrast to an ‘artwork’, namely an attack on the authority of sacred aesthetics.

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Part II

MODES AND TECHNIQUES OF THE SYMBOLIC ECONOMIES

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3 COMMODIFYING BLESSINGS

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Celebrating the double-yang festival in Penang, Malaysia and Wudang mountain, China* Jean DeBernardi

In a recent book, Catholic theologian Vincent Miller describes with alarm the rise of a new culture of commodities and religious consumption that he fears is leading to the ‘abstraction and fragmentation of religious traditions’ (Miller 2004: 10). Whereas the commodification of religion may make a Catholic theologian fear for the sacramental integrity of his religion, it appears to foster a tone of ironic cynicism among social scientists. In a recent article, for example, John and Jean Comaroff discuss the global proliferation of what they call ‘occult economies’, for example, the use of magic to produce wealth without production, and ‘prosperity cults’ that they describe as ‘feefor-service, consumer-cult, prosperity-gospel denominations’ (Comaroff and Comaroff 2000: 314). Although their approach is analytical, they also appear to mock these forms of ‘millennial capitalism’, joking, for example, that for millions of members, ‘the Second Coming evokes not a Jesus who saves, but one who pays dividends’ (Comaroff and Comaroff 2000: 315). Sociologist and philosopher George Simmel observed in The Philosophy of Money that money reduces quality to quantity, and is a universal measure of value with no content. Indeed, he concludes: ‘The quantity of money is its quality’ (Simmel 1978 [1900]: 259). But because money lacks a qualitative dimension, he notes that money has a profoundly levelling effect that is corrosive to higher values, leading to cynicism about those values: The more money becomes the sole centre of interest, the more one discovers that honour and conviction, talent and virtue, beauty and salvation of the soul, are exchanged against money and so the more a mocking and frivolous attitude will develop in relation to these higher values that are for sale for the same kind of value as groceries, and that also command a ‘market price’. The concept of a market price for values, which, according to their nature, reject any evaluation except in terms of their own categories and ideals in 49

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the perfect objectification of what cynicism presents in the form of a subjective reflex. (Simmel 1978 [1900]: 256) He concludes, ‘Whoever has become possessed by the fact that the same amount of money can procure all the possibilities that life has to offer must also become blasé’ (Simmel 1978 [1900]: 256). Far from being blasé about wealth, Chinese popular religious culture represents material good fortune as a highly desirable objective. For this reason perhaps, many Westerners have long scorned it, some even refusing to consider it as a proper religion. Since their earliest contact with Chinese, first Western missionaries, and later some scholars, characterized Chinese religion as materialistic, magical and more focused on placating local demons than on submitting to transcendent gods. As Jan Jakob Maria de Groot described it: The great thing which strikes us in the Confucian religion and its popular outgrowth is its thorough materialistic selfishness. Promotion of the material happiness of the world is its aim and end. As a religion of the Tao, it is practiced by the emperor and his government for no other purpose but to insure a good and regular working order of the Tao, so that the throne may stand firm and safe. And by the people it is diligently observed in order that their ancestors and gods may give them protection and bestow material blessings. There is in Confucianism not a trace of a higher religious aim, and I think that this fact suffices to define it as a religion of a lower order. (de Groot 1912: 130–131) Max Weber joined his voice to this chorus when he concluded that asceticism was lacking in Chinese religion, noting that the Confucian sought only ‘long life, health, and wealth in this world and beyond death the retention of his good name’ (1968 [1951]: 228). Peasants and merchants exalted the God of Wealth, whom the creators of paper gods depict accompanied by a coin dragon and a treasure horse, in scenes filled with images of fine jewels and coral, coins, gold and silver ingots and money trees. Artists also depict Wealth Gods in association with other forms of good luck, including male descendants, longevity, ‘merit, fame, wealth, and glory’ (Alexeiev 1989 [1928]: 43). Nothing could be further from the austere, self-abnegating Protestant ethic so exalted by Weber. Many western scholars further have described Chinese popular religion as syncretic, unsystematic and lacking in moral teachings. I would counter, however, that the diversity of expressions in fact conveys a fairly systematic set of moral principles. For many who practice Chinese popular religion, I would argue, the most fundamental moral imperative is the law of moral 50

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cause and effect. Spirit medium temples in Malaysia and Singapore, and Quanzhen Daoist temples in China, often distribute morality books that teach some version of this law of moral cause and effect, including a very popular pamphlet-length version of Taishang’s Treatise on Action and Retribution (Taishang Ganying Pian n.d.), whose opening passage teaches: Taishang said: misery and happiness have no door. Just as shadow follows form, humans themselves cause their own happiness and misfortune. This is because in Heaven and Earth there exists a God who takes charge of human faults. According to the seriousness of the offence, this God will take away from the human’s allotment [reckoning]. When a person’s lot is reduced, he will become poor, and often meet with distress and worry, and everyone will loathe him. Penalty and misery will follow him, luck will avoid him, and the evil-star will bring him disaster. When the reckoning is complete, he will die. Taishang’s Treatise on Action and Retribution also notes that if people behave morally, gods and other celestial spirits will assist them. But they must first qualify for this assistance by their moral actions: ‘People who ask for help from a heavenly god must do 1300 good deeds, people who ask for help from an earthly celestial being must do 300 good deeds’. Moreover, if a person seeks longevity, they must avoid any misdeeds. The moral is: ‘If the path is correct, then go forward; if not, then retreat’ Penang Chinese sum up this doctrine with an optimistic proverb: ‘If you have a good heart, you will get repaid’. The law of moral cause-and-effect has its limits as an explanatory tool, however, and there is also a commonly-used parody of this proverb which goes: ‘If you have a good heart, you’ll get a thunder kiss’.1

Praying for wealth, status and long life Allow me to briefly outline a few ideas concerning the Chinese popular religious theory of happiness or eudemonia. A Hokkien proverb has it that ‘writing “person” – two strokes – is easy, being a person is hard’. For many Penang Chinese, ‘being a person’ or ‘being human’ (choelang, zuoren) means aspiring to a good life in which social relations are properly ordered and harmonious, and in which the individual has obtained wealth, social status and family. Chinese commonly display representations of three values, either as characters written on scrolls, or in the embroidered, painted, or porcelain representations of three star gods. The first of these carries a child, and represents good fortune and prosperity (hok, fu); the next wears the robes of the magistrate, and represents high social status (lok, lu). The last has a tall bald forehead, and holds the peach of immortality in one hand, and a medicine gourd in the other, and represents long life (siu, shou). 51

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Figure 3.1 Three star gods representing long life, status and prosperity displayed in a God of Prosperity Templer in the Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve, Singapore, 2005. (Photograph: Jean DeBernardi)

I would argue that these three statues represent a symbolic representation of Chinese eudemonics. Eudemonics is a branch of ethics that discusses happiness, and eudemonia a state of complete well-being and good fortune, a state of true happiness arising from a rational satisfaction.2 Eudemonia’s opposite may be termed dysdemonia, meaning a state of unhappiness arising from a lack of well-being and good fortune. Many of the commonplace practices associated with Chinese popular religious culture seek in fact to use ritual to amend a dysdemonic state and restore eudemonia. In colloquial Hokkien, the term hok ( fu) is compounded in expressions relating to happiness (hoklok, fulu) and good fortune (hokkhi, fuqi) a term that Hokkien Christians use to translate the English word ‘blessings’. Penang Chinese sometimes explained that this star god represented descendants, thus they also equated human fertility with good fortune or blessing. Penang Chinese further associated good fortune with eating well, linking blessings with the fecundity of the earth. For example, friends often observed that since temple committees frequently invited me to be a guest at their lavish ten-course temple banquets, I undoubtedly had eating luck (chiah hok, chi fu), and a Buddhist nun who told my fortune further interpreted my abundance of eating luck to mean that I had money and freedom from worry. 52

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As sociologists and anthropologists often remind us, people aspire not only to wealth, but also to achieve a high social status and public recognition (Weber 1946). These values are exemplified by the second star god, lok (lu), representing both happiness and official pay. In the Confucian frame of reference, a position in the official bureaucracy was a path both to financial success and reputation (mia sian, ming) or face (bin, mian). Although the official bureaucracy has long been ended, the desire for social visibility and respectability remains highly valued, and still is represented by the image of a man wearing the Mandarin’s robes. Although this star god represents social status in the dress of the Chinese Mandarin, Penang’s status system depends upon wealth rather than the cultivated distinction of the Confucian superior man. As Chan Kwok Bun and Claire Chiang have noted, entrepreneurs used their wealth to gain elite status, and ‘the masses would accord merchants their desired status in return for the latters’ readiness to channel their wealth back to society’ (Chan and Chiang 1994: 303–304). Wealth indicates that a person has moral merit, but also enables the individual to perform acts of charity that further confirm their moral merit. As Weber aptly put it, Chinese believe in ‘the value of wealth as a universal means of moral perfection’ (Weber 1968 [1951]: 242). Indeed, Basil Alexeiev identifies this link between wealth and moral achievement as an important key to understanding the cult of the God of Wealth: the coin in the foreground bears the following sentence which throws light upon the whole question of the cult of the God of Wealth: ‘Money can lead to godhead’, i.e. can transform a man into a god. Thus, if a man uses his money for the benefit of those who have none they will venerate him as a God of Wealth. (Alexeiev 1989 [1928]: 19) Although he proposes a too direct link between the charitable use of money and deification, nonetheless he has identified a crucial point, which is that wealth enables people to act charitably, which in turn wins them the praise (and perhaps even veneration) of others. Finally, Chinese traditionalists also pray for long life and health, symbolized by the third star god, who holds a peach and gourd, and has the high forehead of the Daoist immortal. Most would say that their life span was predetermined. Still, as Richard Smith points out: although the Confucian classics and a number of popular proverbs emphasized that health and longevity were predestined, few individuals in Ch’ing [Qing] China accepted their fate passively. Most people believed that they could modify their fate, either by 53

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moral or magical means. In fact, the two sources of power were closely related. (Smith 1993: 163) At temple fairs, spirit mediums often perform simple rituals that involve prayers for long life, using tiny replacement bodies to change the luck of participants. People prize good fortune, high status and longevity, but do not always attain them. As one Hainanese teacher explained to me, it is difficult for any individual to have all three ingredients of the good life. One of Penang’s most prominent millionaires had great wealth, and was over 80 and in good health, but he had no son, and he adopted three nephews to take over his businesses. A Hokkien Christian friend observed that she had her children and her health, but did not have the ‘luck to get money’. She pointed out, however, that money could not buy health. Chinese popular religious culture is permeated with images of the good life. But commonly people lack the luck to achieve their goals, even when their behaviour is moral and their intentions are excellent. People cannot control their constitutive luck, that is ‘the factors that set up our personalities’ (Luper 1996: 9), nor do they choose their gender, or their parents. This comment from a Buddhist fortune teller known as the ‘Golden Aunt’ directly addresses her view of my constitutive luck and its limitations: ‘You are a girl who is like a man. You have a man’s way of thinking. If you were a man, you could be a president’. Not only does constitutive luck impose limits, but also ‘acting on our plans is fraught with luck; acting as we plan is not something we can guarantee’ (Luper 1996: 11). A person may mean well, but events still may go awry; a person may act in ways that affront morality, but still do good, and philosopher Bernard Williams captures the uncertainty of these outcomes in the notion of moral luck (1981: 32). He describes the term moral luck as radically incoherent from the perspective of a Kantian concept of morality, but the term nicely captures the limitations to the notion that good behaviour will lead to a good outcome. Williams explains the limits to our ability to achieve a successful moral life through rational choice in these terms: One’s history as an agent is a web in which anything that is the product of the will is surrounded and held up and partly formed by things that are not, in such a way that reflection can go only in one of two directions: either in the direction of saying that responsible agency is a fairly superficial concept, which has a limited use in harmonizing what happens, or else that it is not a superficial concept, but that it cannot ultimately be purified – if one attaches importance to the sense of what one is in terms of what one has done and 54

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what in the world one is responsible for, one must accept much that makes its claim on that sense solely in virtue of its being actual. (Williams 1981: 29–30)

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The ethos of Chinese popular religious culture captures these limitations both in the concept of predetermined limits to life, happiness and life span, and in the notions of karma and luck. For the purposes of this paper, however, I next focus on popular religious representations of fate.

Fate People commonly say that heaven controls how many children and how much money a person will have in their life, as well as how long they will live. People describe these aspects of life as ‘determined’ (chutian, zhuding) by fate or heaven.3 A spirit medium (Master Poh) offered these comments on money and the human lifespan: In a life, you are given just so much money. Money – so much is yours, you speak of money as yours, and if you have lots it’s better. These things are borrowed to use, lent to you to use, if you have money you can eat. We come to earth for a few decades, only a few decades. It’s not to say that you have eternal life. He continued with a story of Ancestor Pi, an old woman who lived until 803 years old, who only died after ghosts sent by hell’s bureaucrats tricked her into telling them her age. The year, month, day and even hour of a person’s birth profoundly determines a person’s fate, which Daoists call benming. We may translate the term benming as a person’s astrologically determined constitutive fate, created in the intersection of the rotation of the heavens with the temporality of a unique human life. Like the rotation of stars in the heavens, an individual’s constitutive fate is both orderly and dynamic, and the dynamics of fate influence life’s successes and failures. A friend commented, for example, that she consoled herself after a business failure with this Hokkien proverb: ‘Fate (mia, ming) is like waves, sometimes low, but then rising so high’. She also cited another proverb: ‘Money has four legs; people have two legs’, which she explained to mean ‘You cannot chase money; money must find you’. To learn more about their constitutive fate, people visit fortune tellers who can interpret their eight character horoscope, a horoscope based on the year, month, date, and time of birth. A Penang Buddhist fortune teller known as the Golden Aunt, for example, used a richly-illustrated, hand-written book as her guide to prognostication, although the book’s pictures appeared to guide her interpretations more than the text itself. At the consultations that I observed, she told friends the star of their birth, predicted when in their 55

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lives they would have good or bad fortune; when they would encounter benefactors or enemies; when they would meet their husband or wife; and how many children they would have. As a Buddhist fortune-teller, she also advised them about the impact of their grandparents’ karma on their lives, and about their identity and behaviour in previous lives. The Chinese twelve-year astrological cycle associates every year in a twelve-year cycle of Earthly Branches with an animal, and Malaysian Chinese conventionally hold that those born in certain animal years are incompatible with others. Persons born in the Ox year, for example, are deemed incapable of getting along with those born in the Sheep year. But the twelve-year astrological cycle is one of several popular religious representations of the impact of fate on individual lives. Now that I have explicated Chinese popular religious ideas about happiness and threats to its achievement, let me turn to ritual practices designed to address these threats. I focus here on the ritual practices associated with the Nine Emperor Gods festival in Malaysia and the double-unine date at Wudang Mountain’s major Daoist temple (Zixiao Palace) in Hubei Province, the People’s Republic of China. These rituals, including the ritual of ascending a mountain, address threats to happiness by seeking to ensure divine protection from disaster.

Figure 3.2 Two sides of a wallet-sized card sold at Fung Ying Seen Koon, Hong Kong, showing the Bushel Mother and the year god who is the Great Year of the three years shown, 2004. (Religious ephemera collection of Jean DeBernardi)

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The Nine Emperor Gods festival and veneration of the pole star and Bushel Asterism The climax of the Nine Emperor Gods festival is the ninth day of the ninth lunar month. In Chinese numerology, this date has particular potency since the number nine is associated both with heaven (which is said to have nine levels) and with imperial, masculine, yang power, symbolized by the dragon. The ‘double yang’ date also is popularly associated with longevity, since the expression ‘nine-nine’ puns with a phrase meaning ‘a long time’, which is interpreted to mean a long span of life. In China, Chinese observe the double nine date with ritual acts that share a common theme of elevation, including flying kites to avert misfortune and climbing to the top of a mountain (a practice that de Groot found bizarre [Bredon and Mitrophanow 1982 (1927): 427–433; de Groot 1977 (1886): 532]). Sometimes the practice of climbing a mountain on this date is secular, as when Beijing residents visit the Fragrant Mountain (Xiangshan) in northwest Beijing to view autumn foliage. But in both Penang and at Wudang Mountain, the act of climbing the mountain on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month has religious significance. In Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, Chinese celebrate the double yang date as the ritual climax of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival.4 During the nine days of the festival, many tens of thousands of Chinese observe a vegetarian diet and join the procession that escorts the “Imperial Boat” to the seaside. In praying to the Nine Emperor Gods (who control human fate) and in seeking inner transformation, individuals express their desire to transform their lives, and to exchange bad luck for good. Singapore’s Nine Emperor Gods festival does not involve the practice of climbing a mountain on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, but Penangites follow this practice. In the 1880s, monks built a mountaintop temple in Penang to honour the Nine Emperor Gods, one of whom they identify as the Lord of the Dark Heavens (Xuantian Shangdi), whom they sometimes called the Lord of Heaven (Shangdi Ye), and whom the temple caretaker described as the Bushel Mother’s eldest son. On or around the double-nine date, local pilgrims climb a thousand-and-one steps to offer worship to these gods. In a similar act of veneration, at the Daoist temple complex at Wudang Mountain in Hubei Province, pilgrims – including visitors from Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan – ascend to the Golden Peak to pray at a temple honouring the Emperor of the Dark Heavens. Long closed, the extensive temple complex at Wudang Mountain is now a World Heritage Site that attracts local, national and international tourists and pilgrims, and houses a Quanzhen Daoist monastic community and an independent martial arts academy. In climbing the steps or climbing up to the pinnacle of Wudang Mountain, the pilgrim is not expending money so much as they are using their vital energies in venerating the gods. As they climb, they

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Figure 3.3 Bushel basket offerings prepared for celebration of the ninth day of the ninth lunar month at Zixiao Palace, Wudang Mountain, 2002. (Photograph: Jean DeBernardi)

symbolically approach heaven: the pilgrim who takes the harder but preferred path passes through the lower, middle and upper Heaven Gates before reaching the mountain-top temple complex. Recently the government has constructed a cable car to access the remote mountaintop, a more costly but much swifter way to reach the Golden Peak. But even those who ascend on the costly cable car must typically travel great distances to visit the site. The Golden Peak is an extraordinarily numinous setting, and people will buy ritual objects like incense or deity statues and bring them there to spiritualize them, then take them home to use at their 58

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home altar. Indeed, the effort and sacrifice that must be expended to reach this remote, scenic mountaintop temple endows it with deep value. Penang’s hilltop temple is neither so remote nor as spiritually powerful as Wudang Mountain, but nonetheless the walk to the temple is arduous in the Malaysian heat, so much so that I can rarely find friends willing to hike up Paya Terubong Hill with me. During the pilgrimage period, people make the journey to seek favours from the gods, offering modest donations in exchange for protective amulets that they post, wear and eat.5

Astral symbolism and concepts of fate Nine Emperor Gods temples often have a second-story or hidden shrine room, to which access is limited, in which one typically finds statues of Doumu, the Bushel Mother, the deification of the northern Pole Star, the still, creative centre of the heavens and the Nine Emperor Gods, who are commonly identified with the Big Dipper, whose seven visible stars also have special meaning in Chinese cosmology. Nine Emperor God temples also commonly have altars to the Northern and Southern Bushels: the Northern Bushel is the constellation that governs death; the Southern Bushel governs life. These are profound representations of time and of constitutive fate. From the Daoist perspective, the Bushel Mother represents the ultimate symbol of centrality and unity. In Daoist cosmology all that exists evolved from the centre of the heavenly sphere, called the taiji, or ‘Grand Apex’. This is the fixed point around which the sky revolves – the North (or pole) star – whose power and centrality the Bushel Mother represents: That North Pole represents the power which creates day and night, light and darkness, heat and cold, in short, it is the creator of the world’s course or Dao, and the cause of the seasons, by which all that lives is produced, sustained, and destroyed, and through which the natural phenomena are brought about. (de Groot 1963 [1903–1904]: 177) The grand apex (or pole star) produced yin and yang, the four phases of nature, and the eight trigrams, which are the foundation for the 64 hexagrams of the ancient Chinese divinatory text, the Yijing. The Northern Bushel asterism also has great significance in Daoist cosmology. In the circumpolar north, the Northern Bushel (known in the West as the Big Dipper) has been used since ancient times as a solar clock. If one draws an imaginary line from the two stars at the front of the ‘bushel’, the line points directly to Polaris (the North Star). People observed that the handle of the Northern Bushel rotated around the North Star every 24 hours, while the position of the handle at nightfall changed throughout the year. Chinese realized that they could know the direction, season and 59

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hour by observing these relationships, and early astronomers identified twenty-four directions of the handle. Later, geomancers divided their compass into twenty-four ‘mountains’ based on this rotation. Because the movement of the Northern Bushel indicated changes in season, Chinese believed that it also influenced human longevity and fate, as well as the fate of the country (Wang [Ong] 2001: 122–123). Although the Northern Bushel is not visible in the Penang night sky, the cultural meanings attached to the Northern sky persist. Quanzhen Daoist temples often set apart a large shrine room for veneration of the Bushel Mother, who is typically represented together with statues of sixty constitutive fate gods (liushi jiazi benming shen), each associated with one year in a sixty-year cycle. Each year in the sixty-year cycle is uniquely identified by a two-character name formed by combining a 10-year cycle of celestial stems and a 12-year cycle of terrestrial branches, and each is further associated with a constellation. Every year a different constellation spirit governs the Ministry of Time, taking the title ‘Great Year’ (Taisui), and every person born in a particular year falls under the influence of a constellation that is appointed to be the year’s Taisui (Wu 2001). Quanzhen Daoists further associate the Bushel Mother – the Central Bushel – with the 28 constellations, which are divided into four groups of seven constellations associated with the four cardinal directions. The Bushel constellation is associated with the North, which is symbolized by the Black Tortoise or Xuanwu, which is one of the Lord of the Dark Heavens’ most ancient titles. The representation of the Bushel Mother together with the Nine Emperor Gods – the Northern Bushel, whose nine members sometimes are said to include the Emperor of the Dark Heavens, distils this representation of the Bushel Mother and the 28 constellations to those which are most central to the Daoist celebration of the double-nine festival. Although these astral symbols represent the complex determinism of human fate, nonetheless the rituals performed during the first nine days of the ninth lunar month are rituals of protection and luck-mending. In Penang, for example, people display their virtue by following ritual abstentions, as a means of exchanging bad luck for good. Similarly, at Wudang Mountain, the Daoist priests perform the Northern Bushel scripture to avert badness and bring good luck. Above the ritual stage the Daoist priests display banners representing the 28 constellations, and also use candles to map out the twenty-eight constellations on tabletops. As the Abbot explained this ritual to me, the constellations represented the fact that ‘every person belongs to a star, that their fate is controlled by a star. There are so many dippers, everyone can pray for their fate, for blessings, longevity, and happiness’. Individuals also pay the temple an extraordinarily high sum of money – about 1000 RMB – in order to have their name added to a bushel basket 60

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that represents ‘heaven and earth’. As a monk explained to me, the function of bushel is to make people live longer. The bushel basket is filled with the five grains and coins, representing a ‘bumper harvest and prosperity’. To these grains and coins are added symbolic objects: a precious mirror, a sword, a scale, a ruler and scissors. The scale weighs a person’s behaviour, and the ruler likewise is a symbol of measuring one’s heart. The sword and mirror keep out evil, and the scissors ‘cut’ or keep out unhappy things. Praying with the bushel basket finally functions to ‘dissipate calamity and avoid disaster’ (xiaozai bihuo). People can worship not only for themselves, but also for their ancestors, and on behalf of their descendants so that they can be prosperous. The bushel basket celebrates eudemonia, representing economic prosperity with rice and coins. But with the bushel basket we have a complex representation of moral merit since when the person prays, the gods are assumed to weigh their behaviour and measure their heart. Just as the opening passage of Taishang’s Treatise on Action and Retribution teaches, the person who prays to the gods for blessings must first perform good deeds. But the bushel basket also is prophylactic against evil disturbances and disasters. Most importantly, this ritual implies that if the person praying demonstrates their moral merit, they can influence the very stars and ensure good fate, not only for themselves but also for their descendants. As the Abbot at Zixiao Palace explained to me, at the ritual performance of the Northern Bushel Scripture on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month – an event largely attended by Taiwanese pilgrims, local business people and the media – they made sacrifice to Doumu, the Bushel Mother. The stars can bring bad things to the common people, and the ritual is designed to influence them to change direction so that they will bring goodness instead. ‘The star in charge of goodness can bring us good fortune’. They invite Doumu to come to earth to bring good fortune to the common people, and while priests chant the scripture, four Daoist nuns (or youth, tongzi) rotate a ‘bushel’ to represent the Bushel Mother turning the stars. The day following, the temple performs a chaodu ceremony on behalf of the souls of the dead. The Nine Emperor Gods Festival, although quite different, conveys a very similar complex of ideas about prosperity, morality and fate. Observant participants follow a regime of moral self-discipline and ritual purity that includes following a vegetarian diet, and abstaining from drinking, sex, quarrelling and lying – a list of injunctions that parallels the Buddhist five precepts. But they also perform rituals of demonic exorcism, seeking to cleanse their environment of ‘dirt’ or sources of demonic disturbance. Although no one in Penang ever explained the festival events to me as the ritual veneration of the martyred dead who died seeking to restore the Ming Dynasty (as did one Singaporean Nine Emperor Gods temple manager), many did explain that the symbolism of the event (including the decoration of the shrine room called the Bushel Mother’s Palace in yellow and black) 61

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suggested mourning. This is consonant with the Quanzhen Daoist practice of ending the ritual period with a ceremony of salvation for the dead.

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Commodifying blessings: amulets, incense, vegetarian food and the Bushel basket I now would like to consider the question of whether blessings are commodified in the ritual practices associated with the Nine Emperor Gods Festival and Wudang Mountain. Simmel observes that ‘money radiates equal value significance in both directions of plenty and of scarcity: the typical modern man appreciates things because they cost very much and also because they cost very little’ (Simmel 1978 [1900]: 279). He further observed that the necessities of life must be inexpensive and affordable so that those who lack means can survive, and that this means they are cheap for the wealthy (Simmel 1978 [1900]: 219).6 But he also notes that people are drawn to expensive objects precisely because they represent a distance to be overcome: The longing, effort and sacrifice that separate us from objects are also supposed to lead us towards them. Withdrawal and approach are in practice complementary notions, each of which presupposes the other; they are two sides of our relationship to objects, which we call subjectively our desire and objectively their value. (Simmel 1978 [1900]: 75) We find precisely this division in the practice of ritual offerings between affordability that allows wide participation, and extraordinarily high charges for ritual services that drive a competition for ritual distinction. Indeed, the very expense of a desired object is an intrinsic aspect of its allure. Ritual products and services have a price, but many are so inexpensive that anyone can afford them. Incense, charm papers, candles and oil typically cost little at temples, and anyone can afford to pray. At the same time, I would describe the lively roadside commerce in vegetarian food, incense, yellow candles and special charm papers that I observed at Nine Emperor Gods temples in George Town, Penang in 1978–1980 as verging on a form of charity. Those selling these objects appeared to be economically marginal petty entrepreneurs. Although they reportedly profited handsomely from their participation at the event, those who patronized them did not complain of the slightly inflated prices. Nonetheless, full participation in ritual events may also be quite costly, as when a special bundle of charm papers costs twenty or thirty times more than an ordinary one, or when special rituals are performed at a high cost. At Wudang Mountain, for example, business people and officials sought 62

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the profit of distinction by spending vast sums for certain ritual privileges. When a ceremony was held to bring consciousness into the statues (kaiguang) at a renovated temple, wealthy businessmen competed to pay 100,000 RMB (U.S. $12,370) to burn the first incense, and to pay 30,000 RMB (U.S. $3,711) to burn the second incense, and the mayor and local officials also paid to burn incense. On the ninth day of the ninth lunar month, the well-to-do may also arrange to pray with the bushel basket whose ritual meaning I have described above at a cost of 1,000 RMB (U.S $123) – this in a country in which the average rural annual income is not quite 3,000 RMB (US $355). Not surprisingly, the peasants with whom we spoke concluded that because they were willing to expend these funds, officials and businessmen believed more than the common people. Arjun Appadurai proposes the term ‘tournament of value’ to describe economic events like these. As he defines them, Tournaments of value are complex periodic events that are removed in some culturally well-defined way from the routine of economic life. Participation in them is likely to be both a privilege of those in power and an instrument of status contests between them. The currency of such tournaments is also likely to be set apart through well understood cultural diacritics. Finally, what is at issue in such tournaments is not just status, rank, fame, or reputation of actors, but the disposition of the central tokens of value in the society in question. (Appadurai 1986: 21) Although the privilege of burning an incense stick may differ from the circulation of a kula valuable in a number of important ways, nonetheless the act is one that inspires fierce competition among those wealthy enough to compete for the privilege. Pierre Bourdieu proposed that ‘The religious enterprise is an enterprise with an economic dimension which cannot admit to so being and which functions in a sort of permanent negation of its economic dimension’ (Bourdieu 1998: 115). He concludes that ‘[t]he economy of symbolic goods is an economy of imprecision and indeterminacy’ based on a ‘taboo on making things explicit’ (Bourdieu 1998: 120). Practitioners represent their offerings, for example, as a sacrifice in the service of some sort of transcendental divinity rather than as economic support for a religious institution (Bourdieu 1998: 114). But when the official or businessman pays for the privilege of burning the first or second incense stick, his victory in a tournament of value in fact represents both a gift and a purchase of privilege. Success in the bidding allows the bidder to demonstrate their worthiness to claim the benevolent regard of the gods, and at the same time to make a powerful bid for social 63

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prestige. Indeed, we might compare this particular tournament of value to the art auction as Jean Baudrillard famously analyzed it. Baudrillard proposed that when the bidders at an art auction compete to spend enormous sums on art objects, their expenditure on consumption both manifests money, and manifestly destroys money in the pursuit of prestige (Baudrillard 1981). He concludes that the auction expresses a more general fact about class domination: Everywhere prestige haunts our industrial societies, whose bourgeois culture is never more than the phantom of aristocratic values. Everywhere the magic of the code, the magic of an elective and selective community, fused together by the same rules of the game and the same system of signs, is collectively reproduced, beyond economic value and on the basis of it. Everywhere this process comes to penetrate class conflicts, everywhere – diluted over the entire extent of the society, whatever the economic status and class condition – it acts for the advantage of the dominant class. It is the keystone of domination. (Baudrillard 1981: 119) When Chinese businessmen and officials bid for the honour of ritual privileges, they go further than the bidder at the art auction in the destruction of money in the pursuit of aristocratic prestige: the art object may be resold; the incense stick burns once, and is gone. We find a similar phenomenon in Singapore and Malaysia at the banquets that conclude temple festivals. Although the well-to-do might pay the same as the trishaw rider for a bundle of incense, they often generously donate money to the temple or to a fund-raising cause by other means. At a number of festival banquets that I attended in 1980, for example, the temple organizers raised money for a planned new Chinese Town Hall by asking their guests of honour to sing songs in exchange for donation pledges of hundreds or even thousands of Malaysian ringgit. More common at temple banquets in Singapore is an auction of donated objects, which may range from gilded statues of the God of Wealth to bottles of brandy, for which bidders may pledge many thousands of dollars. I am told that bidders will pay an especially high price for ‘black gold’ – a name given to pieces of charcoal which have been sacralized, making the object with the least intrinsic value potentially worth much more than items with a much higher ‘list price’. The bidders have a year to pay off their bid, and it is understood that the god will help people to obtain the money to pay.7 Although it is considered lucky to succeed in the bidding, I believe that participants understand that the money pledged is not only a thinly disguised donation, but also a way to manifest their wealth publicly, as a claim to prestige and as a bid for moral merit.

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Religion and money In this final section of the paper, I would like to reflect on some general characteristics of money, and non-trivial ways in which Chinese popular religion is commodified. Although money may lead us to cynicism or a blasé attitude, nonetheless I think it safe to conclude that when Chinese officials or businessmen expend enormous sums to light an incense stick at a temple, or when Singaporean business people bid on lucky objects, they do not misrecognize the nature of the transaction as Bourdieu has claimed. I very much doubt they view themselves as buying blessings, but I am quite sure that they are aware that they are translating resources into the added increment of social distinction. As Simmel observes, this form of social distinction is an ‘unearned increment’ of the ownership of wealth that is unavailable to those who lack the means to demonstrate public benevolence (Simmel 1978 [1900]: 220). At the same time, the symbolism of popular religious worship suggests that money cannot purchase everything. Money may well be valuable as a means for the acquisition of many and diverse values. But as a Chinese proverb has it, ‘with an inch of gold it’s hard to buy an inch of time [literally, light and shade]’ (cun jin nanmai cun guangyin). Chinese popular religionists pray not only for wealth, but also for the happiness of a long life in good health. And they further seek to avert the forces of calamity and disaster from their lives – which as the catastrophic tsunami, hurricanes and earthquakes of the last twelve months clearly demonstrate, no amount of money can prevent or control. Money provides a quantified measure of the value of a desired object. The Singaporean who bid thousands of dollars for a gilded, twirling Monkey God statue at a Singapore temple banquet no doubt hoped that the god image would further enhance his good fortune. But no one who practices Chinese popular religion would claim that obtaining this desired object in a tournament of value could buy the individual happiness or long life. Simmel observed that ‘money is simply a means, a material or an example for the presentation of relations that exist between the most superficial, “realistic” and fortuitous phenomena and the most idealized powers of existence, the most profound currents of individual life and history’ (Simmel 1978 [1900]: 55). He also noted that money represents a potentiality that stores up future possibilities. But possibility has two very different aspects. A future event may be possible because a person has the necessary skills and tools to accomplish some act, like playing the piano. But even a person with the necessary ability to accomplish an act will achieve that goal only if certain conditions are met ‘whose occurrence we are unable to predict’. Thus money crystallizes two elements of capability: skill and chance. The ethos of Chinese popular religious culture also emphasizes the dual nature of human potential: people can be instrumental

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in performing meritorious acts to secure future happiness for themselves and their descendants, but still must depend on their fate and moral luck if they are to have the best possible outcomes. And in ritual practice, Daoists seek to influence the very path of the stars to ensure their good fate.

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Glossary of Chinese terms Mandarin romanisation followed by Hokkien equivalent in parentheses, English translation and Chinese characters. chaodu Daoist ritual of salvation for the spirits of the dead chi fu (chiah hok) eating luck cun jin nanmai cun guangyin ‘with an inch of gold it’s hard to buy an inch of time [literally, light and shade]’ Doumu Bushel Mother fu (hok) happiness, good fortune fulu (hoklok) happiness fulushou (hokloksiu) star gods representing prosperity, status and longevity fuqi (hokkhi) good fortune, blessings kai guang (khui kui) perform a ritual to bring consciousness into an image liushi jiazi benming shen sixty-year cycle constitutive fate gods lu (lok) official status mian (bin) face ming (miasian) reputation ming (mia) fate Shangdi Ye Lord of Heaven shou (siu) long life Taiji (thaikek) Great Ultimate, Grand Apex Taisui ‘Great Year,’ head of the Ministry of Time tongzi youth Xiangshan Fragrant Mountain xiaozai bihuo dissipate calamity and avoid disaster Xuantian Shangdi Emperor of the Dark Heavens Xuanwu the mysterious warrior, title for the Emperor of the Dark Heavens Yijing The Book of Changes zhuding (chutian) determined (by fate, heaven) Zhusheng Niangniang (Chusen Neoneo) Goddess who Registers Birth zuoren (choelang) be human 66

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Notes * I have analyzed some of the themes raised in this paper in Chapter Seven of Rites of Belonging: Memory, Modernity, and Identity in a Malaysian Chinese Community (2004) and Chapter One of The Way that Lives in the Heart: Chinese Popular Religion and Spirit Medium in Penang, Malaysia (2006). I also draw on recent research on the topic ‘Remaking Daoist Practice in Transnational Networks: Religious and Cultural Pilgrimage to the Daoist Temple Complex at Wudang Mountain, Hubei Province, PRC’ conducted with support from the Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation and the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. Special thanks are due to Nir Avieli, Prof. Dong Luo, Pang Lijun, Dr. Wu Xu, Victor Yue and workshop organizer Pattana Kittiarsa. 1 The kinds of ghost worship that Robert Weller has described in Taiwan fits rather better with this cynical attitude about moral cause-and-effect, and is also evident in some Chinese popular religious temples in Penang (see DeBernardi 1987, 2006; Weller 2000). 2 I base these definitions on The New International Webster’s Dictionary and Thesaurus of the English Language. 3 The morpheme chu also means ‘to record’, and is used to describe the Birthrecording Goddess (Chusen Neoneo, Zhusheng Niangniang), to whom women pray for fertility and childbirth, and whom some English-educated Chinese call the Goddess of Fate. 4 For in-depth studies of the Nine Emperor Gods Festival in Thailand, see Erik Cohen (2001); and for Malaysia, see Cheu Hock Tong (1988). 5 According to C. S. Wong, the devotees provide the pilgrims with free vegetarian food, and stories circulate about pilgrims who passed out on the path because they failed to follow a vegetarian diet on the day of their journey (Wong 1967: 152–155). 6 But low cost may lead some to devalue goods. Simmel gives as an example of the pin – it is an indispensable object but so inexpensive that you cannot put a value on a single pin (it would be worth a fraction of a cent). 7 I thank Victor Yue for providing me with information on the Singaporean temple banquet auctions.

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The vegetarian festival in a peripheral southern Thai shrine Erik Cohen

Introduction My study of ‘The Chinese Vegetarian Festival in Phuket’ (Cohen 2001) was based predominantly on research on the conduct of the festival in major Hokkien1 shrines on Phuket island, especially in the Ban Kathu shrine – where the festival is said to have originated – and in the two big shrines in Phuket town, Jui Tui and Bang Niao. The festival events in those shrines are large in scale and most spectacular, with their huge, colourful processions and hundreds of entranced spirit mediums performing a variety of stunning feats in the course of the festival cycle. These shrines also attract the greatest number of visitors, including many domestic and foreign tourists – among whom members of the Sino-Thai community in Thailand and of the Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia have a significant presence. The festival in these shrines, especially those in Phuket town, is a powerful expression of the ascendancy of the Chinese in Thai society, who have experienced an important change of attitude toward themselves and their culture in the recent past. While in the period following the constitutional revolution of 1932, Thai nationalist governments sought to acculturate the recalcitrant Chinese (e.g. Landon 1940), the Chinese in Thailand have over time adopted, in Coughlin’s words, a ‘double identity’ (Coughlin 1969), as both Chinese and Thai. In relatively tolerant Thailand there was less tension between these identities, than in other, particularly Muslim, Southeast Asian countries. Recently, with the strengthening of ties between Thailand and an ascendant China, it became ‘cool to be Chinese in Thailand’ (Vatikiotis 1996). Though increasingly socially assimilated, the ethnic Chinese and their Sino-Thai descendants have preserved many aspects of their culture; and in recent years, this culture has undergone a revival, which did not, however, jeopardize the Sino-Thais’ adherence to Thailand or their Thai identity. Contrariwise, Chinese cultural elements, 68

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like the worship of the Mahayanistic goddess Kuan Yin (Kuan Im in Thai), were absorbed into Thai culture (ibid.: 24; Nidhi B.E. 2537 [1994]), and spread into the majority Thai population. The growing popularity of the Chinese Vegetarian Festival, even among people who have no Chinese ancestors, and who are unacquainted with Chinese folk religion or with Taoist beliefs and customs, is another expression of this trend. The spread of the customs associated with the Vegetarian Festival is particularly strong in southern Thailand. Not only are ever more southerners keeping to a ché (‘vegetarian’, in fact vegan) diet, but the festival is actively celebrated in a growing number of shrines. Some of these are long existing Chinese shrines (called am in local usage) which recently converted to the festival; others are new, established specifically to celebrate the festival. In 1984, in the first survey of the Vegetarian Festival in South-East Asia, Cheu Hock Tong (1993: 17) found that only four shrines in southern Thailand were dedicated to the Nine Emperor Gods (kiu ong), the principal deities of the festival. My own survey in 1997 in four southern provinces detected close to thirty shrines devoted to these gods (Cohen 2001: 56); in the early 2000s their number grew substantially, and may be presently as high as fifty or more in the south of the country. The festival’s increasing popularity is largely due to its double, somewhat ambiguous character. Initially, it was a rather minor Chinese immigrant festival; the growing scale and elaboration in which it is presently celebrated in major Chinese shrines is a display of the importance, achievements and wealth of the local Sino-Thai community. While in some central locations, such as Phuket, Trang and increasingly Hat Yai (Maud 2005) it is a distinct symbol of ‘Chineseness’, which attracts growing numbers of diaspora Chinese from neighbouring countries, in other, more peripheral locations the festival seems to be gradually losing its distinctive Chinese character; though it is celebrated in ‘Chinese’ shrines, the celebrants are increasingly ethnic Thais, or acculturated Sino-Thais who otherwise have little or any Chinese background. Not only the many who mark the festival by merely eating ché food, but a growing number of active participants – particularly the spirit mediums (mah song in Thai or tang ki in Chinese) in southern Hokkien shrines, who endow the festival with its particular attractiveness to domestic and foreign tourists – are increasingly southern Thai Theravada Buddhists, with no adherence to the cultural background of the festival and no knowledge of the Chinese language, which the mediums are supposedly speaking when in trance (Cohen 2001: 174). Though the expansion of the festival in southern Thailand has been documented by myself for Phuket (Cohen 2001) and by Maud (2005) for Hat Yai, to my knowledge a detailed study of the process of the emergence of a shrine devoted to the Nine Emperor Gods among a predominantly nonChinese population, remote from the centres of Sino-Thai culture, has not 69

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yet been conducted. The present study is intended to examine the differences in the conduct of the festival between the major shrines dominated by wealthy Sino-Thais and attended by thousands of visitors, and the small anonymous local shrines, isolated from the wider world. It should be noted that there exist no sanctioned ‘orthodox’ beliefs and customs in Chinese folk religion, including the conduct of the Vegetarian Festival, which would set the standards for judging the appropriateness of the practices in any particular shrine. However, one of the leaders in the Kathu shrine in Phuket, in which the festival is believed to have been initially celebrated in the first part of the nineteenth century (Cohen 2001: 50–51; Thongtan 1992: 74), has written a booklet in the Thai language on the conduct of the festival in Kathu (Pinpradap 1997), which has been recently reproduced and distributed by the TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand); it could be considered as an authoritative description of the ‘correct’ or exemplary conduct of the festival. While not necessarily acknowledging the precedence of the Kathu festival customs, the big shrines in Phuket conduct their festival in a manner quite similar to that in Kathu shrine. The manner in which the festival is conducted in those shrines may thus serve as a frame of reference for the study of its conduct in peripheral shrines, without necessarily prioritizing the former as being more ‘original’ or ‘correct’ than the latter. After visiting a large number of small shrines in southern Thailand, I concentrated upon the Kuan To shrine in Krabi town. This shrine is peripheral in three different respects: it is geographically marginal, inconspicuously located on the outskirts of Krabi town, in a neighbourhood which has little attraction for outsiders, whether from outside the town or even from the town itself; it is religiously peripheral, with little if any links to other Hokkien shrines, not only to the major ones in Phuket but also to the older and bigger ones in Krabi town and province (though it is linked to a Teochiu shrine, a point to which I shall return below); and it is socially marginal, since the participants are mainly relatively poor, low-status southern Thais. I first visited the Kuan To shrine in 2001, a few years after the festival was initiated there, and paid it further visits in the next three years, in the course of which I covered the whole ritual cycle of the festival in the shrine. I have also interviewed the two principal leaders of the festival. The Vegetarian Festival is a complex nine-day event, preceded by an opening ritual and followed by a concluding one, so that it actually lasts for eleven days. I have described elsewhere in some detail the main festival events in the Phuket shrines as well as the festival’s most conspicuous participants, the spirit mediums (Cohen 2001), and shall not repeat myself here; rather, I shall dwell upon the particularities of the festival in Kuan To. While this may cause some difficulties for readers unacquainted with the festival in Phuket, it makes possible a compact and brief presentation. 70

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Kuan To shrine Kuan To is a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Krabi town, from which the shrine took its name; though it may sound so, it is not the name of a Chinese god. In contrast to the big shrines in Phuket, or even in Krabi province, Kuan To shrine is an unimpressive place: a wooden shack, open at the front, facing a small yard. It is dormant through most of the year, and comes to life principally before and during the eleven days of the festival. The shrine is owned by an elderly Teochiu woman; she and her husband used to work in the rubber plantations in the surrounding region. Unlike the successful Chinese businessmen dominating the associations which maintain the big Phuket shrines, this couple is poor. They live in a rather dilapidated wooden house in front of the shrine. Their daughter and some other members of the family live in a small wooden house adjoining the shrine. The story of the shrine resembles, in its general outline, that of tens of other Hokkien shrines which have in recent years begun to celebrate the Vegetarian Festival; but in its particulars, its story is rather unique. The woman owning the place, 73 years old in 2004, recounts that about twenty years ago, while at work in a rubber plantation, she felt unwell. It turned out that she had been possessed by a deity. While this is a commonly reported occurrence with people who subsequently became spirit mediums (Cohen 2001: 35–41), her case was peculiar. The possessing deity was not, as is usual the case, a Chinese deity, but a Thai one: Kuman Thong, the ‘Golden Child’, the spirit of an unborn child which died in its mother’s womb.2 The god spoke in Thai, rather than in a Chinese dialect; but he ate only ché food. The woman subsequently became a medium of Kuman Thong, and established a small shrine for him at her home. When ministrating in trance to a client, she would speak in Thai, the language of the god (rather than in Chinese). About eight years ago, by the mid-1990s, the woman’s family decided to eat only ché food during the Vegetarian Festival. Three years later, at the end of the 1990s, as a number of people in the surrounding area joined them in eating ché food, they established on the site an am, and started to celebrate the festival. The young ritual leader at the festival gives an account of the circumstances in which the decision to celebrate the festival took place: some people are said to have disbelieved that the woman, who has served as Kuman Thong’s medium, was really entranced during sessions, and suspected that she merely simulated being in trance, but in the course of a confrontation with her, they themselves suddenly fell into trance. The Chinese deity Kong U appeared to one of the people present, and demanded that they celebrate the Vegetarian Festival. They consented, and made Kong U the principal deity of the am. Since the deity spoke in Hokkien, Kuan To became a Hokkien shrine, though the woman owning it is Teochiu by origin.

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The woman reports that the Thai deity who used to possess her, Kuman Thong, did not want an am; he wanted a house of his own. The conflict was apparently eventually settled by the inclusion of an altar to Kuman Thong, featuring several of his images, in the new Chinese shrine. But the owner of the shrine participates in the ritual activities of the festival only marginally, and does not serve as a medium of Kuman Thong during the festival period. Rather, she engages in the sale of ritual supplies to worshippers, such as incense sticks and candles, and the collection of donations from visitors; while her daughter, who serves as the spirit medium of a high Chinese deity, Kuan Peng, in the festival, also serves during the festival period as the cook in the kitchen for ché food on the shrine’s premises. When the Vegetarian Festival was first celebrated in Kuan To, the shrine did not yet have the means to acquire one of its principal requirements: the Tall Lantern, a big lamp with nine wicks-in-oil, which on the eve of the first day of the festival is lit and hung on the Tall Lantern Pole (kotang), in the course of the Invitation ritual.. It symbolizes the arrival and presence of the Nine Emperor Gods at the shrine in the course of the festival (Cohen 2001: 75–80, Ill. 5.9). According to the practice in Hokkien shrines in Phuket, the absence of a Tall Lantern precludes the invitation of the Nine Emperor Gods, the principal deities of the festival, to the shrine (ibid.: 57–60). In 2001, however, when I first visited the Kuan To shrine, these deities have been invited – and symbolized by nine small oil lamps on an altar at the back of the shrine. Only a few years later did the shrine possess the means to acquire a Tall Lantern, and raised it on the kotang at the end of the Invitation ritual. While it improvised during the first years as well as it could, the shrine thus eventually took on the appearance common to fully-fledged Hokkien shrines celebrating the Vegetarian Festival.

The ritual leader In the established shrines in Phuket and elsewhere in southern Thailand, there exists a well-defined ‘division of labour’ between the various participants at the festival. The principal division is between the officiants and the spirit mediums. By dint of their supposed ability to communicate with the gods which possess them, the entranced spirit mediums nominally wield ritual authority over the festival. However, while the principal spirit medium does give some instructions, the ritual activities are in fact conducted by officiants (who are not entranced): the organizers and ritual leaders, such as the huat kua (prayer leader) and the khon chuen piti (the master of the Invitation ritual) (Cohen 2001: 69,79). In the small Kuan To shrine, there is no such clear division of labour. Rather, there is a remarkable and uncommon mixture of officiant and spirit medium roles, performed by a single individual – a young male transvestite (kathoey), here to be called Pong, who was born and grew up in the 72

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neighbourhood of the shrine, but some years ago moved with his family to the northern city of Lampang. Pong, while only in his early twenties, authoritatively performs virtually all leadership roles in the course of the festival, dominating the spirit mediums, and directing the ritual events. Pong is – unlike any other spirit medium in the shrine – a professional medium who, in an entranced state, regularly ministers to clients at his home in Lampang. But he returns every year to Krabi, specifically for the Vegetarian Festival in the Kuan To shrine. Pong is culturally a southern Thai. One of his maternal ancestors was Chinese, but he does not, in a normal state, speak any Chinese – though he appears to speak it when in trance, as spirit mediums are supposed to be able to. Pong is an adept of Chinese folk religion. Unlike spirit mediums in Phuket, who have been socialized into their roles by attending the festival from childhood on, Pong learned about the customs of the Vegetarian Festival from books, and claims to have also been instructed by ajarn (religious teachers) in several shrines in southern Thailand. When the Kuan To shrine started to celebrate the festival, none of the locals appears to have had sufficient knowledge as to how to conduct the various rituals. Pong thus took over the ritual leadership and organized the proceedings, while playing a multiplicity of leading roles in the festival cycle himself. He serves as the master of invitation of the Nine Emperor Gods, as the huat kua, as well as the organizer of the various ritual events. In addition, he is also the leading spirit medium – although another youth serves as the medium of the chief deity of the shrine, Kong U. The multiplicity of his roles forces Pong to switch frequently between a normal state in which he acts as an officiant, and a state of trance, as a spirit medium, even in the course of a single ritual event. Such switches are neither found in the shrines in Phuket nor elsewhere in southern Thailand, where spirit mediums are generally entranced at the beginning of a ritual event and exit the trance after its conclusion; nowhere do any individuals serve concomitantly as officiants as well as spirit mediums. Pong’s conduct would probably be seen as inappropriate in the older, well-established shrines, which maintain a strict division between officiants and spirit mediums. Pong’s conduct is unusual in still another respect. Spirit mediums ordinarily serve as mediums of a particular deity, even if in the course of their ‘career’ they may convert from one god to another – often from a lower to a higher one. Their commitment to a single deity results from the ‘theological’ interpretation of Chinese mediumship: it is believed that the medium makes a kind of contract with the deity, pledging his or her body for the deity’s use, in exchange for the deity’s promise to prolong his or her life (Cohen 2001: 38). However, Pong is not committed to any particular deity; in the course of the festival, and sometimes even during a single evening, Pong may serve as a medium of several deities, each time adopting 73

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the attire and form of conduct characteristic of the particular deity whom he is impersonating (Ills. 1–2). His practice thus disregards the ‘theological’ assumptions on which Chinese mediumship is based. Pong himself takes pride, rather like an actor, in his ability to play the roles of different deities. While most other spirit mediums are duly entering into trance at the start of a ritual event, and exit the trance at its end, in a manner common in other shrines, Pong seems to quickly and effortlessly enter and exit trance, as he switches roles between medium and officiant, or between possession by one deity and another. At least in some instances, however, he apparently merely acts as if he were entranced, while he is not in fact in an altered state of consciousness. Though only in his early twenties, Pong wields complete authority over the festival, the spirit mediums and the public. The spirit mediums zestfully follow his every instruction, whether he acts as an officiant or as a spirit

Figure 4.1 Pong as leading spirit medium, conducting a prayer at the ‘bridge crossing’ ritual (2002). (Photograph: Erik Cohen)

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medium. In comparison, the spirit medium who is entranced by Kong U, the chief deity of the shrine, plays virtually no leadership role. Pong’s authority seems to derive mainly from the participants’ belief that he is knowledgeable about the customs of the festival, and from a certain personal charisma, which is not impaired by the fact that he is a transvestite. It should be noted, indeed, that, though he tends to dress in fancy female clothing on other occasions, in the course of festival events he plays male roles, whether as an officiant or as a spirit medium. The roles of huat kua or khon chuen piti are male roles; and all the deities who possess him during the festival proper are male.3 Only the ‘spirit (vinyan) from Lampang,’ in whose guise Pong conducted a spirit medium session after one of the festival events, is apparently female. Pong’s initiative and general activity stands in contrast to the relative passivity of the elderly woman, the owner of the shrine. Though she gives leeway to Pong to organize and conduct the rituals, and even complies with his demands, there seems to exist some latent tension between her and Pong. When asked about Pong, the woman pointed out that he is not the leader (phu nam) of the festival but only a helper (khon chue), thus implicitly denying his authority. However, without his ‘help’ the locals would probably be hard put to conduct the festival at her shrine by themselves.

The spirit mediums When I first visited the Kuan To shrine in 2001, there were only seven mediums participating in the festival events. Their number increased over the years, and by 2004 approached twenty, among them several women. Up to 2004 the shrine did not attempt to control access to mediumship: everybody could become a medium in the shrine. Pong, however, claims that in the future prospective mediums will have to register in advance – as is indeed customary in the big shrines in Phuket town. The group of mediums in the shrine grew around the members of the owner’s extended family. Her daughter serves as the medium of a high Chinese deity, and as such inaugurates some important ritual events. The owner’s daughter-in-law, who is a southern Thai, serves as the medium of one of the luk sit (ladies-in-waiting) of the goddess Kuan Im, one of the highest deities of the Mahayanist pantheon, who in recent years acquired a huge following in Thailand; she and her luk sit are the most popular deities possessing female mediums during the Vegetarian Festival all over southern Thailand (Hamilton 1999). Though some of the other mediums may have Chinese ancestors, they are identified as ‘Thai’ by the participants in the festival. The great majority of the audience attending the ritual events are also southern Thais. Except for the Chinese owner of the shrine, who sings some Chinese prayers in the course of one of the ritual events, none of the active participants is able 75

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to read or speak Chinese. In the big Phuket shrines, the huat kua must be sufficiently competent in Chinese to be able to read and recite Chinese texts during several festival events. In Kuan To shrine Pong, who officiates as a huat kua, merely murmurs some Chinese words when performing that role. The mediums identify themselves as ‘Buddhists.’ Pong himself was in fact ordained as a monk a few years ago, between two festival periods at which he served as an officiant and medium in the Kuan To shrine. The participants claim that Kuan To is a Buddhist shrine, even though virtually all altars (except the one of Kuman Thong) are devoted to Chinese deities, and there is hardly a Buddha image to be found in the place. Such an identification of Chinese shrines as ‘Buddhist,’ however, is common in southern Thailand. Pong, in fact, offered his own version of the linkage between Kuan To shrine and Buddhism. This linkage, however, is somewhat complicated and indirect: The festival cycle of the Vegetarian Festival includes in many shrines in Phuket a ritual called the ‘Propitiation of the Seven Stars’ (Cohen 2001: 94–95). The Nine Emperor Gods are believed to be stellar deities, inhabiting the seven visible stars of the ‘Big Dipper’ and two additional invisible stars (Cohen 2001: 23; Thongtan 1992: 70). But they are also identified with the ‘seven stars’ whose names are given to the seven days of the week: the Sun, the Moon and the five Planets. In Kuan To, however, the ‘Propitiation of the Seven Stars’ is not celebrated; but its closest equivalent is a ritual, repeated on consequent nights several times during the festival, in which the members of the audience circumambulate seven chairs, on which bowls are placed, each of which is marked by the name of one of the days of the week. As they pass the chairs, the worshippers drop coins into the bowl of the day on which they were born, and receive the blessing of the attendant spirit mediums, who sprinkle them with lustral water and shower them with rice grains. According to Pong, the deities of the seven stars of the days of the week, in addition to two Thai gods Phra Rahu (the god who is believed to devour the moon during an eclipse) and Phra Ket, are in fact bodhisattvas; by implication, since these stars are identified with the Nine Emperor Gods, the latter are also bodhisattvas.4 In Pong’s view, the Vegetarian Festival is thereby endowed with a Buddhist – though more of a Mahayanist than a Theravada – character. All the spirit mediums in Kuan To shrine are inhabitants of the surrounding area. They are predominantly young, 20–30 years of age, and work in low-paying, blue-collar jobs such as motorbike-taxi drivers, mechanics and labourers. Participants stressed that no clerical employees are found among them. They thus derive from the same lower class background as the majority of mediums in Phuket shrines. Unlike most shrines in Phuket, however, Kuan To shrine is not related to a Chinese association (Formoso 1996), and hence does not enjoy the support of wealthy middle 76

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and upper class Sino-Thais living in Krabi. But Kuan To has a relationship with the big Chinese shrine of the Santisuk Foundation, whose members are of a distinctly higher, Sino-Thai class, than the participants in Kuan To’s festival. Its spirit mediums join the big street procession of the Santisuk Foundation in Krabi town in the course of the Vegetarian Festival. But unlike some smaller shrines in Phuket, Kuan To is not a branch of the bigger shrine: Santisuk is a Teochiu shrine, following the Teochiu customs of the Vegetarian Festival, while Kuan To follows the Hokkien version. The spirit mediums in Kuan To differ from those in Phuket in one significant respect: they do not have a group of companions or assistants (pi liang), who will provide the piercing objects which the mediums use in trance, assist them with the piercing and accompany them in the processions (Cohen 2001: 128–132). The groups of pi liang in Phuket often contend with each other, making their respective mediums put on ever more fancy and outrageous piercing objects (ibid.: Ills. 6.53–7.7). The mediums in Kuan To shrine generally pierce themselves with simple long needles, and do not put any fancy objects through mouth and cheeks for street processions or other rituals. Kuan To is little known outside its immediate neighbourhood; its festival audience is almost exclusively local, and visitors or tourists are very rare. The audience is also not large – usually not more than about a hundred people attend even the principal festival events. There therefore seems to be little incentive, or opportunity, for mediums to display those ‘extraordinary’ feats during ritual events, which in Phuket are often perceived as a conspicuous display intended to impress both the domestic and foreign visitors. It may thus come as somewhat of a surprise that some of the feats performed by the mediums in Kuan To, are in fact fiercer, less restrained and appear as potentially more dangerous than the spectacular acts performed by mediums in the major Phuket shrines.

Rituals The festival cycle in Kuan To shrine will here be briefly compared with that in the major Phuket shrines and its distinctive features will be highlighted. It is important to point out that this presentation is not intended to examine the question of whether the rituals are less ‘correctly’ performed in Kuan To than in Phuket. As indicated above, there is no widely-accepted, well-established and detailed ritual program for the celebration of the festival. Pinpradap’s (B.E. 2540 [1997]) booklet on the conduct of the festival in Kathu shrine may be perceived as exemplary by some adherents. Though it has been recently distributed to visitors in the course of the festival in Phuket town, I have no evidence that the participants in the festival of Kuan To, or even its leader, have ever seen it; neither have they shown any concern to follow the Kathu festival customs. Pong, the ritual leader of the festival 77

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in Kuan To shrine, has chosen its rituals from various sources, including personal acquaintance with the festival in a shrine in Satun town; he has apparently also himself invented some of the ritual activities. The structure of the festival cycle in Kuan To resembles, in general, that in the Phuket shrines. The festival is framed, as it is in all major shrines, by two important rituals: the Invitation of the principal deities of the festival, the Nine Emperor Gods, at the eve of the festival, and their Farewell at its conclusion (cf. Cohen 2001: 75–84, 103–105). Though Kuan To is a small shrine, these rituals are performed with considerable pomp and circumstance. In Kuan To the night before the Invitation ritual (i.e. two nights prior to the beginning of the nine days of the festival), a preliminary ritual is performed, in which the spirits of the warriors, which protect the ritual space, are invited, and the space itself is ritually marked off. Though the festival proper is still two days away, several entranced spirit mediums insert stakes with incense sticks and flags into the four corners of the ritual space around the shrine, in a brief ceremony at which they cut their backs with swords. The four flags are in the respective colours of the four cardinal directions of Chinese cosmology; the fifth, a yellow flag – symbolizing the centre – is stuck into an altar at the front of the shrine. This ritual, which, to my knowledge, is not generally performed in Phuket shrines, thus cosmologizes and sanctifies the ritual space (Cohen 2001: 110–111), even as it invites the warriors’ spirits to defend it. Interestingly, though the presence of the warriors’ spirits is thus ensured, they are not feasted in the course of the festival in a special ritual, which is repeated several times during the festival in most Phuket shrines (ibid.: 84–86). Nor is the ritual space ‘de-secreted’ at the close of the festival. The Invitation ritual for the Nine Emperor Gods, which is one of the most important rituals of the festival cycle in every shrine, is in Kuan To performed in a distinct manner. This ritual in Phuket generally starts at about 5 p.m. on the day preceding the first day of the festival proper with the raising of the kotang, the Tall Lantern Pole (Cohen 2001: 75–79, Ill. 5.7). In Kuan To in 2004 this ritual was performed on the morning of that day. It has started with the preparation of a tall bamboo pole which was to serve as the kotang. As in Phuket, the pole was covered by gold paper money and red cloth. A shorter bamboo pole, upon which the Tall Lantern was to be attached at the end of the ritual and hoisted transversely upon the kotang, was similarly adorned. The distinctive feature of the ritual, as observed in 2004, was the conduct of the mediums. While several mediums were entranced, in the course of the ritual, the female medium of Kuan Peng (the daughter of the owner of the shrine), at first conducted the proceedings, but, after determining the point at which the hole for the pole should be dug, she suddenly re-entered the shrine and reappeared in a different outfit as the deity Na Ja. Pong, in 78

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the meantime, became entranced by the drunken Teochiu deity Li Ti Kue (Ill. 2) and – in defiance of the dietary prohibitions of the Vegetarian Festival – drank rice liquor (lao khao) and beer, ostensibly also becoming drunk, like the drunkard deity possessing him. Preparations completed, the kotang was placed in its hole and fastened, but yet without the Tall Lantern. An altar was placed in front of it, and the five flags symbolizing the cardinal directions were placed on it. The Nine Emperor Gods are stellar deities, but believed to arrive for the Vegetarian Festival by sea, as did the Chinese immigrants to Thailand in the past (Cohen 2001: 82). Nevertheless, in most Phuket shrines, the

Figure 4.2 Pong as the medium of the deity Li Ti Kue, the sian mau (drunken god), one of the ‘eight sian,’ high Teochiu deities, drinking lao khao (rice liquor) at the Tall Lantern Pole-raising ritual preceding the Invitation ritual for the Nine Emperor Gods (2004). (Photograph: Erik Cohen)

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Invitation ritual for the gods takes place in the shrines’ yards. In Phuket town, only one shrine, Bang Niao, receives them on the seashore after sundown (ibid.: 81–82). Kuan To shrine receives the gods, in its own distinctive manner, early at night, on the Noppharat beach (adjoining the popular Ao Nang beach) of the Andaman Sea. In a ritual unlike any which I have observed elsewhere, in 2004 Pong and the entranced spirit mediums advanced far into the shallow sea to meet the gods; on returning, Pong triumphantly shouted ‘Kiu Ong (the Nine Emperor Gods) have arrived!’ as he passed, with the ceremonial vessel (krathang thup) in which the gods are supposed to dwell in the course of the festival covered by a yellow cloth, between two rows of kneeling spirit mediums (Ill. 3). Back on the beach, the sandalwood in the vessel was lit; the vessel was taken back in procession to the shrine and placed in the secluded back room, where it stayed until the concluding Farewell ritual of the festival. On return to the shrine, the ninewicks-in-oil of the Tall Lantern were also lit; the lantern was attached to the transverse pole and hoisted onto the kotang, an act symbolizing the arrival of the Nine Emperor Gods. The Farewell ritual, on the night of the ninth and last day of the festival, is celebrated by Kuan To on the banks of the Krabi river in Krabi town, as it is by all the other shrines in Krabi. The krathang thup is taken in procession from the secluded back room and sent by boat far into the sea. The

Figure 4.3 Spirit mediums kneeling as the krathang thup of the Nine Emperor Gods returns to the shore upon the deities’ arrival (Invitation ritual) (2004). (Photograph: Erik Cohen)

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departure of the Nine Emperor Gods is marked by the breaking of the vessel by Pong and the dispersal of its shards into the sea, with all those present on the boat lowering their heads in reverence. The day after the festival the kotang is lowered, cut up and distributed to eager members of the public, who cherish the pieces as auspicious (saksit) objects, bringing good luck to their household (Ill. 4) (cf. Cohen 2001: 105–106). Within the frame of these threshold rituals, marking the start and end of the festival, a variety of ritual events are celebrated in Kuan To shrine. Several major rituals common in Phuket shrines are also found in Kuan To, although they differ in the particulars of their execution: fire walking, bridge crossing, boiling oil bathing (performed in Kuan To with boiling water) and the street procession. There is also a ritual resembling the ‘Propitiation

Figure 4.4 The medium of Kuan Peng distributing branches of the Tall Lantern Pole to adherents upon the conclusion of the festival (2003). (Photograph: Erik Cohen)

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of the Seven Stars’ in Phuket – the above mentioned ritual in which the members of the audience place coins into bowls marked by the names of the days of the week (Sun, Moon and the Five Planets) and receive a blessing from the entranced spirit mediums. Some other ritual events, commonly found in Phuket shrines, like the bladed-ladder climbing, are absent in Kuan To – the latter probably for the prosaic reason that the shrine does not possess a bladed-ladder. Also absent, as mentioned above, is the ritual of feeding the spirits of the warriors protecting the ritual grounds, which is common in Phuket shrines – this despite the elaborate ritual of invitation of these spirits which is performed in Kuan To the night preceding the Invitation ritual. But, while these rituals are absent in Kuan To, several others, presently not found in Phuket, are performed at the shrine. It is impossible, and unnecessary for present purposes, to detail all the peculiarities of the festival program in Kuan To shrine. I shall restrict myself to those events which illustrate some of the more general distinguishing traits of the conduct of the festival in Kuan To. In this respect, the street procession of Kuan To is of particular interest. In Phuket town, smaller shrines tend to join the processions of bigger ones, from which they had branched-off in the past (cf. Formoso 1996). But in those cases, both the bigger and the smaller ones are Hokkien shrines. However, in Krabi, the street procession of Kuan To, which follows the Hokkien tradition of celebrating the festival, joins that of the shrine of the Chinese Santisuk Foundation in which the festival, including its street procession, is conducted in the Teochiu tradition. The group of entranced spirit mediums of Kuan To, attired in the garbs of the respective deities possessing them, and pierced with long needles through the mouth and cheek, constitute a distinct group in the procession, as they pass through town blessing street altars. In contrast, all the participants of the Teochiu shrine are dressed in white, and only two are entranced, but even these do not wear any piercing objects. This pair alone performs all the blessing of the households and businesses throughout the town and its nearby surroundings, by means of a forked branch with a red stamp on top. The lightly pierced mediums of Kuan To are not a particularly conspicuous sight and elicit little public attention in Krabi town. In that respect their procession differs sharply from the street processions of the big Phuket shrines, in which large numbers of mediums, spiked-up with different and often bizarre objects (Cohen 2001, Ills. 6.53–7.6), constitute the principal attraction of the festival for thousands of locals, and domestic and foreign tourists, lining the streets of Phuket town. The street procession in Krabi town of the older and bigger Nua Klong Hokkien shrine features more conspicuous piercing objects worn by the spirit mediums, and raises more public attention than that of the Kuan To shrine. The relative restraint shown by the Kuan To mediums in the use of piercing objects in their public appearance in Krabi town, contrasts markedly with the frenzied display of 82

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their skills in festival events in the yard of the shrine, in the presence of a small local audience. Outstanding among them are two events not found in Phuket shrines, the glass shards-crossing ritual and the tongue-cutting ritual. In the first of these events, sharp shards of broken bottles are placed on a frame in the shrine’s yard. Entranced spirit mediums walk over the shards, some performing spectacular feats: they sit or lie on the shards (Ill. 5), are dragged over them, or pick up shards and smear their face with them. In 2003 a novel feature was added to the event: spirit was poured and lit on the frame, and the mediums danced over the shards through the flames (Ill. 6). While apparently in frenzy and acting with total abandon, the mediums hardly hurt themselves – except for a few superficial cuts. The other of these events particular to the Kuan To shrine is the tonguecutting ritual, apparently one of Pong’s inventions: I have observed it twice, in 2001 and in 2003. The context in which the ritual was performed was different in each year: In 2001 it followed the ritual of the preparation of the bridge (for the bridge-crossing ritual) and of a hot oil cauldron (to be used in healing members of the public by spirit mediums). In 2003 it was performed right after the ritual of crossing glass shards. Spirit mediums sat in a circle or faced each other in pairs, and on the command of one of them started in a frenzy cutting their tongues with swords or sharp knives, until commanded to stop. In 2003 this ritual was followed by one or two mediums breaking empty beer bottles on their forehead.

Figure 4.5 Spirit medium being dragged over glass shards (2002). (Photograph: Erik Cohen)

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Figure 4.6 Spirit medium dancing over fire lit on glass shards (2003). (Photograph: Erik Cohen)

These two events are idiomatic for the manner the festival is conducted in Kuan To shrine; while not a spectacle for the general public, they are performed on the shrine’s premises in a frenzy rarely matched – or permitted – in the more established shrines in Phuket.

Conclusion The remarkable spread of the Vegetarian Festival in southern Thailand in recent years was here examined in a case study of its adoption in the small peripheral Kuan To shrine on the outskirts of Krabi town. Though the shrine is little known even in its own town, and little exposed to the contemporary forces of globalization and its attendant processes of glocalization and hybridization, the process of the adoption of the 84

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Vegetarian Festival manifested some remarkably ‘post-modern’ disjunctions: Kuan To was founded as a Hokkien shrine by a Teochiu woman who had been the medium of a Thai deity, while its ritual program was introduced by a southern Thai ‘religious entrepreneur’, with only tenuous links to a Chinese ancestry, who serves as a professional Chinese spirit medium, though he identifies himself as a Buddhist and has even been ordained as a Theravada monk. The story of how a séance involving the medium of the Thai deity Kuman Thong was transformed into a collective possession by the Hokkien deity Kong U, is iconic of the process of the growing adoption of Chinese religious customs by southern Thais, who lack Chinese ancestral or cultural links. The Teochiu Chinese woman has been the medium not of a Chinese, but of a Thai deity; however, the attendant Thais at the séance were possessed by a Chinese deity – and the woman was virtually forced to turn her place into a Chinese shrine in which the Vegetarian Festival became celebrated in the Hokkien tradition. The woman’s Teochiu origins may, however, have facilitated the exceptional link existing between the small Hokkien shrine and the big Teochiu shrine of the Krabi Santisuk Foundation. In Phuket such links between smaller and bigger shrines exist only between shrines related by lineage, which celebrate the festival in the Hokkien tradition. It should be noted that, unlike in Phuket, in Kuan To there exist no significant ethnic links between the participants in the festival, and even its initiators, to Hokkien ethnic roots. Hence, the founders also lacked the necessary knowledge to perform the festival. This was provided by the young ‘religious entrepreneur’, who, though born in the neighbourhood, now lives in a northern city and arrives in Kuan To yearly merely to conduct the festival. Unconstrained by social controls exercised by individuals immersed in the Hokkien tradition, the young leader is able to invent rituals (claiming that they are based on old traditions) and conduct himself in a manner which is sharply at variance with the ‘master narrative’ regarding the ‘theological’ basis of Chinese spirit mediumship, which is generally accepted in Phuket (and other southern Thai) Chinese shrines. His initiatives endow the festival in Kuan To with its distinctive character: its rituals tend to be innovative and performed with extreme ferociousness, while their performance is not oriented towards a public of outsider visitors – like it is in the major Phuket shrines – but rather to a local audience of adherents. The fervour with which the spirit mediums perform their acts can be ascribed to the newness the experience has for them – young, new mediums tend generally to act with greater intensity while entranced than older, more experienced ones. The example of this particular ‘religious entrepreneur’ indicates the importance of individual leadership for the formation of the process in which the Vegetarian Festival, or for that matter any other Chinese customs, spreads into the local population, and for the particular version in which such a custom becomes locally adopted. 85

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Like in other southern Thai localities, in Kuan To growing numbers of local Thais, without previous links to Chinese culture, take part in the Vegetarian Festival as spirit mediums or as members of the audience. This adoption of a Chinese festival, however, should not be interpreted as a ‘conversion’ of Thais to Chinese folk religion: it did not affect their adherence to Buddhism. Rather, it appears more correct to say that the rituals of the festival, and the Chinese gods possessing the mediums, are appropriated and incorporated into the non-Buddhist stratum of Thai folk religion, a heterogeneous assemblage of deities (thewada) and spirits (phi), the belief in whose potency for bringing good luck to the individual or, contrariwise, hurting him, is widespread throughout Thai society. The adoption by ethnic Thais of the Vegetarian Festival could thus be looked upon as an instance of ‘sinization’ of Thai folk religion. But as the festival spreads into the periphery of the Chinese social and cultural strongholds, the festival is ever less marked as ‘Chinese’, and becomes a local custom. In a manner resembling the loss of the ethnic labelling of locally adopted foreign foods, clothing or sports, the Vegetarian Festival is gradually losing its distinct ethnic identity. This is most noticeable in the spread of the custom of eating ché during the festival period by Thais who otherwise have no attachment or interest in Chinese folk religion, and do not take part in the rituals in Chinese shrines. But my impression is that even the active participants in the festival in Kuan To care little about the Chinese background of the festival or of the gods who possess the spirit mediums. Indeed, while the arrival of the Nine Emperor Gods by sea may symbolize to Chinese immigrants and their progeny their own arrival to their adopted country (Cohen 2001: 82), for indigenous southern Thais of Kuan To, the ritual of receiving the gods on the beach of Noppharat could hardly have any personal significance – even if they might deeply respect the arriving deities. A comparison of the conduct of the Vegetarian Festival in the peripheral shrine of Kuan To with its celebration in the recently established Thep Na Cha shrine in the popular tourist centre of Hat Yai (Maud 2005) brings out some striking contrasts in the manner in which the festival, in its Hokkien version, spreads in different places in southern Thailand. As we have seen, in Kuan To the festival has been spontaneously adopted by a local group of southern Thais who established a shrine which had no lineage links to an older Hokkien shrine; its ritual leader was of local origin (though presently living elsewhere); the festival is primarily oriented to a local audience; it is not commercialized and its Chinese origins are not much emphasized. In contrast, the shrine of Thep Na Cha, and its festival, have been implanted in Hat Yai by an outsider. According to Maud (2005: 156), ‘the shrine owner and head spirit medium . . . is originally from Phuket, then moved location to Nakhon Si Thammarat, where he continues to run a shrine

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and where he celebrated the Vegetarian Festival for several years. He moved to Hat Yai, he said, because of the opportunities for making connections with Malaysian and Singaporean devotees were much greater there’. The festival is thus expressly oriented to an outside audience, particularly visitors from the Chinese diasporic communities from the other side of the border. Through its connection to Phuket the Thep Na Cha festival is ‘in an indirect lineage to south-eastern China’ (ibid.: 152), where the festival is believed to have originated (Cohen 2001: 47–53). According to Maud, in the year 2001, the ‘most dramatic component’ of the festival programme in the Thep Na Cha shrine was a ‘theatrical procession’ which included ‘spectacularly pierced mediums’ (ibid.: 156–157). Accompanied by assistants who collected donations, the procession halted in front of a department store. There the chief medium conducted what Maud terms a ‘show’ (ibid.: 158), in the course of which the audience was encouraged to take photos of the pierced mediums. As they received blessings and ‘magical items’ from the chief medium, ‘Some Malaysian and Singapore tourists reached for their wallets to make donations’ (ibid.: 158). The festival thus seeks to highlight what appears to be authentic Chinese customs, to attract diasporic Chinese devotees who are precluded in their own countries from celebrating the festival in this manner. It emerges from Maud’s description that, in contrast to Kuan To, the festival in Thep Na Cha is highly commercialized, intended in the first place to extract large donations from foreign visitors. The Vegetarian Festival thus seems to be spreading in southern Thailand in two contrasting modes: on the one hand, spontaneously in the Thai population, a process in which its Chinese origins are gradually less emphasized; and on the other hand it is implanted into urban centres as an attraction for Diasporic Chinese visitors, a process in which its ‘Chineseness’ is spectacularized.

Notes 1 The Hokkien are immigrants from Fukien province in China, speaking a distinctive dialect and following their own religious practices; the latter have been extensively described by the nineteenth-century researcher de Groot (1969 [1910]) whose work served as a basis of comparison for my study of the festival in Phuket. The Hokkien in southern Thailand celebrate the Vegetarian Festival in a most conspicuous fashion in their shrines; the Teochiu Chinese community also celebrates it, but in a more subdued manner. 2 According to legend, Kuman Thong, the ‘golden child . . . is created from the foetus torn from a murdered pregnant woman. Mixed with special herbs, the foetus is then roasted while magical incantations are chanted until it turns “gold” in color’ (Wong 2004: 138n). 3 Transvestite spirit mediums in Phuket shrines are normally possessed by female deities, particularly by Kuan Im (Cohen 2001, Ill. 5.43). 4 In the Mahayana version of the myth of the Nine Emperor Gods, they are conceived as seven Buddhas and two bodhisattvas (Cohen 2001: 23). In a recent

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article Sukphisit (2005) renders another version of the relationship between Buddhism and the Vegetarian Festival, apparently collected in Bangkok: ‘Some say that the festival marks a period when the Lord Buddha as a bodhisattva [took] the form of the goddess Mae Kuan Im and descended to earth to allow people to worship him at Chinese temples and shrines. During that period the bodhisattva ate no meat. Believers feel that it is an honour to also do without meat during that period’.

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5 MATERIALIZING MERIT

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The symbolic economy of religious monuments and tourist-pilgrimage in contemporary Thailand Marc Askew

Introduction: monumental buddhism and tourism – big merit or ‘bad faith’? Early in the morning of 21 March 2006, Bangkok’s revered Brahma image (the Thao Maha Phrom) in the city’s famed Erawan Shrine was smashed to pieces by a mentally disturbed Muslim man. Reactions to this incident, as reported by the Thai news media, exposed the many interacting levels of the symbolic economy of sacred monuments in contemporary Thailand and its neighbouring region. Within minutes of the event, the culprit was beaten to death by a group of angry onlookers and street cleaners, highlighting the immediate popular outrage unleashed by the desecration of an image widely deemed to be possessed of supernatural potency. Also highlighted by press interviews were the livelihoods of some fifty flower and food vendors who depended on the shrine for their income. As with all religious shrines for centuries, this one, located at a busy city intersection, fulfilled a pragmatic business function. The Erawan Shrine had spawned a durable micro-economy of small traders since it had been founded in 1956 in an effort to ward off bad luck during the construction of the adjacent Erawan Hotel (Askew 2003). But just as prominent in reportage were the responses of officials, extending to the highest level of Thailand’s Prime Minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, who declared that the task of restoring the Thao Maha Phrom image was of national priority. This was a delicate period for Thaksin: with his popularity – and that of his ruling Thai Rak Thai (Thais Love Thais) Party – waning in the national capital, Thaksin needed to affirm his belief in the Erawan image’s potency and its importance to the well being of the people in order to bolster his leadership image. Yet the image was important not only to Thai Buddhists, but to a broader regional population of worshippers. Bangkok’s Thao Maha Phrom has attracted considerable patronage among Chinese visitors from Hong Kong, Japan, 89

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Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan who visit the image to beseech blessings, good health, good luck and winning lottery numbers. Dubbed by Malaysian and Singaporean Chinese under the mistaken name of the ‘Four-faced Buddha’, the Brahma image and its shrine are one of numerous sites in Thailand deemed by them to be especially potent, and some visitors travel to Thailand with the specific object of asking favours of this image or thanking it for good luck received. The critical international significance of the image was highlighted by the Deputy Prime Minister, who intoned that the shrine was widely revered not only by Thai people but those from neighbouring countries in the region: ‘Many countries have contacted us to express their sorrow over the incident. That’s why we need to rebuild the statue as quickly as possible’ (Anjira 2006; Chatrarat 2006). The substantial tourist income represented by these countryies’ tourists was tactfully camouflaged in this statement. Just two months later a new image (of metal, not plaster, as originally) was installed in an atmosphere of general jubilation marked by a hybrid inauguration ritual featuring Brahmin priests and Chinese lion dancers. Thaksin (now caretaker Prime Minister since the invalidation of the April national election) was prominent in an audience of over one thousand, which included many elderly Thai people wearing the customary white robes of Brahmin worshippers, despite their predominantly Theravada Buddhist faith. Journalists reported that many in the gathering jotted down the license plate number of the car carrying the statue, hoping for a winning number in the next lottery draw (Bangkok Post, 21 May 2006). The proliferation of large and otherwise distinctive monuments and monument complexes of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas represents one of the most conspicuous phenomena in Thailand’s ever-expanding spectacular landscape, a landscape that incorporates sites for visitation, pilgrimage and festivals. Over the past few decades the county’s stock of older shrines and monuments has been supplemented by new sites, while older temple and shrine organizations continually re-construct or build new statuary for veneration, which are often the focus of annual festivals. This process of monumental iconic production reflects both long-established and more recent trends in the Asian region generally. ‘Big Buddhas’ are, of course, not new to Asia, as witnessed in the giant stone-carved standing Buddhas of Afghanistan’s Bamiyan valley, or the carved and metal-cast ‘Daibutsu’ of Japan. But perhaps what is most notably different about such patterns in the contemporary age is the proliferation of monumental sites, the diffuse character of sponsors (beyond a formerly restricted ruling political elite), and the incorporation of monuments as key attractions in mass tourism.1 In the case of Thailand, an academic literature has emerged to interpret this efflorescence of prosperity cults, the increasing sinification of Thai Buddhism, the state-promotion of monumental icons of national cultural identity and ‘heritage’ (moradok), together with other phenomena such as 90

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the expansion and transformation of spirit mediumship (see e.g. Jackson 1999; Morris 2000; Tanabe and Keyes 2002). But for Thailand and the region generally, somewhat less attention has been given to the expansion of the monumental/spectacular landscape and what might be portrayed as the symbolic economy that drives it (for a pioneering exception, see Cohen 2001). What are the connections between this landscape transformation and the forces that have been generally deemed as fundamental in socioreligious change generally? Is this construction of monuments and the promotion of shrines and associated festivals to be understood by means of the familiar array of western theorists’ models connecting the processes of late capitalist modernity with consumption, marketing and display? – Veblen’s ‘Conspicuous Consumption’, Dubord’s ‘Society of the Spectacle’, or Baudrillard’s depiction of consumer capitalism as an explosion of ‘simulacra’? I suggest not, even though such theories have been mobilized in some recent portrayals of the cultural predicament of contemporary Christianity in western society (see e.g. Miller 2004). Marx’s famous pronouncement that under capitalism. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned’ finds its inversion in Asia, where under a capitalist-driven money economy the opportunities for making and expressing merit expand and condense into ever-multiplying monuments and symbols, which become vehicles for the endless accumulation of merit. It is easy enough to view elements of Asia’s monumental landscape – such as the proliferation of Buddhist-Taoist theme parks throughout East Asia – as a clear expression of unadulterated profit-seeking and spectacle-driven consumerism. This is the view of the outspoken Marxist sociologist Slavoj Zizek, who argues with reference to East Asia and its Disney-style religious theme parks that ‘If Max Weber were alive today, he would definitely write a second, supplementary, volume to his Protestant Ethic, entitled The Taoist Ethic and the Spirit of Global Capitalism’ (Zizek 2001). But such a mono-dimensional and reductionist view misses the point of the spiritual-material nexus in Asia and the persisting embrace of the ‘magical’ in Asian society, as Max Weber himself was careful to point out (Weber 1970). A deep and persisting belief in merit-accumulation and the efficacy of merit transference, together with the complementary dispositions to materialize merit and venerate sacred objects, is central to popular and scripturally-supported Buddhist belief systems, and this has been so from the earliest times. Indeed the popularisation of Buddhism beyond a restricted circle of ascetic monks would have been impossible without them.2 As John Kieschnick states in his study of Buddhism and its impact on Chinese material culture (and a point which equally applies to the ‘materiality’ of Thai beliefs): A small group of erudite monks within the Buddhist tradition has championed the idea that the highest spiritual goals can be pursued 91

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only in isolation from the material world. But we need not adopt this position. Nor did most Buddhists ever adopt a radical rejection of the material world. For most, in China as elsewhere, objects render the sacred tangible and proximate. Things allow one to communicate with deities and sense their presence. Objects are often the most expressive means for conveying religious ideas and sentiments. In short, material culture is as much a part of religion as language, thought, or ritual. (Kieschnick 2003: 23) It might, then, be suggested that what we see in the contemporary efflorescence of gigantic monuments and other sacred sites is something that is not fundamentally new in the Asian religious world, but rather an acceleration and elaboration of the inherent connections between the ideology of meritmaking and boon-seeking and the religiously-sanctioned imperative to materialize these in structures and symbols.3 The construction of religious sites, their marketing and patronage, can be depicted as a ‘symbolic economy’ surrounding religious sites. It is a system driven by a popular (and scripturally-legitimized) imperative to focus devotion, merit-making and boon-seeking on sacred objects, and a concomitant imperative among institutions and enterprises to reproduce continually material symbols that in turn require financial offerings to permit maintenance and further reproduction through the elaboration and expansion of ritual. The symbolic economy in contemporary Asia is a reticulating accumulation process that spawns new monuments and revives old sites, generating an ever-proliferating spectacular landscape that perpetuates competition for visitation, income and fame. Pierre Bourdieu has argued that ‘religious enterprises’ are characterized by exchange practices involving ambiguous dual meanings, the economic and the religious. It is an ambiguity that he summarizes as ‘the economy of the offering, in which exchange is transfigured into self-sacrifice to a sort of transcendental entity’ (Bourdieu 1998: 114). Bourdieu argues that the religious enterprise ‘is an enterprise with an economic dimension which cannot admit to so being and which functions in a sort of permanent negation of its economic dimension’. This duality, he proposes, is inherent to a religious habitus (or set of dispositions) which ‘through a genius of euphemism’ (expressed in a language that transmutes economic gain into ‘gifts’ and ‘offerings’) permits the simultaneous accumulation of economic and religious ‘profit’ (Bourdieu 1998: 118). In this discussion I use ‘symbolic economy’ drawing on Bourdieu’s employment of this expression, as a summary term for the ‘economy of symbolic goods’ involving exchanges that link people to varieties of religious enterprises, exchanges that find their materialization in potent monumental symbols that act as vehicles for ever-more merit-accumulation. But I am less drawn to Bourdieu’s Eurocentric and typically French anti-clerical 92

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implication – note that he was focusing on the French Catholic Church – that this process embodies a form of ‘bad faith’ on the part of believers, and conscious duplicity on the part of religious specialists. The economic metaphor has been applied to popular understandings of Buddhist merit-making practices, where, as Gombrich notes of the Theravada Buddhist laity, ‘merit was a kind of spiritual cash’, a ‘medium of exchange’ whereby a better life (short of the ultimate goal of nirvana that was available to other-worldly monks) might be achieved in future incarnations through worthy actions (1988: 125). He goes on, however, to point out a distinctive feature of this ‘economy’: ‘real economics is a zero-sum game, so that within the system gains are equal to losses, whereas in Buddhist spiritual economics you gain by giving away’ (1988: 126). As Kieschnick notes above, there are those in the Buddhist world who have denounced the material expressions of religious practice. In Thailand there has been growing concern about unscrupulous monks exploiting the merit-seeking dispositions of the laity, expressed in the term ‘Phutthaphanit’ (Business Buddhism). But the worldly and otherworldly dimensions of the Buddhist quest for release from suffering have always been in tension; and if these tensions became more obvious in Thailand during the last few decades (before and after the 1997 crisis), it has been equally apparent that prosperity was viewed by ordinary people as an opportunity to enhance merit by giving more money away and building even bigger monuments to their faith. This impulse has meshed with an ever expanding regional and global flow of money, pilgrim-tourists, images and merit-seeking. Among Mahayana Buddhists the supreme example of this transnational merit-making impulse is the ‘Maitraya Project’, a Taiwanesebased initiative – promoted by a Tibetan monk – aiming to construct (with the aid of modern engineering) the largest Buddha image in the world at Bodhgaya, India (Bartholomew 2001; Reina 2000: Zablocki 2005). Numerous other projects have blossomed at a regional level throughout South-East Asia, such as the scheme – funded by Singaporeans, Malaysians and Thais – to construct an ever-more elaborate Theravada-Mahayana-Taoist monument complex around a formerly remote cave temple near Pedang Besar on the Thailand – Malaysian border (discussed later in this paper). In contemporary Thailand and elsewhere in Asia, the symbolic economy embodied in religious monument production and veneration might be viewed at one level in supply-and-demand marketing terms as the production and marketing of objects and places for forms of ‘consumption’ such as mass tourism, a process widely theorized by western urbanists and geographers in terms of ‘commodification’, a view expressed in the phrase ‘the selling of places.’ But for Thailand and the Asian region in general, the significance of the phenomenon is not adequately explained or understood only in terms of raw capitalist, or profit-making, imperatives surrounding the fabrication of spectacles such as modern theme parks or their ‘consumption’ (Urry 1995; Zukin 1991). Within Theravada and Mahayana 93

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Buddhist traditions (and the other world religions) religious sites and monumental statues, whether new or old, are objects with a special kind of valency: they are images and sites widely acknowledged as being endowed with spiritual and magical agency (Davis 1998). Their valency is founded on a widely shared and long-standing cultural disposition towards sacralizing sites and spaces (see e.g. Askew 2003). That being said, we should acknowledge that the contemporary trend towards constructing large religious monuments is distinguished from earlier monument building by being marked by a high level of competition and featurism. The creation of many of these religious landmarks is closely connected to the production of landscapes for tourism and the competition between places for visitation and income. Given the predominant concerns of tourism scholars with western modes of global travel, it is not surprising that a distinctive mode of Asian travel behaviour, shaped by dispositions towards visiting sacred and otherwise potent sites, has not been adequately acknowledged (though for an exception, see Graburn 1983). In this paper I explore the symbolic economy of religious sites in the context of Chinese-Malaysian and Singaporean tourist visitation in Thailand’s southern border region. In an earlier study, this author and Erik Cohen characterised the intensive ‘border tourism’ in the Deep South as a complex of engagements clustering around three core activities comprising ‘consumption’ (shopping and eating), ‘catharsis’ (engagement with prostitution) and ‘blessing’ (shrine/monument visitation) (Askew and Cohen 2004). In a later paper I have elaborated on sex-oriented tourism and pilgrimage as complementary and gendered processes of accessing potency and intimacy among the Nanyang Chinese diaspora (Askew 2006). Here I address more closely the landscape of shrines and monuments. I do so with both a general and more specific aim in mind. At a broad level I highlight the significance of shrine/monument visitation as a distinctive element in an ensemble of Chinese (and more broadly ‘East-Asian’) tourist practices which has provided one important impetus to the continuing production of Thailand’s increasingly spectacular religious landscape: it is a landscape that is nurtured and reproduced by two complementary imperatives – religious ‘consumers’ seek to accumulate potent blessings, and the enterprises that produce and publicize these sites/images seek to yield material profit and income for further expansion. This process reflects the acceleration of general trends towards monumentalism in Thailand and Asia, where prosperity has helped generate a multi-faceted religious industry that feeds a quest to accumulate merit and fortune. In Thailand the process engages the energies of religious foundations, local communities, municipalities, provincial authorities and state tourist agencies. But there is also, I argue, a particular regional dynamic underlying the production of the monumental religious landscape of the Deep South: it is a process that signifies the emergence of a diasporic Nanyang-Chinese culture/leisure hinterland that interacts 94

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dynamically with changing Thai Buddhist religio-spatial practices. This is, to an extent, an elaboration and intensification of long-standing cross-border contacts among Chinese traders and families, but it has been transmuted by the intensification of leisure-related travel patterns that have accompanied the heightened marketing of festivals and sites as spectacles (see, e.g. Horstmann 2002: 22–26). Thailand’s southern borderland is a diverse ethno-religious space. Malay Muslims predominate in the provinces of Narathiwat, Pattani and Yala and the Sino-Thai and ethnic Thai are disproportionately concentrated in the urban centres. The borderland is a volatile space that has been periodically wracked by instability and violence, including Communist insurgency and Muslim Malay separatism, although this had not prevented the emergence, from the 1970s, of a tourist economy based on shopping, sex-orientated tourism and shrine visitation. More recently, and especially from 2004, a new outbreak of insurgency-led violence has seriously disrupted the flow of tourist visitation that surged from the 1990s and peaked in 2001, thereafter faltering in the wake of an increasing number of bombings. Despite this recent decline in tourist visitation to the sites of the sub-region, the existing infrastructure and the persistence of key shrine-related events highlight the continuing importance of the borderland as a spectacular, even if vulnerable, space.

Tourism and sites of potency in Thailand’s Deep South In summarizing the motivations and experiences of Malaysian visitors to Thailand’s southern border provinces, one Sino-Malaysian mini-bus driver offered the pithy explanation: ‘If you want happy, you go Thailand.’ Mr Lee runs a small mini-bus business from his home town in Kedah State, and he regularly brings local housewives on one-day trips, which combine shopping with visits to temples and shrines. On this day, the first destination was the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin statue (‘Kuan Im’ in Thai pronunciation), erected on the hilly municipal parkland overlooking the eastern edge of the city of Hat Yai (see Figures 5.2 and 5.3). As Mr Lee discussed his business with me, his middle-aged passengers hastened to buy incense before mounting the pavilion to pay homage to the white jade statue of the Chinese goddess. Hat Yai’s Kuan Yin statue is just one of a number of monumental religious sites and shrines that have been erected in Thailand’s Deep South during the 1990s. These sites, which also attract Thai domestic tourists, are key destinations for the thousands of Malaysian and Singaporean visitors who until recently flowed into southern Thailand, particularly on weekends and during holiday periods (see Figure 5.1 below). Representatives of tourist business associations in Hat Yai concede that shrine visits generate relatively low average expenditure among tourists, an expenditure they estimate at roughly ten per cent of direct tourist per capita spending. But, significantly, they emphasize that religious shrine and monument visitation are a 95

Figure 5.1 Thailand’s southern borderland and main pilgrim-tourist sites.

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core ingredient in cross-border tourists’ itineraries, as they are for Thai domestic tourists. Further, such activities help to extend visitor’s stays in the province, ensuring that they spend more on accommodation, food and shopping (Author’s interview with Kiattipong Sirithanawongsakul, tour company owner and committee member, Songkhla Chamber of Commerce, 25 January, 2003; and Songchai Mungprasithichai, President, Songkhla Tourist Guide Association, 28 January, 2003). The taken-for-granted nature of such visitation preferences is highlighted in a bilingual brochure (Thai and English) produced by the southern office of the Tourism Authority of Thailand. It presents sample tour programs that feature shrine/temple/ monument visits in seven of nine sample tours, with the brief injunction to ‘pay homage to’ the images. This injunction, translated from Thai (wai phra) to English language for the benefit of Malaysian and Singaporean visitors, assumes that all readers understand the significance of such a practice (TAT Southern Office, n.d.). Festivals and rituals connected with shrines and temples have received considerable official and private promotion in the past decade in the towns of the Deep South, underlining the critical significance of these spectacles to the rhythm of tourist visitation and the regional economy. Over a million Malaysians and over 650,000 Singaporeans visited Thailand in the year 2000: of these, eight out of every ten Malaysians entered Thailand via the border crossing points of three Thai provinces of Songkhla, Yala and Narathiwat, while 22 per cent of all Singaporean tourists entered via the Lower South (TAT 2000: 23). In 2001 in the province of Songkhla, where many of the sites are located, this tourist-oriented economy based largely on Malaysian-Singaporan tourists brought an estimated annual income of 19 billion baht, particularly to Songkhla’s main commercial and tourist city of Hat Yai (Bangkok Bank 1990; Bangkok Post 4 January, 2001). Estimations of per capita expenditure of tourists mask a wide variation in the levels at which Malaysians and Singaporeans engage with religious sites and practitioners in the borderland. Notably, Malay Muslims are not conspicuous in this phenomenon of shrine and sacred site promotion and visitation. Although the Deep South does feature many mosques (Songkhla’s Muslims represent some 30 per cent of the province’s population, while in Pattani Province, Muslims are a dominant majority of over 70 per cent), they are not particularly exceptional to Malays, except for the old Kru-Ze mosque of Pattani which is associated with the history of the former Malay sultanate of that name that once spanned three of the border provinces and encompassed parts of Kelantan. The number of Malays entering Thailand’s Deep South on package coach tours has increased markedly from the mid-1990s, but the predominantly family-based groups on these tours tend to visit Hat Yai for shopping expeditions. Malay men, singly or in groups, are conspicuous among the visitors indulging in the sex-entertainment world of the border towns, together with Sino-Malaysians. 97

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Figure 5.2 Malaysian tourists visiting Hat Yai’s Kuan Yin complex. (Photograph: M. Askew)

Shrine visitors express dispositions and feelings in various terms, but however articulated, they all focus on the goals of gaining blessing, good fortune, safety and good health through paying respect to sacred and otherwise spectacular images. For example, Thai shrine visitors express the motivations and benefits in terms of the ‘merit’ (bun) they seek for another lifetime, and the comfort (khwansabai chai) that they gain from the ritual of offering (however mechanical and peremptory this may appear to a western observer). Visiting temples and sites to show worshipful respect (bucha, nap theu) to images through obeisance (wai phra) is a customary part of Thai travel practice (bai thieo). Such dispositions are congruent with long-held Chinese practices and beliefs connected with showing respect to spirits (bai shen), seeking help from deities (qin shen) and accumulating merit ( ji de).4 The variety of religious sites in Thailand’s Deep South easily accommodates Chinese religious culture; however Chinese Malaysians and Singaporeans are attracted not only to the more purely Chinese shrines and monuments, but also to Thai temples and monuments, whose particular potency they recognize. Many are already familiar with the hybrid Brahmin-Buddhist symbolism of Thai Buddhism since Thai temples and monks have been present in Penang and Singapore since at least the 1930s, and longer in the case of the old settlements of Thai communities in Kedah, Kelantan, Perak, Perlis and Ipoh (see e.g. McDougall 1956: 45–50). But 98

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Figure 5.3 The Kuan Yin Statue atop its pavillion overlooking Hat Yai. (Photograph: M. Askew)

while Thai Theravada Buddhism has been exported to these countries, this is not a substitute for visiting Thailand, which is seen as an ancient place of power.5 The juxtaposition of different, but complementary religious sites in the Deep South accommodates the essentially syncretic nature of Chinese religious beliefs, which combine Buddhism and Taoism and a reverence for objects assigned sanctity through association with legend and miracles. Further, this accommodation of syncretic Nanyang Chinese religious impulses in the Deep South is extended and crystallized in certain places where the sacred objects and deities associated with Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism and Taoism are all concentrated in the same site. The religious culture of these visitors is not only a continuation of older forms of Chinese folk religion common in the region, since reform and layorientated Buddhist movements with a strong emphasis on meditation and Dharma study have also had an influence on the dispositions and practices of some groups among the shrine and temple visitors (see e.g. Clammer 1993). Malaysian and Singaporean visitors to Thailand’s southern borderland engage with religious sites at various levels and they encounter these sites with a range of dispositions. Many of these visitors visit the shrines, temples and monuments as part of a package tour or one-day tour program, often in family groups transported in tour coaches booked from their own countries. Others book the sight-seeing tours in smaller groups carried by mini-buses hired for this purpose in Hat Yai, or from Malaysian towns. Others travel as devotees of particular shrines or sanctuaries, or come in 99

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special tour groups who attend at temples for meditation practices. And then there are those individuals who have connections as devotees (luksit) with particular monks, those with links to sacred images that have formerly granted them good fortune or health, or those who have special bonds with shamans who often specialize in sacred tattoos that offer protection from particular hazards. It might be deemed by religious purists as highly questionable to label as ‘pilgrims’ the thousands of Sino-Malaysians and Singaporeans who visit the shrines, religious monuments and temple festivals of Thailand’s Deep South since, after all, for the greater number of these people, attendance at these sites represents only one of a cluster of activities that include shopping and eating at restaurants. These visits, however, are an indispensable activity to them. Prayers at shrines and monuments, although relatively brief, are taken seriously, even if for western observers these devotional routines may appear highly perfunctory. Scholars have suggested that there has been an increasing convergence between travel for devotional purposes and vacationing travel that incorporates religious activity (see e.g. Cohen 1992; Graburn 1983; Reader 1987; Tomasi 2002; Turner 1973), and contemporary Asian pilgrimage might be viewed in this broad framework. In this context it is arguably hazardous to posit an ideal ‘true’ form of the pilgrim and pilgrimage practice against which more apparently ‘touristic’ forms can be dismissed as simply profane, superficial and without religious meaning. In the realm of travel experience there is a broad and indeterminate continuum between contrition and consumption as manifested in intention and behaviour, although some argue that there are clear dividing lines between the ‘pilgrim’ and the ‘tourist’. In an age of mass tourism the practice of classifying and differentiating ‘tourists’ from ‘religious tourists’ continues to absorb scholars of travel behaviour (Rinschede 1992). In the context of Asian popular religion, – both traditional and contemporary – the task of distinguishing ‘the sacred’ from ‘the profane’, ‘the material’ from ‘the spiritual’, or ‘the inner’ from the ‘outer’ is a well-nigh impossible task. Discussing Chinese popular religious traditions in Malaysia, Jean De Bernardi argues that ‘the sacred’ is widely dispersed in everyday life and space. To De Bernardi, Western inspired Judeo-Christian attributions of clear dichotomies between the ‘sacred’ and ‘profane’ realms are not useful in comprehending Chinese ‘religious culture’ – a culture comprising a syncretic blend of Taoism, Buddhism and traditional beliefs that are expressed not through formal canonical doctrine but through popular worship and calendrical festivals (De Bernardi 1992: 252–254). De Bernardi’s characterization has importance in interpreting Chinese travel behaviour because it helps us to comprehend how easily auspicious objects and sites are incorporated into profane holiday activities such as shopping and sight-seeing. Viewed in this light, the Chinese Malaysians and Singaporeans who visit the religious monuments of Thailand’s southern borderland can be seen to 100

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indeed act as pilgrims, at least at those times when they encounter deity images, pay their respects, donate money and pray for good health, good fortune and winning lottery numbers. As mentioned earlier, this is also consistent and comprehensible to Thai domestic travellers, to whom the popular practice of travel (pai thieo: literally ‘going around’, an expression denoting a range of travel and visiting activity) usually involves visits to temples. Conversely, in Thai traditional travel practice, religious-orientated group journeys focusing on temple-based worship (as in Thot Phapha) generally include shopping as an integral part of the overall travel plan, as they have done for centuries. Notably, the religious sites of the Deep South are promoted as attractions for Thai domestic tourists, and succeed in attracting many thousands each year. Aside from their spiritual potency, it can be suggested that the sacred sites of the Deep South are significant to Singaporeans and Malaysians because these sites help to facilitate a form of ethno-religious identification. In his now-classic portrayal of religious pilgrimage and liminality, Victor Turner depicted the pilgrim’s experience as communitas, a deeply-felt sense of religious ‘oneness’ generated by the shared liminality of journeys to, and encounters with sacred ‘centres out there’ (Turner 1973). The collective experience of Malysian and Singaporean shrine visitors might not entirely correspond with Turner’s idea of religious communality; however, at a variety of levels, different engagements among visitors to sites in the Deep South do evoke broader communities of identification that cohere around ethno-religious markers and devotional practice. We might use the expression ‘cultural communion’ rather than communitas to describe this particular ethno-religious modality of collective identification.6 The agglomeration of Chinese, Thai and hybrid shrine/monument sites on Thailand’s southern borderland represent a hinterland of diaspora identity for the Nanyang Chinese; these sites articulate a space that functions as a haven allowing for a conspicuous affirmation and expression of shared cultural symbols with a freedom not entirely possible in Malaysia or Singapore. It is a broader, more pan-communal, span of identification than the locally specific place-oriented rituals that have been highlighted by De Bernardi in her study of the Penang Chinese (De Bernardi 2004). For the identifiable sub-groups of shrine devotees and shaman disciples, there is a corresponding formation of collective identity built around particular bonds as disciples or generated by direct engagement in transformative rituals – such as among those who engage in fire-walking rituals at shrine festivals or those who receive sacred tattoos. Both visitors and local Thais in this sub-region frequently emphasize that Thailand is hospitable to people in search of religious merit. This easy accommodation for worshippers to visit sites of potency and blessing, whether derived from Chinese, Hindu or Buddhist traditions, is cited as a key environmental feature that draws people from Malaysia and Singapore to visit the borderland. In the South this is often expressed by ordinary Thai 101

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people and tourist officials in phrases such as: ‘Thailand is a religiously open country – we welcome all to come here who respect the Buddha’ (Muang Thai pen muang pert kwang thang darn sasana – chern thuk khon ma thi nap theu Phraphuttha chao). Since the early 1990s, the explosion of monument building, the expansion of shrine building and the promotion of Chinese seasonal religious festivals highlight how clearly the attraction of blessings has been identified by various enterprises (whether they be temples, shrines or municipalities) as a tourist draw card. Merit and the market are inseparable in a mutual drive for accumulation that connects site producers, with their imperative to generate income and repute, with visitors who are concerned to accumulate blessing and good fortune. In this context, the frequent declarations of site producers and promoters in the Thai border towns that they are ‘joining’ with visitors to celebrate their faith and respect for deities is a rationalization that is as transparently disingenuous as it is believable: it is an expression of the ideological-material dialectic that drives the symbolic economy of spectacular sites. The following sections of this discussion consider a selection of these sites (characterized in terms of dominant features of ‘familiar’, ‘remote’ and ‘monumental’) in order to highlight the cultural and accumulative processes at play in the production and reproduction of the borderland and its role as a sacralized, potent and spectacular space. There is no scope in this discussion to fully outline an associated process that has been occurring in the borderland, but it should be mentioned here. The expansion of Buddhistic monumentality and commercialized Chinese shrine festivals exemplifies a process of symbolic colonization in a Malay Muslim culture region. This is a process with a long history that dates from the pre-modern Siamese state’s use of temples as spearheads for land settlement and an associated growth of sacred sites. In the Thai Buddhist South these are linked to the miraculous deeds of the charismatic Buddhist monk Luang Pho Thuat, a figure who in recent decades has become the centre of a flourishing amulet and image-building industry that now extends well beyond the south. While the sites associated with Luang Pho Thuat’s life were formerly centred around the Buddhist-majority region of Songkhla, from the early 1960s, the monk began to be associated with Wat Chiang Hai of Pattani, following concerted efforts of that temple’s abbot and the Sino-Thai mayor of Pattani. This led to what can only be described as an extension of sacred Thai-Buddhist territory into a largely Muslim religious heartland. Thereafter, Wat Chiang Hai became a key destination in domestic and international tourist itineraries. Notably, it was also targeted for bombing by insurgents in early 2002 (Jory 2004). The dispersal of different religious sites in the borderland does reflect something of the historical ethno-religious settlement pattern in the border region, and there has been a high degree of harmonious coexistence between ordinary ethnic Thais, Sino-Thais and Muslims. The Islamic revival over the past decades has certainly had the effect of 102

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heightening Muslim sensitivities to changing patterns of religious symbolism in Pattani Province; but as highlighted below in the discussion of the touristoriented marketing of the festival of the Chinese deity Lim Ko Niao in Pattani, recent trends might be perceived as making a wave of symbolic expansionism in a formerly more balanced symbolic landscape.

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The familiar The Chinese shrines of the Deep South represent sites that, in terms of function, ritual and meaning, are clearly comprehensible to Chinese visitors from Malaysia and Singapore. Moreover, the histories of the shrines and their deities are easily accessible by means of Chinese language literature or Chinese-speaking shrine attendants (usually fluent in Chinese dialects and Mandarin). These sites, we can suggest, affirm to visitors the intimacy of Nanyang Chinese identity through religious symbolism. This intimacy is reinforced by the historical and contemporary fact that the Chinese speech group communities of southern Thailand (principally the Hokkien, Teo Chiu and Hakka) have long maintained connections with Nanyang Chinese settlements in the Malay peninsula (particularly Penang) and Singapore. In common with their Nanyang Chinese neighbours, the Sino-Thai have adapted to the customs of their adopted homelands but still maintain ethnic continuity and collective cohesion through widely shared religious practices (Raybeck 1983: 17). Notable among these shared practices has been the veneration given to gods and deities of southern China and to local pioneer gods and deities that represent in mythical terms the historical settlement experience of the Nanyang trading diaspora (Tadao 1981). In Thailand’s Deep South a particularly strong example of the religiosymbolic expression of Nanyang settlement can be seen in the popular and now extensively promoted worship of the female deity Lim Ko Niao at the Leng Chu Kiang shrine in the coastal town of Pattani. The divine status of Lim Ko Niao is derived from a local legend which claims that sometime during the seventeenth century a Chinese woman of this name travelled from Southern China to the Malay port city of Pattani in search of her only brother who had settled there. According to legend, she found on arrival that her brother had converted to Islam and married a princess of the royal house of the sultan. This brother had apparently been given the task of constructing a new mosque for the sultan. In protest at her brother’s change of religion and miscegenation, Lim Ko Niao committed suicide, at the same time laying a curse that the new mosque would never be completed. The Kru-Ze mosque remains unfinished to this day, and the legend of Lim Kao Niao’s curse is a mythic explanation for its condition, which may well be due to its partial destruction at the hands of Siamese armies in the late eighteenth century. Out of respect for Lim Ko Niao, her brother built a tomb in her memory. After her death, Lim Ko Niao’s spirit revealed itself 103

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to seafarers and travellers and reportedly protected them from the danger of shipwreck and pirates. An image of Lim Ko Niao was later fashioned from the wood of the Cashew Nut tree from which she hanged herself, and placed in a small shrine (To Pikong Me) near the Kru-Ze mosque, but subsequently housed in the Leng Chu Kiang shrine in the centre of Pattani town. The original Chinese cemetery in which Lim Ko Niao was allegedly buried was situated close to Pattani town’s harbour side. When this site was inundated by the sea around 1919, members of the community moved a grave reputed to be that of the deity to the To Pikong Me shrine site adjacent to the Kru-Ze mosque. Over the years an annual ceremony developed, central to which is a procession involving the carrying of the sacred image of Lim Ko Niao and nineteen other gods and deities across the Bang Nara River and through a barrier of fire back to the shrine (Khrongchai 2006: 59; Vipasai 2002). The fame of the Lim Ko Niao deity was formerly known only to the Sino-Thai of the locality and region, and other Chinese who visited during the vegetarian kin che period of October. Local Muslims held to a variant of the legend which accorded Lim Ko Niao fame by heroically assisting in the defence of Pattani against the invading Siamese, but this became submerged by the weight of the Chinese variant that stresses her curse on the mosque (Chaiwat 1993: 100–102). From the late 1980s, however, with larger numbers of Malaysian and Singaporean tourists visiting the region, together with publicity from the shrine’s organizing association, the Tourist Authority of Thailand and the Pattani province authorities, the shrine and its dramatic ceremony began to attract thousands of visitors, especially Chinese from Malaysia. The fame of the deity is inseparably tied to the filial legend of a Chinese woman and her brother, but there is no historical basis for the personalities behind the events described in this legend (Khrongchai 2006: 60). Pattani historical records do attest to the role of a prominent Chinese who helped cast the sultanate’s famous cannon, and who later married into the ruling family following conversion to Islam; however none of the characters in the legend appear in the Malay Hikayat Patani (Wyatt and Teeuw 1970: 224). Nevertheless, the myth remains powerful in the Sino-Thai imagination, and the Lim Ko Niao deity, her shrine foundation and the increasingly spectacular ceremony – with more dramatic fire-walking and spirit possession displays – have gained increasing prominence in connection with the popularization of the annual Chinese vegetarian festival. As Chaiwat Satha-Anand has noted, state-supported tourist-orientated publicity for the shrine festival since the late 1980s has served to commodify Lim Ko Niao’s curse on the Kru-Ze mosque, since it serves the purpose of affirming the supernatural efficacy of the goddess. While signifying a heightened affirmation of identity for the Chinese in Thailand, the mythic curse has served to relegate local Muslims and their variant interpretations of the legend to a marginal position (Chaiwat 1993: 204–205). Resentment 104

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against this marginalising process is most acutely felt among members of the local Muslim elite in Pattani township, who also argue that the expansion of the Lim Ko Niao tomb site adjacent to the Kru-Ze mosque has been achieved by a shady process of land acquisition involving local Chinese elites in collusion with province officials (Author’s interview with Nikraman Suleiman, 19 September 2006). These local power dynamics behind the expansion of the Lim Ko Niao religious enterprise are, of course, invisible to foreign tourists. They are further disguised by the province’s official representation of Pattani as a harmonious space of coexistence, symbolised for example on a large billboard straddling the Songkhla-Pattani highway at Pattani’s border, which juxtaposes pictures of three famous religious sites of Thai Buddhists, the Chinese and Muslims respectively: Wat Chiang Hai, the Leng Chu Kiang shrine and the Kru-Ze Mosque. A measure of the Lim Ko Niao shrine foundation’s fame and prosperity has been the establishment of shrine branches in the neighbouring border provinces of Songkhla and Yala provinces. Yet this very success has bred competition among spirit-medium entrepreneurs, with a number of unauthorized Lim Ko Niao shrines being established recently in Nakhon Phathom and Chumphon in Central and Upper South Thailand (legitimized by spirit possession experiences of the shrine founders). These facsimile shrines have gained increasing patronage, since the last few years’ violence in the regions has kept many regular visitors away from the original shrine in Pattani. Threatened by loss of patronage, income and repute by these unauthorized facsimiles, Pattani’s Lim Ko Niao foundation has threatened legal action against these rivals, and since 2004 the annual ceremony in Pattani has been given significant military protection to ensure safety for tourist audiences (Nation, 11 August 2005). Other Chinese shrines throughout the Deep South have traditionally maintained annual ceremonies associated with their deities. They include the Chao Mae Toh Moh Shrine in the border town of Sungai-Kolok, Narathiwat Province and the To Ni Shrine in Betong, Yala Province. As in Pattani, these shrines and associated celebrations always attracted some visitors from across the Malay border, but more recently the duration of these events has been expanded and their character diversified. Thus, the Chao Mae Toh Moh annual ceremony (held in late April) originally lasted two days only. During the 1990s it was later expanded to five days and then in 2000 expanded to ten days. It now incorporates a floral parade, a lion dance and a demonstration of magical power by spirit mediums. Shrine attendants and members of the foundations who maintain the shrines tend to explain the expanded duration of these shrine events as stemming from the need to cater to larger groups of participants, which include visitors not only from across the border but many Sino-Thai domestic tourists as well. This local mode of explaining expansion stresses the sanctity and popularity of the deity, thus affirming the success of the shrine in attracting devotees. But the elaboration of these ceremonies into 105

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‘events’ is also directly related to a range of changes centring on tourism and its centrality to the economies of the borderland towns, as well as the incorporation of these events into the cultural festival calendars of tourism authorities. Formerly local-orientated shrine festivals have been expanded to attract cross-border visitors. This is at least partly the result of the resurgence of Chinese ethnic confidence that coincided with the decade of surging economic prosperity in the region from the mid-1980s. The new trend towards more elaborate shrine-related celebrations and in particular the annual vegetarian festival (conspicuous as a promoted event in Hat Yai) has drawn attendance from increasing numbers of tourists. Jovan Maud’s recent research on the vegetarian festival activities in Hat Yai shows that while most Malaysians and Singaporeans attending these events act simply as ‘spectators’, there are others who actively participate in various ways: as long-term devotees, spirit mediums and officials. Notably, the expansion of these events has been based on expectations of continued patronage of Malaysian and Singaporean visitors (Maud 2005: 166–170). In Hat Yai and Songkhla Province, the Chinese speech group and shrine associations, in connection with the province and city tourist federations, have been active in promoting larger and larger festivals to draw visitors. Most recently the Songkhla Tourism Federation has announced that in 2006 the largest ever number of shrine foundations (ten, compared to seven of previous years) will join to promote the October vegetarian festival in Hat Yai, ostensibly to celebrate the Thai Monarch’s 60th reign year (Samila Times 9–15 September 2006).7

The remote Aside from the fairly familiar sites and ceremonies encountered by SinoMalaysian and Chinese visitors to the borderland, there are also sites in the Deep South that embody something of the character of the isolated pilgrimage places that were characterized by Victor Turner as ‘centres out there’: these places he described as such because they are geographically remote from people’s familiar territory and they condense symbols and associations of auspiciousness with power and mystery (Turner 1973). One such remote place is the cave sanctuary of (‘The Temple of the Elephantshaped Mountain’) in the Sadao District of Songkhla Province, some 12 kilometres from the Thai border town of Pedang Besar. There are two main characteristics embodied in the shrine complex of Wat Khao Roop Chang that endow this site with the qualities of sacredness and miraculous power affirmed in both Chinese Mahayana and Thai Theravada Buddhist traditions. First, as a cave/mountain sanctuary, the place evokes long-held associations between isolated locales and magical/ auspicious power. Second, the special nature of this site is based on its association with a charismatic monk and his revelatory visions, namely the 106

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abbot and founder of the monastery (see, e.g. Tambiah 1984; Yü 1992). On an initial encounter with this place there is little to show the visitor that this is the kind of remote and wild place traditionally connected with the lives of pious and spiritually potent wandering monks. Indeed to the contrary, the appearance of this site suggests a spectacular and symbolically hybrid religious theme park. Thus the monastery site includes images of Chinese Mahayana deities (including Kuan Yin and a host of other Bodhisattvas), Thai-style Buddha images, a Brahma image, an immense replica of an Indian temple, together with numerous Chinese-style embellishments including a dragon balustrade flanking the steps leading to the cave, and an elaborate Chinese-style entrance gate. While the cave sanctuary was certainly remote at the time of its first occupation by the abbot, it is now easily accessible by a high-grade asphalt road and the site’s location is indicated on tourist maps and road signage. Nonetheless the reputation of this site is directly connected to its evolution as a highly potent site through the activities of the Chinese monk Meng San and the sacrifices he has made in the name of the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin. So too, the concentration of spectacular monumental images inside and outside the cave are linked to the remarkable story of this monk’s spiritual journey and sacrifices. The story of the abbot of Wat Khao Roop Chang is recorded in a guide made available to visitors and published by a Singapore-based Mahayana Buddhist Foundation Printed in Thai, Chinese and English languages. The guide tells how the Chinese-born Meng San settled in Singapore with his parents and as a young man studied with a Ch’an (Zen) Buddhist spiritual master. Meng San travelled to Taiwan in 1967, and there he ordained as a Mahayana Buddhist monk. In the next year he apparently returned to Singapore and embarked on a pilgrimage to holy sites in Sri Lanka and India with a group of fellow monks. While he was visiting the Buddhist holy site of Bodhagaya in India he underwent his first test of faith by burning off one of his little fingers. Returning from India in 1968 he travelled to Penang, Malaysia, where he encountered the Thai Theravada Buddhist monk Luang Phu Thong (a revered monk renowned in Southern Thailand for his magic tattoos) Meng San joined the Thai monk for meditation practice in a cave at the foot of the remote mountain known as Khao Roop Chang near the Malaysian border. Meng San was ordained into the Theravadan monkhood, helped by the Sino-Thai chief monk of Songkhla Province and other supporters among the Thai Theravada order. His long solitary meditations in the cave were accompanied by a number of visions of Mahayana deities (initially disguised as serpents, or naga), and in these encounters Meng San pledged to build images in their honour. He then undertook a rigorous solitary walk from the cave to Singapore, and soon attracted a following of devotees. With aid of donations and voluntary assistance he began excavation of the Khao Roop Chang cave and added a number of facilities, such as water tanks and generators for lighting the cave (Prawat Khao Roop Chang 1993). 107

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Figure 5.4 Depiction of Meng San’s first vision in the cave (from temple booklet).

The subsequent development of the cave temple over a period of over thirty years has been generated by a self-reinforcing process, or cycle: beginning with Meng San’s self-mutilation (he cut off both his ears and burned another finger) and pledges to the deities, it was followed by fulfilment of these pledges through the erection of holy images with the aid of funds solicited from a growing body of devotees from south Thailand (predominantly Sino-Thai from Hat Yai, and Singaporean Chinese) in search of religious merit. Meng San’s ascetic travels, his visions while meditating and his self-mutilation are both recognizable and complementary expressions of faith in the traditions of the Ch’an (zen) and the Pure Land schools which dominate Chinese Mahayana Buddhism. Among the Nanyang Chinese diaspora, popular legends and practices associated with Pure Land teachings are part of a general collective memory. Pure Land Buddhism emphasizes commitment to the Dharma through faith and the taking of vows to the Amithaba Buddha and his principal Bodhisattva assistants, who include the merciful goddess Kuan Yin (Cleary 1994: 1–21). More specifically, the official temple brochure that recounts Meng San’s sacrifices emulates traditional Chinese Buddhist hagiographies of eminent monks, and is thus a recognizable and accepted narrative of faith among the temple’s visitors (Kieschnick 1997: 35–42). Self-mutilation among the laity and monks – most typically involving the cutting off of fingers and ears as ‘body-offerings’ – has for centuries been a distinctive practice in the 108

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Chinese Mahayana popular tradition: it is interpreted as a powerful expression of vow-taking and faith, often in connection with the goddess Kuan Yin (Benn 1998; Ch’en 1973: 268–270; Reichelt 1934: 273–274). Visitors travel to Wat Khao Roop Chang as individuals, in family groups, or on organized bus tours. In common with other shrine sites in the Deep South, the number of visitors peaks on weekends and public holidays scheduled in Malaysia and Singapore. Activity at the cave sanctuary is punctuated by various ceremonies devoted to the dedication of new monuments and structures or the calendrical celebrations associated with particular deities. Peoples’ levels of engagement with the temple and its activities vary, depending on whether visitors are weekend tourists, personal devotees of Meng San, members of Buddhist organizations, or monks. Although the site incorporates images associated with Thai Theravada Buddhism and is officially registered as a temple under Thai law, the emphasis of its statuary and decorative style is overwhelmingly Chinese, with a characteristically syncretic blend of Mahayana Buddhist and Taoist imagery. Most recently, the construction of a huge replica of the Maha Bodhi temple of Bodhagaya outside the cave has added to the site a further dimension of cosmopolitanism, or Buddhist internationalism. This is consistent with the trends identified as distinctive in the revival of Buddhism in the contemporary Nanyang Chinese diaspora (Lee 1993: 44–45). One might view the Khao Roop Chang site as a ‘one-stop’ pilgrimage destination, containing evocative Buddhist images from everywhere, or as an ever-growing storehouse of religious objects, real or facsimile, the accumulation and production of which gains its supporters ever-growing merit. Although sited in Thailand, Wat Khao Roop Chang is a largely Sino-Singaporean creation – it gains a large proportion of donations for its building projects from that source and it is staffed by attendants who are predominantly Chinesespeaking Singaporeans. In one sense, the emergence of Wat Khao Roop Chang as a ‘centre out there’ for the Nanyang Chinese is extremely practical, in that various restrictions placed on religious building and worship by non-Muslims in Malaysia, and the shortage of land in Singapore, make it attractive for establishing such sites in Thailand (see Ackerman 1993: 137–138). But perhaps more critical to reinforcing the prominence of this site is the association of the Thai-Malay borderland with potency and power: it is embodied in the story of the self-mortifying monk Meng San and his visionary encounters in a once-isolated mountain cave (see Figure 5.4). The story is a variation on other traditional narratives of wandering monks and sacred caves and miraculous visions that have long been part of both the Mahayana and Theravadan Buddhist folklore traditions. The story of Meng San reinforces a widely shared view in Malaysia and Singapore that Thailand is a particularly ancient and sacred place imbued with spiritual potency, while at the same time the narrative is consistent with the founding myths of more ancient pilgrimage sites in China (see e.g. Yü 1992). 109

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The monumental Large statues of the Buddha, Bodhisattvas and other sacred images are the most prominent attractions among the religious sites of the borderland. They are universally promoted in tourist literature and on signage at the sites themselves as being distinctive by virtue of their size, or other features in comparison to other images elsewhere. The promotion of monument building in Hat Yai over recent decades has been driven by the need to keep visitors in the vicinity of the city for longer periods and, increasingly to compete with Bangkok for pilgrim-tourists by introducing monuments that were once distinctive to Thailand’s capital (such as the Erawan shrine with its Thao Mahaphrom, for example). This expansion is certainly consistent with the religious syncretism of the Sino-Thai of the Deep South, while it also expresses the culturally-founded merit-seeking and place-making dispositions of their Thai Buddhist compatriots. At the same time, this ensemble of monuments has been self-consciously incorporated into a symbolic environment that has been made deliberately attractive to the Chinese diaspora of neighbouring Malaysia and Singapore. Although it is multifaceted in its mix of Chinese and Thai iconic elements, this symbolic economy of the Deep South highlights the affirmation (or at least the conspicuous re-articulation) of a co-extensive Chinese ethno-religious identity straddling the national borders of Malaysia and Thailand and extending through to Singapore. Aihwa Ong has suggested that contemporary ‘diasporan-Chinese subjects’ seek to negotiate and affirm identity in their dynamic, capitalist-driven transnational world by accumulating the symbolic capital of modernity (Ong 1999). We might suggest here that the borderland of southern Thailand might be treated as a field for this diaspora’s investment in more traditional symbolic capital, one that is dependent, rather than detached from places. For many people of the Nan Yang Chinese of Malaysia and Singapore, this form of symbolic investment in boon-granting potent monuments and shrines is likely to be just as significant as Ong’s symbolic capital of modernity for the maintenance of identity, and the comprehension of personal success, well-being or family fortune. Of course, the Chinese diaspora of Singapore and Malaysia is diverse in terms of class, wealth and education. Impulses to religiosity and religious expression amongst this diaspora are varied, and a range of environmental and political factors can also be deployed to explain the attractions presented by religious sites in Thailand. Thai Buddhist amulets often grace the dashboards of taxis in Singapore, brought back by taxi drivers to offer them protection from accidents. But aside from these prosaic protections, indulgence in religion-related activity in Thailand might also represent to visitors an antithesis to the hyper-modern capitalist world of the Singapore city-state, as it does for one middle-aged Singaporean man, once an investment broker, who suffered a nervous breakdown: he now works as an

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attendant at one of Hat Yai’s recently-built Buddhist monuments at Wat Thaworn, a golden image of the ‘world conquering Buddha’ (Phra Puttha Bang Bert Lok) which looms above a newly established Chinese cemetery. He claims that he will never return to Singapore. And there are other motivations for engagement in the borderland symbolic economy that combine pragmatics and spiritual imperatives, such as the fact that investment in monumental capital for the Chinese is limited in Malaysia by restrictive land use laws and in Singapore by the absolute lack of land for building and burial. Wat Khao Roop Chang represents a case where investment in conspicuous monumental space has been made available for Singaporean devotees on a scale not possible in their small island. At the Chinese branch temple of Wat Taworn in Hat Yai, individual burial plots are considerably cheaper than in Singapore or Malaysia, and this is cited by some visitors as an important factor behind their patronage of this temple. The landscape of shrines and monumental images of the Deep South incorporates old images, renovated and transformed old sites, and completely new sites. The older monuments are Buddha images sited in Thai Theravada temples (wat). The most prominent among these is the reclining Buddha of Wat Hat Yai Nai (the temple of Inner Hat Yai) known as Phra Phuttha Huttha Monkgkon. Constructed in the early 1970s, this image perhaps represents the first conspicuous merit making of the rising Hat Yai Chinese urban business elite and its population. But notably, many of the improvements made to the temple in subsequent years were facilitated by donations from Singaporean and Sino-Malaysian merit-makers who came to pay respects to this Buddha image: their names and addresses are conspicuously displayed on the various buildings and ornamental staircases in the temple compound. In Yala province, adjoining Songkha, a large reclining Buddha image located in a large cave adjoining the Khuha Phimuk temple is also frequented by tourists. These sites are normally included in the one-day package tours marketed by the many small shopfront tour agencies in Hat Yai. The older Buddha images of the region are outnumbered by monuments that have been constructed little more than a decade ago, and in most cases less. These new images share a number of distinctive features: firstly, with only a few notable exceptions, they represent Chinese Mahayana Buddhist deities or they are syncretic in religious expression; and secondly, the most popular of these sites stand conspicuously as monumental spectacles and are often not associated with any temple complex or community of monks. These characteristics are tied to the conditions that surround the construction of these new monuments: that is, the conscious building of landmarks by local authorities and organizations, and a symbolic orientation towards a local and visitor population that shares a common Chinese and Sino-Thai syncretic religious world view. Thirdly, many of the most popular of these new sites are located not in remote areas, but in the vicinity of the region’s 111

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tourist and business hub of Hat Yai. Around Hat Yai a number of the most prominent and highly-visited newer images stand in close proximity to each other, in the precincts of the Hat Yai Municipal Park on the hills immediately to the east of the city. On the peak of one of these hills is the four-faced image of Thao Mahaphrom, or Lord Brahma (see Figure 5.5). A Hindu deity, Brahma is well-established in both royally-sanctioned and popular Thai Buddhist belief. For this reason, this golden Brahma statue housed in its pavilion overlooking the city might not be considered particularly remarkable as an addition to local religious statuary in Hat Yai. It is significant, however, that this Brahma image was constructed in the 1990s with the aid of funds from the foundation which manages the famous Brahma shrine in Bangkok (known as the Erawan Shrine, after the name of the adjacent hotel). This famous image of Bangkok has long been associated with boon-granting powers both among Thais and many Asian visitors from as far afield as Japan and Taiwan, as well as Malaysians and Singaporeans. In fact, it was the fame of the Erawan Brahma image which helped generate the popularity of the so-called ‘Four-faced Buddha’ in places such as Singapore (during the 1990s many Brahma images were installed in shrines in the front yards of Singaporean homes). As for Malaysia, Thai monks have played a major role in promoting a cult of Brahma worship among many Chinese businessmen (Lee 1993: 44–45).

Figure 5.5 Singaporean tourists paying respects to the Thao Maha Phrom, Hat Yai. (Photograph: M. Askew)

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The construction and installation of the Thao Maha Phrom image was initiated by Hat Yai’s long-serving mayor, Khreng Suwannawong. It represents the transfer of a popular and powerful image to Thailand’s Deep South, within convenient reach of weekend visitors to Hat Yai. Before the Thao Maha Phrom was installed on this hill, the spot was already regarded by local people as auspicious, because a wandering Thai monk (Phra Thudong) occupied the site and conducted a thriving trade by foretelling winning lottery numbers. This monk was an annoying obstacle to the mayor’s project of civic beautification, and on the grounds that this monk was engaged in activities unfit for a respectable monk, he was eventually able to have him removed, with the assistance of the province governor and pressure from abbots of nearby temples. In recounting his scheme for building the Thao Maha Phrom shrine, Khreng made it clear to me that his objective was to find an additional means of attracting visitors to Hat Yai and stay longer in their visits. This project was just one of a number of his schemes aiming to transform Hat Yai into a ‘religious city’ to attract visitors. Moreover, there was a clear element of competition with other localities behind Khreng’s plan. The Brahma image was originally intended for installation in the southern tourist town of Phuket (on the western side of the peninsula) by the Erawan shrine foundation in Bangkok. Khreng learned of this plan from the secretary of the shrine foundation, a personal friend, who was visiting Hat Yai prior to finalizing arrangements in Phuket. Seizing the opportunity, Khreng took his friend to the municipal park and persuaded him that the hill in question was an ideal site for the shrine. A deal was then made, with the municipality supplying the site and the Erawan shrine foundation supplying the Brahma image (worth 700,000 Baht) free of charge. Khreng was acutely aware that the Brahma image was particularly popular among Singaporeans, and aimed to capture this market (Author’s interview with Khreng Suwannawong, former mayor of Hat Yai 1975–2002, 25 February 2004). Khreng’s motivations reflected those of the municipality, hoteliers, tour operators and Chinese associations of the city. The Sino-Thai deputy-mayor responsible for tourist promotion confirmed the key motivations for building the Brahma shrine by stating: ‘We now have everything here in Hat Yai.’ In other words, visitors no longer need to go as far afield as Bangkok in order to request blessings and good fortune from potent Brahmanic deities which are now firmly established within Nanyang Chinese religious culture (Author’s interview with Kanchit Tanisro, Deputy Mayor of Hat Yai, 28 January 2003). As pointed out by the mayor, observation confirms that the visitors to the Thao Maha Phrom shrine are primarily Chinese from Singapore, and the orientation of this shrine to accommodating visitors of Chinese background is conspicuous in the presence of specially-built concrete shelters used for setting-off fire-crackers, a popular practice symbolizing to the Chinese the expulsion of bad spirits and obstacles to personal 113

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fortune. This sinified feature is not present at the Erawan shrine in Bangkok. The Brahma image is universally named the ‘four-faced Buddha’ among the Singaporean Chinese, but the Thais who sell images, amulets and worshiping paraphernalia at this site are quite tolerant of this misnaming. To them, it is enough that the tourists come to respect the image and request good fortune and, more often, pray for winning lottery numbers. The hill adjoining the site of the Thao Maha Phrom features a 9.9 metre statue of the Chinese Bodhisattva Kuan Yin, standing on a lotus flower pedestal overlooking the city (see Figure 5.2). This image is more popular than the Thao Maha Phrom, among both Thais and tourists. It is another product of the mayor’s energies in promoting the building of a ‘city of religion’. As emphasized frequently in tourist guides, brochures and ceremonial plaques at the site, the distinctive feature of this image is not its largeness – a taller Kuan Yin statue of 19 metres had already been built outside the city of Nakhon Sithammarat – but the rare and expensive materials, the craftsmanship and the auspiciousness of its height, which features the lucky number 9. The image’s height of 9.9 metres was deliberately determined when it was found that no larger single block of jade could be found for the project. So a virtue was made of necessity. The image is claimed to be unique both because it was constructed from a single white jadeite block specially obtained from China, and because the designer was also a skilled craftsman from mainland China. So the importance of this Kuan Yin in the context of other images of the same deity elsewhere is signified by an association with the beauty and expense of the materials, and the beauty guaranteed by Chinese craftsmanship for a Chinese deity. Whether foreign or Thai, the visitors attending the Kuan Yin statue (popularly known as the Goddess of Mercy in the Mahayana tradition) emphasize that they pay respect to the image in order to seek protection from misfortune and relief from suffering, in contrast to the more pecuniary requests directed to the Brahma image on the neighbouring hill. This Chinese Mahayana deity has been incorporated into the popular religion of Thais over the past two decades. Kuan Yin is a conspicuous example of the increasing level of sinification in Thai popular religion. Kuan Yin, a feminized form of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara, whose role is to assist mortals escape the eternal cycle of suffering and rebirth, has been woven into numerous mythico-historical legends that emphasize her self-denying and compassionate acts from around the nineth century (Martin and Ramsay 1995: 5–21). Her divine efficacy extended from her benevolent protection from misfortune to the granting of fertility to women and she was particularly associated with the seasonal practice of vegetarianism, with its emphasis on purification. The Chinese who came to Thai territory and peninsula Malaya in increasing numbers from the nineteenth century recognized Kuan Yin as one of their numerous important deities and maintained images of her in their shrines (McDougall 1956: 20). Although she 114

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was widely revered by the southern Chinese speech groups who settled in South-East Asia, it is as yet unclear whether Kuan Yin worship was disproportionately stronger among them, or that southern Thailand and the Malay peninsula was a regional base for the later expansion of the cult (e.g. Hamilton 1999: 3). From the 1980s Kuan Yin came to be widely embraced as a popular deity both among Sino-Thais as well as Thais with no Chinese ancestry. Scholars have associated this phenomenon with the growth of other prosperity-oriented cults (notably those surrounding the figure and spirit of King Chulalongkorn and Luang Pho Khun, a prominent Theravadin monk) that accompanied Thailand’s economic boom, but the growing popularity of Kuan Yin was also a South-East Asian regional phenomenon (Jackson 1999b: 268–273; Lee and Ackerman 1997: 68–71). The complex dynamics of the religion-economy matrix in the development of late capitalist modernity in Thailand – involving among other processes, the commercialization, marketing and popularization of sacred and magical personalities and deities – cannot be fully treated within the scope of this paper. Nevertheless, the relation between religious symbols, tourism and ethnic identity need some emphasis in the context of southern Thailand and the symbolic economy of the emergent borderland landscape. Hat Yai is a distinctively Chinese city, a characteristic traceable to its emergence in the early twentieth century as a market centre in the burgeoning rubber industry and the associated dominance of the ethnic Chinese and Sino-Thai descendents at the top and middle levels of its urban economy. From the earliest years of Hat Yai’s settlement, Chinese social and religious institutions have been a conspicuous element in the life of the town. The years of accelerated economic growth from the late 1980s saw an upsurge in cultural pride and confidence among the Chinese diaspora of South-East and East Asia, accompanied by a rediscovery and reassertion of cultural identity, particularly among the prospering middle classes. Among other cultural manifestations, this was expressed in ostensibly religious-oriented practices among the Sino-Thai: it included the widespread participation in the formerly obscure practice of seasonal vegetarianism (Kan Kin Che) and increasing attention to the worship of the Chinese deities such as the goddess Kuan Yin (Cohen 2001). These new trends also attracted many Thais of nonChinese background as well; so much so that practices such as kin che have been judged by some commentators as marking more a new type of class identity than an ethnic signifier. These changes provide one key local context for understanding the appearance of the Kuan Yin statue as a monument in the landscape of Hat Yai. At one level the project to build a distinctive monument of the Bodhisattva Kuan Yin might be treated largely as a project expressing civic pride and place-making. It was a plan developed by the Hat Yai municipality in conjunction with the city’s thirteen Chinese shrine foundations. The monument was ostensibly constructed in honour of the fiftieth year of the 115

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Figure 5.6 The display of merit – seats outside the Kuan Yin Pavillion, Hat Yai. (Photograph: M. Askew)

reign of King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Funded by donations from Hat Yai’s numerous Chinese shrine foundations and speech-group societies, the Kuan Yin statue was unveiled to the accompaniment of the chanting of Thai Theravada and Chinese Mahayana monks, and graced by the presence of a prominent member of the Thai Royal family. The event (prominently recorded in a marble plaque) might be read as a ceremonial occasion serving to meet a number of simultaneous symbolic political, cultural and economic ends. First perhaps, it was an expression of loyalty to the Thai state by a Sino-Thai urban elite (promoted by the city’s long-serving ethnic Thai mayor, Khreng Suwanawong, who depended on their goodwill and prosperity). Second, it was an expression of civic pride, an attempt to beautify the environs of the city by creating a landmark for this essentially utilitarian merchant town dominated by shops, markets and hotels. Additionally, this project and launching event displayed the characteristic propensity of the Thai middle classes and elites to display religious merit through the cultural capital of monument building. But this was far more than a locally-orientated project. When viewed in the context of Hat Yai’s reliance on tourist income, the monument’s landmark value becomes immediately apparent. Even before its official unveiling, the Kuan Yin statue was incorporated into the list of Hat Yai’s tourist attractions, joining the expanding ensemble of monumental sacred sites in Songkhla Province, particularly in the vicinity of the city. The statue is not only a symbol of the dedication of the local Chinese of Hat Yai to the 116

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precepts of eclectic Buddhism; more than this, its whole design and the widely publicized character of its construction also pronounces the monument to be Chinese in a very transnational sense. Ritually blessed by Chinese monks, built from Chinese materials and designed by a specialist Chinese craftsman, the monument represents elements of a Chinese religiocultural heartland to visitors from the diaspora. The Kuan Yin statue, while also patronized by Thai domestic tourists, gains most of its donations from Malaysian and Singaporean visitors. The names of these donors are conspicuously displayed on the marbled benches that congest the area surrounding the statue. The president of Hat Yai’s Tourist Federation admits that although there are Thai visitors who donate benches to the site, officials remove these and distribute them to local schools, temples and neighbourhoods. In contrast, those benches donated by Malaysians and Singaporeans are retained and displayed so that they will encourage visitors from these countries to continue to donate money and make merit. These benches are rarely used by visitors to the statue. In fact, so many concrete benches have been accumulated that they have been pushed together in bunches. The practical function of the benches, after all, is largely irrelevant, because they are primarily a means to display the names of the donors: in so doing they signify and affirm the wider ethno-religious identity of a virtuous Chinese diaspora, and advertise the importance of continuing to patronize the Kuan Yin monument to gain good fortune (see Figure 5.6 above).

Conclusion The monumental religious landscape of Thailand’s Deep South has been shaped by a range of structuring agencies and processes that reflect both broad trends in the Asian region in regard to popular religious symbol izations – such as the popularity of Kuan Yin worship – and the organ ization of sites into tourist itineraries. A ‘symbolic economy’ of religious monuments is sustained by an intensive production of new sacred places serving the complementary purposes of place-making and religious merit-making, boon-seeking and protection. Supported by local Thai elites, ordinary residents and Thai domestic tourists, this symbolic economy is sustained in particular by visitors from the Nanyang Chinese diaspora who ‘invest’ in it heavily as a source of symbolic capital that acts to reinforce simultaneously their desire for existential well-being and for symbolically meaningful aspects of ethnic identity. Thailand’s southern borderland represents a particular sub-regional space with its own regional dynamics that favour intense cross-border travel and visitation. Combined with the politico-cultural climates of Singapore and Malaysia these features contribute to making the Thai borderland an attractive and convenient recreational space as well as a one conducive to forms of ‘investment’ in merit-oriented and monument-producing activities. Yet the symbolic 117

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economy of monuments in this sub-region also reflect a broader phenomenon of spectacular monument building that has been taking place in South-East Asia and East Asia over the past few decades, a phenomenon that is intimately linked to a new investment-driven articulation of long-established impulses to materialize merit in the physical landscape. In the realm of popular dispositions towards sacred objects and worship, continuity is as clearly apparent as is discontinuity and novelty in the lives of the people of East and South-East Asia. But the emerging spectacular religious landscape is indisputably novel in terms of scale, and this is conspicuously represented in the connections between sacred site production, tourism flows and competition between sites across the region, and within regions and countries. The challenge is not to demarcate an artificially clear break between past and present religiosity: this is a practice that remains the luxury of moralists and religious purists who deny the intimate relations between materialization and piety in popular religion. Rather, it is to delineate the intensifying convergence between the logics and imperatives of accumulation among individuals, practitioners, enterprises and markets. While hyper-secularization and state regulation in some societies and polities of Southeast Asia may be seen to stimulate the conditions for forms of ‘re-enchantment’ in various forms, such as new cults and ascetic practices, the more widely embraced forms of Asian popular religiosity aim, as they have for centuries, towards the simple task of accumulating blessing and luck, and gaining protection in an uncertain world. These long-standing popular religious dispositions and practices have been easily imbricated into an ever- expanding system of spectacular places – a ‘symbolic economy’ – that reproduces itself through competitive sites and spectacles. Whether this trend is deemed good or bad depends on one’s aesthetic taste and moral perspectives, but it is nevertheless clear that the contemporary symbolic economy is an extension and elaboration, rather than a substantial transformation of popular religion and its inherent materializing imperatives. In Thailand, as in East Asia, capitalist modernity and the increasing prosperity (however unevenly distributed) and expectations that accompany its diffusion, have been comfortably enfolded into a popular practical religion that has always placed importance on the accumulation of merit and good fortune, in this life and the lives thereafter. It has expanded the capacity and number of organized groups, spiritual entrepreneurs and ‘religious enterprises’ to produce sites, and it has provided new means of publicizing them to a far-flung and mobile popular constituency that associates the size of sites, monuments and festival spectacles with collective benefit, place reputation and individual profit. Just as merit and boon-seeking have no definable limits, so there is no limit to the drive to produce and value ever bigger and spectacular signs of potency. For producers, there are only the limits imposed by finance, land availability and modern engineering capacity. The symbolic economy of monuments is an ever-conspicuous feature of Asian 118

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culture under capitalism. As I suggested earlier, we might indeed reverse Marx’s classic dictum on the subject of traditional culture and beliefs under capitalist materialism and the cash nexus – ‘All that is solid melts into air’ – because paradoxically, under capitalism in Asia, making bigger merit inevitably means making more and bigger sacred and spectacular monuments.

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Notes 1 For example, in Penang one of the most revered Buddhist temples, the Kek Lok Si temple, boasts an impressive ‘Pagoda of the Ten Thousand Buddhas’ that stands on the Air Ham hill, the fruit of a twenty-year building project which began in the 1930s. Structures have been added continually to this hillside complex, with the latest being a 30 metre bronze statue of the Bodhisattva goddess Kuan Yin located on the heights above the pagoda, completed in 2002 at considerable expense. The Po Lin monastery on Hong Kong’s Lan Tau Island boasts the Tian Tan Buddha, a 34 metre bronze image located on an imposing hilltop that is proudly proclaimed as the largest sitting Buddha in the world. Completed in 1993, construction of the monument and its impressive stairway approaches took ten years, and the image is now a landmark attracting thousands of tourists to Lan Tau island. There are numerous other examples of such projects throughout East and South-East Asia. 2 For which see Gombrich (1988: 123–127). 3 There is a considerable literature on doctrinal and popular traditions of merit and the veneration of sacred objects in Mahayana and Theravada Buddhism in South, East and South-East Asia. See for example: Davis (1998); Germano and Trainor (2004); Kieschnick (2003) and Strong (2004). On Thailand in particular see: Hanks (1962); Keyes (1983); Kirsch (1973); O’Connor (1986) and Tambiah (1968, 1984). 4 In the Theravada tradition the showing of respect to Buddha images does not of itself constitute merit-making. Customarily, the greatest amount of merit is gained through sponsoring the ordination of monks and participating in seasonal temple-based ceremonies where offerings are made to monks (during Lent or other specified occasions). Daily offering of alms to monks is another standard means of accumulating merit. Nevertheless, images are frequently tied into the merit-generating process, especially in cases where monument-building is involved, where donations are understood (and publicized) explicitly as a method of merit-making. Although in doctrinal terms images are simply memorials to the Buddha, such images (the most famous of which are associated with legends of supernatural agency) are regarded almost universally among Thais as objects with sacred (saksit) power, capable of bestowing blessings or protection. 5 This connection between ancient places and potency is common in the region, thus Thais see Khmer monks as more potent practitioners of sacred magic. 6 I thank Michael Herzfeld for suggesting this looser variation on Turner’s idea of communitas, which is specifically embedded in his portrait of devotional pilgrim groups. 7 The recent bombings of department stores in Hat Yai (on 16 September 2006) however, are likely to limit the expected record number of tourist visitors to the events.

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Thailand’s prosperity religion and its commodifying tactics Pattana Kitiarsa

In his path-breaking article on ‘Buddhism in a Secular City: A View from Chiang Mai’, Keyes (1975a: 64) observes that Buddhism in the rapidly secularizing Northern Thai city ‘is acquiring new meanings as the populace of the city, both lay and clerical alike, adapt to their altered conditions of life’. He argues that socioeconomic and cultural modern forces do not necessarily lead to ‘the ultimate decrease of Buddhism’ (ibid.). The religion still performs its functions amidst the secularization processes re-orienting the local people toward modernity. Buddhism, especially its magical versions and other popular beliefs and practices beyond the monastic walls located in the heartland of urbanizing Chiang Mai, tends to offer its devotees ritual services pertaining to life crises rather than agricultural fertility and local politics, which have formed strong bases for merit-making events in the past. Other than from monks, urban laypersons have also sought religious services from and made offerings to specialists like astrologers, folk healers and spirit mediums. Keyes’s article, like other works on Thai Buddhism published in the 1970s and 1980s (e.g. Reynolds 1978; Tambiah 1970, 1984), explored the secularization phenomena of Thai Buddhism during their time, but stopped short to augur what has fully emerged as the phenomenal commoditization of Thai Buddhism in the 1990s (Apinya Fuengfusakul 1993; Jackson 1999a,b; Suwanna Satha-Anan 1998). Thai Buddhism into the 21st century has continually provided powerful cosmological and moral frameworks to the Thais. Under the ongoing secularization process of Thai social life, Buddhism is transformed into a commodity by the complex forces of capitalist economy and modern life style. This chapter discusses the cultural tactics and processes which have turned Thai Buddhism into a prosperity religion (Roberts 1995). My thesis is that Thai Buddhism has embraced, rather than rejected or estranged itself with modernizing and secularizing forces. Thai Buddhist practices

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are redefined and redirected itself towards more materialistic and worldly goals in order to situate itself in the hybrid religio-cultural environments. The commercialization of Thai Buddhism (phuttha phanit), arguably the Thai equivalent of Comaroff and Comaroff (1999, 2000)’s occult economy, shows the contemporary trends of how religion has maintained its strongholds in the Thai modern life. Despite criticisms and outrages from the Thai middle-class intellectuals and segments of the Sangha, the cult of phuttha phanit has profoundly shaped rationality and sensibility of ‘being worldlyengaged Buddhists’ to the Thais. Engined by the large-scale merit making industry, the prosperity cult of phuttha phanit represents a religo-cultural space where popular Buddhism has converged with market economy, consumers’ practices and the quest for personal and cultural identities.

Thai Buddhism in crisis The wide-spread of prosperity cult of phuttha phanit is often branded by concerned Buddhist scholars and intellectuals as indicative to the mistreatments of Buddha’s teachings and the decline of public faith in Thai Buddhism. Its negative image as blind-belief and wealth-oriented faith and worship has become part of the multiple discourses of ‘Thai Buddhism in crisis’ (wikrit phuttha satsana), which have lingered in the Thai mind for centuries. Each reported Buddhist crisis is uniquely characterized by its period’s economic and political upheavals. Since the Siamese rulers and their subjects take it as a duty and moral obligation to patronize the state religion, the rise and fall of the kingdom also reflects the health and fate of its religion. Following the collapse of Ayutthaya in 1767 and the power transition from Thonburi to Bangkok,1 King Rama I observed the huge popularity of supernaturalism or ‘magical Buddhism’ (Ishii 1986) among Buddhist monks and laities, and the faltering state of Buddhist Tripitaka studies (Wyatt 1994: 146–147). He used the term ‘phaendin lae phra satsana chulachon’ (the chaotic state of polity and religion/Buddhism) (Saichon Sattayanurak 2003: 177) in his legislation of ‘Kot Phra Song’ (The Ecclesiastical Laws) issued between 1782 and 1801. He condemned unpolished monks, who failed to study the Tripitaka, yet twisted parts of Phra Maha Vessanatara Jataka2 into satirized poetic chants to entertain audiences and make a living from the ensuing rewards given. Such condemned monks ‘brought irregularity and decline to Buddhism’ (tham hai phra satsana fan fuean sueam sun) and underestimated the values of Dhammic teachings. The King decreed that such monks deserved severe punishment with banishment to the fourth domain of hell (chaturabai phum), and after death would never be reborn under the religion of Phra Sri Ariya Meytrai, the future Buddha (Ruang Kotmai Tra Sam Duang [The Laws of Three Seals] 1978: 545). According to Wyatt (1994: 146), King Rama I interprets the chaos as ‘a moral crisis’. It was the same crisis that ‘had led to the fall of Ayudhaya’.3

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The moral crisis concerning the state of Buddhism had loomed large even before the ill fate of Ayutthaya in April 1767. In Sangitiyavamsa: Phongsawadan Ruang Sangkhayana Phra Tham Winai [A Chronicle of Buddhist Councils], Som det Phra Phonnarat of Wat Phrachetuphon, who lived through the catastrophic days of Ayutthaya, noted that the fall of the Kingdom dated from the accession of King Uthumphon in 1758 (Wyatt 1994: 134). The fate of the old capital was prophesised as early as the reign of King Narai (reign 1656–1688) and King Phra Chao Suea (r. 1703–1709) (Damrong Rajanuphap 1972: 73–75). It was the beginning of the decline of a regime noted for its weak political leadership, ineffective administrative system (Nidhi Aeusrivongse 1996: 21–32) and poor morality, indicated in the numerous cases of misconduct of Buddhist monks and the flourishing of magic and supernaturalism. Saichon Sattayanurak (2003: 51–69) asserts that supernaturalism and magic were extremely popular in late Ayutthaya and Thonburi. She coins the terms ‘phuttha satsana thi nen bunyarit witthayakhom’ (supernaturally- or magically-oriented Buddhism) to describe the moral crisis, in which rituals and worship dominated the religious life of rulers and commoners, rather than adhering to Buddhist teachings. Butt notes that the ‘chaotic conditions’ that followed the capture and destruction of Ayutthaya by the Burmese, ‘had a very adverse affect on Thai religious life in general and the Buddhist monastic community in particular. Many monasteries had been partially or totally demolished in the fighting and looting; as a result some monks had been forced to seek new places of residence’ (Butt 1978: 35). This critical situation extended well into the Thonburi period. King Taksin, the founder of short-lived Thonburi, and King Rama I, the founder of Bangkok and reigning Chakkri dynasty, took it as one of their top priorities to restore the Buddhist faiths in their newly founded capitals (Butt 1978; Nidhi Aeusrivongse 1996; Wyatt 1994). Efforts by King Rama I to restore ‘new, humanistic Buddhism’ ‘phuttha satsana baep mai or phuttha satsana baep manutsayaniyom’ (Saichon Sattayanurak 2003: 103) by containing supernatural or magical beliefs and rituals and re-establishing doctrinal Buddhism with an emphasis on elite-led rationalism and humanism, are particularly noteworthy. In his Kotmai Tra Sam Duang [The Laws of Three Seals], King Rama I harshly condemned the conduct of monks, observing that ‘monks nowadays have completely abandoned the Vinayapannati [rules of conduct] and are heedless of advice, instruction, and control’ and that ‘Nowadays, monks, having been ordained, fail to obey the Vinaya, and their behavior evidences their immoral lives. . . Monks commit cardinal sins fearing more the perils of the present than they fear hell’ (Wyatt 1994: 146–147). His major efforts to re-establish Buddhism as the moral, spiritual, and political foundation of the newly-established Kingdom include the new ‘Ecclesiastical Laws’ (kotmai phra song) issued between 1782 and 1801, the commissioning of a new edition of the ‘Three Worlds’ cosmology in 1783, and the convening of the Grand Council to revise the Tripitaka in 1788 122

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(Wyatt ibid.). Despite adding some elements of humanistic consciousness in his restoration of Thai Buddhism, King Rama I’s project still ‘chose to precisely emulate the pattern of the traditional Ayutthayan social order, including the model of the Buddhist macrocosm provided by the Traiphum’ (Kirsch 1978: 56). The Kings indeed laid the foundation of religious macrocosm, which situated ‘. . . Buddhism at the apex, [whereas] worship of gods (thewada) and spirit (phi) in a subordinate position’ (Ibid.). When Siam entered the modern era in the mid-nineteenth century, Buddhism, the cosmic foundation of the Siamese world, had already endured cosmological, political and moral challenges in the name of Western coloni zation, science and technology, and Christian missionization. Although Buddhism in the first three reigns of the Bangkok period had progressed well in the areas of Dhammic studies and the building of new temples, monks were not strictly obeying the ecclesiastical rules of conduct (Khana Kammakan Chamra Prawatsat Thai, Office of the Prime Minister [The National Commission on Thai History] 1982: 233). Like King Rama I, King Mongkut used the moral crisis of the monks’ misconduct and the disturbing popularity of magic and supernaturalism as the grounds for launching a campaign to reform Siamese Buddhism. The politics behind Monkut’s reform was more complex than that of his predecessors’, owing to the presence of Western colonial powers and the competition from Christian evangelism in the Kingdom. Two chief ways for King Mongkut to counter the penetration of modern knowledge and Christian missionaries’ scrutiny of Siamese Buddhism was (1) to reject (patiset) 4 the Traibhum cosmology and (2) to reinterpret the Tripitaka (Wilailekha Thawonthanasan 2002: 45). When King Mongkut launched his mission to reform Siamese Buddhism in the 1850s, there was no ‘moral crisis’, at least in the magnitude and scale which brought down Ayutthaya and encouraged King Rama I to engineer his ‘subtle revolution’ project (Wyatt 1994). Thai Buddhism was in a relatively healthy state. However, there were at least three major reasons behind the King’s famous reform. First, it was the King’s personal intention and moral conviction to modernize both the Sangha Order and Dhammic education in Siam. He had vast experience and expertise after spending twentyseven years in the monkhood, and had earned the reputation of being the most learned nobleman of Siamese traditional and Western knowledge of his generation. Second, the King saw the need to adjust Siam’s traditional Traiphum cosmography, as it was under challenge from Western Christian missionaries and from modern science and technologies (Reynolds 1976: 203–220). Finally, the King wanted to correct and regulate the faith and practice of religion by both monks and the public. He was particularly disturbed by the moral and ethical ‘wrongdoings’ and violations of Vinaya committed by members of Buddhist Sangha. Historians have interpreted in different ways King Mongkut’s religious reforms and King Chulalongkorn’s efforts to bureaucratize and modernize 123

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Thai Buddhism. Many see them simply as elite-led attempts to cope with the threat and challenge of the West. According to Wilailekha Thawonthanasan (2002: 62), King Mongkut’s reformation of Buddhism served as a catalyst to modernize Siam’s society and economy following a Western path. Kirsch (1978: 62–63) emphasizes that such reform was historically inevitable. Mongkut did not simply react to existing social strains in Thai society, nor did he seek to harmonize Buddhism to an impinging modern world. His reforms were consistent with a long standing tradition within Theravada Buddhism of seeking to harmonize the practice of monks with Vinaya standards. Reynolds reads the reforms on a cosmographical level to explain that Siamese intellectual history has never looked the same after King Mongkut’s reign. The traditional Traiphum cosmography was trimmed and refined. It is no longer dominant, but has since become a model of reality that coexists with other models (Reynolds, C. ibid.). However, none of the abovementioned interpretations of the Siamese Buddhism reforms of the mid-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was as provocative and radical as some recent scholarship produced by Thai scholars. Nidhi Aeusrivongse, defining the current state of Thai Buddhism as ‘Buddhism in disaster’ (phuttha wibat) (Nidhi Aeusrivongse 1999), argues that religion has become mal-adjusted and ‘not consistent’ (mai sot khlong) with the rapidly changing world since the reforms in the reign of King Rama V. Thai Buddhism since these reforms has been in decline in both moral and institutional aspects. The social and spiritual dimensions were excluded from the re-interpretations of the Tripitaka, which places heavy emphasis on canonical and intellectual principles. The concept of Nirvana (niphan) and traditional Brahmanistic or animistic rites were largely refuted, if not totally expelled from established Buddhism. The bureaucratization of the Sangha Order has failed to manage religious affairs nationwide. The organization was put under the control of the government and became inactive, corrupt and irrelevant to the needs of people in the modern world. Phra Phaisan Viasalo also argues along the same lines, that Thai Buddhism since the reforms has been powerless, especially in providing moral and spiritual guidance to Thai society to counter the threats posed by modern capitalist economics, consumerism and nationalism. Buddhism now lacks the social and spiritual strength (miti thang sangkhom lae chitwinyan) needed to guide society out of its modern malaise (Phaisan Visalo 2003).

The emergence of Phuttha Phanit in contemporary Thailand The commercialization of Thai Buddhism is perhaps the single most influential concept defining Thailand’s multiple forms of prosperity religion. It can only be understood fully within the broader and deeper contexts of discourses of national identities (Reynolds 1991, 2002), cultural and religious crises (Sulak Sivaraksa 1980, 1995, 2001) and the influential roles that money 124

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and consumerism have played in Buddhism and popular religiosity (Phaisan Visalo 1998, 2003, 2004; Suwanna Satha-Anan 1998). While rapid economic growth and turbulent change in Thailand’s politics and modern life in the 1990s intensified the spread and magnitude of prosperity religion and the ‘enchanting spirit of Thai capitalism’ (Jackson 1999a,b), the religioncapitalism convergences in Thailand should be identified beyond this boom time. ‘[T]he penetration of the market into religion’ (Jackson 1997: 83) and the response of religious communities to the market economy are perhaps as old as the birth of capitalism in Siam in the early Bangkok period itself (see Nidhi Aeusrivongse 1995). The term phuttha phanit was coined in the late 1980s, and has now been fully adopted as the linguistic marker of the commercial activities of Thai Buddhism, both inside the temples and outside in the emerging religious martketplaces. The rise of Wat Phra Dhammakaya as one of the country’s prominent religious movements is among controversial examples of commercialized Buddhism. Although there were commercial activities involving Thai Buddhism long before the Dhammakaya movement, none of them is remarkably business-oriented as this movement. According to Suwanna Satha-Anan (1990: 402), the late Kukrit Pramoj criticized the movement’s plan to commodify merit (bun) through direct marketing strategies and build its temple complex and related real estate business, which amount to well over one billion baht (US$40 million). He comments that ‘the Dhammakaya Temple is actually in the business of selling religious pleasure, similar to other ways of selling happiness such as setting up recreation clubs or fishing parks’ (ibid.). Chalong Soontravanich (personal communication, November 2005) suggests that the rapid expansion of the Buddhist amulet cults could be another source contributing to the visibility of the phuttha phanit cults. He believes that the term has come from academic columnists and social critics who have engaged with the country’s Buddhist affairs and popular religiosity, and names Achan Srisak Vanlibhodama, then a noted anthropologist and archeologist teaching at Silapakorn University, as among the pioneers who created the term. In the 1990s, phuttha phanit as a concept and social phenomenon was well established as a social discourse, owing to events like the cults of Luang Pho Khun (Jackson 1999a), King Chulalongkorn (Nidhi Aeusrivongse 1993, 2003a), the urban spirit medium cults (Suriya Smutkupt et al. 1996), and persistent criticisms of magical Buddhism and spirit cults by scholars and social critics (Phaisan Visalo 1998, 2003, 2004; Sulak Sivaraksa 1995). Term ‘phuttha phanit’ is used to cover the multiplicities of religious commodifications in contemporary Thailand. Jackson (1997: 83) suggests that phuttha phanit, as a derogatory label put up by Buddhist scholars and social critics, includes a range of activities such as: (i) the trade in high-priced blessed amulets and other religious relics such as phallic symbols 125

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(e.g., Phra Suan, Luang Pho Khoon); (ii) the commodification of clerical personalities as media superstars, whom the faithful ‘consume’ by purchasing ‘religious products’ associated with these personalities (e.g., Acharn Yantra before his fall from grace); and (iii) the perceived commercial greed of some monks and monasteries involved in shady financial dealings (e.g., Wat Phra Thammakai; Kittiwuttho). As a recently invented discourse corresponding to the religion-capitalism convergence taking place since the late 1980s, the term itself is ambiguous and too heavily centered upon Buddhism. In reality, religious elements, that are exposed to or taken as commodities in religious marketplaces, include a wide range of forms, from Buddhist symbols such as statues, amulets, relics, medallions and memorabilia of Buddha himself and of revered Buddhist monks, to magical clothes and fetish supernatural wooden phalluses. Phra Phaisan Visalo, an intellectual monk and leading activist, comments that a better label for these phenomena should have been ‘saiya phanit’ (the commercialization of magic and supernaturalism), not ‘phuttha phanit/Buddha phanit’. He observes that, by its Dhammic teachings and principles, Buddhism does not permit monks to acquire or possess money (1998: 17). Like other leading critics of the market economy and its destructive materialism and consumerism, such as Phra Dhammapitaka, Prawet Wasi, Nidhi Aeusrivongse, Sulak Sivaraksa and Suwanna Satha-Anan, Phra Phaisan believes that wealth without proper Dhammic restraint is the ultimate enemy of Buddhism and all religions (ibid.). Money is only the tip of the satanic iceberg of capitalism. Materialism and consumerism are the true evils, which have been weakening Thai Buddhism, traditional culture and all aspects of life in modern Thai society.5 The recent roots of phuttha phanit can be traced back to the major events in Thailand’s social and religious histories, namely, the Second World War and the arrival of the year B.E. 2500, which, according to Buddhist prophecy is the half life marker of the religion. A recent study of Thailand’s flourishing amulet cults by Chalong Soontravanich identified the burgeoning of Buddhist amulet (phra kreung) popularity in the periods after the Second World War II. The rising popularity of the cults correlated with a surge of crime and violence in the country (Chalong Soontravanich 2004; see also Sanlaya Prachachat 2005: 13). In the meantime, it spread the reputation and fame of magic monks and saints, who sacralized batches of Buddhist amulets, from the local temples to wider regional or international levels. They have become much-sought-after personalities/commodities as the cults have become a multi-billion baht industry in recent years.6 A similar trend can be seen in the urban spirit medium cults. In addition to the post war crisis, the Buddhist prophecy7 of the arrival of Maitreya (Phra Sri Ariya Metrai/Phra Si-An) to save Buddha’s religion after a total of 5,000 years of 126

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glorious existence, has paved the way for the birth of millennial movements, spirit cults and various kinds of occult activities (Pattana Kitiarsa 2005b: 461–487). Prince Damrong commented that the Buddhist prophecy, that appeared in the Phleng Yao Phayakon Krung Sri Ayutthaya [The Long Song Prophecy for Ayutthaya] was taken from the Maha Subin Jataka, which is one of the Buddhist Jataka tales (Damrong Rajanuphap 1972: 73–75). In it, Buddha explains the strange dream told to him by King Pasenthi. The dream was taken as a ‘sign of disaster’ which would eventually bring Buddhism to an end in the year B.E. 5000. Suriya Smutkupt et al. (1996: 85–87) report that the years after B.E. 2500 (1957) were crucial for the emergence of urban spirit medium cults. Not only did it represent the half-way mark of the life of Buddhism according to the Buddhist prophecy, but it was also the time for gods, goddesses and other types of deities and spirits to visit the human world, to join forces and launch a sacred campaign to save Buddhism from extinction. As there are many such deities, especially those originating in Chinese and Indian popular religious traditions and mythologies as well as the spirits of Buddhist saints and royal personalities, they require their human mediums or mouthpieces. Coincidentally, the 1960s and 1970s were the periods when the country experienced massive rural-to-urban migration owing to rapid industrialization and modernization. Describing the spread of spirit-medium cults in urban areas, one of my spirit medium informants (rang song) defines the post2500 B.E. period as a ‘spirit possession epidemic’ (yuk thep rabat) (Pattana Kitiarsa 1999: 86). Phuttha phanit as the dominant form of commodification of Thai Buddhism appears as a recently-emerging threat to established Buddhism and its institutions. Phra Dhammapitaka states that the current status of Thai Buddhism is characterized by the flourishing of phuttha phanit activities, fashionable trends following magic or supernaturalism, scandals involving monks’ sexual and financial misconduct, and the ineffectual administration of the Sangha (Maha Thera Samakhom) in handling controversial cases like Wat Phra Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke in the 1990s. This ‘crisis of faith’ (wikrit sattha) (Dhammapitaka (P.A. Payutto) 1996: 9) is one where ‘people have stayed away from monks and true Buddhist teachings. Sometimes both monks and followers practice magic not Dhamma’ (Dhammapitaka (P.A. Payutto) 1995a: 86, 1995b). It is a crisis of confidence that shows the decline of faith in Buddhism, especially among the urban middle class (Keyes 1999a; Nidhi Aeusrivongse 2001; Phaisan Visalo 2003; Sanitsuda Ekachai 2001; Somkiat Meetham 2003; Wasin Inthasara 1994). Keyes (1999b) views Thai Buddhism between 1973 and the 1990s as undergoing a crisis of authority which has been fragmenting Thai Buddhists’ faith and institutions. The public faith and confidence in Thai Buddhism in the 1990s has never been more critically scrutinized. Scholars like Jackson, Morris, Nidhi Aeusrivongse and Taylor all agree that Thai Buddhism 127

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reached its postmodernizing stage during these years. Notably, Keyes argues that Thai Buddhism since the 1970s has been fragmented into a civic religion (satsana) similar to American-style Christianity (ibid.), while Nidhi Aeusrivongse (2002: 32) observes that Thai Buddhism has degenerated (soi yoi) into cults (such as Rama V, Kuan Im, Suphan Kanlaya and other spirit cults).

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The prosperity cult of Phuttha Phanit, but never a new religious movement The visibility of phuttha phanit in Thailand’s contemporary religious landscape is marked by the invention of the term cult as latthi phithi, literally ‘doctrine-ritual’. Nidhi Aeusrivongse (1993, 1994, 2002, 2003a) uses this term in his pioneering studies of the cults of King Rama V (latthi phithi sadet pho ro 5), Motherly Goddess Guan Yin (latthi phithi chao mae kuan im), and Princess Phra Suphan Kanlaya.8 He prefers to employ the term ‘cult’ rather than ‘religion’ because it evokes ‘a ritually rich religious doctrine which is not a part of the principles (lakkan) or orthodoxy of the dominant religion adhered to by the majority of people’ (Jackson 1999b: 248). These emerging cults are part of contemporary social phenomena (prakotkan thang sangkhom), which convey symbolic meanings through worship symbols and ritual performances. For Nidhi, cult and religion (satsana) are two separable yet overlapping entities. The latter term is exclusively reserved for worldhistoric religions such as Buddhism, Christianity, or Hinduism, whereas the former refers to ‘religiosity that is to be found within secular life’ and ‘its consumption tends to be indoor (whether domestic, communal, or crowd), private, and subjective’ (Bailey 1998: 370). As in the cult of Suphan Kanlaya and latthi phithi in Thailand, members of a particular cult usually retain their affiliations to Theravada Buddhism. They have no intention to revolt against established Buddhist or state authorities, and they incorporate principles from Buddhism into their cultic practices. Therefore, the latthi phithi in Thailand cannot be called a ‘new religion’ (satsana mai) (Nidhi Aeusrivongse 2002: 27), despite the new significations they have produced.9 Jackson (1999b), while agreeing in principle with Nidhi’s argument, suggests that religious phenomena like supernatural or magical beliefs and practices surrounding figures such as living and dead Buddhist saints or senior monks, royal and other guardian spirits, are far too popular and prominent to be subsumed under the cloak of popular Buddhism. They should be grouped together and described as ‘prosperity religions’ or ‘movements’, because their beliefs and practices are oriented toward wealth and luck rather than salvation. They are distinctly different from ‘religion’ in the conventional sense. The overall phenomena, therefore, should be labelled ‘prosperity religions’. However, when he mentions specific examples of prosperity religions, the term ‘cult’ is specifically employed, such as the cult of 128

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Luang Phor Khoon [Luang Pho Khun, hereafter] (Jackson 1999a: 49). In short, Jackson argues that abstracted as well as concrete representations of specific cults, commercialized Buddhist and magical practices, should be categorized together and understood as prosperity religions or movements. Jackson’s proposal to focus attention on Thailand’s prosperity religions finds a corresponding counterpart in the revival of conservative Protestantism, whose teaching primarily celebrates the emergence of Americanstyle capitalism in the post-Communist world order. Coleman (1995: 168) shows how Protestant prosperity theology has become popular in Sweden, where ‘. . . with its stress on the connection between grace and material prosperity . . . the benefits of grace are available to all who submit to the faith’. Formal teaching or evangelical institutions do not clearly occur in Thai prosperity religions, but individuals’ successes in the form of material wealth, good health and other fortunes are ultimate goals included in prayers to gods, saints, or spirits. Some popular chants (khatha) such as ‘khakha china banchon’ among followers of the cult worshipping Somdet Phra Phutthachan (To) (1788–1872) or Luang Phu To, the highly revered nineteenth century monk, and the organized teachings at Wat Dhammakaya, the prominent centre for ‘commercialized Buddhism’, can be seen as prosperity-oriented religious practices. However, most popular prosperity religions (perhaps barring Wat Phra Dhammakaya) in Thailand do not develop formally organized forms of evangelism, as they tend to emphasize more the retooling of ritual and symbolic expressions. Rather, they have focused on ritual procedures, not abstracted ideas or principles. They directly adopt or co-opt traditional ritual modes and structures such as spirit-vowing and fulfilling rites (phithi bon/kae bon), rites to pay homage to the teachers’ spirits and deities (phithi wai khru bucha thep), spirit possession rites (phithi song chao khao phi), or regular merit-making rites to Buddhist monks/ temples (phithi tham bun). Most of these rituals, like the one adopted in the cult of King Chulalongkorn, are ‘open to the mass (muanchon), and practically simple. Everybody is free to express their own wishes with only minimal restrictions’ (Nidhi Aeusrivongse 2003: 41). The Thai use of the term ‘latthi phiti’ as equivalent to ‘cult’ in English is more or less Nidhi’s academic invention. He is the pioneering scholar who combines the two (latthi = doctrine; phithi = ritual/rite) and assigns the term to describe the rising religious phenomena in urban Thailand in the early 1990s.10 Traditionally, the two are used separately. Satsana exclusively and formally refers to world-historic religion, while latthi is traditionally assigned to cultic deviant, minor religious beliefs and practices. In Kot Phra Song (The Ecclesiastic Laws), issued by King Rama I in late 1790s, the term phra satsana was an exclusive term primarily reserved for Buddhism, while latthi was used in the sense of ‘false, egoistic belief’ (latthi khong ton) (Ruang Kotmai Tra Sam Duang [The Laws of Three Seals] 1978: 559). In Nangsue Kitchanukit [A Book Explaining Various Things], Chao Phraya 129

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Thiphakorawong (1971), a high-ranking official and intellectual in the court of King Mongkut (reign 1851–1868], follows this convention, for example with, ‘satsana phra phuttha chao’ or ‘satsana phra samana khodom [Gotama]’ (Buddha’s religion or Buddhism) (ibid.: 109), ‘satsana phram’ (Brahmanism) (ibid.: 116), ‘satsana phra yesu’ or ‘satsana phra krit’ (Jesus Christ’s religion or Christianity) (ibid.: 116) and ‘satsana khaek’ (Islam) (ibid.: 87). He uses the term ‘latthi satsana’ (ibid.: 94, 122) when he means religion in general.11 In his award winning essay, Phra Ratcha Phithi Sipsong Duean [The Royal Ceremonies of the Twelve Months of the Year], King Chulalongkorn (reign 1868–1910) (1953) employs the term ‘phra ratcha phithi’ to refer to royal ceremonies or rituals practiced in or commissioned by the court, as opposed to those held in the folk or popular tradition. In Tamnan Phra Phuttha Chedi [The Chronicles Concerning Buddhist Pagodas], Prince Damrong (2002) describes two major Buddhist sects as latthi Mahayana and latthi Hinayana or latthi Theravada. Phya Anuman Rajadhon (1965a), the late doyen of Thai culture, casually uses a different set of combined terms such as, ‘latthi thamniam’ (overall cultural/religious traditions), ‘latthi satsana’ (religious belief and practice), ‘latthi phram’ (Brahmanism), or ‘latthi thue phi’ (animism) (Anuman Rajadhon 1965b: 92). He has never mentioned ‘latthi phithi.’ Luang Wichit Wathakan (1999) translates occult science and magic as ‘latthi yokhi lae maya sat’. None of these pre-existing utterances of latthi or satsana resembles Nidhi’s inventive definition of the term latthi phithi. Most recent works on spirit medium cults by Thai scholars either follow Nidhi’s lead12 or completely distinguish between latthi and satsana by using latthi to describe the variations of minor beliefs and practices adopted by a smaller number of people, with less influence on the larger society.13 Critics of these religious phenomena summarily label what Nidhi calls ‘latthi phithi’ as ‘krasae saiyasat’ (supernatural current/trend) (Dhammapitaka 1995a), ‘saiyawet witthaya’ (magical/supernatural knowledge) (Sulak Sivaraksa 1995), or simply ‘sai’ (Srisak Vanlibhodom 1994). These terminologies indicate the Hinduist/Brahmanist and animistic origins and influences on the Thais’ practices of magic and supernaturalism. While they insist that Buddhism and ‘good’ magic have long coexisted (phut kap sai pai duai kan), they nevertheless do not assign them a proper place in Thai religious categorization. Most religious activities involving profit-making are labelled as magic, occultism, or supernaturalism in the name of established Buddhism. They are thus either opposite, or inferior, to canonical or doctrinal Theravada Buddhism. When standing alone outside the domain of Buddhism, the term ‘latthi’ (doctrine) is used as a Thai translation of Western academic concepts covering indigenous animism, political doctrine, ideology, or even an organized idea, such as Communism (latthi khommunit), or Millenialism (latthi khwam chau phra si-an) (Keyes 1977). King Vajiravudh (r. 1910–1925) (1963: 1–18) 130

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coins the terms ‘latthi ao yang’ (imitationism) to counter criticisms to his elitist nationalist project in the 1920s. He compares the spread of latthi ao yang, especially among the progressive, Western-educated middle class, to a false ‘religious cult’ (latthi satsana). He criticizes his opponents, and urges his subjects to realise that Siam can never stand on her own feet if people keep brainlessly imitating the West or copying other people’s ideas.14 In his attempts to render Marxism as a politico-economic ideology into the Thai radical intellectual movement, Kulap Saipradit (1976), a leading Thai post World War II journalist and novelist, refers to Marxism as ‘latthi Marxism’ or ‘latthi Marx’. In the secular sense, latthi usually means patterned ideas or behaviours (The Royal Institute 2003: 1003). For the general Thai public, latthi is usually, though not strictly, assigned to convey the negative connotations of the ‘–ism’ labels.15 Each of the aforementioned uses of latthi conveys politically negative or even morally destructive connotations, especially in the eyes of rulers, elite and official authorities. I suspect that this is the main reason why Nidhi refuses to use the term latthi alone, but coins a neologism of latthi phithi to describe emerging sociocultural and religious phenomena like the cults of King Chulalongkorn and of Guan Yin. In addition, Nidhi’s ‘latthi phithi/cult’ is consistent with the academic usage of the term in the English-speaking anthropological literature of popular religion in Thailand. It largely includes non-Buddhist [non-world historic religious] beliefs and practices. It is usually translated closely to mean animistic, magical, or supernatural belief (khwam chuea) or tradition (prapheni) in the local language.16 Cohen and Wijeyewardene (1984: 249), for example, argue that Northern Thai spirit cults ‘. . . comprise groups of people who propitiate a category of spirits called phi puu njaa or spirits of the ancestors’. It makes sense to consider the emergence of varieties of ‘latthi phithi’ as ‘prosperity cults’ (e.g. the cults of phuttha phanit), but certainly not as new religions. They are prosperity cults emerging out of fertile syncretic religious traditions, where Theravada Buddhism, folk Brahmanism, animism, supernaturalism, magic and the worship of Chinese and Indian gods and goddesses have co-existed side by side for centuries. In this context, it is possible to recognize the hybridized latthi phithi as a ‘ritually-rich’ religion as well as a cult. In other words, it is a cult within the Thai syncretic or hybrid religious system (Pattana Kitiarsa 2005a,b). It is far different from the Western definition of a cult, which ‘is the opposite of religion’ or ‘signifies the absence of religion’ (Chidester 1996: 760). I concur with Jackson’s usage of prosperity religion because such beliefs and practices display multiple layers of ritualized symbolic expressions. It is religion in the GeertzianWeberian sense. Although their principles or teachings are grounded in Buddhist-Brahmanist cosmological frameworks, they reinforce the populace’s ritual practices because they provide answers to the crises and sufferings of modern life. Keyes, following Weber in his reflection on the state of 131

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Buddhism in the secularizing city of Chiang Mai in the early 1970s, argues that the persistence of rituals associated with life crises and with personal concerns should be counted as religion (Keyes 1975a). It is a ritual-based religion because it ‘. . . serves to provide resolutions to the problems thrown up by the experiences of men [and women] which are not susceptible to rational solution’ (ibid.: 70).

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The making of Thailand’s occult economy The expanding economy of phuttha phanit supernatural tools in Thailand is similar to the surge of occult practices in South Africa and elsewhere. Comaroff and Comaroff argue that the practice of mystical arts in postcolonial Africa does not imply a retreat into tradition. Instead, the persistence of precolonial magic and sorcery represents ‘new magic for new situations’. It is ‘a mode of producing new forms of consciousness; of expressing discontent with the deformities of modernity; in short, of retooling culturally familiar technologies as new means for new ends’ (Comaroff and Comaroff 2002: 227–228). However, religious commodifications in Thailand have involved more than ‘retooling culturally familiar technologies’. At the cosmographical level, the phuttha phanit have redefined and redirected traditional Buddhist and cultural values to serve the unquenchable desire for luck, wealth and other forms of material success. Market mechanisms alone cannot turn religious symbols, worshiping objects and spirit figures into popular religious commodities. Thailand’s phuttha phanit and its large-scale occult economy cannot flourish without the interplay of the domestic religio-cultural forces and values that have nurtured Thai popular religious life. Reynolds (1976: 220) identifies karma, merit (bun), giving (dana) and Buddhist precepts (sila) as the central premises in the Siamese Buddhist cosmography. These premises are ‘closely linked to dominant values and to the social order [of Thai society]’ (Ibid.). By including the prominent and related religio-cultural constructs of khwan (life essence) and barami (charisma/moral perfection/virtue) into this set of premises, I argue that these syncretistic Buddhist-based frames of cosmographical reference have formed formidable forces that drive and sustain the occult economy in Thailand. Derived from the traditional Traiphum tradition and redefined in Thai religious traditions, these key premises and practices have helped answer the question of what is particularly Thai in the country’s passage into an occult economy. They account for the Thai ways and provide the fundamental ‘structures of feeling’ (Williams 1976) that make sense of the religion-capitalism convergence and divergence. The redefinition and redirection of Thai Buddhist cultural frames of reference appear in the persistent significations of karma, merit, charisma, giving and precepts in contemporary religious life. Generally defined as the law of cause-effect action, karma is a key perennial Buddhist-Brahmanist 132

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construct; perhaps the single most essential concept in Thai popular religion. Karma carries both doctrinal and popular connotations. In the doctrinal perspective, karma connotes strong belief in the law of causeeffect action in this present life, as well as a culturally acquired belief in the accumulation of karmmic capital, which an individual has carried with him or her from their past life (Keyes 1983). Karma is a valued-laden perception covering the individuals’ conducts both in the religious and social worlds. From an individual’s standpoint, karma by itself is a neutral construct. It can be either good/meritious (bun) or bad/demeritious (bap), depending on one’s purposeful actions in both previous and present life-time. When it is translated into practice, karma is usually perceived as ‘karmically determined fate’ (khro kam), which guides people to either fortunate or unfortunate ways. It is therefore believed that karma is the key invisible, ultra-human force in determining one’s life course. In the popular cults of phuttha phanit, karma is translated into powerful practices at least in two ways. First, it is employed as a universal ‘readymade’ explanation for individuals’ problems. Whether one is struggling in poverty, suffering from illness and types of this-worldly problems, or enjoying affluence, karma or khro (fate) can always explain why one has to endure such an impermanent state of life. Second, through the lens of karmically determined fate, persons are compelled to correct it through a series of magical/supernatural means and merit-making. Both bad karma/ unfortunate khro and its opposite counterparts can be improved by giving away or donating objects (such as money, food, goods) to Buddhist monks and the needy, and saving/releasing some animals from their unfortunate fates. It is bad karma that is most often dealt with by magic monks, spirit doctors, fortune tellers, or spirit mediums. These ritual specialists encourage their followers or clients to undergo ritual procedures to improve their bad karmic influences (sado khro, kae khro/sia khro), which causes them suffering like poor health, troubled marriage or bad familial relationships, and business losses. Money thus becomes a form of ritual investment and a means of exchange for religious consumption, and therefore contributes to an occult economy. Along with karma and khro, the concept of pre-Buddhist khwan (life essence or soul) also plays a great role in popular belief. Khwan is a life vital force for living entities, including human and non-human beings, and is transformed into spirit (winyan) after death. In Thai folk belief, khwan always accompanies a person and indicates his/her physical and mental states of well-being (Anuman Rajadhon 1986). When one recovers from illness, encounters bad fortunes (such as accident or loss), or enters key phases of life transition (such as Buddhist ordination, wedding, travel, retirement), ceremonies of tying-soul (su khwan) or of calling soul (riak khwan) are performed by specialists called phram or mo su khwan. In the prosperity cults, most specialists (magic monk, fortune teller or spirit 133

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medium) are capable of performing these ceremonies, especially in association with the ritual of ‘paying-homage-to-the teachers’ spirits’ (phithi wai khru or phithi yok khru). Some offer them as services to clients for a fee, but most usually hold their own ceremony as a prestigious annual event in the presence of hundreds of invited followers/clients (luksit) and guests wearing ritual attire. Widely known as the ceremony to pay homage to teachers’ spirits, tying-soul, and worshipping deities (phithi wai khru, su khwan, lae bucha thep) (Wo. Cinpradit 1995), the hosts and people involved in the event use the ritual gathering as a venue to correct their unfortunate khro, make merit to improve their personal karmic stocks and most importantly, to accumulate ‘merit and power’ (bun/barami) (Hanks 1962) in the eyes of people belonging to the same religious community. Merit (bun) and charismatic power (barami) are other key concepts in Thai Buddhism as cosmic and social indicators of a person’s status in the Thai cultural world. Commonly combined as ‘bunyabarami’, they are measurable in both quantitative and qualitative terms, and are fundamental concepts that explain socioeconomic and political nobilities of individuals in the Thai social structure (Hanks 1962; Kirsch 1966; Wyatt 1994). Jory (2002) suggests that they reveal the traditional Thai concept of power and how power is historically and culturally perceived and practiced. However, the most noticeable shift in the religio-cultural significations produced by these concepts is their transformation into marketable commodities with value that is mundanely measured by money like any other exchangeable goods in the capitalist market. Bun/barami are transformed from religiously symbolic capital into consumable goods with marketable value. Wat Phra Dhamakaya is the best example, for its management has built their multibillion baht religious empire on the marketing of bun/barami-inspired commodities (Apinya Fuengfusakul 1993; Suwanna Satha-Anan 1990, 1998). In the Santi Asoke movement, ‘bun’ is also interpreted as religious goods, but it is used as an anti-capitalist weapon. One collects it by committing oneself to good deeds and righteous ways of living, to counter the onslaught of capitalism, materialism and consumerism. It is called the theory of meritism (bun niyom) instead of capitalism (thun niyom). The more merit one has accumulated, the better chance one has of enhancing his/her karma in the next rebirth (Apinya Fuengfusakul 1993: 169–170). Bun and barami have become marketable assets with certain quantifiable values in the phuttha phanit occult economy. They contain both material and symbolic properties. In conventional terms, bunyabarami is the individual qualification acquired through the virtue of one’s birth and one’s accumulation of good deeds. It is closely tied to Buddhist concepts of what constitutes good deeds and ethically and morally sound actions. They represent ideal qualifications which promote an individual’s success in both worldly and religious life. In short, they are the ideal model of and model for being in the world for Thai Buddhists. The barami of the ideal king, 134

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for example, is ideally accomplished through the act (bamphen) of ten virtues (thotsaphit ratchatham). For commoners, bun and barami are good deeds one should undertake in order to achieve social mobility. Sets of ethical and moral guidance for the individual and the community include Five Basic Precepts (sin ha) (Dhammapitaka). However, in the prosperity cults, bun and barami is symbolically and materially reduced to moral capital or religious-sounding idiom to encourage people to achieve wealth and power by means of religious commodities. They are exponentially proportional to the amount of money, material wealth and political office one holds. Most rituals in the phuttha phanit cults suggest two main purposes: (1) to make merit or giving away offerings (tham bun) to the Buddhist monks and thus gain his/her own via the virtues of monks’ charismatic authority; and (2) ritually to enhance individual barami (some barami) by making a large donation, or by hosting or sponsoring a grand ritual with a large group of attendants such as phithi wai khru, phithi thot phapa, phithi thot kathin or other merit-making occasions in the Buddhist calendar. This type of bunyabarami-making is widely adopted in the spirit medium cult, amulet cult, fortune-telling business, and new reform movements like Wat Phra Dhammakaya and Santi Asoke. Wat Phra Dhammakaya calls each of its followers/donors as the ‘barami maker’ (nak sang barami) (Phawana Wiriyakhun 1997). The cults of prosperity cannot prosper without encouraging people to pay and consume through the acts of giving away (than) or merit-making (tham bun). Keyes argues that these acts are most concrete and meaningful patterned behaviours, which help individuals make sense of abstract religious principles ‘in accord with their own life situations’ (Keyes 1983: 857). Acts of making merit are powerful because they involve everybody as members in a community of faith, and thus mobilize and distribute large sums of money and resources. They are powerful also because they are embedded deeply in people’s everyday lives as well as through the fixed Buddhist calendar. They (the cults of phuttha phani) are particularly powerful because such acts of religious consumption and commodification make merit both at individual and communal levels. Money-spending is encouraged in the many forms of merit making, ranging from buying (known in Thai as chao and bucha, literally to rent or to pay a fee for worshipping or respectful admiring, respectively) amulets and other religious goods, donating money and goods to Buddhist monks or temples, hosting ceremonies, making pilgrimage to sacred religious centres, to practicing meditation. Buddhist precepts are seldom mentioned in studies of Thai prosperity religions. Although less visible to the eyes of outsiders, they are prominent in governing conducts and grooming not only Buddhist monks, but also specialists’ career as practitioners of magic and supernaturalism. In principle, every Buddhist person from all socioeconomic spectra, from the King down to the commoner, is governed by certain sets of precepts. As a social 135

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norm, ordinary Buddhist people should follow the Five Basic Precepts in life. Pra Dhammapitaka interprets them as dhammic teachings intended to create social stability and harmony (Dhammapitaka (P.A. Payutto) 1995a,b). The roles of Buddhist precepts in modern life are increasingly questioned and debated in the Thai media. It is argued that when people ignore Buddhist precepts such as the Five Basic Precepts (sin ha) or the government initiates policy against one or many of these precepts, it is a clear measure of the decline of Buddhist morality. However, the precepts are fundamental to people involved in the cults of phuttha phanit. Ritual leaders and specialists – spirit mediums and magic monks – have subscribed themselves to certain sets of precepts in order to attain their moral status. Precepts also serve as moral criteria to judge ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ acts for specialists and their followers. The degree of strictness by which one practices the precepts also determines ones status in the prosperity cults. In spirit medium cults, for example, members are expected to follow Five Basic precepts, while the mediums should at least hold eight or ten precepts according to the Buddhist Vinaya. These people thus belong to a lower moral rank when compared to that of Buddhist monks, whose religious life is governed by the 227 ecclesiastic rules.

Commodifying venues and tactics While there is intense coverage on the cults of phuttha phanit in publications intended for general readership (see Broman and Warren 2005; Guelden 1995; Hoskin 1993), they are rather understudied in recent academic studies of Thailand’s popular religion (see Hayashi 2003; Klima 2002; Morris 2000). Subjects like the cults of mo tham (exorcist), urban spirit medium, magic specialist/curers (Golomb 1983, 1993) and magic monks are all examples of possible religious commodifying venues and tactics in contemporary Thailand. More detailed descriptions of actual phuttha phanit activities should complete the big picture of what I call commodifying venues and tactics, which act as the force behind the scenes of the phuttha phanit cults in contemporary Thailand. How and why are sets of religious symbols turned into commodities, ritual spaces transformed into marketplaces, and traditional religious practices incorporated into commercial activities? These are the focus questions of religious commodifying venues and tactics, which refer to ritually constructed spaces where activities like worship of sacred figures, mediating of spirits by the human mediums, gatherings to exchange religious commodities, stories and other symbols, take place. Venues are usually inscribed with or governed by ritually regulated patterns of behaviours. Some are owned or controlled by specialized agents. Venues are associated with specific sets of religious tactics, employed by multiple groups of people. As part of cultural practices, 136

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tactics are usually known, accessible and available to everyone who is willing to make use of them and is able to afford them. In the world of religious commodification in Thailand, I propose the key religious venues and tactics widely practiced and adopted throughout the country as follows. Magic monks and their magical monasteries. Most Thai monks are involved to some extent in the religious domain which Ishii (1986) calls ‘magical Buddhism’. Terwiel (1979) describes in vivid detail how monks and magic are almost inseparable. Studies of ‘forest monks’ by Taylor (1993) and Kamala Tiyavanich (1997) also confirm that monks in their forest monasteries and in their practice of forest wandering are not purely doctrinalists, nor they strictly adhere to Buddha’s paths, especially when they have to come to terms with magic-hungry followers and their own mysterious experiences. Indeed, it is their supernatural qualities that make them invulnerable and garners their reputation as magic monks among followers. There is no specific term assigned for ‘magic monk’. Jackson (1999b) uses the term ‘phra saksit,’ but it does not fit very well. It refers to the sacred or auspicious qualities of a Buddha statue or amulet rather than a living monk, who practices magical Buddhism and is involved in a money-making enterprise either for his personal gain or for the benefit of his monasteries and people surrounding him. I prefer to adopt the term ‘kechi achan’ or ‘phra kechi’, which is widely used in the religious media and communities in Thailand. There are thousands of Thai Buddhist monks who could be identified as magic monks, living in temples throughout the country. A magic monk is usually widely regarded for his charisma and supernatural potency. He must at least be widely recognized and revered by his followers through events that define his supernatural potencies, such as his amulets saving the lives of followers, giving winning lottery numbers, or providing healing magic. Magic monks are engaged in the material world and many of them have become infamous in the Thai media when they engage in the accumulation of wealth and other mundane matters, including consorting with women (Keyes 1999a). Arguably, the best-known living magic monk in recent decades is Laung Pho Khun Parisutho of Wat Ban Rai, Nakhon Ratchasima, Northeastern Thailand, whose multimillion-baht amulet industry is well publicized (Jackson 1999a). Elsewhere, I discuss the case of local magic monks’ enterprise and practices (Pattana Kitiarsa 2005a). The amulet cults. Thai Buddhist and quasi-Buddhist amulets, usually sacralized by famous magic monks, have become an industry with a market value of several billion baht. Its marketplaces have mushroomed in places like the make-shift stalls along the major temples, the malls and department stores, or even the internet. The temples with noted amulets and major religious figures and monuments (such as Wat Ban Rai, Wat Luang Pho Sothon or Wat Phra Phuttha Chinnarat) usually run the amulet markets, 137

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where producers, dealers, collectors and potential buyers come to meet and negotiate their auspicious business transactions. Early studies on Thai amulet cults, such as Phya Auman Rajadhon (1961), Tambiah (1984), Terwiel (1979) and Srisak Vanlibhodom (1994) share common findings that magic, supernaturalism, popular Buddhism and other elements in the Thai syncretic religious system have all accounted for the historical emergence of the amulet cults. A recent study by Chalong Soontravanich (2004) points out that the amulets’ popularity is highly contingent upon the country’s political and economic situations. Different people have different reasons to collect amulets. Some people use amulets together with magical Buddhism in responding to problems and difficulties they have faced in life. Some collect them for their ascetic value and for personal pleasure. Popular spirit medium cults. Spirit cults have become one of the most visible venues and tactics for religious commodification. They exist in every community in Thailand, outnumbering Buddhist temples. Once most prevalent in rural areas, their popularity has grown steadily in urban areas since the 1960s owing to massive rural to urban migration and rapid urbanization. In 1995, the Research Unit of the Thai Farmers’ Bank estimated that Thai people from all socio-economic backgrounds spend more than 20 billion baht (US$ 800 million) per year on spirit-medium services. Mediums and fortune tellers are sought out when people need advice on business, family and personal matters, or healing, or help finding lost objects or runaway people. Providing winning lottery numbers for the bimonthly state-run lottery is another important activity of the cults, and famous mediums are often successful lottery number revealers. These popular religiosities are widely accepted, especially in urban and suburban areas. Spirit mediums, fortune tellers, other Chinese and Indian religious specialists and those people involving in amulet cults are key players in providing services to clients. The lottery industry. Both legal and black market lotteries are at the zenith of religious commercialization. It is the most desirable form of luck or fortune for people involved in prosperity religions. It is gambling neatly concealed in the name of a popular religious venture. It is a way of perceiving, seeing and living in the modern world. Magic monks, spirit mediums and fortune-tellers can only acquire a good reputation when they provide their clients or followers with winning lottery numbers. Certain spirits are worshipped because they possess saksit qualities and are benevolent by giving help to their worshippers. The spirit of the late lukthung pop queen, Phumphuang Duangchan is a prime example that links spirit worship and winning a fortune in the form of this number game. Other significant religious commodifying venues and tactics include pilgrimage and festivals at major religious centres, the religious publications and record industry, and major commercially-oriented centres. These 138

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venues and tactics have contributed to the growth of religious markets through the flow of goods, people and stories. They all have enriched and redefined the convergence and divergence of religion and the capitalist market economy in Thailand. Taken together, they show how religious commodification venues and tactics have been constructed and function as symbolic and material responses by local communities to the global market economy. They provide magical and supernatural means to the Thais in their pursuit of this-worldly interests. As Golomb (1993: 33–34) points out, Thai people ‘. . . contending with rapid sociocultural change are turning to all sorts of traditional practitioners for help in dealing with new kinds of social pressures arising from the growing complexity of modern urban life’.

Conclusion The occult economy, as exemplified in Thailand’s many religious commodifications and the cults of phuttha phanit in particular, is both symbolically and materially manifested. It has generated economic, symbolic and semiotic exchanges of faith, experience, imagery and money. Throughout this chapter, I have demonstrated that the proliferation of phuttha phanit cults in Thailand since the late 1980s has been regarded as cultic religiosity in the name of latthi phithi. They do not represent the so-called emergence of ‘new religious movements’ (NRMs) or new religions, as sociologists suggested in the 1980s. The latthi phithi and the phuttha phanit have long historical roots in the political discourses of Thai Buddhism in crisis. The convergence and divergence of Buddhism and capitalism in Thai history are firmly rooted in Thai intellectual consciousness and social vision. The intersections between Buddha’s teachings and market forces represent one of the most fragile and sensitive spots in the Thai social memory, and in the national identity-building project of the rulers, the elite and middle-class social critics. Thailand’s prosperity religions represent the actual sites of markets of religious commodity exchanges as well as their imagery or representational symbolic economy. I argue that one way to explain the emergent prosperity religions and their occult economy is to gauge the realities of their ‘commodifying tactics’, read them against their own historical and sociocultural backdrops. The ‘new’ religious hybridities and their significations are not totally new. They are not religiosities without historical and cultural precedents. On the one hand, they are ‘updated versions’ of religious forms shaped by conventional processes like localism and syncretism. On the other hand, they have produced religious meanings based on a powerful occult economy, in which individuals’ wealth, luck and success are positioned at the forefront, rather than conventional Buddha’s teachings. The ‘newness’ of Thailand’s religious hybridity and occult economy cannot be taken out of the discourse of phuttha phanit, and further analysis of religion-capitalist 139

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convergence requires a fuller understanding of ‘home-grown’ commodifying venues and tactics, which in turn reflect the extraordinary qualities and symbolic creativity of Thailand’s consuming religion. In short, Thailand’s cults of phuttha phanit show the ‘impact of resurgent capitalism and its assimilative and creative power with regard to religion and religiosity in the new synergies of various forms of prosperity religion’ (Roberts 1995: 1). The occult economy produced by and maintained through the cults of phuttha phanit represents the most compelling embodiment of popular religiosity in contemporary Thailand. I suggest that the cults of phuttha phanit should be taken as sites of popular religion and culture. They constitute popular landscapes of religiosity that have been woven from multiple concepts and social fields of Buddhist karma, merit/moral perfection, giving and precepts. They operate on syncretic religious grounds, comprising animism, Theravada Buddhism, folk Brahmanism and other emerging religious elements. As a moral and ethical engine behind the lust for wealth, power and material success in life, these cultural practices are the engine driving Thailand’s religious commodifying machine. They are the invisible guiding values behind the visible venues and tactics ranging from magic monks’ monasteries, spirit cults, pilgrimages, festivals, and the ever-growing lottery industry.

Notes 1 I decided to take this historical period as the long historical watershed of contemporary discourses of ‘Thai Buddhism in crises for three reasons. First, it is the most devastated event in Thai history that left tragically haunting scars in the Thais’ social memory. Second, the period represents perhaps the most significant historical transition from the old, traditional to the new, modern Siam. Perhaps it is as important as the reigns of King Mongkut and King Chulalongkorn, which are widely considered by political economists, economic historians and political scientists as the reigns that gave birth to modern Siam as far as the state formation, administrative and economic structures are concerned. Indeed, the fall of Ayutthaya was the tragic collapse of the Siamese world order. Finally, it is one of the much-written-about periods in Thailand’s historiography. Many high quality works on the period are produced with solid historical sources and evidences, such as Nidhi Auesrivongse (1995, 1996); Reynolds (1976); Saichon Sattayanurak (2003); Wyatt (1994). 2 Patrick Jory (2002) examines the relatively neglected concept of barami (‘moral perfection’, ‘virtue’, ‘charisma’), its origins in Theravada Buddhist discourse, and the manner of its popularization in premodern Thai culture. 3 Over a century later, chaos and disorder are also employed by Prince Damrong (2002 [1926]) to describe the turbulent state of politics and religion in India prior to the breakup between Mahayana and Hinayana Sects in as the ‘Buddhist predicaments’ (khwam prae pruan [khong phra phuttha satsana]). 4 More appropriate terms describing consequences of the religious reforms initiated by King Mongkut at the cosmographical level should be ‘trim’ and ‘refine’ as argued by Reynolds (1976: 220). The Traiphum cosmography has survived as a construction of reality in Siamese imagination to coexist with other

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constructed models. ‘Siamese Buddhist cosmography was not dismantled; it was trimmed and refined. The Buddhist structure on which it was built remained intact and preserved the essence of Theravada Buddhism’. Most Thai scholars agree upon the generalization that Thailand is the Buddhist modern nation-state (Keyes 1989). Its society and culture are presumably founded upon and historically evolved around on Theravada Buddhist-centred complex religious system. Therefore, the terms like ‘phuttha watthanatham’ [Buddhist-based culture], ‘watthanatham phutt’ [Buddhist culture], ‘sangkhom phutt’ [Buddhist society] or ‘muang phutt’ [Buddhist nation] are common keywords among Thailand’s local scholars and the media. (see Suwanna Satha-anan 1998). Chalong Soonthravanich (2004: 4) interviews experts in the Thai amulet circles and suggests that ‘the total sale of new amulets produced each year may be anything from 5 to 10 billion baht’. He also remarks that comprehensive studies on the total market values of the industry nationwide have yet been carried out. In one popular version of Thai Buddhist prophecy, it is believed that ‘. . . there would be no female monks (bhikkuni) within 500 years after Buddha’s death. Within 1,000 years, there woud be no Arahat (Buddhist saint) capable of travelling through the air. Over the next 2,000 years, things would get worse; no pundits would ever master the Tripitaka (Theravada Buddhist scriptures). Three thousand years later, the Sangha (Buddhist monk order) would no longer exist. Four thousand years later, monks’ bowls and robes would disappear. Five thousand years after Buddha’s death, his religion would come to an end” (Wo. Cinpradit 1995: 94 cited in Pattana Kitiarsa 2005b: 170). I wish to point out that the Buddhist prophecy, in its various forms and appropriations, has been occasionally recited and circulated as a legitimate source to pronounce religio-political claims for some certain radical causes in times of crises. In Phleng Yao Phayakon Krung Sri Ayutthaya [The Long Song Prophecy for Ayutthaya], the moral decays and decline of the public faith in Buddhism is cited as one of ‘sixteen disasters’ indicative to the tragic fall of the old capital. The prophecy was composed by one of Ayutthayan kings long before April 1767 (Prachum Phongsawadan Pak 63: Tamnan Krung Kao 1972: 79–81). In the phu mi bun revolt in Northeastern region at the turn of the twentieth century, the arrival of Meytrai was repeatedly announced by the leaders of the peasant movements expressing dissatisfactions against the administrative reforms during the reign of King Chulalongkorn (Keyes 1977). Chatthip Nartsupha (1993) shows that the similar causes were recited to rally peasant supports for the resistances since the times of Ayutthaya until some recent revolts in 1950s. In short, the Buddhist prophecy has long served as one of key religio-cultural frames for political actions from below during the times of crisis and of absolute rules by the kings and military rulers. Princess Phra Suphan Kanlaya was originally the sixteenth century historical figure. She was the elder sister of King Naresuan (r. 1590–1605), both of whom were held war captives by the Burmese after the fall of Ayutthaya. Her legendary biography was re-told and transformed into the post-1997 economic crisis patriotic heroine by Dr Nalinee Phaibun, who worships the princess’ spirit as an inspirational source for herself to overcome personal difficulties and launch her successful cosmetic business. In order to popularize the princess’ patriotic sacrifice and gain more support from followers, she publishes books and even sponsors a professional historian to document the princess’ legend as a historical person (see Nidhi Aeusrivongse 2002).

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9 The cult of King Rama V represents the first worshiping of a great national hero created by civic synergy without state-intervention. It is the ‘latthi phithi haeng chat’ (national cult), initiated by the growing and powerful urban middle class who demanded for more open and transparent economy and politics. It serves as a ‘symbolic bridge’ for them to demand their right to participate in the country’s both imagined and real national community (Nidhi Aeusrivongse 2003a). The cult of Suphan Kanlaya, on the other hand, shows the intense expressions of predominantly female urban middle class members for their economic and other life successes as women have traditionally occupied a major role in household, community and national economies (Nidhi Aeusrivongse 2002: 28). 10 In Photchananukrom Sap Satsana Sakon Angkrit-Thai Chabab Ratchabanditthayasathan B .E . 2542 [The Royal Institute’s English-Thai Dictionary of International Religion], ‘latthi’ is defined as ‘ways of belief, opinion, and principle/doctrine, which people have subscribed themselves to and practiced such as, socialism, nationalism, and capitalism’ (The Royal Institute 2003: 1003). ‘Phithi’ refers to ‘rite or ritual, which is held based on cult/latthi or traditional beliefs’ (ibid.: 788). 11 Reynolds (1976) gives a rather high regard to this book as it epitomizes the emerging refined cosmography, produced by Siamese rulers and intellectuals in the mid-nineteenth century. Reading it as ‘a successor or replacement’ of the traditional Traiphum cosmography, this book represents something close to the Siamese intellectual revolution in cosmological thinking as Siamese rulers and elite adjusting themselves to face the modernizing threats from the West. Since the presence of this book and the advents of other Siam’s ‘selective modernization’ (Thongchai Winichakul 1994: 3), argues Reynolds (1976: 220), Buddhist cosmography ‘. . . must now coexist with other constructions of reality.’ 12 For example, Suriya Smutkupt, Pattana Kitiarsa, Chanthana Suraphinit and Silapakit Teekhantikun. Song Chao Khao Phi [Spirit-Medium Cult Discourses and Crises of Modernity in Thailand]. (Bangkok: Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn Anthropology Centre, 1996). 13 For example, Danai Chaiyotha. Latthi, Satsana, Lae Rabob Khwam Chuea Kap Prapheni Niyom Nai Thongthin [Cult, Religion, and Belief System and Local Traditions]. (Bangkok: Odeon Store, 1995); Shalardchai Ramitanondh. Phi Chao Nai [The Spirits of the Lords]. (Bangkok: Phayap Offset, 1984). 14 Ironically, King Vajiravudh is the first Western educated, Chakri King, who spent an extended time in England and Europe as Wyatt (1984: 224) calls him an ‘Edwardian gentleman.’ His policy and personal life style were heavily influenced by the European models (see Vella 1978). The criticisms by educated middle class to the absolute monarchy of Siam and their links to the 1932 revolution are discussed Barme (2002) and Nakharin Mektrairat (1992). 15 Thai Rath (23 October 2005) called the ‘Raelian Movement’, a religious cult founded in France by French journalist Claude Vorilhon (now called Rael) in 1973 and strongly believed in ‘the extra-terrestrial being who emerged from a flying saucer and told him that humans were created in laboratories by people from another planet’ (http://www.apologeticsindex.org/r12.html) as ‘latthi pian’ (deviant or absurd cult) as its members ‘go berserk’ (klang latthi) with the extraterrestrial being (manut tang dao), respecting the right of individuals to commit suicide and practice polygamy. Charan Maluleem (2005: 90) describes the mysticism, which has coexisted with Islam as ‘latthi niyom khwam lilap,’ which focuses on magic and supernaturalism. It is thus different from Sufism. In July 1995, Daily News (23 July 1995) reports the rise of the cult worshipping Ariya Meytrai as the ‘freak cult’ (latthi ubat) intended to undermine established Buddhism in Nakhon Phathom province.

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16 See Davis, Richard. Muang Metaphysics: A Study of Northern Thai Myth and Ritual. (Bangkok: Pandora, 1984); Tambiah, Stanley J. Buddhism and the Spirit Cults in North-East Thailand. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970); Tanabe, Shigeharu. ‘Spirits, Power, and the Discourse of Female Gender: The Phi Meng Cult of Northern Thailand’. In Thai Constructions of Knowledge. Manas Chitakasem and Andrew Turton, eds. (London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1991), 183–212; Wejeyedewardene, Gehan. ‘Northern Thai Succession and the Search for Matriliny’. Mankind. 14, 4 (August 1984): 286–292.

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Part III

THE MULTIPLE EFFECTS OF RELIGIOUS COMMODIFICATIONS

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SPIRITS OF CONSUMPTION AND THE CAPITALIST ETHIC IN VIETNAM* Oscar Salemink

Duong sao âm vaâ·y. [Vietnamese saying: ‘However the yang world, so is the yin world’]

Introduction After a period of suppression of all things religious by Vietnam’s Communist Party-State, a remarkable revival of a wide variety of ritual and religious practices is taking place in contemporary Vietnam. In the words of the Australian anthropologist, Philip Taylor: An upsurge in fortune-telling, mediumship, spirit worship, and pilgrimages occurred in Vietnam as government policies were pushing the country into unprecedented integration with the capitalist world and as market relations were transforming the face of society. (Taylor 2004: 83) Recent discussions about religious developments speak about the revival of religious practices in Vietnam. The assumption implied in such words is that traditional religious beliefs and ritual practices have been absent or hidden from view and have re-emerged during the Ðổi mới period of economic reforms since 1986. In such accounts, this phenomenon is explained in terms of a return to ‘tradition’ during Vietnam’s comprehensive socioeconomic reform process, after a period of religious suppression during socialist collectivization. In my experience the form and scale of activities do not constitute a return to the past, but take place on a much grander scale, assuming novel forms, prompted by old or novel motivations, and in a transnational context. Philip Taylor contextualizes this localized insight by referring to the enhanced religious sensibilities in other countries in Asia

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(Keyes et al., 1994) and to ‘new forms of religiosity’ in connection with the proliferation of capitalism around the world (Roberts 1995). However, such a crude connection between religiosity and the economic system cannot account for the specificities of local practices and the motivations of religious figures and their clients. In this chapter I take a look at spirit mediumship in Vietnam, which takes on varying forms depending on ethnicity, region and religion. I intend to do justice to the diverse motivations and projects by situating mediumship practices squarely in the present, in connection with contemporary aspirations and ambitions as well as anxieties, uncertainties and insecurities. In this paper I shall analyze cases of spirit mediumship in terms of consumption of (sacred) commodities and performances. Both commodities and performances are consumed (or ‘absorbed’) by diverse categories of clients wishing to offset economic and/or existential insecurities by securing tangible commodities, graphically exemplified by ‘lucky money’, foodstuffs, canned drinks and pieces of cloth collected in plastic bags for taking home after the session/ritual/pilgrimage. With the onslaught of capitalism, the ‘other world’ – as a reflection of this world – has become oriented towards commodification and competition, while the rituals for connecting both worlds offer both wholesome experiences and entertainment. I shall develop my argument in sections on the revival of ritual practices in postSocialist Vietnam; on spirit mediumship, healing and wealth; on risk and spiritual security; on ritual as (competitive) performance; and on the aesthetic politics of inclusion and exclusion.

Reviving ritual in Vietnam There is a burgeoning literature on the revival of ritual and religious practices during the Ðổi mới period, after a period of suppression of ‘superstitions’ (mê tín dị đoan) in the campaign toward secularization and socialist construction. Despite similarities, scholars outside Vietnam tend to stress different causal factors on the revival of ritual and festivals during the Ðổi mới period. Hy Van Luong (1993) points at more political space for religious and ritual action, at increased wealth and at a need for spiritual compensation for the economic insecurity inherent in the market. John Kleinen (1999) draws attention not only to prestige as a function of economic position through ‘conspicuous consumption’ but also to the interest of the State in political legitimization through ritual. This latter issue is also taken up by Alexander Woodside (1997) in his reflection on the changing role of the State in Vietnamese society. Shaun Malarney (1996a; 2002) zooms in on the relationship between Party/State and locality, and uses the term ‘multivocality’ to describe the contested meanings of symbols and ritual. Kirsten Endres (2000) situates the revival of transformed ritual and festival in an official desire to promote a traditional morality. In her dissertation, Truong Huyen Chi (2001) 148

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paints a vivid picture of the competition between and within villages, lineages, gender and age groups for prestige that comes with ritual prominence. Philip Taylor (2002; 2004) draws attention to new forms of devotion and massive pilgrimage in a modern market context in southern Vietnam. In his book Goddess on the Rise (2004) about religious beliefs and ritual practices centred on goddesses in southern Vietnam, Taylor offers a quasi-Marxist interpretation that the transactional nature of people’s dealings with deities and spirits is a way of ‘embodying market relations’ (2004: 83–110). Within Vietnam itself the resurgence of religious and ritual practices – especially of festivals (lễ hội) – provoked a lively academic and political debate around the two (linked) questions whether festivals – as ritualized and hence partly religious events – are admissible in a socialist state; and whether they should be preserved in ‘traditional’ form or adapted to modern requirements. These types of questions, betraying a ‘statist’ and instrumentalist perspective on festivals, revolved around the modern notion of lễ hội – a compound word consisting of the particles lễ (ceremony, ritual or rite, and having a religious connotation) and hội (association, gathering or festivity, having a secular connotation). The word lễ hội, then, is used to denote village festivals, temple festivals and other traditional festivities with a partly profane, partly sacred character (Lê Văn Kỳ 1992; Nguyễn Duy Hinh 1993). This debate was initiated by the Institute of Folk Culture Studies (Lê Trung Vũ 1992) and more or less settled during a conference in Hanoi in 1993, with the result that village festivals were considered legitimate events, as expressions of the cultural identity and the moral basis of the community (Ðinh Gia Khánh et al., 1993; Lê Trung Vũ 1993). Subsequent years have seen an enormous increase in ritual and festival activities; an enhanced sense of their legitimacy, as evident from state support for and media coverage of festivals; and a mushrooming of calendars and other scholarly, educational and public interest publications about rituals and festivals (usually focusing on explanations of the meaning of rituals and festivals). The combination of the particles lễ (sacred: rite) and hội (profane: assembly) in Vietnam’s political and ritual practices seems to pre-empt a radical dichotomy between sacred and profane in the Durkheimian sense (cf. Durkheim 1995). Whereas everyday practice may be sacralized in Vietnam, a rather strict line is usually drawn between formal, institutionalized religions based on scriptural traditions on the one hand, and informal folk beliefs and practices on the other. The idea is that institutional, scriptural religions (tôn giáo) like Buddhism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Confucianism and – to a lesser extent – Taoism, are clearly distinguishable. Even though people combined religious practices to such an extent that the three traditional religions in Vietnam were called the tam giáo [triple religions: Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism; in Chinese san qiao], these religious practices seem to have fairly clear boundaries distinguishing these religions from other religious practices. The word tín 149

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ngưỡng [religious beliefs or creed] might apply to informal, folk or ethnic minority religions, and might include superstitious beliefs and practices (mê tín dị đoan) which are not recognized as legitimate religions and hence fall outside the scope of the constitutional protection of religious freedom (tự do tín ngưỡng). While all religious beliefs and practices are being revived, a common assumption is that formal religions and folk beliefs are of a different nature, with little overlap and mutual influence. It can be argued, however, that this is a false dichotomy. With respect to the quite similar religious traditions of China, there has been a lively debate over the question whether one should speak of one overarching religion or multiple religious traditions in China (see Freedman 1974; Granet 1975; de Groot 1912; Weller 1987; Wolf 1974; Yang 1961). Since Cadière’s critique of the notion of tam giáo in which he claimed that both Taoism and Confucianism are superstructures built on a substratum of spirit worship, with Buddhism slightly apart (1992-I: 25–32), such a theoretical debate is largely absent from Vietnam. However, the partial syncretism is clearly visible in many temples and altars. The Buddhist, Confucianist and Taoist pantheons are largely overlapping. Many Buddhist pagodas have small shrines dedicated to the Mother Goddess, identified not as Quan Âm [Kuan Yin in Chinese] but as Princess Liễu Hạnh – the Mother Goddess. Simultaneously, Buddha images can be found on family altars and many other sacred sites. There is also cross-over with the political realm, as historical political leaders such as Trần Hưng Ðạo, Trần Nhân Tông, Lê Văn Duyệt and – more recently – Hồ Chí Minh (see Malarney 1996b) and Tôn Ðức Thắng (Giebel 2001) have become foci of religious worship in various religious traditions. When it comes to the revival of spirit mediumship, most of the contemporary sources draw attention to the practice of Ðạo Mẫu or Mother Goddess Worship which is currently witnessing a huge revival in Vietnam. One septuagenarian player of chầu văn ritual music told me that he had been travelling around in the Red River Delta as a musician since he was a child, but that at no point in his life he had played at so many spirit possession rituals. In the course of the last couple of years many temples have been restored and put to renewed use. Spirit mediums and their clients host sessions in their ‘own’ temples or organize pilgrimages to temple festivals. Some spirit mediums themselves choose to speak of Ðạo Thánh [Worship of saints or spirits, including historical heroes like Trần Hưng Ðạo] rather than Ðạo Mẫu which may be correct because the Mother Goddess is just one among many spirits. The thánh, then, include the various personas of celestial mandarins, ladies and pages in the pantheon related to the Mother Goddess in the ‘four palaces’ (tứ phủ), as well as the various legendary or historical figures who have been immortalized as saints and who possess special faculties that they may use for the benefit of their devout followers. Followers are themselves investing heavily in the possession rituals, with 150

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either the master or themselves in the role of medium. Lên đồng has become a widely-accepted, widespread and very popular practice. The enhanced legitimacy of Ðạo Mẫu and ritualized forms of spirit possession (lên đồng, múa bóng, hầu bóng, hầu đồng, hầu vui) have been the subject of many scholarly exchanges, ever since Ngô Ðức Thịnh published two volumes about Mother Goddess worship (1996). Various Vietnamese journals, including Vietnamese Studies (1999), devoted special issues to the phenomenon, and in 2001 the Institute of Folk Culture Studies organized an international conference on ‘Mother Goddess veneration and the Phu Giay festival’ – partly in Hanoi and partly in Phủ Giầy temple, with funding from that temple.1 In line with the geographic position of most of the scholars and research institutions involved, this scholarly interest mostly concerned northern lên đồng ritual practices associated with the cult of Princess Liễu Hạnh (Dror 2002). While the academic interest did much to legitimize the cult and attending ritual practices by drawing attention to their aesthetic aspects (dancing, chầu văn ritual music, ritual garments) and cultural value, this only partly explains the popularity of lên đồng in both rural and urban areas, among men and women of all walks of life. The rituals of spirit mediumship are simultaneously performances, in which important roles are played by the spirit medium, by the religious master (thầy cúng) reading the questions, by the attendants of the spirit medium during the ritual and by the musicians (chầu văn) accompanying, explaining and commenting on the ritual.2 The ritual usually takes from a couple of hours, up to one full day and night. Nguyễn Thế Anh (1995), Nguyễn Hữu Thông (2001) and Philip Taylor (2002; 2004) draw attention to various forms of Mother Goddess worship in central and southern Vietnam, with different deities and different practices. In central Vietnam the Goddess Thiên Y A Na is associated with the Cham legacy that preceded the Kinh settlement of that region, while the ritual involving spirit possession is a group activity (hầu vui). In the Mekong Delta, the Lady of the Realm (Bà Chúa Xứ) attracts huge crowds who seek her blessing. In contrast with the more collective hầu vui in central Vietnam, the individualistic lên đồng rituals in northern Vietnam revolve around one spirit medium with his/her attendants. Visible preparations consist of the chanting of the requests (cầu) from the (sponsoring) audience by the religious master, of chants by the temple master and of the arranging of sacrificial goods and the clothes. After that, the mediumship dance starts when the spirit medium (who can be a ‘professional’ master/mistress or an ‘amateur’ medium) enters the ‘stage’ before the altar in the temple, in order to act as vehicle for deities in the pantheon of Liễu Hạnh. Helped by assistants, the spirit medium puts on ceremonial clothes associated with the spirit of the deity who would incarnate him or her, and dances to chầu văn ceremonial music to please the spirit. In one session, the medium will dance for and be possessed by – usually eight – different deities in the hierarchical 151

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Vietnamese pantheon which is imagined to consist of four imperial palaces overseen by the ‘Emperor of Heaven’. Each time, the medium will put on (beautiful) new clothes whose colour and form reflect the identity and position of that particular spirit. But apart from the scripted, highly performative and aesthetically pleasing forms of spirit mediumship associated with various Mother Goddesses and their pantheons, there are also more idiosyncratic forms of mediumship, where persons endowed with a special gift/faculty/burden (according to personal experience) act as ‘vessels’ for spirits to ride. In one of the following vignettes I shall give an example of an ethnic minority woman in the northern highlands of Vietnam who is reputed to be possessed by the spirits of deceased relatives of clients. Although that particular practice is subject to processes of institutionalization, formalization, ritualization and syncretistic bricolage (cf. Salemink forthcoming), there is no question of the aesthetic performance of lên đồng or múa bóng. In the following sections I shall take a closer look at healing and wealth, risk-taking and aesthetic politics.

Health and wealth in the spiritual market In 2002 I visited the Lưu Phái temple complex together with my friend Ngô Ðức Thịnh. In a rural area just south of Hanoi, the complex consists of a ‘Buddhist’ pagoda (chùa), a ‘Taoist’ temple (đền) and a ‘Confucian’ tutelary village shrine (đình) next to each other, and all three buildings had been rebuilt or restored in the 1990s following destructions wrought by the wars and the Revolution.3 We went there in order to attend the initiation ritual of Ms. Hà, a mother of two and a garment and shoe trader in Hanoi’s bestknown market, Ðồng Xuân. For her first, initiative possession [ra đồng], Ms. Hà was assisted by ông đồng Hùng, a professional medium based at a temple in the old quarter of Hanoi, and his own assistants; by the temple master, thầy Nghĩa; by an old lady; and by the chầu văn ceremonial music band; in the presence of some relatives and friends. Hà had invested a considerable amount of money in the ceremonial clothes (necessary for dancing and ‘impersonating’ the spirits), in the sacrificial objects offered to the deities (and to be returned as heavenly, auspicious gifts – lộc), and in the organization of the ceremony itself. A first time medium, she did not know the ritually prescribed acts, and her dancing performance was often quite hesitant and clumsy, to the point that the audience even showed the right moves and finger positions to her. Eventually she grew into her performance as she approached the two final – and most cheerful and exciting – incarnations, of Cô Chín [the ninth damsel] and Cậu Bé [the youngest page]. Towards the end of the series of incarnations by deities, the circulation of objects and money grew faster, with some of it going to attendants, musicians and audience, who pocketed the objects and the money that had made 152

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the symbolic journey to the other world. Suddenly the music ended. ‘Is it over now?’, asked Ms. Hà, exhausted. The heavenly gifts were distributed among the assistants and the audience who had prepared plastic bags in order to take the auspicious goods home. I asked Ms. Hà why she would want to be possessed by deities and invest so much money and effort to do so. She told me that she had been feeling ill for some time now, but did not get better. Regular doctors could not find the cause of her predicament. The last half year things had taken a turn for the worse, and she ‘lost everything’, meaning that now not only her health but her livelihood and her family happiness were at stake. Clearly the cause was not biomedical, reason why regular physicians could not diagnose her properly. Instead, she was diagnosed by a soothsayer as having căn – the spirit root, which means that she is destined [duyên] to be entered by spirits and deities [nhập hồn thánh]. There is no choice, for failing to submit one’s body as vessel for spirits to ride means bad luck, first and foremost in the form of bad physical or mental health. In other words, Ms. Hà wanted to be initiated as a medium in order to placate the spirits that try to enter her body, and to rid herself of the plagues affecting her. In that sense she engaged in an act of healing, thus creating physical and psychological security for herself and her family. But as a market trader she was also interested in economic gain, which is way many of the sacrificial objects (paper effigies to be burnt) and the objects to be blessed, circulated and ‘consumed’, refer to consumer objects of prestige and desire. Such objects may typically include betel nut, fruit, cookies and sweet foodstuff, canned foods, bottles of liquor, canned beer, cigarettes, towels and pieces of cloth. Interestingly, in order to be efficacious in this world these objects have to be symbolically consumed by spirits in the other world, so the increased dominance of market commodities (rather than ‘home-grown’ products) must be thought to please the spirits as well. What these objects have in common is that they have to be consumed, inhaled or worn on the body, through which contact they release their auspicious effect to the client in terms of both healing and wealth. Money works differently, as it cannot be consumed directly. Since the notes have to travel to the other world, they must be new rather than old and worn. Auspicious money functions as ‘spiritual capital’ in the literal sense (contra Barro 2004), and can be used in important transactions, given away, or kept in a wallet or cash register.4 As in Vietnamese cosmology both health and wealth are related to a fate ultimately determined in the other world;- the categorical distinction between the two concepts of health and wealth – usual in the West – makes less sense in Vietnam. If there is an analogy with health, then wealth can be defined by its absence. If failing health provides a motivation to engage in mediumship, then we might ask ourselves whether the absence of wealth might provide a motivation for mediumship as well. What is meant here is, of course, 153

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poverty – which has both absolute and relative dimensions, and which is characterized by an abundance of ‘needs’ but a lack of economic ‘want’ (demand) in the glocalized market. An actual ‘absence of want’ would make the entire world economy come to grinding halt. After all, the globalized consumerism characteristic of late capitalism and post-modern culture can only make the economy roll if new desires are constantly whetted, if new wants are imagined and if new economic demand is continuously created. So how are poverty, wealth and desire for wealth articulated in present-day, post-Socialist Vietnam? According to statistics offered by the Vietnamese government, by the UNDP and by the World Bank, Vietnam is the latest success story of liberal reforms, with high GDP growth rates and a percentage-wise decline of poor households by 19 per cent from 1993 (55 per cent nationwide) to 2004 (24 per cent nationwide), according to the Vietnam Living Standards Surveys. However, economic differentiation has widened and hardened as well, creating a bottom stratum of ‘inveterately poor’ people (that include most of Vietnam’s ethnic minority people) facing rising expenses for services (health, education, etc.) that were once nominally free. Recently the statistics worsened again when the Government decided to raise Vietnam’s poverty line to bring it slightly more in line with an internationally applied measure of $1 per day (which again is not so far below the average per capita GDP of $550). Simultaneously however, post-war, post-Socialist Vietnam has become a consumer society in its own right, in which entrepreneurs and corrupt cadres can make fortunes, and cities witness the rise of a middle class willing and able to spend their wealth on houses and amenities, motorbikes, cars, videos, domestic and foreign tourism, and sumptuous lifestyles. Even for poor people in ‘remote areas’ it is impossible to be unaware of the lure and promise of consumption and to be immune from the desire for consumer objects. But behind the average figures hides a world in which most households are dependent on self-employed livelihoods – as farmers, as traders, in the informal sector – and hence on the caprice of the market. A natural disaster, illness in the household, official corruption, too few or too many children, broken machinery and many other eventualities could make a household lose its land or other assets and push it below the poverty line. But what really contributes to a sense of profound vulnerability and insecurity is that volatile market forces or inexplicably wrong business decisions can have the same effect, but without comprehension or predictability. In the words of Philip Taylor: Exposure to the market has transformed their lives, causing dislocations, a sense of powerlessness, and a feeling of being controlled by invisible, remote and powerful forces. (Taylor 2004: 87) 154

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It is this sense of powerlessness that many people seek to overcome in religious practice, in particular in spirit mediumship. There are a variety of interpretations for the ‘new forms of religiosity’ (cf. Roberts 1995) in postsocialist Vietnam. Hy Van Luong (1993) points at more political space for religious and ritual action, at increased wealth and at a need for spiritual compensation for the economic insecurity inherent in the market. In their village studies in northern Vietnam, both John Kleinen (1999) and Shaun Malarney (2003) draw attention to prestige as a function of economic position through ‘conspicuous consumption’. But while these authors speak about religious practice in general, what is striking about spirit mediumship is its highly transactional nature, leading many observers to comment on the ‘commercial’ character of the spirit mediumship. To a major degree, the efficacy attributed to spirit mediums and related rituals can be connected with wealth.5 According to Philip Taylor (2002; 2004) this expectation of material wealth can primarily be found in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, which – with the large cities of Saigon or Ho Chi Minh City – would be the country’s most commercialized region. But in my research into various forms of spirit mediumship in the northern and central part of the country I did not notice any significant difference in terms of wishes or prayers (cầu). Many of the wishes of the followers and many of the practices in mediumship rituals revolve around the hope or expectation of gaining material wealth through the intervention of particular spirits, and their blessing of objects or (new, unused) money travelling back and forth to the other world and circulating between spirit medium, attendants and worshippers. Taylor claims that a good proportion of the millions of pilgrims who annually visit the shrine of Bà Chúa Xứ [Lady of the Realm] in Châu Ðốc are market women or people who are otherwise involved in trade. But Nguyễn Thị Hiền (2002: 91–94) found a similar background of spirit mediums and their followers in the northern variant of the ritual. In the area of the former imperial capital of Huế I found a mixed situation in that many of the elderly participants in the pilgrimage on the river were former aristocrats, but many younger participants were urban market traders – usually women (see Salemink 2003). During ceremonies – and especially toward the end – the excitement in the audience usually grows as the amount of ‘auspicious’ (lộc) objects and banknotes distributed by sponsors increases. In an unpublished paper on the rapidly growing popularity of the ‘Granary/ Treasury Queen’ (Bà Chúa Kho) near Bắc Ninh town, Ngô Ðức Thịnh relates this phenomenon to Vietnam’s transition to a market economy: Pilgrims come especially in the beginning of the year to borrow her ‘money’ so as to make a living or to ask for ‘her presents’, then at the end of the year they will come back to show their gratitude and repay their debt. (Ngô Ðức Thịnh n.d.: 5; see also Lê Hồng Lý 2001) 155

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The closure of the ritual engenders enhanced well-being and confidence in the future on the part of participants. In the eyes of the followers, then, the efficacy of the ritual lies in the effects in response to the wishes – whether they be well-being, health or wealth. It would seem then that the ritual upsurge in Vietnam is not just a compensation for economic insecurity (Luong 1993) or a public expression of new-found cultural liberties (Luong 1993; Malarney 2003) or of new-found wealth (Kleinen 1999; Malarney 2003), but actually takes on the form of a commercial transaction between the deity or spirit in the ‘other world’ [thế giới khác] or ‘yin world’ [thế giới âm] and the client in ‘this world’ or ‘yang world’ [thế giới dương]. The influential cultural commentator Tòan Ánh invokes the following saying in order to understand the relationship of the living with the underworld: We believe that dương sao âm vậy [however the yang world, so is the yin world]: whatever the living need, the dead need the same and however the living lead their lives, the dead do the same. The dead have a ‘life’ in the underworld, just like the life of people on earth. To put it differently, dead people also need to eat and drink, they need to spend and they need a place to live, just like living people. (Tòan Ánh 1991: 20)

The market becomes a direct metaphor to articulate the relationship between human beings and deities in the other world: The intensification of market relations […] since the mid-1980s has given rise to religious subjectivities that relate to the assertion of personal agency, the quest for predictability, and the management of anxiety. (Taylor 2004: 87) Vietnam is not alone in that regard, as one is reminded of Asian-style prosperity cults in Thailand, Taiwan, China, Japan. In her essay ‘Korean Shamans and the Spirits of Capitalism’ Laurel Kendall (1996) offers a view of Korean shamans that is very much comparable to the Vietnam case, in that shamans make a massive ‘come-back’ in present-day Korea, in connection with the unfolding of capitalism in that country. Returning to the question of spirit mediumship, it seems clear now that spirit mediumship does play a role in creating economic well-being and prosperity in the eye of the beholder – i.e. the clients of the mediums. The clients build up the necessary confidence and trust in order to be successful in their business, and effectively create social capital based on the belief in the auspicious effects of spirit mediums. Clients will use the ritually auspicious goods and money that they ‘borrow’ from the spirit – or sometimes 156

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the Goddess – in order to invest it in their business. If the business is successful, the clients have to pay the spirit back with interest, or else the spirit will get angry and cause harm. This is why so many temples are so rich these days that they are restored, re-built, expanded, refurbished and/ or embellished. One famous example is the temple of Bà Chúa Xứ in Châu Ðốc which is stuffed with expensive presents for the Lady (beautiful clothes, gold-engraved plaques, paid for by ‘meritorious’ financial contributions [công đức], etc). But less well-known mediums, like an ethnic Dao medium in Hoà Bình province, routinely receive presents ranging from clothes to cell phones from satisfied clients as well (but only after the efficacy is ‘proven’). I would like to stress that the keyword here is ritual efficacy, but that is also the catch here. Informants tend to stress that the auspicious effects can only be realized if one believes: ‘You just have to believe!’ [Mình cần phải tin tưởng thôi]. Without belief in the deity and her efficacy, the ‘exchange’ or transaction cannot work, because the goddess is jealous and will consider this an insult, causing harm rather than good. This often means that if the outcome is not as positive as expected or hoped for, it is the client herself who is to blame for lack of faith. This reduces the answer to the question whether spirit mediumship might play a role in economic well-being quite literally to a matter of faith. The belief that spirits can help via mediums is important in a situation where people feel disoriented, at the mercy of invisible, remote and powerful market forces, and thus have no signposts to make out whether their business decisions may be right or not. We know from the – often erratic – behaviour of investors and traders in the international stock markets how important rumour, belief and ‘intuition’ can be in influencing investment decisions and in determining market values of company shares in an economic domain that is supposed to be ruled by rational considerations. Groundless optimism can be a reason for soaring stocks while pessimism is often the cause for disinvestments and hence economic downturns. In Vietnam, the spiritual security sought via mediums not only compensates for the insecurity of the unpredictable market but also creates the social capital necessary for investing confidently in new (or old) enterprises, thus enhancing economic security of the traders, their dependants, business partners and clients. This seems a confirmation of Robert Barro’s recent thesis of ‘spiritual capital’ regarding the (positive) correlation between religiosity and economic growth (Barro 2004: 64).

Engaging risk and spiritual security If we interpret spirit mediumship as a quest for spiritual security in economic conditions characterized by fundamental uncertainty, then any analysis that wants to do justice to the richness of human endeavours must come to terms with risk-seeking behaviour, often associated with 157

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notions of freedom, adventure, individualism, gambling, risk-taking, and so on. In some social practices, such behaviour is more or less institutionalized, for example, in adventure sports, lotteries, some forms of sexual behaviour, criminal behaviour, hooliganism, and so on, or eulogized, as in stock markets and some forms of entrepreneurship. In fact, in many countries and many domains in life, risk-seeking behaviour is very common, albeit pursued differently by different social categories – as Gerben Nooteboom (2003: 221–45) showed for Java. This is no different for Vietnam. Spend one day in Vietnam’s crazy traffic, and the meaning of risk will seem very graphic to the outsider, although it is fair to add that the emic assessment must be different from an etic assessment of risk by outsiders, and is often balanced against a notion of ‘fate’. But fate is to some extent determined in the other world, and can therefore be influenced through ritual and propitiation of the relevant spirits, saints or deities; or it can be navigated through the services of a Tao astrologist, geomancer [ feng shui or phong thủy], soothsayer, or i ching sticks interpreters. When having to make decisions, when embarking on a risky journey – either real or metaphorical – many Vietnamese will seek the services of such mediators. In March 2005, an informant of anthropologist Malte Stokhof took us to a temple complex just outside of Ho Chi Minh City’s Chinese district Chợ Lớn. The man, an ethnic Cham Muslim, owns a café and a long-tail boat with which he maintains a ferry service to the temples which from the city can be reached only by water. The temple complex had the usual strangely syncretistic array of different religious traditions, including a temple dedicated to the tutelary genie of the village [đình], a Buddhist pagoda [chùa], a temple dedicated to the five incarnations of the Mother Goddess [đền] and an official, political shrine venerating Communist Vietnam’s second president after Hồ Chí Minh, president Tôn Ðức Thắng. But a bit further away, amid commercial fish ponds alongside the canal, is an inconspicuous site which is the destination of secret nightly pilgrimages. By the river one finds small altars dedicated to the five incarnations of the Mother Goddess, the Lord Tiger and other deities, and which are the sites of spirit medium practices found elsewhere. A few steps further along a dike one can find two graves – one made of cement, the other a lowly dirt grave – which belong to an orphaned boy and his sister, respectively. The story is that some years ago the boy committed suicide there by hanging himself from a tree, and that some time afterward, the girl did the same thing at the same place. Then somebody came to pray here one day, and she won the big prize in the lottery after having communicated with the spirits of the boy and girl. The story about this good fortune, attributed to the spiritual intervention of the souls of both children, quickly spread, attracting many aspiring lottery winners. Now the place is extremely popular with those who seek spiritual intervention or advice regarding lottery games. Clients come secretly by night because the authorities have forbidden the practice as superstitious. Yet, the 158

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place is slowly converted to a shrine, with an altar, with one upgraded grave and one grave waiting to be upgraded by a thankful client. As playing in the lottery is tantamount to taking risks, at first sight the argument about seeking spiritual security does not seem to hold here. But for many people, playing in the market constitutes as much a gamble as playing in the lottery, with equally unpredictable outcomes, and with similar inexplicable inequality, thus resembling what Richard Sennett (1997) called a ‘winner-takes-all market’. Seeking spiritual intervention can then be interpreted as a form of compensating for insecurity and reducing anxiety – if not seeking more security – when engaging in, by definition, risky adventures. The interesting aspect of this ethnographic vignette is not so much that this-worldly people gamble and take risks – literally by participating in an officially forbidden cult – but that spirits are thought to help them in such ventures. Spirits are assumed to take an interest in gambling, lotteries and other such transactions; they are believed to take sides and help the supplicants achieve their aims. Village temple festivals throughout southern Vietnam – and even many Buddhist pagodas – feature lottery or bingo shows, staged by ritually potent ‘third gender’ people who have the ability to combine aesthetics and entertainment with an aura of auspiciousness. In spite of their presumed sexual ‘derogation’ in this world, their ritual in-between position invests them with an aura of sacrality – creatures between âm [yin] and dương [yang] – and hence with special access to the spirit world.6 As they seem to embody good fortune, they don’t have much trouble finding clients for their lottery tickets – as in a perfect example of religious commodification. Apparently, spirits have no qualms about lotteries, as long as their own hunger is being stilled with sacrifice and devotion.

Performance and competition Spirit mediumship in Vietnam can not only be analyzed in terms of religious commodification – with reference to motivations and desires or to the ‘life course’ of objects – but also in terms of performance – as spectacle to be consumed and hence profited from. I shall develop my argument regarding aesthetic politics in connection with a case of group dancing (hầu vui) by female mediums in the Huế area, which has seen a revival and appropriation of local and/or feudal ritual by state-sponsored institutions in the context of the conservation of the UNESCO world heritage site and of the new Hue Festival – modelled after the festivals of Avignon and Edinburgh in Europe (Salemink 2003). In this context, lên đồng and other forms of hầu bóng are conceived of by participants, scholars, authorities and audience alike as an artistic spectacle, the aesthetic qualities whereof can be gazed at and consumed as any other artistic performance. In September 2002 I had the opportunity to attend a day-long pilgrimage in Huế, which brought together some 40 people on a boat taking a trip on the 159

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Perfume River (Sông Hương). This boat trip was organized by people associated with the Thiên Tiên Thánh Giáo temple on Chi Lăng street in Huế, a temple dedicated to the worship of a Mother Goddess of Cham origin, Thiên Y A Na (or Yana), the ethnic Cham being considered the original proprietors of the land before the Việt came down from the north (Nguyễn Thế Anh 1995; Nguyễn Hữu Thông 2001). The rituals and worship of Thiên Y A Na had been banned by Emperor Gia Long in the early nineteenth century, were revived again by emperor Ðồng Khánh in 1886, and after 1975 were again banned by the Communist regime as superstitious and feudal practices. The rituals enjoyed strong support among wealthy women in the Huế aristocracy during colonial times. The Huế-based researcher Nguyễn Hữu Thông relates the fact that many upper-class women in Huế became spirit mediums to their subordinate social position and restricted movement in feudal times; the atmosphere of togetherness with music, dancing, smoking and alcohol, provided a release from the tensions, stress and hysteria generated by their position, and had a therapeutic psychological effect (personal communication, 27/9/2002). This inversion of prescribed social roles resembles Victor Turner’s notion of communitas in the ritual process (Turner 1982: 29; 1987: 44–45). During the Ðổi mới period, the rituals around Thiên Y A Na enjoyed new popularity among women traders (Ðông Vĩnh 1999; Nguyên Hữu Thông 2001). Whereas the main temple in Huế is still closed, other practices related to the worship of Thiên Y A Na have been permitted as part of the religious and cultural revival in Vietnam. The Hòn Chén temple festival – also venerating Thiên Y A Na – has become part of the tourist itinerary in Vietnam, and was even an integral part of the Hue Arts Festival in 2000. The small-scale pilgrimage in September 2002 involved mostly women, acting as spirit mediums for the goddess and associated spirits in a hầu bóng ritual. This pilgrimage had been permitted by the City Department of Culture and Information, although no officials took part. My friend Mr. Ứng and I had been invited by Bà Phiếu, the mistress of Thiên Tiên Thánh Giáo temple and a decorated revolutionary hero. I came at 7 am to Bến Mê wharf in front of the citadel, where preparations for the ritual took place. Most of the participants were women; most of the men had a particular function, like thầy cúng, chầu văn musician, boat’s captain or cameraman (the performance of the ritual was videotaped). The itinerary took us upstream to Thiên Mụ (sometimes called Linh Mụ or Thiên Mẫu) pagoda, to Hòn Chén temple and to the Hải Cát shrine near the Minh Mạng mausoleum. From there the boat was supposed to take us to Tam Giang lagoon, situated between water and land, but a heavy rainstorm prevented the company from performing rituals there – instead, the boat called on the Thiên Tiên Thánh Giáo temple on the left bank of the Perfume River, before returning to the point of departure. The rituals of spirit mediumship are simultaneous performances, in which important roles are played by the spirit medium, by the religious 160

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master (thầy cúng) reading the questions, by the attendants of the spirit medium during the ritual, and by the musicians (chầu văn) accompanying, explaining and commenting on the ritual.7 The ritual usually takes from a couple of hours, up to one full day and night. In contrast with the more individualistic lên đồng rituals in northern Vietnam revolving around one spirit medium with his/her attendants, the ritual of spirit mediumship in central Vietnam is a group affair rather than an individual affair, without a sharp distinction between the spirit medium and her or his audience. After the preparations consisting of the chanting of the requests (cầu) from the (sponsoring) audience by the religious master, of chants of the temple mistress and of the arranging of sacrificial goods and the clothes, the mediumship dance starts when groups of women enter the ‘stage’ before the altar on the boat (or in the temple, when on land) in order to act as vehicle for spirits in the pantheon of Thiên Y A Na. Groups of three to six women – alternately older and younger women – took turns in taking the stage and in becoming vehicles for the spirits and deities, putting on ceremonial clothes associated with the spirit of the deity who would incarnate them, and dancing to chầu văn ceremonial music to please the spirit. The colour and form of the clothes reflected the identity and position of that particular spirit in the hierarchical Vietnamese pantheon which is imagined as an imperial palace overseen by the ‘Emperor of Heaven’. During the Huế pilgrimage the hầu vui dancing took place in a group within a small space in front of the altar, surrounded by the audience, as if they were moving on the catwalk. Although taking place in a group the dancing was only loosely coordinated. Like a fashion show, the stylized movements were scripted but not strictly choreographed. Much of the commentary of the audience (many of them doubling as performers) concerned the form of the dancing and the artistic skill of the performers (some ladies were called ‘quá giỏi’ [very skilful], their performance ‘rất hay, rất đẹp’ [very beautiful]). It is clear that the spirit mediums and religious specialists were serious about the religious content of the ritual. Nevertheless, they had hired a cameraman to record the ritual performance on video – an act which suggests an artistic motivation on the part of the spirit mediums, besides religious devotion. Following Ngô Ðức Thịnh (1999: 56–60), Nguyễn Hữu Thông comments on the artistic and theatrical aspect of the ritual, and the pleasure and emotion derived from the performance, comparing it with modern dance in ‘pop-culture’ (2001: 231–232). Artistic creativity is what motivated Mr. Trung, the leader of the small chầu văn music band on the boat. Mr. Trung’s band strove to improve itself in order to make their contribution to the performance more interesting. In general, chầu văn music bands have become quite professional as well, and try to improve themselves and their contributions. When playing music during the day-long boat pilgrimage by boat, Mr. Trung – a former army officer – showed me a book with chầu văn songs from mainly northern 161

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Vietnam, collected by Prof. Ngô Ðức Thịnh (1996, vol. II), from which the singer drew new inspiration and which allowed him to expand his repertoire. Despite important regional differences in liturgical traditions and mythological content between northern and central Vietnam, this singer was much enamoured with lyrics from remote Lao Cai and Lang Son provinces. He found the book by Nguyễn Hữu Thông on Mother Goddess worship in central Vietnam (2001) less interesting, perhaps because he already was familiar with the 27 văn chầu songs taken up in its Appendix. On the way back to Huế city the mediumship ritual reached a dramatic climax when two of the younger women were possessed by the spirit of the Lord Tiger, master of the forest. One in particular had displayed a tense attitude and had prepared and danced very enthusiastically. While dancing she suddenly fell down and started to behave like a wounded tiger, limping and crawling on the floor, growling and clawing her way around. She then started to gobble up food from the floor which after some time she threw up again. After around five minutes she fainted for a minute; when she came to, she did not remember anything. In the mean time the other spirit mediums had stopped and watched her behaviour, taking care of her when she fainted. In the audience the buzzword to denote her behaviour was ‘sợ’ [afraid, or frightening]. In the evening, a beautifully decorated floating dragon boat of paper with effigies of spirits was released in the river, along with floating lanterns. When the boat finally moored at Bến Mê wharf, most people went home but some continued with music and dance into the night. In terms of aesthetics, pleasure is derived from the ritual as performance, from the music, dance and clothes, from the iconography. According to Lê Hồng Lý ́ (2001) and Nguyen Thi Hien (2002), practitioners first attend mediumship out of curiosity, then for entertainment and finally out of existential need. Not surprisingly, with many performances taking place at different temples and occasions or simultaneously, there is fierce aesthetic competition between spirit mediums. Although professional spirit mediums regularly meet during temple festivals, their mutual jealousy and spirit of competition is famous. Nguyen Thi ̣ Hien quotes a saying that “ghen chồng ghen vợ không bằng đồng bóng ghen nhau” [spouses are jealous but not as much as mediums are jealous of each other]́ (2002: 96). Spirit mediums endeavour to enlarge their following in various ways, often by enhancing the beauty of the ritual. Many spirit mediums employ professional fashion designers to design their ceremonial dress (y phuc̣ or trang phuc); ̣ such a wardrobe is quite costly, according to Ngô Ðức Thi ̣nh (1999a: 49). The role of fashion in ceremonial clothes is also observed by Truong Huyen Chi (2001: 257) in other types of ritual and for village festivals, but she relates it to urban influences. The stylized movements and dances of the mediums when possessed by the spirits are claimed to come naturally while the medium is in a trance – although we know from the brief vignette about the initiation of Ms. Hà that that claim is not true. New, inexperienced mediums receive 162

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instruction from experienced mediums and sometimes even formal training. For instance, a particularly elegant spirit medium in Hanoi whom I have interviewed several times, is a former tuồng (classical opera) performer. There is a good deal of cross-over in the choreography of lên đô ̀ ng, tuồng, chèo, Vietnamese martial arts and – we may add – contemporary fashion shows. Ngô Ðức Thi ̣nh (1996-II: 96–132; 1999: 60) analyzes the literary, performative (music and dance) and decorative (clothes, architecture, statues, pictures and other objects) and speaks of a ‘spiritual theatre’ (1996: 104) and a ‘composite performing art’ (114). At the markets accompanying temple festivals, videotapes, VCDs and DVDs are sold which feature hát văn or chầu văn recordings – the ritual complete with music and dance. The ‘official’ editions published by the Ministry of Culture and Information feature so-called ‘meritorious artists’ (nghê ̣ sĩ ưu tứ) and tend to be completely devoid of religious content, thus appropriating hát văn music and lên đồng ceremony as a performing art form within Vietnam’s rich and diverse traditional cultural heritage. The ‘unofficial’ editions circulated under the table feature famous mediums and musicians. One such video I watched at the ritually important Phủ Tây Hồ temple in Hanoi (where lên đồng is forbidden by the temple master who happens to be a senior Party member) which presents a lên đồng ritual with many famous spirit mediums during a boat ride on West Lake. Much like the cross-over between the professional performing arts condoned by the Ministry of Culture and Information on the one hand and by the ritual artists on the other hand, there is a cross-over and collusion between religious persons and scholars. Published collections of lyrics serve to simultaneously enrich and homogenize regional and individual repertoires, as we have seen above. But scholars are also useful for other reasons. By their emphasis on the formal, iconographic aspects of the ritual as artistic traditions in their own right, they give legitimacy to the practice which not so long ago was officially condemned as superstitious. The mistress of the Thiên Tiên Thánh Giáo temple discarded Mr. Nguyê ̃n Hữu Thông’s analysis of her religion as flawed and partial, but admitted that his book will help create the official recognition required for a normal functioning of her religion. In the same way, I noticed that my presence, my participation and my notebook were of great interest to participants in the ritual, as confirmation and vindication of the value and legitimacy of these not yet quite legal practices. For instance, when rituals were filmed or photographed, I was often the object, as if in an instance of counterethnography. The most interesting example of such social role of research is Phủ Giầy temple which was willing to sponsor an international scholarly conference on shamanism and lên đồng in Vietnam, of which Phủ Giầy (dedicated to Princess/Mother Goddess Liễu Ha ̣nh) is an important historical centre. The temple master (tử đê ̀ n) Mr. Trần Viết Ðức confirmed in an interview that the conference helped create the official recognition on 163

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the part of the authorities, in a manner similar to a visit by a Politburo member. Thus it helped legitimate mediumship practices in the temple but it was simultaneously useful in a competition for primacy with nearby Vân Cát temple which makes part of the same complex of temples in Vụ Bản district, Nam Ðịnh province.

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The politics and aesthetics of inclusion and exclusion In previous sections we have seen how lên đồng spirit mediumship has resurfaced and grown tremendously during the era of capitalist market reforms in Vietnam; how many of the clients are market traders (more women than men) whose wishes revolve around health and wealth; how the ritual transactions are modelled after market transactions and forms of consumption; how the wishes of client involve (and seek to support or compensate) risk-taking behaviour in the market or in gambling; and how the ritual itself is an aesthetic, entertaining performance which may be enjoyed and ‘consumed’ as spectacle. In this section, we are taking a look at the way that an aesthetic politics creates or reaffirms social boundaries between groups of clients and spectators, based on a pilgrimage that I joined with three busloads of mediums, assistants and clients back in September 2002. At five in the morning, the buses filled with mainly women traders and ‘retired’ civil servants and with bags chockfull of sacrificial objects (consumption goods, effigies) departed on an itinerary that included five temple visits, the most important being Ðồng Bằng temple in Thái Bình province, where a major festival took place. Each person contributed 800,000 đồng (some $50) for the expenses of the trip as well as for meritorious gifts. The temple festival spread out over three different sites and was well-attended. Before every altar in each of the temples – inside and outdoors – lên đồng sessions took place, one after the other. The order and schedule had been arranged beforehand so there was nothing spontaneous about the event from that side. Mediums included both men and women from all walks of life, very distinguishable in terms of class and sophistication. In general, however, the countryside tended to produce female bà đồng whereas male ông đồng mediums from the city had a reputation for androgynous elegance. My host on the bus, a cheerful young temple master called Hùng, had his session in the afternoon. Hùng is a charismatic young temple master and master medium based in the Hanoi city centre, whose androgynous qualities render him aesthetically and ritually effective as medium and (cross-gender) dancer. In contrast with the many ‘amateur’ mediums in the city and the countryside who are overwhelmingly female, many of the Hanoi-based master mediums and temple masters are male, comparatively young, highly androgynous (but not explicitly cross-sexual as in the South). Their entourages usually consist of young (male) assistants (who often aspire to become professional mediums) and – in the ‘home temples’ – some 164

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elderly women. The master mediums organize pilgrimage trips for clients to festivals and temples outside Hanoi where they perform, as well as temples in the city where they either dance themselves or assist novice or ‘amateur’ mediums in their performance (e.g. Ms. Hà, in the beginning of this paper). In their relations with other mediums there is both cooperation and competition – the latter in terms of both ritual efficacy and of aesthetic quality. In Ðồng Bằng temple Hùng would dance in the afternoon, and had designated me as the photographer of the performance. What follows is not a description of that event, but an analysis of some aspects of the performance. In contrast with the sometimes clumsy and ‘poor’ performances by amateur mediums from the countryside – usually elderly women and sometimes men – Hùng’s performance was outstanding. His wardrobe, jewels and ritual attributes were exquisite, his make-up beautiful, his dance very elegant and sophisticated, and his demeanour both serious and cheerful, full of humour and sometimes irony, for instance as he teased the audience during the ‘lance dance’ [múa giáo]. He dealt out candy to children, and his ‘lion dance’ when he was possessed by cậu bé [the lively and childlike ‘young page’ who completes the series] was very funny. The chầu văn ritual music band accompanying his performance was excellent. The commodities and the amounts of money that circulated between this world and the Yin world were considerable in (economic) value, expressive of successful urban lifestyles but out of reach of rural mediums, their clients and their audiences. The way it worked out spatially in this temple in the countryside of the Red River Delta was as follows. Hùng’s urban clients (who travelled with him on the buses and who contributed to the ritual) were seated right around the ‘ritual space’ in front of the altar. Around them were other festival visitors and pilgrims, usually dressed much more poorly and shabbily, gaping at the performance before their eyes. In his performance, Hùng was playing with and teasing the audience, coming close to those sitting nearby during the sword dance, the lance dance or the candle dance. The commodities and money – invested by individual clients, and some of which they receive as auspicious objects or lucky [lộc] money – was circulated within the circle of ritual attendants and known clients. The urban clients, who knew each other at least from the hours-long bus ride, shared their ritually acquired objects with one another, because giving away (and receiving) lucky objects brings luck and merit. The villagers and rural folk standing outside this inner circle temporarily appropriated by urban clients, were not included. Sometimes villagers pressed on, wishing to share in the objects, but they were shrugged off by the ‘inner circle’ as bothersome. It was only during the last spirit possessions by the playful young damsel [cô bé] and the young page [cậu bé], that objects reached the outer circle. Cô bé and cậu bé are expected to play with the audience, to whet their appetites and tease their greed by letting go of all formality and pomp. Incarnated by 165

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these spirit deities, Hùng threw first fruit and later money into the audience, causing a scramble for the objects by those in the inner and outer circle alike, and in fact causing the invisible but very real boundary between the two distinct groups in the audience to temporarily dissolve. Victor Turner’s (1982) notion of communitas – the shared ritual space characterized by ‘anti-structure’ – has only limited currency when analyzing these forms of spirit mediumship (which do not form part of organized religion in Vietnam). While some symbolic boundaries are transgressed in the ritual (gender distinctions, sexual restrictions, geographic boundaries of upland-lowland and urban-rural), other social boundaries – between urban and rural folk, between rich and poor – are spatially and ritually reaffirmed. The temporary dissolution of the line between inner and outer circle at the end of the ritual, when objects are tossed into the public, reverses the spectacle in the sense that the larger audience – i.e. the ‘outer circle’ of locals and rural folk – becomes the spectacle for the urban folk to gaze at, as the former scramble to catch some of the objects and money tossed around. In other words, the aesthetics of the ritual performance in combination with the monetary value of the circulated ritual objects creates not just a common ritual space but simultaneously excludes some from that ritual space. While the poorer, less ‘sophisticated’ rural folk are included as part of the audience and – toward the end of the ritual – temporarily as receivers of ritual objects, they remain firmly distinguished from the richer urban folk. If we would analyze these contemporary forms of spirit mediumship in Vietnam as practices resembling prosperity religions, then we have to make clear that prosperity is not on offer to everyone. Achieving prosperity through engaging in spirit mediumship is a highly transactional process from which certain categories are excluded, if we are to take the social exclusion in the ritual seriously.

Conclusion In this paper I have offered a number of ethnographic vignettes that show how spirit mediumship practices in contemporary Vietnam are situated within a field characterized by insecurity, risk and aspirations. I developed my argument in sections on the revival of ritual practices in post-Socialist Vietnam; on spirit mediumship, healing and wealth; on risk and spiritual security; on ritual as (competitive) performance; and on the aesthetic politics of inclusion and exclusion. I have argued that people employ a variety of culturally specific strategies to ensure their health, wealth and wellbeing. Many mediums and their clients have found ways to cope with and overcome misfortune through mediumship practices. The consumption and use of auspicious objects that have travelled to the spirit world help ensure good fortune in this world. The spiritual security sought via mediums not only compensates for the insecurity of the unpredictable market but also 166

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creates the social capital necessary for investing confidently in new (or old) enterprises, thus enhancing economic security of the traders, their dependants, business partners and clients. The interpretation that spirit mediumship compensates for the vagaries of the market and the risks of life do not tell the whole story, though. Seeking spiritual intervention can then be interpreted as a form of compensating for insecurity when engaging in, by definition, risky adventures. The interesting part of this vignette is not so much that people gamble and take risks but that spirits are thought to help them in such ventures. Given the transactional nature of the sacrifices, spirits have no qualms about the religious commodifications evident in contemporary mediumship practices. The Vietnamese saying Dương sao âm vậy [However the yang world, so is the yin world] implies that the commercialization of relations and commodification of objects in late capitalism is mirrored in the spirit world. Spirit mediumship in Vietnam can not only be analyzed in terms of religious commodifications – with reference to motivations and wishes, to objects – but also in terms of performance as spectacle to be consumed – and hence profited from. In connection with a group of female mediums in the Huế area, I argued that this constitutes an example of aesthetic politics in the context of state appropriation of local cultural practices. In such contexts, lên đồng and other forms of hầu bóng are conceived of as an artistic spectacle whose aesthetic qualities can be gazed at and which can be consumed just as any other artistic performance. We have seen how lên đồng spirit mediumship has resurfaced and grown tremendously during the era of capitalist market reforms in Vietnam; how many of the clients are market traders (more women than men) whose wishes revolve around health and wealth; how the ritual transactions are modelled after market transactions and forms of consumption; how the wishes of client involve (and seek to support or compensate) risk-taking behaviour in the market or in gambling; and how the ritual itself is an aesthetic, entertaining performance which may be enjoyed and ‘consumed’ as spectacle. But the aesthetic politics surrounding spirit mediumship rituals create and reaffirm social boundaries between groups of clients and spectators. If this resembles prosperity religions, then we have to make clear that prosperity is not on offer to everyone. Achieving prosperity through engagement in spirit mediumship is a highly transactional process from which certain categories are excluded, thus effectively justifying the sharp social differentiation accompanying the capitalist market reforms.

Notes * This chapter is based on intermittent field research in Vietnam since 2000, part of which was made possible by travel grant no. W52-968 of the Netherlands Foundation for the Advancement of Tropical Research (WOTRO). In terms of

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ethnographic material there is an overlap with my paper ‘Ritual efficacy, spiritual security and human security: Spirit mediumship in contemporary Vietnam’ (to appear in Ellen Bal, Thomas Eriksen and Oscar Salemink, eds, A World of Insecurity: Anthropological perspectives on human security – see also Salemink 2005); and with ‘The Emperor’s new clothes: Re-fashioning ritual in the Festival Hue’ (to appear in Michael DiGregorio and Oscar Salemink, eds, Living with the dead in Vietnam: The politics of ritual and remembrance in contemporary Vietnam, see also Salemink 2003). But even though the ethnographic basis is the same, the arguments that I make in these three papers is substantively and substantially different. I thank Ellen Bal, Michael DiGregorio, Pattana Kitiarsa and anony mous reviewers of Routledge for their helpful comments. All mistakes in this chapter, however, are mine alone. Interview with Mr. Trần Viết Ðức and Ms. Trần Thị Duyên, male and female temple masters at Phủ Giầy temple (Vụ Bản district, Nam Ðịnh province) on 21 September 2002. Thaveeporn Vasavakul (2003) highlights the role of the Association of Vietnamese Folklorists rather than the Institute of Folk Culture Studies in legitimizing spirit possession rituals and festivals. This description is necessarily very brief. For more in-depth accounts I refer to Durand (1959), Ngô Ðức Thịnh (1996) and Nguyễn Thị Hiền (2002). I place the qualifications Buddhist, Confucianist and Taoist between apostrophes in order to indicate that these distinctions are etic rather than emic distinctions, and do hardly justice to the many syncretistic cross-overs in Vietnamese cosmology. The financial contributions for the reconstruction are registered and publicized, including not only locals but also people in the cities and overseas Vietnamese. I gave an acquaintance of mine – owner of an up-scale restaurant in Hanoi – a few banknotes with the story of how I got them and how they are supposed to function. He put them in the cash register and became very enthusiastic when he noticed that the restaurant ‘suddenly’ became much more popular. Stanley Tambiah (1985: 2) uses the word ‘efficacy’ in relation to ritual in order to be able to understand ritual from an actor’s perspective and to avoid becoming entangled in fruitless discussions about rational causality or in positivist statements about truth or falseness of ritual claims. Groups of ‘third gender’ people who may have difficulty within their home community roam the festivals in southern Vietnam, assuming ritual roles as spirit mediums and as sacred dancers, but also more profane roles in terms of entertainment as acrobats, fashion models, lottery ticket vendors and even drag queens. It is difficult to classify them according to Western sexual qualifications. Most are born male but some are hermaphrodites; most are homosexual and transvestite but some may be transsexual (even having undergone surgery in Thailand). The Vietnamese term bêđê is derived from the French ‘pédéraste’ and has primarily homosexual connotations. Women acting as mediums or dancing for spirits often assume a different ritual gender identity as well. I am currently carrying out research on this in-between category of people in southern Vietnam. This description is necessarily very brief. For more in-depth accounts I refer to Durand (1959), Ngô Ðúc Thịnh and Nguyen Thi Hien (2002).

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8 ‘MERCHANDIZING’ HINDUISM

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Commodities, markets and possibilities for enchantment Vineeta Sinha

Introductory remarks Sustaining a Hindu universe at an everyday life level requires an extraordinary range of religious specialists and ritual paraphernalia. Historically, this has been a challenge for Hindu communities located outside India. Not unexpectedly a ‘diasporic’ location has produced a variety of local responses to this need, including some highly innovative and creative ones. At the level of practice, Hinduism is an embodied religion and grounded in a materiality, that makes the presence of specific physical objects (which carry an immense ritual and symbolic load) an indispensable part of its religious practices. In Singapore, expressions of Hinduism are visible in different societal domains: public places of worship (in Agamic temples and ‘shrines’), household worship and the realm of festival Hinduism. In all of these locations, the performance of daily and calendrical practices sees reliance upon a number of crucial ritual objects and services. Traditionally, both services and objects required for worship were provided and produced by caste groupings and jati(s) that were charged with these responsibilities and the entire endeavour carried spiritual and scared connotations. The almost sacred connection between caste and occupation/profession has been severed not just in the Hindu Diaspora but in India itself, particularly in urban spaces. As such, skills and responsibilities for supporting Hindu worship (originally carried by specific caste communities) have been gradually transferred into ‘other’ secular, hands. In the Hindu context, this severing has been crucial for the commercialization of this domain and the commodification of ritual objects. In this chapter, I use data from Singaporean Hindu domains to illustrate the processes through which ‘merchandising’ of Hinduism occurs. I offer data from the formally organized world of retail and wholesale businesses located in the ‘Little India’ district of Singapore, as well as from the more 169

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informal network of individuals (both Singaporean and non-Singaporean) who trade in these objects. The presence of these mechanisms demonstrates that it is possible to speak of processes through which a range of items are ‘marketed’ as commodities. Some examples include posters, pictures and statues (in clay, brick, granite, panchalokam) of a variety of Hindu gods and goddesses, yantras, pendants, brass and gold-plated oil-lamps, bells, walletsize pictures of Hindu deities, ‘weaponry’ associated with deities, prayer altars (wood, silver, bronze, iron), musical instruments, recorded devotional music (in the form of tapes, compact discs), oil and ghee, and more transient objects such as fresh fruits (lime, coconut, sugarcane), dried fruits (raisins, almonds, cashews) flowers (jasmine, hibiscus, roses), leaves (margosa, mango, banana) for making garlands and decorations, and religious literature (such as pamphlets, brochures, bhajan books, Bhagvad Gita, Mahabharata). Through my data, I raise the following questions about the relations between spirituality and commerce: How does one approach the question of entrepreneurship in the field of religion and spirituality? Is it substantively different from other sorts of business engagements? Is the aim here also the expansion of profit and market share and does this sit comfortably with the explicitly ‘religious’/’sacred’ nature of the products? In the production of religious items what, if any, is the significance of the shift into the hands of mass production by non-believers, rather than by traditional communities for whom this is more than a secular task? What happens to religious items when they enter the profanity of the capitalist system as they are transformed into commodities by entrepreneurs? Conversely, what meanings do these commodities carry when they enter the religious domain? How does one approach the need for material objects in religious practices and their inevitable entry as commodities into the capitalist system of social relations? What is the effect of commodifying religious objects? What meanings does a commodity carry for religionists and entrepreneurs when it is also an item for use in worship? Through selections of my ethnography, I address these queries tentatively in the context of this paper although my treatment of these complex queries is far from exhaustive.

A few words about Hinduism in Singapore Local expressions of Hinduism display a multidimensionality that defies simplistic categorization. To begin, a series of daily and calendric rituals and festivals, emanating from a number of ethno-linguistic and regional North and South Indian communities, find vibrant expression on the island. The strong presence of a South Indian Tamil-Hindu population attests to the predominance of bhakti, or the devotional stance of Hinduism, together with Saiva Siddhanta leanings. This is manifested in various ways, but particularly, in Saivite and mother-goddess worship as well as in the veneration of a range of village deities; an array of India-based Hindu 170

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reform movements is also present here. All of these co-exist under the rubric of ‘Singaporean Hinduism’. Hinduism in Singapore is a minority religion by way of numbers of devotees, yet it is conspicuous in the public domain. Numerous markers of Hinduism dot the Singaporean landscape. There are about 24 Hindu temples, mostly built in the archetypical South Indian style with colourful, towering gopurams, and domes featuring figures and motifs from Hindu architecture. In the Tamil month of Thai (in January/ February), the road between Perumal Temple in Serangoon Road and Murugan Temple in Tank Road, together with the streets in between, are partially closed for the annual procession of tai pucam, during which scores of Hindu devotees fulfil vows made to the popular Tamil god, Murukan. In recent years, ‘Little India’ (the stretch of road between Rochor Road and Lavender Street) has been literally ablaze with lights during Deepavali (also a public holiday), the fest ival of lights observed by Hindus. These events, together with the annual fire-walking festival (timiti) are prominently featured in public statements as evidence of the continued spirituality and vitality of Hinduism on the island. Further, these events are showcased in the publicity brochures that promote tourism in Singapore, as a description of Indian/Hindu traditions, and as a powerful marker of multi-religiosity and religious harmony in Singapore. The latter is possible given that over the years, there has been visible participation in both tai pucam and timiti by non-Indian Singaporeans, especially members of the local ethnic Chinese community. These powerful images convey the multidimensionality of the nation-state to tourists and others, offering both modernity and slices of traditional, authentic Asian culture. This snapshot of public Hindu presence on the island is complemented by an array of daily and calendric rituals, events and ceremonies that occur individually or collectively in homes and temples. The variety of India-based, Hindu reform movements present on the island since the 1970s adds yet another dimension to the manifestation of Hinduism on the island. Although many non-Indians and non-Hindus are members of these groups, a large number of Hindus are attracted to one or more of these organizations; they still refer to themselves as ‘Hindus’ but redefine the category (Sinha 1997; 2006).

‘Little India’: community space The migrant Hindu community in Singapore is fairly small numerically – 4% of the total population-numbering about 100, 000 in all, according to the Singapore Census of Population, 2000. Yet, in the last 180 years or so, distinct Indian and Hindu spaces on the island have emerged. At the level of material culture, it is possible to locate and secure almost any item required for sustaining the cultural and religious life of the community on the island. 171

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The marking of particular spaces on the island as ‘Indian’ or ‘Hindu’ is by no means accidental, but reflects early patterns of settlement, determined by the larger politico-economic logic of the British colonial government. The latter’s plan to apportion parts of the island for occupation by different groups of ‘natives’ is shown in the indelible mark of emergent racial spatialization on the island. The residential and employment imperatives through which groups of Indians functioned have resulted in specific concentrations of these groups across the island.1 A prominent example is the designation of what is known today as ‘Little India’ – viewed now as an Indian ‘community space’ (Siddique and Puru Shotam 1982), an idea that has deep-seated historical roots. Siddique and Puru Shotam offer this understanding of the term ‘community space’: CMIO community space can be defined as an environ wherein one of these constituent communities provides the definitive identity. This identity arises out of that community’s actual physical domination of the territory which is a prerequisite for the development and maintenance of a particular, recognizable and unambiguous social-cultural and religious identity. (1982: ix) The belt of Hindu temples in the area is a function of the early, selective presence of the Hindu community and specific caste groupings in the area (Siddique and Puru Shotam 1982). The description that now rolls so easily off the tongue of Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans alike of Singapore’s Indian area – ‘Little India’, was already noted in the early 1980s by sociologists S. Siddique and N. Puru Shotam as ‘the territorial centre of Singapore’s Indian minority’ (1982: x). This area is rightly viewed as distinctly Indian in providing access to a wide variety of goods and services (both informally and through established institutions) that cater to the socio-cultural and religious needs of the migrant Indian community. It is further multireligious in having a number of religious institutions (including mosques and churches), but it displays a predominantly Hindu character. The latter is evidenced in the numerous Hindu temples and Hindu organizations located along Serangoon Road. More than anything else this is also a commercial area – with a range of businesses and retail outlets – offering everything from groceries, spices, cooked foods, textiles, recorded music, cosmetics, jewellery to ‘prayer items’. A physical mapping of this district reveals a mixed up area in the blending, intersecting and interaction of ‘sacred’ and commercial spaces (dealing with both profane and religious businesses). Apart from the numerous restaurants and sari shops that dot the area, the locale is marked by the presence of shops whose shelves are lined with ‘prayer items’ on sale. At this point my survey reveals that there is a mix of different kinds of retail outlets that deal with religious items – in terms of size, 172

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scale and variety of products offered. First there are the large, established businesses which have been in the area for at least 50 years, followed by more recent efforts to set up shop in the late 1980s and through the early 1990s, and finally there are the very small business ventures that are barely a few years old. A careful historical study of the rise of businesses related to ‘prayer items’ is essential – something I intend to accomplish, in the bigger project of which this is a small segment. But it is clear that apart from the few established names in the field (such as Jothi Flower Shop, Gokulam Jewels and Crafts, two Indian Muslim frame makers), the market sees businesses appearing and then fizzling out, with the surfacing of new ones (Sakthee Sangeetha, Design Manthraz and Kuna’s). For instance many of the retail outlets that local Hindus were familiar with by name (Durga Store, Arasu Bangle Store) through the 1970s and 1980s have disappeared, for a variety of reasons, only to be replaced by new ones. While some of the businesses are specialists and deal exclusively with specific kind of ‘prayer items’, most others offer to their customers a motley range of ‘Indian’ items – including costume jewellery, cosmetics, cultural and decorative artefacts, stainless steel utensils, together with ‘prayer items’-which include primarily visual representations of Hindu gods and goddesses (pictures, photographs, stone, bronze, panchalokam statues, etc.), prayer altars (for the home) and brass oil lamps etc. One finds here the presence of both generic as well as specialised businesses (such as the ‘flower shops’ and the frame-makers). Although I heard repeatedly from businessmen and Hindus that ‘Serangoon Road’ is the best place for both selling and buying ‘all things Indian’, my research points to other areas where many ‘prayer items’ can be secured. First, are the little retail businesses that are increasingly evident in the Housing Development Board estates (subsidized public housing apartments which house up to 75% of the local population) – known locally as the ‘heartlands’ – shops that sell a mixture of ‘Indian’ items – including not only ‘prayer items’, but also Indian groceries and spices. It is interesting that these spaces also service the non-Hindu and non-Indian communities. For instance, the Chinese religionists and Buddhists, who also require oil, loose flowers (jasmines, roses, orchids, Lotus, etc.) and flower garlands for their religious rituals and festivals. Second, are the Agamic temples (e.g. the Holy Tree Balasubramaniam Temple in Yishun and the Sri Mariamman Temple in South Bridge Road) on the island, some of which have within their premises a space marked as a commercial spot for selling ‘prayer items’, mostly ‘flower shops’ – again carrying the same range of items. The collection of products in the market is diverse and ranges from mass produced items (which can be rough in their finished form) to custom-made and individualised pieces – displaying fine workmanship. Some entrepreneurs offered their customers personalised and tailor-made services and even assisted in designing and conceptualising the desired product. The prototype is then carried to select craftsmen in India, where the item is 173

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constructed. One prominent businessman told me that he only approaches well-known communities of silpis and sthapathis (sculptors) – located in Indian villages and cultural centres, as they are renowned for their craft, this having been an occupation of the community for generations. These entrepreneurs also add value to the product by controlling for quality, ensuring exclusivity and guaranteeing customer satisfaction. Some large retail outlets in Singapore have by now, also successfully branded specific items so that home prayer altars, gold plated prayer utensils and hand-made kavadis are seen as the speciality of these businesses and attract customers from all over the island and also from parts of Malaysia. Most of the shop owners I interviewed see themselves first as businessmen, even if they were motivated into starting this trade for personal, meaningful, spiritual reasons. Of course, many of them reported that they were also viewed by customers as having some expertise of the products, their ritualistic use as well as being knowledgeable about spiritual issues with reference to Hinduism in general. Even Hindu owners of businesses see their chosen occupation first and foremost as a way of making a living and were not uncomfortable with the idea of trading in ‘prayer items’. They see this as making an honest living, while providing a service to the Hindu community. They were aware that they were dealing with commodities (which happened to be used for worship) but profit was still a priority. In fact I consistently heard the view that many new businesses dealing with ‘prayer items’ (esp. the flower shops) have emerged precisely because ‘there is money to be made’ in this. The ultimate logic is ‘I have to feed my family’. When I asked if they were concerned about the commercialization of religious objects, almost all answered in the negative, but qualified that resorting to unethical business practices would be particularly problematic in this case. They did not deny that trading in religious objects made good business sense in Singapore and that importing items here from the neighbouring countries resulted in economic gain from the significant difference in currency exchange rates. A large number of retailers I spoke to argued that it did not make sense to produce items in Singapore – where there was no requisite expertise, materials were hard to secure (and expensive when available) and labour was far from cheap. However, my field work demonstrates evidence of a vibrant, emerging, specialised domain of ‘made in Singapore’ religious items.

Securing ritual objects: established commercial ties versus couriers? Hinduism in Singapore exists as a minority religion in a largely non-Hindu environment. The Diaspora location of this numerically small and vibrant community necessitates the securing of religious goods and services from outside-in the main from specific places in India – which continues to be revered as the locus and source of all things relating to ‘Hinduism’. 174

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The various objects that are required for worship in homes and Agamic temples and shrines are collectively referred to as ‘prayer items’ or ‘puja things’ in the field. These terms have also been embraced by entrepreneurs (in their own self-description) who trade in these objects as commodities. As evidence of the reliance and dependence of the local Hindu community on outside sources, the list of countries from which the ‘prayer items’, and their necessary constituent materials, is a long one: China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and parts of Northern and Southern India. Each place has something unique to offer. For example, flowers and fruits are secured from Jakarta, Senai, Bangkok and Chennai. China has only recently been in the news for producing statues of Hindu gods and goddesses from a resin and a mould. The workmanship is considered fine and the end-product aesthetically appealing, and these products have also entered the Indian market and popular with Hindus there. However, I have also heard statements to the effect that despite the quality of the product, the images and statues of deities ‘look Chinese’ rather than ‘Indian.’ India, expectedly, remains a centre from which various religious items and expertise continue to be brought into Singapore. An important question arises: how are these objects secured and who brings them here? The actual practices on the ground suggest that no simplistic and quick answers exist. I was struck by the staggering variety of different routes through which these objects find their way into Singapore. Religious objects as commodities are procured and appear in the local market through what we might call both ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ mechanisms. The formal processes are what the established businesses engage in: these entail having contacts with suppliers and manufacturers of relevant products and resources in other countries and using an established network of package, storage and transportation facilities which deliver goods to the doorstep of retail outlets in Singapore. These businesses have the capital and other resources to place large orders of products, to pay for container space for shipments and air flown goods and to facilitate customs clearance, etc. This also means that the cost of all these processes is factored into the final price of the product by the time it appears on the shelf in the local market. For example, often individual owners of businesses make trips to different parts of India to personally view products and hand-select specific items, checking these for quality and their appeal for local Hindus. It is not uncommon for these businessmen to also accept requests for individual orders from customers with very specific requirements and to personally go to India and get the job done. In the latter cases, the desire for quality and customer satisfaction means that the cost of the product is high as well, but the shop owners I have spoken to state categorically that ‘if you want good quality’ and ‘to satisfy your needs’ the client must ‘pay for it’. In addition to these big entrepreneurs who rely on standard, formal mechanisms for trading in ‘prayer items’, are the medium- and small-scale 175

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entrepreneurs who seem to be able to secure the products they want without ever leaving the country. They work through the more informal channels, and I was told that what is important for them ‘is to plug into the right networks’. The latter means knowing the market, being aware of the products that are desirable and knowing how to get them without having to go to India or other places ( thus cutting the cost of travel, shipping, transportation etc). This task, I was further told, is not as difficult as it might appear. As one of my respondents explained: There are these people coming from India all the time. They don’t know anything about the products. They don’t carry anything with them. Only a mobile phone. They come to your shop and say ‘I can get you this statue for this price. How many pieces do you want?’ They don’t carry pictures or samples or brochures or anything. They see something in the market and say ‘I can get this for you.’ You won’t believe it! I place the order today with this guy and in two days the goods are delivered to my shop in Singapore. I don’t pay delivery, storage, transport; nothing. All inside the cost of the product. I pay up front to the agent when I order. That’s it. No hassle, no fuss. What is being described in the above account is known locally as the ‘courier system’, which apparently has been in currency in the local market for decades and clearly continues to thrive even today. This is how it works. Suppliers and manufacturers of goods and products in India engage couriers (who may or may not actually physically carry any goods to sell) to travel to Singapore. The couriers are both male and female and come mainly from Tamil Nadu. They can enter Singapore as tourists on a two-week social visit pass, which can be extended for a month without any questions being asked, and longer in some cases. Depending on how long they remain in Singapore, the Indian counterpart pays for accommodation, living expenses and of course the airfare. The cost of items he or she is marketing is calculated on the basis of this capital investment, together with a significant profit margin. The courier may know not nothing about the product he or she is promoting and has no real interest in expanding and maximizing profits beyond ‘covering’ the cost of his/her visit and stay. The added benefit being the trip to Singapore, doing some sightseeing and shopping with the profit made. I have met individuals who have made a career out of being couriers and who have been doing this for years. Many of them cite lack of permanent jobs and occupational opportunities ‘back home’ as a motivation for this chosen career path. Some also admitted the attraction of going to ‘foreign places’ as another strong impulse. The larger retail outlets do not rely on this mode of trading and are in fact rather critical of the couriers, who they claim ‘spoil the market’. However, these couriers are very useful for the smaller businesses that are happy to work within a very narrow profit margin, unlike 176

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the large entrepreneurs who cannot afford to do so, given their bigger capital investment. This leads to tensions between the different businesses, who are often selling the same product but at widely divergent prices leading to something of a ‘price war’ in the market. While some couriers come through agents in India, others are independent operators and travel here on their own, through the sponsorship of friends or family members. Recently, I had occasion to interview two such elderly Tamil women who were peddling their wares outside one of the oldest Hindu temples in Serangoon Road-the Veerammakaliamman Temple. This is located on the main Serangoon Road, at a busy road intersection, which sees plenty of pedestrian traffic. These two women, one aged 50 and the other 60 years old, had stationed themselves on the foot path, directly outside the temple. On the ground, they had spread a piece of cloth upon which were displayed, in no particular order or organisation – costume jewellery, black and red string, laminated pictures of Hindu deities, small and somewhat crudely configured statues with a gold and silver simulated appearance, and other items that might be used in worship. These women, I learnt in my conversations with the temple authorities, were a ‘regular feature’ at the temple and according to one priest (who is from India and has been here for 8 years), told me that he has been seeing the same women peddling their goods in the time that he has been in Singapore. Others had noted a different group of women – but it was striking that the peddlers outside the temple were all women – this is a phenomenon one observes in temples across the Indian landscape, but is somewhat unusual for Singapore. In fact I do not know of any other local temple where this happens. The two women told me that they had come to Singapore from Thanjavur for two weeks, and were staying in a room (shared with several others) at the cost of S$8/ a day. Their trip was sponsored by their children and they had simply brought all the items they were selling in their suitcase. They told me that they were forced to do this because of poverty; One of the women had been badly burnt and said that she was unable to get a job in India. They were willing to talk to one and all, and invested time and effort in persuading and cajoling potential customers to buy their goods. I noticed that many ‘customers’ simply handed them a couple of dollars and moved on without ‘buying’ anything. Others selected some item just to appease the women, but seemed keener to offer a ‘donation’. There was no haggling and bargaining over prices. Some of the ‘customers’ I spoke to said that they only stopped because ‘they felt sorry for the women’ who they thought were ‘obviously there to fill their stomach’. The temple authorities are quite aware (as are the women) that this activity is ‘completely illegal’ in the Singapore context and have tried to discourage the women from locating themselves in the temple premises. But the priest I spoke to also said sympathetically, ‘they are here because of poverty’. As such although the women are technically outside the temple premises-they straddle the 177

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entrance to the gopuram (temple tower and gateway) but as yet no one (including the temple authorities) has reported them to the Singapore Police or the Singapore Immigration. The women themselves seemed quite open about what they were doing and keenly posed for photographs and answered all my questions. The broader research project deals with several ritual objects and their trade in Singapore. These include home prayer altars, visual representation of deities, items used in festival Hinduism, and flowers and fruits. In the remainder of this chapter I detail the story of flowers in Singaporean Hindu domains.

Flowers for worship, flowers for sale One core area of my bigger research is focused on the place of flowers in Hindu worship. In the words of one of my informants ‘Hindus need flowers for birth, death and everything else in between.’ Thus I am inspired to narrate the story of flowers and their consumption in Singapore Hindu domains. Working backwards from the realm of consumption, I wanted to ask these simple questions: Where do flowers come from? How do they get to Singapore? Who brings them in and through what channels? Whose labour and efforts transforms loose, fresh jasmines, marigolds and roses into floral strings and garlands ready for sale in the minute roadside shops in Little India (and in some HDB estate shopping areas) as well as their eventual use in homes and temples, on a daily basis? It was clear that answers to these questions would reveal the key mechanisms and processes through which flowers are secured and the networks through which they are distributed, often travelling long distances. This is a particularly intriguing section of the research project for me, given the centrality of flowers in Hindu puja (worship) as well as the more mundane and practical challenges of securing them fresh daily. It is clear why flower shops are blooming in Singapore: there is money to be made, there is clearly a hugely increased demand in the market (attributed to enhanced religiosity and financial standing of local Hindus as well as the inflow of Indian Hindus), and the profit margin is high despite the stiff but healthy competition. Yet as one of my informants puts it quite succinctly ‘The flower business is also risky-flowers need to be pampered and Hindus are fussy about their flowers. If they look brown, faded or old, or if the jasmine is fully open – they don’t want it. There is also a lot of wastage. But the money is also good, so . . .’ Most jati-based skills have not been reproduced in the local Hindu Diaspora, such as stone sculpting, playing of traditional musical instruments and garland making. As is well-known, the story of Indian migration to Malaya reveals that the caste system was not reproduced in totality in the region. While many service castes did come in large numbers, the jatis catering to the religious needs of the Hindu community (including the 178

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garland makers) were not represented in the original migrant group. Yet, over time, members of other castes (including non-Brahmin and Adi-Dravida communities) have learnt this skill (many have learnt by observation and others are self-taught) and have established successful businesses as a result. It is further interesting that this is not a male preserve but that in Singapore many women too have entered the field and have not only learnt to ‘tie flowers’ but are also prominent in the community and their skills and expertise sought after. In terms of scale, one finds more permanent retail outlets housed in buildings, together with what Siddique and Puru Shotam (1983) call ‘pavement-based occupations’ and ‘five foot way tradesmen’ – including provision stores, fortune tellers and garland makers. In the last ten years or so a large number of ‘flower shops’ have appeared in Little India. These provide ‘prayer items’ such as loose flowers (jasmine, roses, orchids), garlands, decorative items (such as door hangings), wicks for oil lamps, oil, coconuts, lime, mango, banana and margosa leaves and offer packages for ‘wedding services’ and ‘religious events’. Apart from the five large established flower shops which are dominant in the market (supplying the temples as well as individuals), most of the flower shops I have seen are literally located in the footpath bordering the main shops, and operate out of a very small physical space, sometimes no larger than the size of a table top. The proprietors rent these spaces from the main tenants who sublet their shop front for some profit. In my survey of the area, I have counted about twenty such flower shops in Little India, and the skill of ‘tying flowers’ (the expression I encountered during fieldwork) has been learnt even by a section of younger generations of Singaporean Hindus. Conventionally, service castes that support temple worship are highly regarded, although they are non-Brahmins, and the rendering of these services carries strong spiritual overtones. For example, it is believed that the tying of flowers into garlands requires both internal and external purity; it is also defined as an act of devotion and is to be undertaken with a reflective stance, the person chanting appropriate mantras and meditating on god. So where do the flowers come from? In comparison to even the last two decades, today a majority of flowers are secured from outside Singapore. Informants recall that there was a time when it was possible to get fresh flowers from orchards and plantations on the island (Thomson, Braddell and Lim Chu Kang are identified as places where flower orchards existed into the 1980s). Today they no longer exist, although some orchid plantations are still functioning. Most flowers are thus imported from Malaysia, India, Thailand and Indonesia. Interestingly, a majority of the flower suppliers to the flower shops in Little India are the ethnic Chinese (in whose hands this trade has been located historically in Singapore). I learnt that there are four or five ‘big players’ who have a monopoly in the market and it is their responsibility to take orders, secure the relevant flowers, get the import-export 179

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licenses and other port clearances, arrange and handle freight, transportation and other costs incurred in the process and to deliver them every day, sometimes twice or thrice a day to the door-step of flower shops. Thus, the smaller shops) are not involved with the administrative, bureaucratic and practical concerns just listed; they just buy the flowers (loose flowers, balls of strung flowers and garlands) from the suppliers and sell them directly to customers. I was told that setting up a flower shop was ‘easy’; here is the formula – one needs to secure a place (a table top really – three by four feet), capital to start (rent can be 3–4 000 Singapore dollars a month), a refrigerator to store unsold flowers and manpower, just as a salesperson who may not even need to be skilled in the art of ‘tying flowers.’ In contrast, one large flower shop in Little India has taken a rather different route, bypassing the suppliers. This business has cornered about 60% of the flower market on the island, enjoys something of a monopoly, has a solid reputation in the community and has the capital to invest in this different project, which I now describe. Instead of relying on suppliers like the other flower businesses, this family-run business has decided to start from scratch. A practice that was started some 10–15 years ago, the flower shop which is based in Singapore, runs its operations from the town of Senai, in the Malaysian state of Johore , about 80 km from Singapore. It ‘rents’ about 5–6 acres of land – which grows jasmines, carpet grass, Thai limes, holy basil etc – from its Malaysian Chinese landlord. The latter employs Indonesian and Thai workers (some of them by now illegal workers in Malaysia) to plant the seeds, nurture the plants and hand-pick the flowers. The premises also house about 20 workers from Tamil Nadu, India, whose job it is to ‘tie flowers’. These workers are technically employed by the Chinese landlord who owns the orchards and who secures their work permits from the Malaysian Government, but in effect they are employed (and paid) by the Singaporerun flower shop owners, who look after all their financial and other needs. This arrangement was explained to me thus: it is not possible to employ such workers in Singapore, as according to local laws, these workers (whose skill lies in tying flowers) would not be given work permits, their skills falling outside the range of expertise required by the Singapore economy in the present. Proprietors of a number of flower shops highlight ‘manpower’ to be a major obstacle to expanding the trade in flowers locally; it is next to impossible to get workers, I was told. A few had even taken their concern to the highest authority in the local Ministry of Manpower, but were told that these ‘traditional crafts’ are difficult to support given the present shape of the Singapore economy; in fact they were told to think of ways to ‘automate’ the business, a suggestion that was received with both amusement and despair. One of my informants explained: How to automate? You can’t just put in a bunch of flowers at one end of the machine and programme the machine to create a garland 180

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at the other end. It is just not possible, but they don’t understand this is a traditional, hand-based skill. I have no choice I have to move to Malaysia. There it is easier to get work permits and all that. It is not really that much cheaper, maybe a little bit – but the headache, the monitoring – that is the real problem. Thus this large business has basically moved its production operations to Malaysia to overcome the problem of securing relevant manpower to sustain its flower trade in Singapore. Twice daily, the garlands that have been tied in Malaysia are transported by road into Singapore to be sold in the retail outlet in Little India or delivered to homes and temples. Sometimes, special flowers that have been air-flown into Singapore from Chennai (Indian jasmines and marigolds), Jakarta and Bangkok (roses and orchids) are driven to the Senai-based workshop to be used in the garlands and then brought back to Singapore by the evening. Despite obviously being commodified, flowers and garlands once they are bought, are by no means considered tainted or soiled through this economic exchange. They are in fact valued even before they are used in the act of puja, which is why proprietors are aware that they have to observe the greatest care in treating the flowers with the respect worthy of being offered to God. They have to be ‘pampered’ – to show customers that they appreciate the religious value of flowers but more because it makes good business sense to do so. Of course, once they are offered to God, flowers are venerated as having being sanctified through divine contact, embodying divine grace and blessing. Just to finish the story, because flowers are organic, they do decay and rot. So what happens to them thereafter? Ideally, they should be disposed of in running water (like a river, lake or pond), or in a garden or at the base of a tree – to be returned to nature, recognised to be the legitimate mode of disposal. However, in urban places this is next to impossible, and the used flowers and garlands do very often end up in garbage bins. This raises questions about the meanings of flowers in Hindu discourse – at which point are they considered sacred and when do they display secular properties? The discussion of flowers and their place in Hindu worship makes it possible to reflect on the category ‘sacred’ as applied to objects of worship. The life cycle of flowers reveals that they have different and alternating phases of ‘sacredness’; They are potentially sacred before being used in worship, after which their divinity is enhanced. But what happens to this sacredness after the end of the ritual or ceremony? Do they lose their sacred quality? Clearly, sacredness is not inherent in the objective, essential property of the flowers themselves but rather carried in the attitudes with which they are approached by devotees. Most importantly, the sacred status of a flower varies with its treatment at different points in the life-cycle of a ritual. 181

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In closing My data reveal that ‘merchandising’ of material objects utilized in Hinduism has expectedly changed over time, reflecting shifts in religious practices, as well as the mechanisms through which many of these items are now secured by a diasporic Hindu community. Reproducing a Hindu ritual complex legitimately (and this is subject to definition) in foreign lands has meant the need for securing a variety of different objects – both for the purpose of domestic worship and worship in temples and shrines. The individuals who produce, manufacture, supply, distribute and market these goods are not confined to Singapore but connect widely dispersed groups of local Hindus with Hindus and non-Hindus spread across parts of Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and India, particularly Tamil Nadu. Ritual objects as commodities traverse these routes and circulate within the networks created. Recently, these multifacetted links and alliances have been reconfigured in view of contemporary demands of the market and the novel modes and technologies through which such needs can be met. This project, even at this very early stage, already demonstrates the presence of links, between Diaspora and homeland, and ties among Hindu Diaspora communities, as seen in the need for religious objects and the (by now) established avenues for securing them. These emergent links between Singapore, Malaysia and India are multifaceted, and need to be articulated more clearly in order to be theorized. My data do show the presence of real links and interdependence amongst Hindu devotees in the Malaysian Peninsula, and also linkages amongst customers and entrepreneurs in the broader Southeast Asian region. In particular, the Malaysian connection allows for the production of a particular type of Hindu ritual complex in Singapore, and provides the requisite resources to reproduce the domain thus constructed. What are now recognized as the separate political entities of Singapore and Malaysia have, of course, a long history of shared, intertwined historical experiences, most recently through the encounter with British colonialism. While many differences can today be identified across these artificial and recent national borders, I propose that it is meaningful to view the Malaysian Peninsula (including the island of Singapore) as a common ethnographic space. Indeed, with respect to the practice of Hinduism, this is very much the case. These connections demonstrate the creation of ‘new’ ties as well as, possibly, the severing of old ones. We witness the forging of linkages between Malaysian and Singaporean Hindu domains, and in some areas the potential shifting of the ‘sacred’ centre from India to Malaysia. Yet, India remains in the consciousness of Hindus overseas as the ultimate, legitimate source of all things ‘Hindu’. There is the further perception that some prayer items obtained from India are unique. A good example being ‘Indian flowers’ which are deemed to have a special fragrance and deemed more efficacious, and are

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thus sought after by Singaporeans who are prepared to pay the higher prices they command in the market. Thus far my data suggest that most of the items required for the perpetuation of domestic Hinduism, ‘festival Hinduism’ (Younger 2002) and temple Hinduism on the island are obtained from outside of Singapore. As I have demonstrated goods and products required for worship are secured from Tamil Nadu, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand. At first glance, one would conclude that such items are not manufactured or cultivated (in the case of flowers, plants and fruits) in Singapore. This, as we have seen, for a variety of reasons is hardly surprising. Yet, further scrutiny reveals that Singapore is a place where a number of religious objects, as products and commodities, are ‘assembled’, ‘finished’ and manufactured. Some examples include the framing of pictures of Hindu deities, gold-plating of brass objects used in prayer items, varnishing and fine carving and sculpting of home prayer altars, making of kavadis (from scratch), decorative brass carvings for kavadis, producing car and motorbike decals and stickers, printing of pictures of gods and goddesses, dyeing in turmeric of saris, veshtis, t-shirts, kurtas and shorts for tai pucam and timiti. In addition to the task of ‘putting together’ and ‘readying’ these listed (and pre-existing) products for sale in the retail market, Singapore as a diasporic Hindu space is further striking as a locale from which fifth and sixth generation Hindus (as devotees and as entrepreneurs) are conceiving a novel range of ‘prayer items’, designing and marketing them (sometimes in Singapore but more commonly in Malaysia and India) – and marketing these newly created commodities not just for the local market but also for Hindu communities in the Diaspora. The continued strong and dynamic presence of Hinduism on the island has meant that an industry of sorts has emerged to respond to ritualistic needs of the community, and in fact sustains the ritual domain by continuously supplying the needed products, services and commodities. Yet this business industry does not passively respond to the market by simply fulfilling given needs. It is in the nature of all successful industries to further create needs through the introduction of newer products and services, thereby ensuring their survival and, more importantly, commercial success. I cite an example from my recent research on the current and rising popularity of the Tamil male village deity, Muneeswaran (Sinha 2005) amongst some sectors of Singaporean Hindus. In the Southern Indian rural context, this deity is defined as an ellai kaaval deivam (Tamil, ‘guardian deity of boundaries’), physically located on the fringes and margins of residential spaces and not found in Hindu households. In recent years, Muneeswaran worship in Singapore has taken these two forms: one, a shift towards Agamized worship (where his status has been raised to that of the Hindu deity Siva and he is approached in a codified and text-based fashion) and two, a leaning towards the ‘folk’. ‘popular’ elements of worship (an emphasis on his autonomous kaaval deivam identity and a ritual complex that includes 183

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spirit-mediums and ‘self-mortification’ practices). Significantly, Muneeswaran has entered the domestic domain and is now found in the homes of his devotees. An altered Muneeswaran ritual complex has created the need for specific types of items for his veneration and worship. Given the theistic nature of Hinduism, bringing Muneeswaran into the domestic domain has created the need for visual representations of the deity in the form of pictures, photos and statues. Unlike the Vedic and Sanskritic deities, no grammar and vocabulary is available in the respective texts, for either their imagination or construction. In such a vacuum, a group of local devotees has emerged as artists and entrepreneurs who conceive novel, visual images of Muneeswaran, who is then concretized in drawings, photographs and statues. These latter are mass-produced and made available in retail stores to his devotees. In another related example, some local retailers have refashioned ‘traditional’ symbols (e.g. Muneeswaran Stick) of Muneeswaran veneration in a newer permutation or created new ones (like the Muneeswaran yantra or Muneeswaran Thoththiram –typically associated with Sanksritic deities). These images are sought after and deemed to be central to Muneeswaran worship. These innovated, invented and manufactured ritual items feed back into the domain of worship and thus also re-configure it, producing important shifts. The practice of Hinduism in the present, particularly in a global, capitalist and diasporic context, has created the need for material objects and their trade as commodities, giving rise to a group of entrepreneurs, leading to what I am calling here a ‘merchandising’ of Hinduism. It is important to note that I do not use the word ‘merchandising’ negatively here, nor am I suggesting that this refers simplistically to a ‘selling’ of Hindu religion or spirituality. Rather, I mean by this a complex process through which the trading of material items (which also happen to be ritual objects) as commodities allows me, amongst other theoretical concerns, to problematize the categories of ‘sacred’ and ‘secular’. The variety of objects required in the practice of Hinduism, and the fact of their incorporation into the global capitalist system of markets and commodities does mean their necessary commercialization, but this by no means leads to a desecration of the religious realm. In this project, my aim is to reflect on the processes by which such commoditization occurs and the consequences this carries for practicing Hindus as well as for entrepreneurs who trade in them. This also entails attending to the processes of production, distribution and consumption of these objects, particularly exploring how ritual objects as commodities enter the religious domain (and are consumed as such) and the concomitant meanings they carry. It is also problematic to assume at the outset that commodification of objects used in the religious domain necessarily represents a system of crass, economic exchange, a view that needs rather to be investigated through historical and ethnographic analysis. In fact, based on

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the data I have, I would argue that despite the commodification of religious objects, or perhaps even because of it, especially as they feed back into the realm of religious practices with charged meanings, in effect supports an enchanted (by which I mean a spiritual, religious, mystical, other-worldly) worldview rather than lead to a disenchanted consciousness.

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Note 1 See Sandhu (1969), and Siddique and Puru Shotam (1982) for a comprehensive historical account of Indian settlement on the island.

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A case study of City Harvest Church, Singapore Joy Tong Kooi Chin

The stories of fast-growing megachurches1 – defined as non-Catholic churches with at least 2,000 members – and the aggressive proselytizing of consumerism have led people to become increasingly aware of the possible correlations between these two global phenomena.2 However, neither megachurches nor religious commodifications3 are entirely new issues. For one thing, large congregations with at least 2,000 members have existed for decades. For example, in the United States alone, there were roughly six large churches in the beginning of the twentieth century (Vaughan 1993). Further, as Historian R. Laurance Moore (1994) points out, evidence for ‘selling God’ exists throughout American history, namely, anything with the name of ‘religious’ will probably in its lived expression have its commodified aspects. Thus, as we shall see later, one of the most crucial elements that distinguishes the current crop of megachurches from its predecessors is, besides their larger size and their more proactive engagement with the market, the inclusive and innovative combination of rational structure and technology with a consumer ethic in modern culture. This expertly rationalized system and its underpinning values are significant as they are what make modern megachurches unique in their organizational and leadership dynamics. It is in this respect that I suggest George Ritzer’s (1993) claim on McDonaldization, which argues for the growing rationalization of many spheres of modern consumer society, as a compatible model in understanding the key features of megachurches today. Yet in saying so I do not imply that megachurches are copying McDonald’s. Instead, my argument is that megachurches, despite operating in different kinds of marketplace, have indeed displayed a striking similarity in their rationalization of production and consumption to those mass-production corporations of which McDonald’s is the epitome (Ritzer 1993). It is mainly through this McDonaldization that megachurches grow to their current 186

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size in a very short period of time4 and acquire their unique identities and influences in societies. To illustrate my argument, this chapter begins with a brief discussion on Ritzer’s concept of McDonaldization and notes some aspects of its limitations relevant to present study. It then examines the managerial order and ruling ethic of City Harvest Church, one of the largest and fastest growing megachurches in Asia, so as to display the McDonaldized aspects of a megachurch and the ensuing ongoing negotiation between religion and market.

McDonaldization, commodification and megachurch In the McDonaldization of Society, Ritzer elaborates and applies the concept of formal rationality, identified originally by Max Weber (1978), to a wide range of social phenomena. Alarmed by this amplification and extension of rationalization in contemporary societies, Ritzer then coined a term, McDonaldization, to define ‘the process by which the principles of the fast food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more sectors of American society as well as the rest of the world’ (1993: 1). According to Ritzer, the McDonaldization process is defined by its drive to maximize the following four aspects (1993: 7–13): efficiency aims at getting most output for the least effort; calculability promotes quantified quality control; predictability provides standardized products and, control of human beings by the use of material technology, which involves controlling workers’ and consumers’ activities by technology, particularly computer. For Ritzer, McDonaldization is a product of Fordist economies that establishes linear and specialized forms of production and distribution. While its usefulness in attaining institutional goals is definitely undeniable and hence the global spread of the phenomenon, its effects of homogenization, massification, standardization and the implicit ‘irrationalities of rationality’ (2000: 16–18), are equally powerful, especially when one considers the overwhelming influence of these McDonaldized institutions in the context of globalization. Some criticism has been raised concerning Ritzer’s over-emphasis on the standardization of products, which obviously overlooks the ‘local culture’ (Watson, 1997: 185), the diversity of consumer practices and the varied meanings McDonaldization can have on its consumers (see Miles 1998). While there is some validity in this criticism as we shall see in the case of megachurches, homogeneity as well as heterogeneity, liquidity and individuality do exist dialectically, albeit in different degrees, in McDonaldized settings (Turner 2003, Watson 1997); yet in turn I shall argue that this defence neglects the extent to which McDonaldization constitutes a homogenization of production and consumption which is often unproportionately influential and of a high degree than the diversity that it brings, as my study on megachurches will prove. For example, in the case of the United States, Megachuches Today 2005 shows that although most churches are unique 187

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in their ministry focus, targeted markets, denominational ties and are influenced by local history and cultural differences in which they grow, they are indeed, more significantly, to be seen as a collective social phenomenon which has prominent similar identifiable patterns – such as highly rational structure – that serves as the foundation on which diversity and locality thrive. This is equally true in the context of Singapore as megachurches here too, might be diverse in their focus and attractions, and exhibit a similar pattern in terms of their management structures and values. However, in my attempt to apply the McDonaldization concept on megachurches, I agree with Kellner (1999) that Ritzer, in focusing on the economic and sociological aspects of McDonaldization, has underplayed its cultural dimension which involves the promotions and advertising of the operation. This is especially critical in the study on megachurches, as the growing of megachurches is not merely due to the employment of McDonald’s management techniques, but equally important, to the marketing and branding mentality that are adopted from secular corporations. As the McWorld pervades and re-forms our everyday lives not by coercion but attraction, likewise, a majority of the peoples are not born into megachurches nor join them simply because of their efficiency or size their deliberate choice is rather to be seen as being attracted by the experience, the values, the images and to some extent, the ‘commodified’ aspect of religion which resonates with modern trends and spirits. In this respect, I suggest it will be more fruitful to investigate the phenomenon of megachurches based on the intimate connection between rationalization and commodification (Kellner 1999: 188–189). These two forces are in fact two sides of the same coin – driving by the same force and resulting in the same end, namely, the increasing of productivity and ultimately, profitability. Yet it should be noted that in the case of megachurches, profit should not be referring mainly to the cash nexus although they do involve huge transaction of money, but rather to the religious and social capital (Bourdieu 1989; Roof 1999) associated with the number of members involved and their commitments to the church – including establishing and sustaining social networks, legitimacy, reputation and authority. I illustrate my argument through the specific ethnographic study of the City Harvest Church. Focusing on the production and consumption of the church, I attempt to answer two questions: how has this megachurch been McDonaldized? How has McDonaldization as a result helped shape and condition the formation of a megachurch? The data were collected through a three-month participant observation from June, 2005 in a wide variety of the church’s activities and in-depth semistructured interviews sampled through the snow-balling method.5 Various documents including the church’s website, television broadcasts, its online magazine Harvest Times, distributed literature, forms, documentations,

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and its members’ blogs were analyzed to broaden the representation of this portrayal.

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Background of the story – Christianity in Singapore To portray a fuller picture of the megachurches in Singapore, it might be instructive to begin with a description of its religious landscape. The Singapore society has been religiously pluralistic. The Singapore Census of Population, 2000 indicates that the main religions practiced in Singapore were Buddhism with practitioners constituting 42 per cent of the total population, Islam with 14.9 per cent, Christianity with 14.6 per cent, Taoism with 8.5 per cent, Hinduism with 4 per cent, and others with 0.6 per cent. While the number of Christians may be comparatively small, its development has been one of the most rapid and the most significant for the following reasons: (1) the substantial growth of its adherents compared to 10.1 per cent in 1980 and 12.7 per cent in 1990; if this pace of growth continues, Christianity most likely would become the second largest group by 2010; (2) the fact that many of the Christian population tend to be of relatively higher social economic status (in education, occupation and income);6 and quite a high proportion of them are middle class and professionals, which include businessmen, academics and even politicians (Clammer 1997);7 and (3) its attractiveness to the emerging young population. While this is not uncommon in other religious revival movements, Christians still form the largest religious group among university graduates with one-third of graduates professing Christianity in 2000. This is not surprising in view of churches and Para-churches’ keen emphasis on outreach especially among the university students. From this perspective, it might be right to suggest that Christianity’s dominance is likely to be greater than the growth in terms of the proportion (Tong 1997). The growing influence of Christianity is made obvious lately by the emerging of megachurches in the 1990s. Starting from tens of worshippers, these churches have grown unusually large in a short time span and thus instilled intense dynamics as well as tensions into local religious scenario. For the sake of brevity, however, this chapter will only mention churches which have more than 10,000 sustained weekly worshippers. There are at least three such churches in Singapore, namely New Creation Church, Faith Community Baptist Church and City Harvest Church. These churches, happen to be independent, are notably great in number (altogether they have more than 40,000 attenders for their weekly services), strong in their full-time staff, operate with multimillion-dollars budgets,8 boast of spiritual power, diverse services, new buildings, contemporary worship and preaching styles, and appear to have an upwardly mobile spirit (The Sunday Times, 21 July 2002) Among the three, City Harvest Church (henceforth CHC) is the youngest and yet claims to be the largest in Singapore and one of Asia’s fastest growing

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churches (http://www.chc.org.sg). Starting from a group of 20 young members in 1989, the church has attracted approximately 20,000 members within 16 years, with at least 15 per cent growth each year (http://www.chc.org.sg).9 Such progression of megachurches in general and the CHC in particular is unusual if we take into account the multi-ethnic and multi-faiths secular conditions of Singapore society on the one hand, and government control on religion’s development on the other. Yet this happening should not be seen as too abrupt if we consider how milieu of Singapore society has prepared for the sprouting of rationalized settings such as megachurches. As a newly-born nation with scare natural resources,10 Singapore needs to do ‘everything that is necessary to achieve capitalist growth’ (Chua 2000b: 184), which notably includes enforcing a centralized rational management system that takes full responsibility for almost all aspects of the everyday life of its citizens. Thus, there are clear expectations of discipline, wellordered, standardized services, rules, and decision-making processes in both private and public settings.11 In this sense, clearly, the McDonaldization model, notably including the megachurches’s version, has a definite appeal to the Singaporean disposition.12 It is perhaps therefore not surprising that the CHC, which is arguably the most rationalized among all, is standing out from the crowd.

City Harvest Church: a case study Settled initially in a single-storey terrace house, with old wooden tables, at Amber Road, the church had moved to various rented halls, hotel function rooms and auditoriums around Singapore including Hollywood Theater before it could finally own its spanking new $48 (USD $28) million building, with its 2,000-seat auditorium, in 2001. And yet the vibrant congregation outgrew their building within four years and in 2005, some of their meetings had to move, again, to Hall 8 of Singapore Expo, the largest convention centre in Southeast Asia. The church now runs eight services each weekend including English Church, Chinese Church, Children’s Church, Dialect Church, Indonesian Church and Services for the IntellectuallyDisabled. Besides, like most big churches, there are radio broadcasts of its sermons and live webcasts of its worship service. The growth is outstanding when measured against the slower or stagnant growth rate in attendance among some local churches. Apparently, the church has certain uniqueness and extra ingredients which helps to create its brand and its achievement in the spiritual marketplace. One of the winning factors is definitely the leadership – the founder and senior pastor Kong Hee – the man behind the scene. Kong pioneered the church when he was 25 years old, then a fresh graduate with a computer science degree from National University of Singapore. A member remembers Kong turning up for work dressed casually in a T-shirt 190

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and slippers (The New Paper, 1 June 2002). Yet with his spirit of ‘constantly try to upgrade ourselves’ and his vision of building ‘a church without a wall’, he and his church have been progressing speedily: Now the church is ‘comparable to any SME’ in Kong’s words and he in turn is like ‘a company head honcho (The New Paper, 1 June 2002) – with its nine affiliated Harvest Churches planted across Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and India, City Harvest Bible Training Center which enrolls hundreds of local and overseas students yearly, Pastors’ Course in collaboration with Sweeden Livets Ord University, the ISO 9001:2000 credited City Harvest Community Services Association which in a year provides more than 14,000 Singapore residents of various services, City Harvest Education Centre, the church’s webcast, television broadcast program and magazine that altogether reach millions of viewers, and the Attributes bookstore with its online services. Indeed, the church functions more like a well-run corporation than anything else. The fact that it is able to deal with very large numbers of people including 126 staff, thousands of volunteers and members, great volume of administrative workload and considerable financial transactions obviously proves its efficiency and professionalism. In addition, the business-savvy leader has just brought the church one great leap forward by obtaining ISO 9001:2000 in year 2004, which makes it the first church in the world to be awarded such certification (Straits Times, 8 April 2004). Similar to most founders of megachurches (Vaughan 1993), Kong has exhibited an outstanding leadership style, a combination of both rational and charismatic authorities; the former includes his highly efficient management capabilities and his Doctor of Theology degree; the latter his ‘personal calling from God’ (http://www.chc.org.sg), his visionary personality: to ‘both inspire and challenge people to dream big dreams for a great God’ (http://www.chc.org.sg) and his engaging preaching style. It is true that the church owes its existence to Kong, and has, to some extent, been the embodiment of his spirit and talents, be it in its hardware, that is structure, process, measurement or in its software, that is culture, behaviour, personality and values. I shall illustrate this by first looking at the most concrete manifestation, its titanium-clad cavernous building, which was ‘built to inspire’ according to Kong (The New Paper, 1 June 2002). In view of the simple start of the church, this eight-storey building is in fact a symbol of great achievement: it is the first titanium-clad building in Asia and is modelled after the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. It prides itself on a $583,000 Broquard fountain, Europe imported limestone, stylistic bathrooms designed by French designer, a reflecting pool, a putting green for golf enthusiasts, a 18,300-sq ft underground auditorium, the world largest stainless steel rotating cross and also what is said to be the world’s most advanced fire evacuation system. In its theatre-style auditorium, which is the largest column-free sanctuary in the Southeast Asian Peninsula, there is a centre 191

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stage designed by a top stage designer from Christie’s Auction House in New York, a LED video screen, the largest and undoubtedly of the highest resolution in Singapore, and a world largest 60-channel sound console, advised by the same consultant of Sydney Opera House. This postmodern pastiche architecture contributes to form a sort of world class theater experience for its audience and to prove how ‘a bunch of ordinary Singaporeans . . . can make it happen’ (The New Paper, 1 June 2002). More significantly, this building is indeed a steadfast exhibition of Kong’s main value in making his church, namely, excellence. In one of his writings entitled Understanding Excellence, he has ardently defended the value of excellence as ‘to be superior in quality, greater in quantity, to transcend your job description, and to outdo yourself each time.’ As such, in his church building project, . . . all the finer details of the entire construction were extremely vital to the church leadership. The cleanliness and hygiene, the greenery and landscaping, the positioning of our furniture, the comfort of our chairs, the color scheme and lightings of our halls, the quality of air in the building, the paint job, the cleaning of unsightly scratch marks, fingerprints and sawdust in the facility were all important details that reflect excellence. (Harvest Times, v.17 March–June 2002) Visibly, values make a difference. This spirit of excellence is further revealed through the extra facilities provided by the church, such as a bookstore that sells CDs, books and tidbits (of course, located at the main entrance so that purchases can be made both on entering and leaving), coffee carts along the driveway, open-air rooftop garden and a spacious cafeteria with free wireless broadband, the first Singapore church that offers such a service (Straits Times, 18 January 2005). The church also provides hundreds of shuttles to transport people to the church from every MRT station on every weekend. Thus, at the first approach, this well-resourced building and its comprehensive facilities has no doubt created a less churchy and more a one-stop-mall impression of the church.13 It is not surprising, then, meetings held under such environment are equally bound up with expectations and entertainment – with spotlights beaming onto the stage, enthusiastic music bounces through the hall, cameras, giant screen, lines of people streaming in – the atmosphere is infectious. The meetings start with worship, a leader with five to six well-harmonized vocals and a sizable choir complete with a band, leading the congregations into a captivating atmosphere of drumbeat-driven celebration and jubilation. Thousands of people in the audience rise to their feet, clapping and singing with vigor and excitement; at times they shout and jump, at times weep and kneel, under the professional leading of the 192

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worship leader. The scenario holds people in awe and the engrossing atmosphere turns into a perfect channel for them to release their feelings. Preaching, too, is restylized to fit its young audiences: the sermons are practical and less-dogmatic; the preaching styles are highly interactive; and even the preachers, like show or television host, move around with passionate voice, gestures, personal stories, and sometimes dramatic action to engage the audience. On some occasions, the preacher would launch the service into a healing and blessing time. Hundreds of people stream to the stage, praying, receiving miraculous healings and prophetic utterances; opening up their emotional and physical needs to be ministered in a unique and yet collective way. This is best illustrated by the following quotation appeared on a blog: This is where I look forward to every week. At City Harvest Church, I get to praise and worship God with my fellow brethren during services, I get to listen to my senior pastor, Rev Kong Hee, preach a powerful, life impacting message from the word of God . . . I get excited whenever weekends are approaching, because I can go to Church! It is the most exciting place to go to in the weekends! . . . Indeed one day in the house of God is better than a thousand days working in the office! . . . Please contact me whenever you are coming to Singapore for a tour or business trip. If you are looking to visit the churches in Singapore, I would gladly accompany you to City Harvest! (http://www.holy-spirit-led-christian.com/ city-harvest-church.html) If religion can be considered as a ‘commodity’, in this case, an expressive experience, that people produce collectively (Iannaccone 1998: 271), then ‘CHC’s brand’ is definitely an attractive one. Thus, it is not surprising that this brand is exported and its products copied and extended locally and regionally. The mass production of McDonaldization – with hunger waiting to be filled, thousands of believers go through the church’s highly managed and programmed service, to be refreshed and refuelled, not physically as in McDonald’s but spiritually and emotionally; not individually but collectively – is thus duplicated in many places every week.

The management structure In order to maintain such a high and standardized quality of performances weekly, the church clearly appears to have an expertly rationalized system in place. Being aware that his role ‘had transformed from that of a shepherd to a rancher’ (Straits Times, 8 April 2004), Kong thus forms the church on a small-group basis and depends mainly on the lay leaders to perform 193

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the mundane activities. Nevertheless, to optimize the successes of these 680 groups’ leaders, compulsory trainings and detailed guidelines, such as the ‘Successful Home Small Group Leadership’ (8 lessons), ‘The Art of Worship Leading’ (one lesson) and ‘The Art of Preaching’ (10 lessons), are pre-packaged so as to produce consistent and uniform leading and preaching style on the one hand, and to equip the leaders with pat answers for frequently asked questions on the other. Likewise, the plans for membership (three levels including ordinary, ministry and executive member) are neatly structured; classes starting from ‘Church Introductory Class’ to ‘Perfection’ as well as personal devotion materials are designed to lead newcomers into life-changing and like-minded Christians. It becomes evident that to motivate and monitor these leaders, the church needs to set quantified targets and to judge the quality of its services in terms of quantity. Like all corporations, the prime goal is growth, most desirably of course is in the number of ‘spirit-filled’ Christians, but more measurably in the number of newcomers and church attendance, the amount of offerings and the multiplicity of church activities. For instance, the healthiness of a small group is judged by its time span of multiplication. The spirituality of an individual is evaluated on the basis of his or her church attendances and regularity in offerings. The performance of its Bible Training Center’s students, besides the usual academic and ministry involvements, are assessed through their attendance in church’s activities via card punching. The result of its Pastors’ Course is emphasized as such: 49 students went to 9 cities in 4 countries over a 2-week period, and preached 347 sermons altogether; a total of 16,409 people attended the meetings, 3,356 decisions were made for Christ, and 206 cases of healing were witnessed. (Http://www.chc.org.sg) And the success of its gospel outreach campaigns, organized from October 2003 to May 2004, is described as below: a total of 1,663 members participated in those campaigns to 36 cities, a total of 280,002 people attended 163 services, and 103,683 decisions were made for Christ, and 8,265 national leaders were trained. (Http://www.chc.org.sg) As Ritzer (1993) mentions, however, quantity is often more an illusion than a reality, and this has proved, at least partially, to be the case in CHC. For example, it offers at least seven services for its English and Mandarin speaking adults each weekend in the year 2005. While the number is impressive, it does not necessarily imply diversity of the services: most of the services have 194

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similar sermons (though they might be delivered by different preachers), songs (except for Mandarin service) and orders. Another typical example is about its small groups. There are hundreds of groups in the church, but the majority of them (perhaps except the Business Breakthrough Group) are standardized to a great extent despite differences in the members’ educational levels, backgrounds, gifts, and so on, to a point that the small group leader can request an absentee to attend another group’s meeting to make up for his or her absence. Heterogeneity is something unusual or suspicious. The homogenization of the church is predictable if we consider how technologies are employed in various aspects of its daily functions. Techniques are used to ensure a standardized physical environment such as the controlling of temperature, light and periodic remodelling; cameras are installed to keep the users under surveillance. More significantly, computer is fully utilized to help regulating the church’s operation and to keep track of its members. For examples, six tithe-and pledge automated kiosks that scattered around the church and the online donation systems help to facilitate and regulate peoples’ offering, and since every administration procedure is automated, supervisors are able to see at the click of a mouse how all members of their team are progressing, including the group attendance, group transfer, group assessment, group offerings, counselling records, newcomer records, academic performance records, and so on. Furthermore, communication technologies including cell phones, short message system, email, complex phone systems and the internet are all employed to enhance the efficiency of communication. People can surf the online magazines, sermons and events calendar on the website as well as activities promotion and product selling including books and CDs. They can also see online the different ministries where the church has needs and by clicking on one of them, they can find out what positions are currently available and can even sign-up online. As such, the computerized systems have made the total integration of the church’s administration, communication and regulation possible. In this regard, it might be helpful to expand the notion of technology to include Foucault’s idea on (1988) ‘technologies of the self’ in our discussion, so as to provide an understanding on how the applications of certain disciplinary technologies on individuals, facilitated by the efficient government, will help to produce a particular type of personality. For instances, the practice of note-taking, as if the attenders ‘were going to sit an exam on this sermon’ (http://wui_ping.tripod.com), has cultivated a ‘teachable and expectant spirit’ (field note on 22 August, 2005) toward preaching. The requirement for its members to commit themselves to the church’s teachings, by attending equipping class systematically, has helped shape people’s views on certain issues,14 such as constant emphasis on the reward of offering has compelled the members to give lavishly;15 and severe teachings on gossiping and slandering has prohibited members from conversations related to 195

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the negative aspects or feelings toward church leaders (see for example, ‘Gossip-Satan’s lethal weapon’ on Harvest Times v.17 March–June 2002). Also, leaders’ supervision and peer pressures lead to conformity. From the ‘proper’ way of worship (when to pray or raise hand), ‘proper’ timing of responding to the sermons (i.e. the unified ‘yeah’ response after the preacher has said something interesting or challenging), ‘proper’ individual commitments such as tithe or even their future plans (i.e. the church encourages the youth to join the Bible Training Center before starting their first job), multiple technologies have in fact helped to train a certain type of Christian. Besides, disciplinary actions, taken by leaders to punish uncooperative attitude, are another effective way of regulating its huge membership. According to several of my informants, one of them was censured for her disagreement with the church’s miraculous healing; another over her unwillingness to participate in the church building project. Regulation is even stricter for students of the Bible Training Center, for instance, according to its Student Handbook item no. 6.5.5., ‘Students are to be respectful and polite toward the pastors and leadership appointed over them . . . all students must address all pastors by their titles whenever they meet. Failure to do so will bring about disciplinary action’. It is not surprising that the Center had dismissed 15 students in 2004 because of their problems of ‘integrity and honesty’ (www.chc.org.sg), of whom 10 were international students and many were full-time workers in their home churches. Significantly, however, efficiency is not the only purpose for maximizing control over its members, instead, as Foucault (1988) suggests, disciplines provide certain modes of training which is necessity for self-improvement and life-transformation, as my informant, who came all the way from Taiwan to join the Bible Training Center, testified, I came to learn music. But now I think the most significant gain in this nine-month training is not about the skills, but the transformation of my character. Even my girl friend who came to visit me two weeks ago was very surprised by my change . . . I am much submissive, self-discipline, and tolerance now. (Field note on September 8, 2005) This life-changing experience is not a typical among the church’s members. Almost all have certain testimonies to share. One informant, who left his booming business in his mid-thirties and becomes a pastor of a megachurch, commented, If you ask me why I made such a decision, the answer is simple; this is a life-changing business. Not only that my life has been changed, but I am working together with God in changing peoples’ lives. 196

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Many people think our church grows because of marketing, but I would rather think it is because peoples’ lives are transformed here, that’s why they want to join us, even though we give them tough challenges and requirements . . . it is more demanding to be a member here than in a traditional church. (Field note on 12 August, 2005)

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Identities and values It is true that being a committed Christian is no less comfortable in a big church like CHC than a normal church – the commitment is intense and requirements are demanding.16 Yet still many people choose to be a part of it. Of course diverse motives, such as seeking companionship or to be recharged from routine, or merely enjoying the service, propel people to travel long way to the church. Above all, however, many come to seek to experience a life-transforming journey through the church’s services. They are indeed seeking for a set of convincing values, a relevant identity and a new understanding of life through their participation, as a churchgoer said, ‘[the church] aligns every member’s destiny with God, in life and as part of society. It’s more of a vision’ (The Sunday Times, 21 July 2002). This is particularly significant in the case of CHC, in view of its overwhelmingly young memberships – the average age of its members is about 24 – who are in a critical stage of their lives in forming their sense of the self, and the church’s intentional endeavor in building an ‘ultra-modern, energetic and upwardly mobile’ image (The Sunday Times, 8 February 2004) to reach this particular group.17 In order to construct this identity effectively, a brand – a lifestyle, a set of values, tastes and symbols that connect to the commodities – has to be made concurrently to distinct the church’s members from others, which inevitably involve various kinds of consumption. On the corporate level, the church spent a huge amount of money in constructing a ‘ultra-modern’ church – even the toilets ‘exemplify the very meaning of style’ (Harvest Times, v.18 July–December 2002) – and a stately ‘bright and futurist’ (http://www.chc.org.sg) corporate office located at the heart of Singapore’s central business district, Suntec City Tower;18 whereas on the individual level, people are encouraged to spend money on appearance and lifestyle in order to form their new subjective identification. For instance, at one of the services in September 2005, a preacher related how he brought his mother-in-law to Hong Kong Disneyland, persuaded her to try on stylish dresses, gave her the ticket to attend a concert in Esplanade, and concluded his story by asking the audience, ‘Am I not changing her life?’ He even continued by indicating his ‘mission’ to transform the senior congregation through changing their dressing. It is not surprising that this idea received thunderous applause from the young audience. Another example is exhibited through the 197

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church’s Bible Training Center. In its Student Handbook item no. 6.1, the general attire for students is stated as below: Men:

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Ladies: Hairdo:

formal business shirt, tie, business trousers, socks and formal shoes. office best with full cosmetic make-up. coloring and having funky hairdos are acceptable for male students, but strictly no long hair.

By literally buying into this corporate image – unavoidably involving the acquisition of certain goods that are always functional and simultaneously a symbolic agent for conspicuous display of style or taste (Bourdieu 1989) – the members seemingly fulfill the promise of the new life given by the church. They become different people from what they were before and their sense of what is possible for them changes. It is obvious that the changed outfit and lifestyle suggest particular personalities that match the church’s identities, which can be assessed by some observant outsiders.19 However, image alone is insufficient in constructing a person’s identity without the underpinning of a set of values, which are not advocated merely to back up the church’s agenda; but are presented as virtues in themselves, often with biblical support. Among all, success and freedom are the two most outstanding. As God’s abundant love is thought to have both material and spiritual payoffs, conspicuous success including prosperity is thus the desirable goal of believers and the church as a whole. As one of my informants explained: No doubt, God wants us to be successful in all aspects of our lives. He is able and He is willing to bless His children. I don’t see the point why Christian should live a poor, pitiful and a suffered life . . . If Jesus is resurrected and has all the authority in heaven and on earth under Him, then it is not victory that is questionable but failure . . . and I think success is a good testimony . . . of course people want to join successful people. Is it sensible to join a group of loser? (Field note on 03 August, 2005) The successes and well-offness, however, come with a cost. To be successful, the individuals and the church alike need to work extra hard in order to pursue excellence in their business. Yet equally important, they should receive divine blessings through generous offering, namely, by giving to God as much as one can, they reap the fruits of their investments in higher returns (see The Sunday Times, 21 July, 2002). Plenty of messages have been carefully built on this concept, and testimonies of business, relationship and academic successes have proved this to be workable.20 This teaching obviously tends to equate this-worldly gains with God’s blessings and thus 198

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appears to validate the values of most middle-class men and women, who have well-defined life expectations and are keen in accumulating material and cultural assets in forming their identity (Chua 2000a).21 Indeed their gospel is more lightening, certainly one of empowerment, upbeat and one with an ever looking-forward mentality. Language of triumph and confidence, rather than the conservative tone condemning ‘sinners in the hands of an angry God’, is the dominant tongue of the church. New missions and projects are always there to challenge the faith and status quo of the church. For instance, one of its achieved goals in 2005 was to move to a larger auditorium at the Singapore Expo before its brand new building is ready at 2009, in which 30,000 members can be contained. By then, the new church will be ‘a building in the marketplace, for the marketplace, to penetrate the marketplace’, according to Kong (Harvest Times, v.27, April–July 2006). However, this adventurous spirit is expressed more obviously as a collective characteristic, namely, it is the church leader that is able to spot an opportunity and lead the church to act on it. This definitely requires courage and a spirit of innovation, but the members merely adopt the mission which entails more obedience than faith on their part. Nevertheless, the successful outcomes of the action, which may be largely attributed to the leader, are personalized by its lay leaders and members, and thus help to internalize a superb morale necessary for the church to head the spiritual marketplace. Yet on the other hand, ‘free to be yourself’, is highlighted. Besides the church’s authorities that deserve full submission, CHC encourages believers’ freedom from legalism, traditions and customs. This is where flexibility, individuality and differentiated taste could be exhibited. ‘True to yourself’, of course the easiest way is through lifestyle and appearance, is a widespread message delivered through the speeches and lives of its leaders. For instance, in a series of sermons and articles regarding the freedom that Christians have, Kong said, ‘. . . what music can you listen to? What clothes can you wear? What art may you appreciate? What kind of car or house can you have? . . . these are not issues of right or wrong, sin or righteousness. They are simply matters of personal preference!’ (Harvest Times, v.14 August– September 2001) This is undoubtedly a liberating and comforting message for people in a consumer society, in which ‘individuals are encouraged to choose and display goods – whether furnishings, house, car, clothing, the body or leisure pursuits’ to make their personal statement (Lyon 2000: 82). Nevertheless, it thus seems that through teachings like this, Kong has in fact unwittingly given the consumer culture his spiritual endorsement on the one hand and set the trend of ‘liberal and trendy’ Christianity on the other.

The star of the church – (ex) Pastor Singer Sun Ho Indeed, the most powerful testimony of this ‘liberating gospel’ is definitely lived out by Kong’s wife, the church’s ex-senior pastor Sun Ho, who has 199

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turned into a high-flying singer despite all the contentions. By selling over 50,000 copies of her debut album of Mandarin pop in Taiwan, Sun With Love, and followed by two sold-out concerts at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in June 2002, Ho has made a discreet foray into stardom, and essentially into Hollywood. Her boldness in trying new things – merely ‘being true to herself’ (Harvest Times, v.17 March–June 2002) – has naturally received polemic responses: while some were perplexed by her seemingly contradictory ‘pastor-singer’ roles; some interpreted it as, like one of my informants mentioned, this is an effective way to use her talents to spread love and hope to the lost world as a witness for Christ, and sure enough, she did very well and will continue to do better because of her God-given talents, and also of the remarkable support of Christians, who probably constitute a significant portion of the entertainment market. (Field note on 22 August 2005) Others might take her action as a challenge to the stereotyped ‘Victorian and straitlaced’ image of Christian (Harvest Times, v.17 March–June 2002). As one of her reports on the church’s online magazine describes, with striking blonde streaks highlighting her tender-brown tresses . . . and with her very J-Lo but not as revealing dressings . . . have defied all prior definitions one may have had of what a pastor ‘should’ be like. (Harvest Times, v.17 March–June 2002)22 However, rumors have been rife that Ho’s initial ventures into both local and international stardom including Taiwan and the United States were greatly bridged and helped by the CHC and various churches in the related countries.23 Although the church leaders in general and Kong in particular have clarified that no church funds were used to finance Ho’s pop career and what the church did was merely a normal act ‘to support and celebrate the secular success of its members’ (Straits Times 27 January 2003), a number of contentions have been raised, not only as regards the suitability of investing church’s supports in her personal career, but more crucially, her unabashed ‘free expression’ as a pop singer. What can be certain is that, by supporting her to a be a local and international star, either through publishing her news on church’s magazines, encouraging members to buy her CDs or to participate in her concerts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Yeow_Sun), the church has not only shown its capability in embracing techniques of commercial expansion to get ahead in the world of entertainment, but has manifested a perfect and concrete example of integrating religion and consumer culture. Although the tensions were mitigated after her resignation from the church, 200

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yet by merely being the wife of Kong, let alone a Hollywood star, Ho can hardly neglect her ‘residual’ influence on the church’s members. For example, almost all my informants mentioned her name when being asked about the influential personalities of the church; and the majority could easily recall the names of her newly opened boutiques and her latest album. Thus, it might be said that her lifestyle is still one of the ‘successful’ examples for Singaporean youth in general and Christians, especially her church members, in particular.24 Her personal website which was initially linked to the church’s and the church’s Harvest Times for July–December 2002 which featured 10 pages of her news as a pop star and two pages on her ‘Sun Fan Club’, undoubtedly reflected the church’s support in producing a star and a brand, which designed ‘artistically and scientifically’ (Ritzer 1999: 43) to lure people, specifically Christians, into consumption.

Conclusion This chapter examines one instance of how a megachurch works itself out through the McDonaldization process, namely, the inclusive combination of scientific rationality and technology with a consumer ethic, and grows to be a symbol of faith in a consumer society like Singapore. I have displayed how the church’s success could be in most part attributed to its McDonaldized settings, which notably includes the highly efficient management structures that enables the church to provide multiple, specialized and yet systematized services to its members, its pragmatic approaches toward consumers’ needs, and its endeavour in making itself relevant to the milieu of society. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the systems would not fully function if not for the help of the values, such as ‘free to be yourself’, that are advocated by the church. Clearly, the church does not draw masses merely because of its rationality in production or consumption; instead, its growth is also due to its success in offering an attractive choice for its young attenders, who either come to church for the first time or have been turned off by traditional religious settings, an opportunity to construct their ‘modern and yet religious’ identity and lifestyle, as one informant concluded, ‘you can be spiritual and hip at the same time and don’t feel guilty.’ Yet this is where the great tension and the temptation lie: there is always the negotiation of identities – being a spiritual institution and yet a corporation, being part of the culture but in some ways counter-cultural,25 being part of the world and being opposed to it, marketing and at the same time sort of counter-marketing – and the overlapping of spiritual/ secular boundaries as they are in such cases becoming more blurred, porous or even evaporated. Or, to put this dilemma in another way: it is clearly overdrawn if megachurches in general and the CHC in particular are to be perceived merely as an enterprise which relied basically on business strategies; quite the contrary, they exist with a vision and a message, and their marketing 201

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attempts are said to mainly preach this message. Yet, paradoxically, their great success in the entrepreneurial approach has transformed themselves, substantively and discursively, to megabusinesses (Forbes, 17 September 2003) and a ‘cathedral of consumption’ (Ritzer 1999: 23), which obviously entails a risk in compromising its authenticity in the name of market efficiency. In conclusion, megachurches as such could be featured as a good testimony of how some religious mechanisms respond to a global culture of consumerism through rationalization and commodification, and how their responses have in turn affected their re-formation, at the level of daily life of the believers’ community.

Notes 1 This definition is based on one of the major studies on megachurches in America, Megachurches Today 2005, conducted by Scott Thumma et al. of Hartford Seminary’s Hartford Institute for Religion Research (http://hirr. hartsem.edu) and Leadership Network (http://www.leadnet.org). The term ‘megachurch’ is defined as ‘a congregation which has two thousand or more worship attenders in a week’. 2 See, for example, Robert McClory’s article ‘Superchurch’ on Chicago Reader (7 August 1992), which provides a critical analysis on the commercialization of the megachurches, namely, the ‘McChurch’; Charles Trueheart’s article ‘Welcome to the Next Church’ on The Atlantic Monthly (August 1996: 37–52), which refers megachurches as ‘full-service churches . . . “new tribe” churches, new paradigm churches, seeker-sensitive churches, shopping-mall churches’; also Roof (1999: 94–95) and Ritzer’s (1999) views on this issue. 3 In this case I follow the definition of Oxford English Dictionary: ‘the action of turning something into, or treating something as, a (mere) commodity; commercialization of an activity, and so on, that is not by nature commercial.’ 4 See American examples in Megachurches Today 2005. In the case of Singapore, the three largest churches which claim to have over 10,000 attenders in their weekly services, namely New Creation church, Faith Community Baptist Church and City Harvest Church, were established in 1984, 1986 and 1989 respectively. That is, the explosive growth happens in merely 20 years. 5 These respondents included two students from the City Harvest Bible Training Center, two existing and two ex-lay leaders of the church, two lecturers from local seminaries and two pastors from other megachurches in Singapore due to the unavailability of the pastors from the City Harvest Church. I decided to interview pastors from other megachurches, presumably share similar management structures and skills, to get a more direct knowledge of the internal operation of the church. 6 Half of the Christian population resides in larger HDB flats (viz 5-room and executive flats), private flats, or houses; while in contrast, a large majority of Buddhists and Muslims resides in HDB flats. 7 It should be noted that there has been a sizeable section of new converts coming from working class in recent years (Kuo, Quah and Tong 1988), but Christianity is still mainly associated with the middle and upper well-educated strata of society. 8 In the case of City Harvest Church, for example, its budget for year 2002 is $24 million (The New Paper, 1 June 2002).

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9 Yet in 2005, the church has reached its lowest growth rate since 1989, 8 per cent. 10 Singapore was independent from Malaysia in 1965. 11 One of the interesting examples that showed this ‘Singapore way’ was Singapore’s initial rejection of the entry applications of civil society orgazations during IMF-World Bank annual meetings in September 2006. Kishore Mahbubani, dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, commented, ‘By now, people know what the image of Singapore is, and they realize we are who we are. We’re one of the most disciplined societies in the world because the environment we live in is special.’ (Today, 9–10 September 2006) 12 For example, Singaporeans are among the largest consumers of McDonald’s burgers per capita in the world in 1994. McDonald’s in Singapore also served as a regional supply centre to outlets in neighboring countries (Straits Times, 10 October 1995, quoted in Chua, 2000b). 13 While searching for a new meeting place for its growing members, the church is currently organizing its main Sunday services at Singapore Expo hall 8. Meeting in hall, auditorium, or warehouse, where there are less religious symbols, sends the message that ‘persons are accepted for who they are, welcome even if they have doubts, know little about religion, and are just curious’ (Roof 1999: 96). 14 Interestingly, one crucial and common facility that many local churches have but could not find in the well-equipped CHC is library. This is particularly strange due to the existence of the Bible Training Center within the church. One informant explained that the church expected its members and students to find their own resources especially through internet. Yet I find this explanation implausible given the highly systematic and predictable nature of the church. In any case, teachings and preaching by the church’s leaders are the most constant and authoritative source of knowledge for its members. 15 The donations collected by the church in 2003 alone amounted to $14 million (The Sunday Times, 18 April 2004). It is said that the members’ donations are one of the highest among all the churches in Singapore (http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/city_harvest). 16 This could be seen in its ministries’ requirements. For instance, in the case of the Gloria Jean’s ministry, which in charges of the coffee cart, the qualifications of being its barista are: (1) attending a small group and service regularly for at least 12 months; (2) must be at least an ordinary member; (3) must be friendly and have an attitude of servanthood; and (4) must have flair in creating good and quality beverages and food. In short, it is to maintain ‘a high level of excellence on the quality of the food and beverages being served’ (http://www.chc.org.sg). 17 The targeted modern person CHC is trying to reach: ‘He is confident . . . because of education, increasing wealth and exposure to the world; he speaks English on formal occasions; his kids are hot over America’s Britney Spears as Japan’s Uttada Hikaru; he knows about Hollywood and MTV; he wants to get rich, drive snazzy cars, wear the latest fashion and use the latest mobile phone models; he wants to excel in his career; he doesn’t like “organized” religion’, and so on. (CHC’s Church Introductory Class, written by Kong Hee). 18 Of its $24 million budget in year 2002, for example, $12 million was in a building fund to pay for the church’s building’s construction. Although the aesthetic part was said to cost only about $2 million, most of the things are clearly elaborate and expensive, such as special limestone that was imported from Europe, bathroom facilities that were created by French designer and etc. As for the Suntec City office, its annual rent is about $1 million (The New Paper, 1 June 2002). 19 One informant told me that on her usual travel to the church on Sunday morning, she could roughly estimate which of the train commuters were also going to

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the CHC by looking at ‘their age, their outfits, their Bibles at hand, even the men’s hairstyles . . . I guess is their styles’. See for examples ‘Giving that please God’ on Harvest Times v.18 July–December, 2002. The message is that ‘those who obediently heed the voice of God will continually experience blessing and increase in their lives’. Another example is on one of its members’ blog, it was written that ‘the friend that brought me say they always shared about money during the testimony, which proves to be right’. (Http://wui_ping.tripod.com) Sure enough, Kong mentioned in an interview that most of the members are middle-class, a few millionaires and some poor peoples (The New Paper, 1 June 2002). I retrieved this series of articles about Sun Ho from Harvest Times (http://www. chc.org.sg/harvesttimes/default.asp) in September 2005, but I noticed that most news and articles related to her singing career have been removed from the church’s website and magazines. In 2003, a businessman, Roland Poon Swee Kay, made allegations that the church was soliciting its members (including non-Chinese members) to buy Ho’s secular Chinese pop music albums. Poon was later retracted the allegations and issued a public apology which appeared in Singapore’s newspapers. Besides gaining numerous musical awards, Ho also represented Singapore for the Outstanding Youth of the World Award on 6th November 2003 at Denmark and won the award by the Junior Chamber International for her social and community works (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ho_Yeow_Sun). For example, the belief in the only absolute ‘Truth’ and infallible nature of the Bible is against postmodern deconstructionism, which emphasizes the unattainable and unfavorable of a certain truth. Also, by emphasizing God’s or church’s authority over individual as well as the teachings on sacrificial giving – Kong was taken off the church payroll indefinitely since November 2005, and is now a pastor on a volunteer basis – the church is in this regard against the culture of narcissism and the culture of ‘me’ and ‘my interest’.

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Transmitting and consuming Islam through public sermons in Indonesia Akh Muzakki

If you would like to find out what and how Islamic ideas of the teaching staff of the IAIN1 Yogyakarta are, go to a bookshop. Because, in a bookshop you will find their books in which they disseminate their ideas. However, if you would like to observe what and how Islamic ideas of the teaching staff of the IAIN Surabaya are, go to mosques; follow them when they deliver Friday sermons in those mosques. That is because, through Friday sermons and no others, they frequently convey their ideas about Islam.2

Introduction The emergence of a Muslim middle-class has brought about a new kind of enthusiasm and energy for manifesting Islam as the guidance of their daily life, hence new demands for contextualized knowledge of Islam. One of the main markets for the production and consumption of such knowledge is public preaching. Apparently, the urban Muslim middle-class prefer the knowledge of Islam which matches their own intellectual and material interests; thus, a more contextualised interpretation of Islam has gained more popularity among them. Such a preference has given a significant rise in the demand for a new breed of university-based preachers as against those from traditional pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) (Dhofier 1999).3 Positing Islam as a symbolic commodity (broadly defined as an abstract object which generates actual financial incentives, and increases social positions through the emblematic exchange-values with their material interest realisation), this paper is an attempt to analyse public preaching as both a cultural and economic exchange in popular religious practices. The chapter discusses the political economic contexts of the emergence of these preachers, their socio-economic backgrounds as well as their ideological and

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cultural aspirations, while highlighting their relations with their followers and their pesantren fellow preachers through a textual analysis of their sermons. As an object of analysis, this paper, besides paying attention to Islamic tele-preaching, focuses on the Friday sermon as it has served as the most dynamic ritualistic medium of exchange between preachers and their consumers on Islam and other things. Surabaya is selected as the field of the research on the grounds that it is an urban, coastal, business city and is rapidly growing as one of the biggest cities in Indonesia. I argue that Islam is transmitted by the preachers and perceived by ordinary Muslims (broadly defined as those who are not trained in Islamic studies) in its digested and manual-knowledge form. I would further argue that both the preachers and the Muslim public make use of the Friday sermon as the medium for constructing not only their religious identity but also their socio-economic class identity.

The change of preacher’s social landscape Islam is the religion of the majority of the population in Indonesia. A census in 2000 found that the total number of Muslims in Indonesia is 177.5 millions; they represent 88.2 per cent of the total population and about 13 per cent of the world’s 1.3 billions Muslims (Suryadinata, Arifin and Anata 2003). Compared to the total number of Muslims in Arab societies, where Islam was initially revealed, Indonesian Muslims appear to be more numerous, as the Arab Muslims represent only a quarter of the total Muslim population of Indonesia. Even though Indonesia is not a theocratic country recognizing consequently no organized religions, including Islam, as the state formal religion, Islam is in reality embraced by the great majority of the population. In short, Indonesia is the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation. Indonesian Islam, however, presents no monolithic picture, there being several variants with their own streams of thought. This variation is not only a common picture of contemporary Indonesian Islam, but has also been the general situation throughout its history. Several categories to fill in the picture have been identified including, among others, santri-abangan (devoutnominal) Islam (Geertz 1960; Muchtarom 1988; Ravenelle 1957; Woodward 1989), orthodox-heterodox Islam (Federspiel 1970: 3), traditionalist-modernist Islam (see Geertz 1960; Noer 1980), structural-cultural Islam (Afandi 1996), political-cultural Islam (Nasih 2003), scriptural-substantial Islam (Effendy 1994), reformist-conservative Islam (Saleh 2001: 2–3) and liberal-fundamental Islam (Abshar-Abdalla et al. 2003; Effendy 2001: 76). These variants of Islam have simultaneously developed and still evolve within the country. Such categories of Indonesian Islam can be developed further in terms of adherence to the school of Islamic teaching. Islam in Indonesia is dominated by the followers of Sunni Islam who largely go along with the Shafi`i school of law. From the perspective of social organisation, those followers 206

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of Sunni Islam have further formed into several groups, including importantly two largest Muslim social organisations, Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).4 Another version of Islam, Shi`ism (Abaza 1994: 15), even though being small in number, is still followed by some other groups of Indonesian Muslims. One of the remarkable groups with Shi’i Islam as its basic conviction is Ikatan Jamaah Ahlulbait Indonesia (IJABI/the Association of Indonesian Ahl al-Bayt Community).5 While the difference lies in the kinds and streams of thought, the methods of and vectors for the transmission of Islamic ideas are almost completely the same. Of several major methods and vectors, public sermons have served as the most popular medium for producing, disseminating and, above all, consuming Islamic ideas. Public sermons have appeared to be the most widely recognized method by Muslims, both in rural and urban areas. With particular reference to the public sermons, despite the fact that the Internet, radio and magazines represent the powerful vectors for disseminating Islamic ideas in modern times, they are still the most easily accessible medium for the production, dissemination and consumption of Islamic ideas by the Muslim populace. A closer look at the central role of the Friday sermons in the transmission of Islamic ideas suggests that the preachers who deliver the Friday sermons are instrumental in the activities of producing, disseminating and consuming Islamic ideas. Before we come to further discuss the Friday sermon preacher in detail, it is necessary, however, to highlight the da’i (preacher) in Indonesia in general. There is a difference in the sociological background of Muslim preachers in the late 20th century Indonesia and in the beginning of the 21st century, as particularly represented by TV preachers. During the late 20th century, many popular Muslim preachers on Indonesian TV channels came from those who have educational background as traditional santri (Geertz 1960)6 (student) of traditional pesantren. This is evidenced in figures, such as Ustadz Zainuddin MZ and Iskandar SQ, who were academically trained in traditional pesantren. In contrast, those who represent the most rising and popular preachers on Indonesian TV channels in the beginning of 21st century, such as Ustadz Abdullah Gymnastiar (or better known as Aa Gym) and Jefry Al-Bukhori (or better known as Uje), are those preachers who do not have a sociological background as santri (student) from traditional pesantren, but are then able to transform themselves to become a new breed of santri, referring to the meaning of devout Muslims, without having a traditional pesantren background. The fact that the popular Muslim preachers on Indonesian TV channels in the beginning of the 21st century do not have sociological backgrounds of traditional pesantren suggests that having an educational background of traditional pesantren is no longer the key factor for identifying the social stratum of santri. More importantly, the religious authority in recent years in Indonesia has not gone parallel with the enrolment in the educational 207

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system of traditional pesantren. As a result, santri as the social stratum which previously and solely held religious authority among Indonesian Muslims is now no longer being dominated by those who have traditional pesantren as the educational background, but is rather represented by Muslims who do not have cultural basis of traditional pesantren but manage to open and maximise an access to religious education. Muslims of this kind normally come from urban areas, such as Jakarta, Surabaya and Bandung, but can articulate their religious ideas in ways which are well understood by many of social groups of Muslims. Their capability in mass communication allows them to move from the lower or middle class to the upper in socio-religious hierarchy and thus become a new group of religious elite. This is not to say that having an educational background of traditional pesantren does not represent the constitutive element of santri identity. In short, the social landscape of religious elite, as represented by the figure of da’i, has been diversified. We basically cannot put aside the rising role of television as among the pushing factors in the change and diversification of the social status of preachers. Following its capacity as a means of entertainment and information, television in Indonesia, as in other parts of Muslim world, has provided an opportunity for Muslims with high mass communication skills to become rising preachers. Indonesian TV channels came to their present established form of existence in the transition period between the 20th and 21st century, while the late 1980s and the early 1990s represented the early form of their emergence. This is the context of why having the skill of mass communication plays a more important role for preachers in 21st century in Indonesia in gaining more popularity among Muslims than having an educational background of traditional pesantren. It is in this context, therefore, that a distinction can be made, borrowing the words of Fatima Mernissi (1992: 23), between media imam (religious elite) and traditional imam. While media imam refers to the type of religious elite, as can be represented by the preacher created by the modern media such as television and radio; traditional imam to that of the religious elite which comes to the forefront with less necessity to rely on the media (Ibid.). Another point pertinent to the dynamic of the social landscape of da’i is the use of Arabic words as personal names. There seems to be a change of orientation among santri preachers of twenty-first century’s Indonesia in appropriating Arabic for their personal names, as is evidenced in figures such as Abdullah Gymnastiar and Jefry Al-Bukhory whose part of their names is not Arabic, but either local Indonesian (i.e. Gymnastiar) or Western (i.e. Jefry). This differs from those 20th century preachers whose personal names are completely taken from Arabic vocabulary. Zainuddin MZ and Iskandar SQ are the best examples of preachers whose personal names appropriate Arabic words. This change of orientation shows that while religious authority in Indonesia recently does not appear to be parallel with 208

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Arab as the origin of Islam, the new social stratum of santri in Indonesia does not perceive Arabic names as their personal identity anymore. In a wider context of post-Suharto Indonesian Islam, this change in appropriating Arabic names contradicts to new emerging Muslim groups which appears to be influenced by Arab Islamic transnationalism. Bubalo and Fealy (2005) call this change Islamism. Represented among them by Majelis Mujahidin Indonesia (MMI/Indonesian Mujahidin Council), Front Pembela Islam (FPI/Islamic Defenders’ Front) and Laskar Jihad (LJ/Jihad Militia), these groups emerge to be more affected by Arab culture rather than local-Indonesian. Their high use of Arabic names for their personal names serves as the best example to indicate their being highly influenced by Arab. In these groups, almost all the members are named Arabic, and almost every single person of them – let alone those with no Arabic words in their personal names – is given Arabic nicknames, such as ‘Abu Azami’ and ‘Abu Dharr’. The change of sociological landscape of public preacher does not only concern the educational background and personal names as described above, but also deals with an aspect of the increasing role of religion as a new commodity by which the preachers use the public preaching not only as a medium for transmitting religious teachings, but also for accelerating their social class within society. This appears to be coupled with the expanding globalization in media technology which engenders the so-called ‘religiotainment’, a new kind of entertainment which appropriates religion as its commodity, or a new sort of religious transmission by means of entertainment media. The following subsection concentrates on this religious commodification with a closer look at Islamic preaching on Indonesian TV channels.

Religious commodification through tele-preaching: a new phenomenon Globalization has brought about the increasing consumption by people in Indonesia of, among other things, popular culture. Western food, fashion and fun are among the areas of popular culture people would like to enter into. Let’s take films as an example of fun. While ‘American Idol’ emerges as a very popular TV show in America, in Indonesia a similarly organized TV show called ‘Indonesian Idol’ enjoys also the same popularity among Indonesian audiences. For many audiences in Indonesia, one who does not watch ‘Indonesian Idol’ can be regarded as a person who does not keep up with the most recent product of global culture. This globalization then affects the way people consume their religious teachings as well as how religious teachings should be transmitted to them. People who previously had to attend special forums for studying religious teachings, such as mosques, now just sit in front of TV, seeing public 209

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preaching presented by a preacher. By this way of studying, they can save energy, and more importantly they are not required to have a face-to-face contact with the preacher and others in the audience. As a consequence, the social contact then appears to be increasingly less important. The fact that Islamic tele-preaching requires people to devote less energy and less social contact between them makes this Islamic ‘televangelism’ more acceptable to people, and hence has become more popular. The reason is very simple, in that for surviving the economic crisis in the post-Suharto era, people are currently become increasingly busy, and this makes them prefer a religious forum which can save their energy, and time, to others. In spite of this, a disadvantage, of course, arises in so far as Islamic televangelism could not show the complexities of interaction and communication between the preacher as the producer of religious ideas and the audience as the consumer (Mernissi 1992: 23). In other words, the psycho-sociological complexities of Islamic teachings could not be shown by this Islamic televangelism. As a result, Islamic televangelism presents no more than cognitive aspects of religious teachings, while affective and psychomotoric ones which are inevitably necessary for producing religious practices have no other than small and limited coverage by Islamic televangelism for its constraints of time and space. Despite its possible weaknesses, Islamic televangelism keeps enjoying its increasing popularity among the people. In response to this increasing popularity of Islamic televangelism is, there is a developing special programme, run by a private TV station called Televisi Pendidikan Indonesia (TPI/Indonesian Educational Television) which seeks to find an ideal figure of preacher through audition methods like many popular audition-based Indonesian TV shows such as ‘Indonesian Idol’ and ‘Akademi Pelawak Indonesia (API)’. In running this TV programme, or what is better known as ‘Dakwah Agama Islam (DAI)’ or ‘Preacher Idol’, TPI has conducted a number of audition sessions for people who would run for the final round of the programme, which will be broadcast nation-wide, in a number of provincial capitals in Indonesia such as Jakarta, Bandung, Semarang and Surabaya. Those who would take part in these audition sessions are the potential young preachers, generally in their late 1920s or early 1930s, with very good communication skills (Ivvaty 2005: 23). It can be said therefore that globalization through the expanding advance of media and information technology has caused the field of public preaching to change. Preachers with a certain kind of media literacy and capability in good mass communication will obtain a positive, large response from the audience even though they do not have any traditional pesantren background. What results from this is that Islamic televangelism appears to be a favourite programme in many of the Indonesian TV channels. The ratings of this kind of religious TV show have proven to be high. Following the large response from the audience, as a result, religion 210

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Figure 10.1 Celebrity preacher with no traditional santri background but becoming the icon of Preacher Idol TV Show.

through public preaching has become a new commodity in globalizing Indonesia. To show that religion has now become a new commodity, almost none of the day-to-day TV programmes during the week are without Islamic televangelism, as indicated above. People can even watch the broadcasting of Islamic televangelism programmes in the same way, such as by Aa Gym and Jefry al-Bukhori, several times in one day on different TV channels. Islamic televangelism programmes have become the commodities contested by several TV channels. As a consequence, for instance, Islamic televangelism presented by Aa Gym with the variety of angles he presents can be found in different programmes on several TV channels. Let’s take the example of ‘Indahnya Kebersamaan [The Beauty of Togetherness]’ programme which is broadcast by privately-run Trans-TV, ‘Indahnya Kasih Sayang [The Beauty of Affection]’ by privately-run TPI, ‘Manajemen Qalbu [Management of Heart]’ by private-run RCTI, and ‘Keluarga Sakinah [Harmonious Family]’ by state-run TVRI. In order to have a much closer look at how the changes to the sociological view of public preaching has taken place and how the public preaching has become a site of commodity in a local context, the following subsections are analyses of public preaching, as represented by a Friday sermon, in Surabaya. The special focus is given to a preacher with a university background.

Sociological history of the Friday sermon The quotation cited in the beginning of this paper indicates the importance of public preaching, especially Friday sermon (khutbah Jum`at), for the production, dissemination and consumption of Islamic teachings for Muslims 211

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(Bowen 1993; Fisher and Abedi 1990; Riddell 2001). This is simply because this sermon has to be delivered weekly in every Friday prayer. In general sense, Muslims are obliged to attend this prayer, and to listen to the sermon which is part of the obligatory ritualistic process of the prayer. As a result, Friday prayer represents the biggest occasion in the week for Muslims to gather in a certain place (the mosque). This weekly prayer occasion is, therefore, very significant for Muslims’ religious life since it becomes the effective medium for some of them to deliver and disseminate their Islamic ideas, and for some others to listen to and take in those ideas. Such a quotation also explains that Surabaya has sociologically a materialistic character which makes it different in terms of intellectual dynamic from other cities, such as Yogyakarta, one of provincial capitals in Java. This character results mainly from the sociological fact that Surabaya is a business and coastal city, which may affect the materialistic perception of the world by its population (Ansori 2001: 109–133; Muchlis 2001: 67–87; Yusuf 2001: 177–190). As indicated below, this materialistic perception takes the form of accumulation of financial income, and the Friday sermon supports the preachers to realise their material interest in a much easier way than other media of exchange. Conveying the fact of intellectual dynamic of Islam in Surabaya in the beginning of the 21st century, the quotation cited in the beginning of this paper also demonstrates that the production and consumption of Islamic ideas by ordinary Muslims in Surabaya are not only dominated by the traditional pesantren-based Muslim scholars, but also by university-based scholars, especially from religious kind of IAIN. Hence, in the beginning of the 21st century there is a rising public demand for preachers who have a university background. The production and consumption of Islamic ideas in the twenty-first century represents a continuum line of that in the earlier periods. In sociological sense, the social landscape of the Friday sermon in Surabaya has changed from its being dominated by the traditional pesantren-based Muslim scholars to the university-based ones. On the one hand, this change of social landscape casts a radical transformation as the intellectual dynamic of Islam in Surabaya which was previously dominated by Muslims who have an academic background from the traditional pesantren is currently under the influence of the intellectual activism of university-based Muslim scholars. On the other hand, the change of the social setting of Friday sermons in Surabaya results from the state de-politicisation of Islam during the early period of the New Order (the 1970s), which marginalised Islamic forces from politics (Hefner 1993; Tamara 1986), and which consequently allowed Muslims to place Islam largely in a religious-cultural arena. As a consequence, Muslim graduates or activists would rather be more active in dakwah (religious predication) activities than in politics, using the dakwah as a medium for articulating their political aspiration (Mahendra 1995: 129). 212

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Also, following also the de-politicisation of Islam is the growing orientation of Muslim activism to intellectual development. An important part of this intellectual development is the large participation of Muslims in higher education, both in Islamic religious-based institutions, such as IAIN, and in others. As a result of this large participation in higher education, there was an increasing number of Muslim graduates at the end of the 1980s. These Muslim graduates then transformed themselves into a higher level of social class by attaining good positions in both bureaucracy and the private sector. The vertical transformation of Muslims was even more accelerated during the 1990s following the domination of white-collar positions in bureaucracy and private sectors by a large number of Muslim graduates who organised themselves in the so-called ‘Ikatan Cendekiawan Muslim Indonesia’ [ICMI, The Association of All Indonesian Muslim Intelligentsia] (Hefner 1993: 1–35). This acceleration can be seen as the beginning of the rise of a Muslim middle class at the end of the twentieth century in Indonesia (Latif 2004; Tanter and Young 1990). The increasing role of Muslim graduates in bureaucracy and private sectors as a new rising middle class affected their religious life as they needed religion in a sense more in keeping with their new social class. As practical guidance for their day-to-day life, religion for Muslims from this social stratum should be delivered in such a way that it can contribute to the solving of their problems. At this level, the need for preachers has been changed as Muslim middle classes perceived that the traditional pesantren-based Muslim preachers were no longer able to deliver Islamic teachings exactly in tune with their needs. As a replacement, they regarded the university-based Muslim preachers as being capable of delivering Islamic teachings which are more closely in line with their intellectual capacity and material-spiritual needs. As a result, many Muslim preachers from IAIN have been invited to deliver sermons, especially in Friday prayers in a number of mosques which are organized, for instance, by Bank staff and government officials. In short, the rising public demand for the university-based preacher has a historical connection to the revival of santri (devout) Muslims as represented by the increasing role of ICMI during the 1990s. This increasing role of ICMI paved the way for the rising role of Muslim middle classes in urban cities, as exemplified by those who hold white-collar positions such as bankers, businessmen, governmental officials and private sector-based professionals. In meeting their need to have Islam more strongly in line with the urban middle class, they invite the lecturers from IAIN to give sermons. This goes parallel with the need of lecturers from IAIN, who mostly come from rural areas, to vertically mobilise to the urban city and themselves become the urban Muslim middle class. As discussed below, by delivering sermons to the Muslim middle class, they expect to improve their status from being preachers for the lower class in rural areas to those for the middle class. As a result, they identify themselves with those Muslim middle class. 213

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Making a digestible version of Islam through public sermons Looking more closely at the characteristics of delivering religious teachings, there is a number of differences in terms of the production and consumption of religion between Friday preaching and other ways. These characteristics concern three aspects: the way of approaching religion, the level of need for religion, and the orientation of practising religion. The production and consumption of Islamic teachings through Friday sermons approach Islam in a didactic way, perceiving it more as a practical guide for life. This differs from the production and consumption of Islam through other media of exchange, such as class teaching and seminar discussion, which view religion more discursively by allowing questioning of religious stipulation. The reason for the Friday sermons being delivered in the way they are is ’to make Islamic teachings more practical for public Muslims’.7 The differences in the ways of approaching religion as such gives rise to the dissimilarity in understanding the principle of kemanfaatan (merit) of religion for the ummah (community of believers). Looking at the messages delivered, the Friday sermon adheres to this principle so strongly that it tends to be more conservative than to be critical-liberal towards the existing tradition. As an empirical experience shows, the audiences of Friday sermon tend to be wary about any reform of Islamic thought through reinterpretation or re-understanding. A university-based preacher says, ‘Those attending the Friday prayer are frequently upset with any reforming of religious thought, and hence question whether that reforming is beneficial to the ummah’.8 Thus, characteristically, the audiences of public sermons understand and take in their religion in a very pragmatic way, and hence hold that the production of Islamic ideas through the Friday sermon must have a direct and beneficial impact on practical life of Muslims. The fact that the audiences of Friday sermons adhere strongly to the principle of a direct, beneficial impact is intimately related to the need for religion which represents the second level of differences between the production and consumption of Islam through the Friday sermon and other means. At this level, the preacher of the Friday sermon is highly aware that the audiences require the delivery of Islamic teachings to provide them with certainty for their religious practices. ‘Those who attend the Friday sermon, who are basically ordinary people, do not have a pluralist approach [to religion] which allows multifaceted interpretation of it. What they need is a complete guidance with a high degree of certainty, such as that concerning the way of living in an urban-metropolitan city environment. This way of living is formulated in manuals consisting, for instance, of 1, 2 and 3 steps’, a university-based preacher says.9 The third aspect, concerning the difference in the orientation of practising religion, the production and consumption of Islam through public preaching, such as the Friday sermon, tend to be oriented to the fulfilling

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of material needs of religion more than to that of intellectual-cognitive. This differs from other models of production and consumption of Islam, such as those implemented in the teaching class, which are aimed more at satisfying the intellectual-cognitive need of religion rather than to that of material. Based on such differences in the characteristics of production and consumption of Islam, a literal-didactic understanding of religion as provided by the Friday sermon can be relatively more acceptable to the ummah in general rather than liberal-discursive comprehension which develops in more intellectual forums, such as seminar discussion. The reason is that, with its pragmatic view of religion, literal-didactic understanding through Friday sermons can provide the audience of general ummah with certainty in comprehending and practising religion. This certainty factor emerges as a result of the fact that the preacher of the Friday sermon transforms and transmits this literal-didactic understanding into the audience by formulating Islamic messages as digest teachings. In tune with the level of need of general ummah for religion as a digest teaching with a definite degree of certainty, the production of Islamic ideas through the Friday sermons is made through practical guides as manuals for religious life. The form of manuals as generated by the Friday sermon seems to be frequently absent from the model of production and consumption of Islam through other media of exchange which are more liberaldiscursive, such as those applied in teaching classes and seminar forums. This is to say that it is the method that matters and makes the production and consumption of Islam through public sermons, such as Friday preaching, differ from those through other media of exchange. This difference in method gives rise in turn to the difference in formulating the message of the production and consumption of Islam. The way the method differs is closely related to the character of the audience. The audience of Friday prayer is more diverse and can be discerned as ordinary in terms of the formal academic training in Islamic studies. This makes the university-based preacher aware of the significance of delivering Islamic teachings in more practical ways by fabricating them as manuals for life. By this way of delivering, Islam can be easily absorbed by the audience as its teachings are formulated in a digestible version. More importantly, through a number of characteristics described above, I would like to conclude that there are two broad models in the tradition of production and consumption of Islam within the Muslim community: ‘popularism’ and intellectualism. While ‘popularism’ is represented by practices of producing Islam, such as Friday sermons, which involve ordinary people as their audiences with characteristics described above, intellectualism is articulated by practices as exclusively expressed by educated people with characteristics explained above. It is a university-based preacher, among others, who is able to implement these two models of production and consumption of Islam, based on the characteristics of audience. 215

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Constructing social class identity through public sermon

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Why do greater mosques in Surabaya prefer selecting university-based preachers who have an established academic background, such as those from IAIN teaching staff, to seeking from elsewhere? The reason is simply related to the class identification, as both Muslims forming the audience of the Friday sermon and the preacher try to identify themselves respectively as a middle class. The following quotation encapsulates the mutual interest between the audience and the preacher: There is a difference in both the public image and financial income between delivering a sermon in traditional villages or lower class areas of the city, and in middle class areas, such as in mosques of government or private sector offices or bank agencies. The reason is very simple. The mosques of government or private sector offices or bank agencies are very selective in appointing the preachers. Those who are selected then usually have a good social reputation, compared to the others, in terms of the rank of preachers in the eyes of society. Also, delivering a sermon in the mosques of those offices can bring in money more than in traditional villages. For this reason, we are lucky that we can transform ourselves into a higher class by such a way of preaching.10 Economically, the increasing role of university-based preacher in delivering Islamic teachings in Muslim middle class can be seen as a result of the pragmatic consideration in Islamic transmission. This is simply because the university-based preachers can make money in much easier ways and in bigger amounts than by doing other activities, such as writing and publishing articles in either academic journals or mass media. In every sermon, they can make money in a range of Rp. 200,000–500,000, which is one-third to half their monthly salary. This is a much easier way of making money than writing and publishing articles in an academic journal, which is generally free of honorarium, and even in some journals the writers have to pay for the publishing of their works. The university-based preachers also find the delivering of public ser mons easier in terms of the material arrangement than writing for academic journals. This is because they can repeatedly deliver the same ideas with the same arguments and language of expression on several separate occasions, which would be unacceptable in academic writing. As a result, the preachers do not need to make as complicated a preparation as in academic writing, but they can make money in a much easier way, although in a much greater amount. It is in this context that the lecturers of IAIN Surabaya prefer producing their Islamic ideas through preaching in mosques to that through writings, as represented in books or academic 216

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journals, as indicated in a quotation by Amin Abdullah in the beginning of this chapter. The increasing activism of IAIN lecturers as preachers goes parallel with their social-intellectual capital in which they mostly have no academic background other than their religious training. As a result, they exploit religious ideas through public sermons to accumulate their own financial capital. ‘We have no other skills as a capital to live in the metropolitan city than the science of religion’, says a preacher who is an IAIN lecturer.11 It is therefore, he argues, that ‘what we can do besides teaching in campus is giving sermons in greater society, notably through Friday sermons’.12 The university-based preachers use the preaching for Muslim middle classes as a medium for establishing their social identity. They make use of the preaching to transform their social class from lower to middle. In the words of Ward Keeler, the preacher as well as the audience attempt ‘to associate themselves with the status of the modern urban elite’ (Keeler 1998: 165). Sociologically, the public preachers who are also IAIN lecturers mostly come from lower class people, migrating from rural to metropolitan areas, such as Surabaya. Using the words of one public preacher from IAIN, preaching for Muslim middle class in Surabaya can be used as ‘sarana naik kelas (a medium for class acceleration) from lower to middle class’.13 Preaching for the Muslim middle class, for him, can generate an impact on his social status; people will consider him as a middle class preacher. The impact will differ if he delivers a sermon for Muslim lower class, as people will regard him as a lower class preacher.14 The character of Surabaya as a coastal and business city is critical to the identifying the social class of a public preacher. Economy has a pivotal role in formulating social class, as an individual will be regarded as part of a certain class based on his/her personal economic wealth. Preaching for the Muslim lower class will indicate that the preacher belongs to this social stratum. On the other hand, preaching for the Muslim middle class will help the preachers hasten the rise of their social status from the lower to the middle class, both from the perspective of public image, and their financial income, as suggested above.

Conclusion As far as the characteristics of public preaching are concerned, an understanding can be drawn that there are variants within the model of production and consumption of Islam by Muslims. This variation in the production and consumption of Islam is represented in part by the Friday sermon, as delivered by university-based preachers. More importantly, this variation gives rise to the difference not only in the ways of Islam being produced and consumed by its believers, as described above, but also in the matters concerning economic capital and social class identity. Based on this fact, it can 217

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be said that Islam has become a symbolic commodity for Muslims both intellectually and materialistically. The university-based preachers use the Friday sermon as a medium not only for transmitting Islam into public [Muslim middle class] through the digest version as a realisation of their intellectual-based interest, but also for accumulating wealth and for improving their social status. Last but not least, there is a contradictory social feature concerning the realm of public preaching by the teaching staff of IAIN Surabaya. When the Friday comes, you will find it difficult to find a lecturer of IAIN Surabaya performing Friday prayers in the campus mosque. When the formally-appointed preacher of Friday prayer gives a notice in the same day of the Friday prayer, being absent from delivering a sermon in the campus mosque, you will find it hard to seek an IAIN-based lecturer to become a substitute preacher. This is because a large number of IAIN lecturers have to go to other greater mosques around Surabaya as they have already been scheduled to deliver Friday sermons by Surabaya-based mosque committees. This indicates that the demand for university-based preachers is relatively high in the urban, metropolitan, coastal city of Surabaya.

Notes 1 IAIN (Institut Agama Islam Negeri/State College for Islamic Studies) is a kind of state Islamic higher education in Indonesia which is more specifically oriented to the study of Islam, compared to another kind of state Islamic higher education, UIN (Universitas Islam Negeri/State Islamic University) which focuses more generally not only on the study of the so-called ‘religious sciences’ but also on the so-called ‘secular sciences’. For further information, see Fuad Jabali and Jamhari, The Modernization of Islam in Indonesia: An Impact Study of the Cooperation between the IAIN and McGill University (Montreal & Jakarta: Indonesia-Canada Islamic Higher Education Project, 2003). 2 The original Indonesian reads: ‘Kalau Anda ingin tahu bagaimana pemikiran dosen-dosen IAIN Yogyakarta, pergilah ke toko buku. Karena, di buku-buku itulah mereka menuangkan ide-idenya. Tapi, jika Anda ingin mengetahui bagaimana pemikiran dosen-dosen IAIN Surabaya, pergilah ke masjid; ikutilah mereka ketika pergi berkhutbah jum’at di masjid-masjid. Karena, di khutbahkhutbah itulah mereka lebih kerap menyampaikan ide-idenya tentang Islam.’ This statement, comes from Prof. Dr. Amin Abdullah (a Yoyakarta-based Muslim intellectual), was delivered to postgraduate students of the IAIN Sunan Ampel in 2000. 3 In a more detailed way, pesantren represents a mode of religious-based schooling system typical of Indonesia which characteristically has five components: the cleric, the students (or referred to as santri), the mosque, a boardinghouse and the classic books (or referred to as kitab kuning). 4 The adherence of these two largest Muslim organisations in Indonesia to this version of Islam has lasted for a long period of their own inter-relationship [see Ilyas (1993); Jainuri 1981, 1992; Siddiq 1980, 1969; and Tim Pembina Al Islam dan Kemuhammadiyahan (1990)].

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5 Chaired by Jalaluddin Rakhmat, a Bandung-based Muslim intellectual, the Shi’ism orientation of this group is expressed in its ‘anggaran dasar’ [statutes] that promote its activity under the ‘berkah’ [blessing] and ‘kepemimpinan’ [leadership] of Imam Mahdi al-Muntazar, a kind of idealised figure believed by Shi`ism as being able to lead Muslims to the right path and glory of Islam. See ‘Anggaran Dasar Organisasi Ikatan Jamaah Ahlulbait Indonesia (IJABI),’ IJABI website: http://www.ijabi.or.id/bspweb/Pembukaan_AD.htm (Accessed 11 June 2004); and all basic information about this organisation can be found through its website: http://www.ijabi.or.id. 6 The term ‘santri’ has, sociologically, at least two meanings: student of traditional pesantren and devout Muslim. There is an intimate connection between the former meaning and the latter in the sense that by being enrolled as a student of traditional pesantren, one can direct him/herself to become a devout Muslim, as pesantren has long represented the best place for the study of religious teachings. In modern times this is no longer the case as pesantren does not appear to be the only place for the study of religion. There are several forums in which Muslims can go for studying their religion and lead themselves to become devout Muslims, such as Majelis Ta’lim (socio-religious gathering for Islamic studies) and halaqah (religious circle). In particular reference to the meaning of santri as devout Muslim, Clifford Geertz (1960) popularises the term as a social entity within Javanese society in comparison to the other, that is abangan (nominal Muslim). 7 Interview with a preacher, Surabaya, 25 May 2005. 8 The original Indonesian reads, ‘Para jama’ah Jumat sering merasa resah dengan pembaruan-pembaruan pemikiran keagamaan, dan karena itu melontarkan pertanyaan retorik apakah gagasan-gagasan pembaruan itu ada manfaatnya bagi umat.’ Interview with a preacher, Surabaya, 20 May 2005. 9 The Original Indonesian reads, ‘Masyarakat umum yang menjadi audiens khutbah tidak bisa berpikir alternatif-alternatif yang membuka kemungkinan sejumlah penafsiran atasnya. Yang mereka inginkan adalah tuntunan yang serba penuh kepastian, seperti cara hidup di masyarakat urban dengan petunjuk manual berupa langkah-langkah yang pasti: 1, 2 dan 3’. Interview with a preacher, Surabaya, 20 May 2005. 10 The original Indonesian reads, ‘Ada perbedaan dalam citra sosial dan pendapatan ekonomi antara berceramah di kampung-kampung tradisional atau komunitas kelas bawah di kota dengan di komunitas kelas menengah, seperti di masjid-masjid perkantoran pemerintah atau swasta dan bank-bank. Simpel saja, masjid-masjid di kantor pemerintahan atau swasta atau bank-bank sangat selektif dalam memilih penceramah, dan biasanya yang dipilih kemudian memiliki reputasi/kelas tersendiri dalam peta penceramah di mata masyarakat. Selain itu, pendapatan dari berceramah di kantor-kantor pemerintahan atau bank-bank lebih besar jumlahnya dibanding di kampung-kampung tradisional. Karena itu, kita beruntung karena dengan begitu, kita bisa naik kelas’. Interview with a preacher, Surabaya, 25 May 2005. 11 The original Indonesian reads, ‘Kita tidak punya keterampilan dan modal yang lain untuk hidup di kota kecuali ilmu agama’. Interview with a preacher, Surabaya, 25 May 2005. 12 The original Indonesian reads, ‘Yang bisa kita lakukan selain mengajar di kampus ya ceramah-ceramah di masyarakat umum, terutama khutbah-khutbah Jum’at’. Interview with a preacher, Surabaya, 25 May 2005. 13 Interview with a preacher, Surabaya, 20 May 2005. 14 Interview with a preacher, Surabaya, 20 May 2005.

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COMMODIFICATION OF RELIGION AND THE ‘RELIGIFICATION’ OF COMMODITIES* Youth culture and religious identity Ronald Lukens-Bull

Arjun Appadurai (1996) avers that images are one vector of globalization. In this chapter, I suggest that the construction, consumption and contestation of images are part of not only of globalization but are also part of a response to it. As can be expected, late capitalism can involve both the ideologization of commodities and the commoditization of ideologies. The first half of the paper examines the ideologization of commodities. Specifically, it briefly explores a few ways in which McDonald’s Indonesia seek to infuse its product and brand name with various ideological dimensions including aspects of Javanese mysticism, Indonesian Nationalism and Islamic piety. Further, this chapter will examine the use of religious bumper stickers and window/door decals to encourage Muslim youth in their endeavours to live according to the Shari’a. Of particular interest are the kinds of religious identities that are created through the commerce of these items. First, is the issue of the central messages of the stickers. Some of the stickers call for people to engage in particular practices, like the adoption of the Islamic greeting instead of local greetings when entering a home. Others call for greater piety in general as well as Muslim pride, brotherhood and solidarity. Second, are the sub-textual dimensions of the stickers. Visually and linguistically they tie Islamic practice and a preferred Islamic subjectivity to the Middle East and to the English-speaking world, thereby endorsing a particular vision for how Muslims should negotiate imagined modernities and traditions. Finally, the paper will explore the significance of this material for understanding Islam in a pluralist society.

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Background and methods In 1994–1995, I was conducting participation observation research among the pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) community of east Java, Indonesia. I became well immersed in the culture of what may now be called the Late New Order Period. I finished my fieldwork almost exactly two years prior to the collapse of the New Order economy and two and a half years before the end of the New Order regime. Although the material I discuss here was peripheral to the research I was conducting at the time; it was certainly not disconnected from my research on the negotiation of identity and modernity through pesantren education; santri ( pesantren students) were consumers as well. They interacted with, if they did not consume directly, the commodities under discussion here. I did not however directly interview anyone about the ephemera examined here. I collected the images as items of the material culture in which the community operated. So here I foreground what was background to my main research and use my main research here as background. I take these elements of material culture as human products of human processes and as such, part of the same discursive processes as the interviews, sermons and speeches that I recorded as part of my earlier project (Lukens-Bull 2005). Specifically, I take items of Indonesian material culture, specifically material pop culture, and interpret them based on understandings gained from extensive ethnographic research. In this way, I blur the lines between culture studies and ethnography. During the New Order (1965–1998), Indonesia faced increasing involvement in the world economic community and rapid economic development and social change (modernisasi). The presence of such multinational entities as Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and Wendy’s, in towns once described as sleepy hill stations, is but one indication of the changes facing Indonesian society. The consumption of popular culture in the form of MTV, American fast food, Western fashions and American films and television was one way in which commodities become ideologically loaded. Many youths wore blue jeans, went to discos and consumed American popular culture because these things are seen as ‘modern’, ‘Western’, and hence desirable. Many Islamic leaders expressed concerns for the lifestyles encourage by the consumption of these goods and services. In the context of such ideologically loaded commodities, bumper stickers become a way to fight back. In this way they are part of the process by which modernity and tradition are (re)invented. I have explored in great detail how the nature of these processes in reference to education1 (LukensBull 2001, 2005). In that work, I explore the ways in which the ‘Traditionalist’ community in Indonesia uses education to negotiate modernity and tradition. The negotiation of modernity in that context in part requires defining as potentially threatening to Islam. Then it must be defined as redeemable. Tradition is defined as being updateable and suitable for use in the

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The ideologization of commodities In discussing the cultural impacts of the world capitalist system (cf. Wallerstein 1974, 1980) on local cultures, westernization refers to a particular kind of culture change that follows an imagined model of Western life. Westernization is often conflated with modernization. This conflation also happens in Indonesian Islamic discourse. There are those who believe that modernization can occur only by imitating Western, particularly American, cultural practices. This is particularly relevant in the areas of pop/youth culture. Clearly ‘westernization’, as used in Indonesian discourse, is an imagined model (cf. Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983) that has no locus. Imagined models are not imagined once and for all, but undergo continual re-imagining and re-invention. In the early 1990s, the U.S. required Indonesia to import American films and television shows in order to continue to export textiles to the U.S. (Barber 1995: 91). Repeatedly, I heard concerns from Indonesian Muslims about the American movie industry’s purported intention of destroying Islam and corrupting the values of Islamic societies such as Indonesia. Many were concerned with the portrayal of scantily clad women (having bare shoulders and knees). Such concerns persist even though Appadurai asserts that ‘the United States is no longer the puppeteer of a world system of images but is only one node of a complex transnational construction of imaginary landscapes’ (1996: 31). I have heard other Muslims express concerns with what they see as the deliberate imitation of the values portrayed in Western film and television by blue-jeans wearing, disco attending, alcohol drinking youths. These concerns show how Indonesian Muslims take modernity as an imagined model that is in need of re-invention. I have explored elsewhere how the pesantren community uses education to remake modernity in an Islamic mould (Lukens-Bull 2003, 2005). Elsewhere I have discussed the relationship between Indonesian culture and a specific facet of global pop culture, namely McDonald’s (Lukens-Bull 2003). In that paper, I demonstrate that the impact of global culture is not one that will necessarily overpower local cultures as suggested by Benjamin Barber (1995). Those who write about cultural imperialism suggest that the domination of popular culture is more insipid than military or political control. As part of cultural imperialism, McDonald’s generates a fantasy of the good life in which the Big Mac, Coke, and Disney cartoons are integral parts (Watson 1997: 5). This fantasy is the model for how to be a modern, developed nation. In the mid-90s, my friends in Malang included college students who certainly acted as if they believed that if they ate at McDonald’s, wore blue jeans, got drunk, and generally mimicked the 222

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lifestyle of Beverly Hills 90210 and Baywatch, they would reap the benefits of modernity. American programmes were not the only imports during the Suharto era. Latin American soap operas were also very popular. The majority of these soap operas, and even locally produced soap operas, focused on rich urbanites who were well-connected into global capitalism. One of the more popular Latin American soap operas focused on Maria, a poor country girl who moves to the city and starts working as a maid. Gradually she works her way to the top and owns her own high fashion clothing company. The fascination with the lives of imaginary people who already are, or are in the process of becoming, successful capitalists demonstrates further the pop culture influence of global capitalism2. Also, from the point of view of Muslim leaders, even Latin American soap operas are ’western’ influences.

The ideologization of McDonald’s On top of the central Jakarta McDonald’s on Jalan Thamarinm sits a 40 ft. inflatable Ronald McDonald (Figure 11.1) in a lotus position with his hands above his knees. He is said to be ‘Ronald Bertapa, The Meditating Ronald’. In an official response from an inquiry to their website, a representative of McDonald’s Indonesia confirmed this association. Tapa is a Javanese word that invokes both Sufism and Javanese Hindu-Buddhism. Legends about Sunan Kalijaga, the most famous of the Walisonggo (nine saints who brought Islam to what is now Indonesia) suggest that he performed tapa for as long as 40 years in order to gain his remarkable powers (Geertz 1968: 28). In Central Javanese court annals, Sultan Pakubuwono I is said to have done tapa at the southern shore until the sea began to boil. Then Nyai Loro Kidul, the queen of the southern ocean, who is a Durga-type goddess, agreed to marry him and all his descendants so that he would stop doing tapa (Woodward 1989: 167). Another image of Ronald McDonald appeared during the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Indonesian Independence in the Malang McDonald’s. This picture depicted Ronald and Friends riding a tank and waving Indonesian flags on bamboo stakes in celebration of their victory over the Dutch (Figure 11.2). During the same time, the workers wore red ‘freedom fighter’ berets as part of their McDonald’s uniform. Describing the role of an organization, or persons affiliated with it in the war for independence is a common way for groups to make a claim for Indonesian authenticity. For example, Traditionalist Muslims often claim that their community and its leaders were central to the independence efforts. One story claims that without a fatwa (considered legal opinion) from Hasyim Asyari declaring a jihad against the Dutch, the Indonesian people would have lost all hope and abandoned their cause. In the case of Freedom Fighter Ronald, it is clear that there is an attempt to state firmly 223

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Figure 11.1 Ronald Bertapa.

Figure 11.2 Freedom Fighter Ronald.

that McDonald’s is an Indonesian institution and thereby to infuse a commodity with ideological (i.e. nationalist) meaning. Branding is, in general, a way to connect ideas, values, and even ideologies to commodities. What we have seen above are clear examples of attempts to create specifically Indonesian brandings of established commodities. Indonesians are very aware that branding campaigns are as much about selling ideology as they are about selling product. Once while travelling in the entourage of Yusuf Muhammad, a famous preacher and kyai (headmaster of Islamic boarding school) from Jember, we were treated to a meal 224

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prior to his taking the stage and preaching to a large crowd. Our conversation turned to McDonald’s and its popularity in Indonesia. Kyai Yusuf complained that so many Indonesians were drawn to McDonald’s and were starting to devalue their own cuisine, which he saw as the first step to devaluing their own culture and their own religion. After I told him that in the US, McDonald’s is the destination of last resort and that people are even embarrassed by their patronage of the restaurant chain, he asked me to take the stage before him and tell the gathered crowd about this. Despite the efforts to brand McDonald’s as Indonesian, a number of anti-American protests were staged at Indonesian McDonald’s s in response to the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. In one published image, a masked protestor held a rifle in the face of Ronald McDonald statue. In response to these protests, McDonald’s Indonesia President Bambang Rachmadi has stated: Somebody has to stand up and say, explaining to these demonstrators that we are not an American company. But we are the most visible and the most known by our marketing. We have to work harder to make McDonald’s as Indonesian. Period. Not as American. To make his point, he ordered his managers to display portraits of him and his wife in Muslim attire (Shubert 2001). This suggests a Muslim hegemony in which ‘Indonesian’ is made synonymous with ‘Muslim’. It also suggests one way in which religion in Indonesian is commoditized. One clear example of how Indonesian youth culture is being shaped by popular culture in a poster for Halal beer (Figure 11.3). A young man is in

Figure 11.3 Halal Beer Ad.

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a disco and a striking young woman is draped over his shoulder. The caption challenges ‘prove you are bold’. This suggests that one can swallow modernity complete with discos and free sexuality while maintaining an obedience to dietary strictures. Here religion is being pressed into service to give a commodity a deeper meaning. The case of Siwak*F gives another example of this process of religification (if you will permit the neologism) of commodities. In 1995, the manufacturer of Siwak*F, a fluoride toothpaste that also contained ground miswak wood asked the kyai of East Java NU to convene and discuss the ritual status of his product. Miswak wood, simply called siwak in Indonesia come from a tree native to the Arabian peninsula and according to Muslim traditions was used by the Prophet Muhammad to cleanse his mouth prior to prayer. Pieces of miswak are a popular commodity brought back by Haj pilgrims. The manufacturer was hoping to have his product endorsed by kyai as having the same ritual status as the whole wood.

Commodification of religion (Ideology) In Indonesia, religious bumper stickers and window/door decals have become a hot commodity. The data used here are stickers collected from 1994 to 2002 and are used to explore how religious commodities and their distribution become an institutionalized Islamic practice, specifically as a way to encourage Muslim youth in their endeavours to live according to the Shari’a. Of particular interest are the kinds of religious identities that are created through the commerce of these items. First, is the issue of the central messages of the stickers. Some of the stickers call for people to engage in particular practices, like the adoption of the Islamic greeting instead of local greetings when entering a home. Others call for greater piety in general as well as Muslim pride, brotherhood, and solidarity. Second, are the sub-textual dimensions of the stickers. Visually and linguistically they tie Islamic practice and a preferred Islamic subjectivity to the Middle East and to the Englishspeaking world, thereby endorsing a particular vision for how Muslims should negotiate imagined modernities and traditions. To understand how such commodities shape identities, this paper will explore how Indonesians of various backgrounds read the texts and sub-texts found within. During my first period of fieldwork, I was struck by the proliferation of religious stickers as a way of expressing piety. Although the creation and negotiation of Islamic piety is usually considered in institutional terms such as education (Lukens-Bull 2000, 2001), prayer and preaching, other have described the ways in which popular religious commodities have been used in the negotiation of piety (Starret 1995, D’Alisera 2001). Elsewhere, I explore (Lukens-Bull and Calbeck 2006) the place of religious (bumper) stickers in the processes of religious identity construction and the (re)invention of modernity and tradition in the Islamic community in Java, 226

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Indonesia. That work, analyzes 26 stickers, 22 of which use English and 4 use Indonesian. Where many of them use Arabic-Islamic vocabulary only one actually used Arabic script and in that case it is more of a design element than it is text. What becomes interesting is the multivocality of the bumper stickers. It becomes apparent that within the context of religious commodities, where mundane items are transformed into the sacred, these bumper stickers hold a strong representation of an imagined Islam, that is the way Islam should be. In this regard, two major elements are important; namely that Islam should be tied to the rest of the Islamic world, particularly the Middle East, and that Islam should be, or at least is, tied to global processes. In a discussion of the use of public space, D’Alisera discusses the use of Islamic religious commodities within the United States by Sierra Leonean residents of Washington D.C. In this context, stickers become viewed as a way for individuals to locate and identify fellow Muslim merchants, build a community of recognizable Sierra Leoneans, and attain blessings for ‘bringing the word of God to non-Muslims’, (D’Alisera 2001: 92). The Indonesian case provides a very different context since Muslims are the majority; the use of such stickers is less about identifying Muslims as it is about inserting Islamic values into a presumably already Islamic public space. The buying and selling of commodities incorporate the process of socialization that includes both the buyer and seller. Within this context, religious commodities can be viewed as the process by which the social economic market is being utilized by religious ideology. Further, this process turns piety into a commodity; religion becomes something which can be bought and sold. In his discussion of religious commodities in Cairo, Egypt, Gregory Starret discusses the relationship between the owner of a business which solely deals with the selling of religious items, and states that the owner is ‘hardly likely’ to feel safer or more fortunate due to the nature of the merchandise in which they specialize. (1995) It is important to remember that as commodities, religious stickers are sold alongside other commodities. As we see in Figure 11.4, a wide range of Islamic bumper stickers are offered along side other popular culture stickers including NBA team stickers and Jurassic Park stickers. Just barely visible in the frame are crafts for the tourist market. In fact, this photo was taken in 1995 on Jalan Malioboro, the major marketing area for foreign and domestic tourists in Yogyakarta, Central Java. Hence, religious commodities lose their specific meaning during the process of selling or purchasing, and continue to be viewed solely as an item which can be bought. Indeed, attempts to engage the merchant in a discussion about the meaning of the 227

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Figure 11.4 Stickers for Sale on Malioboro.

stickers or his personal piety were rebuffed due to expressed lack of interest in the content of the items. It is only when the individual who purchased the item prescribes meaning to it that it returns to a religious article (Starret 1995: 59). Indonesian Stickers. As mentioned, the majority of the stickers in use during the mid-90s were in English. Exactly why this is so, remains unclear. One possible reason is simply the popularity of English as a fashionable medium. Much as American fashions sometimes incorporate Chinese characters or Kanji script, Indonesian fashion sometimes incorporates English. In other ways, the use of English phrases and words demonstrates one level of education and sophistication much as the use of French phrases and words once demonstrated erudition for English speakers. Elsewhere, I have discussed how the use of English and Arabic in pesantren curricula serve to define the nature of the Islamic community in Indonesia (Lukens-Bull 2001). English is viewed as the language of modernity and globalization, and without it one cannot escape a peripheral position in the world economic and political order. On the other hand, Arabic was viewed as the language of a worldwide confessional community and was hence seen as a way of connecting Java, and more widely Indonesia, to the rest of the Islamic world. The notion that the use of English is primarily a symbolic move to connect Islam to the dominant forces in globalization in reinforced by the observation that while all Indonesians study English in school, few become fluent. I was told by a Christian informant that the proliferation of Muslim bumper stickers came in the wake of the emergence of imported, Englishlanguage Christian bumper stickers. Although I saw very few Christian 228

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bumper stickers in use and almost none for sale, it is still possible that English language Christian stickers shaped the use of English in the Islamic stickers. There are three major themes found in the stickers seen and collected: ‘Let’s Do Things Right’, ‘Islam is Cool’ and ‘Islamic Solidarity’. These three themes often overlap and in many ways ‘Islam is Cool’ seems to be the overriding message. Islam Is Cool. Given that the most common place I saw bumper stickers in use was on the back of motorcycles, there is an element of this market which was directly targeted toward youth. One explicitly states, ‘Islam: Wow, Kereen’, where Kereen was the current slang at that time meaning ‘Cool’. All these stickers use bright colours and seem intent on communicating that it is trendy and hip to be Muslim. Otherwise there is little symbolic meaning to be found in these. However, the desire to show Islam as something cool and consistent with youth culture should not be dismissed. In fact, this might be one of the most important elements found not only in this set of stickers, but in most, if not all of the stickers in the collection. One obvious sub-text communicated by all the stickers is that Islam fits well with the modern world and is not something to be relegated to old men and dusty books. Let’s Do Things Right. I have six examples of this type and none of them are properly ‘bumper’ stickers, but are instead decals to be placed on a house or apartment door. All of them urge the visitor to call out the Arabic Islamic greeting ‘Assalamu’alaikum’ prior to entering the home. During the past decade or so, the question of what is the proper greeting to be used in Indonesia has been a matter of debate. Some have argued that Muslims should use the Arabic Assalamu’alaikum and hence advocate Indonesians to embrace a pan-Islamic identity and to follow the perceived practices of other Islamic lands. However, others, namely Abdurrahman Wahid, a leading Islamic scholar and the former President of Indonesia has argued that the Indonesian forms are sufficient and in so doing, he is declaring that the Indonesian Islamic community should maintain its Indonesian distinctiveness. In regards to greetings at someone’s door, the other options include calling out the Indonesian ‘Permisi’ or the Javanese ‘Nyuwun Sewu’, both meaning approximately ‘Excuse me’. All of these stickers include imagery to further define the nature of Islamic practice. The most obvious of these (Figure 11.5) shows a young girl wearing the jilbab. It is telling that not all Javanese Muslim women wear this sort of head covering and so this sticker makes two claims as to the nature of proper piety. While this garment is advocated by some Muslim leaders, there is some debate about it. For example Jabar Adlan, the Rector of IAIN Surabaya in the mid-90s argued that because Islamic law requires men and women to cover their aurat (those parts of the body found enticing by the opposite sex), the jilbab is not required for Javanese women because 229

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Figure 11.5 Islam is Cool!

Figure 11.6 Door Sticker.

Javanese men do not find hair erotic. The next image (Figure 11.6) is less obvious in its advocating of other Islamic practices. At one level it is just a cute picture of a cat and in this way belongs into the category ‘Islam is Cool’. However, in Java, at least, cats are regarded as special animals because according to one story the Prophet Muhammad cut his prayer rug rather than disturb the cat which was sleeping upon it (Figure 11.7). One area of concern is that stickers reduce and reify religious positions; they erase nuance. For example, the image of the jilbab girl suggests a single correct form of piety. Likewise, the request or demand that visitors use the Muslim greeting seeks to establish the hegemony of a particular Muslim 230

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Figure 11.7 Sleeping Cat.

theory and practice. Because the nature of this media is short and pithy, almost by definition, it ignores the considerable debate that exists in the Indonesian Islamic community. The remaining four stickers in this set clearly tie this Islamic practice to the Middle East, three of them by depicting camels (Figure 11.8), which are not native to Indonesia. Camels are not specifically Islamic or unIslamic, but rather beasts of burden found in the Middle East. They are considered suitable for sacrifices and for consumption and in this way are part of Islamic practice. Since these images are humorous renditions, they maintain the theme that ‘Islam is Cool’. However, the fourth image (Figure 11.9) uses decidedly unIslamic Middle Eastern imagery, namely a pyramid and a mummy which are part of Egypt’s non-Islamic past. There is one other sticker that fits into this category but is different from the others. It exhorts viewers: ‘Stealing is Forbidden: God is Always Watching’. This is a different order of behaviour. Instead of matters of preferred religious practices, it addresses a more basic rule of social conduct: no stealing. However, it does not by giving it explicit religious overtones, namely that ‘Allah is Always Watching’. Solidarity. Another theme expressed in the stickers is the unity of the Islamic community. These stickers express such sentiments as ‘Yes, We’re Muslims’ and ‘Muslim Solidarity: Islam, the Best Way of Life’. Despite a wide range of divisions within Islam, an important value is the unity of Islam, especially as expressed in such events as the Hajj, where Muslims from all sects and all countries come together to perform this pillar of Islam. 231

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Figure 11.8 Silly Camels.

Figure 11.9 Middle Eastern Mummy.

Notable in their absence are stickers advocating particular sectarian positions. With the general exception of stickers commemorating particular conferences and events, the first author did not see any stickers which would identify the owner as a member of either Muhammadiyya or Nahdlatul Ulama. One particular exception was a sticker advertising a defunct brand of cigarettes (Nuju Utomo) or NU cigarettes, which was a co-op run by Nahdlatul Ulama.

The meaning of stickers By placing Islamic bumper stickers and Qur’anic verses within the workspace, or on a car or a front door, the lines that separate the sacred from the 232

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mundane become blurred. In essence, individuals who utilize these items create a system that places them into a world of Muslim identity and allows them to ‘broadcast’ a certain version of Islamic practice with ease and convenience. To place a sticker in an area such as a food cart would allow the cart owner to easily assure customers of the ritual status of the food served. To place the ‘Assasalaumalaikum’ stickers on one’s front door, demands that others behave in the way that the user of the sticker wishes to define appropriate Islamic behaviour. Conclusions from analysis of current research highlight the notion that bumper stickers are indeed part of a material culture which is asserting itself through the use of public space. Bumper stickers are part of a system of religious commodities which allows its participants to take a stance within their cultural identity. Islamic bumper stickers, in particular, tend to focus heavily on a direct connection to everything Middle Eastern, including pyramids, camels, and things that fail to have clear religious ties to the understanding or practice of traditional Muslim ideology, but deal with culturally identifying with the Muslim culture of the Middle East.

Discussion and conclusion While this chapter has described two processes – the ‘ideologizing’ or ‘religification’ of commodities and the commoditization of religion – in truth, we are dealing with two variations of the same process. The first process starts with a product and infuses it with meaning. By infusing commodities with ideological (and sometimes specifically religious) meaning, capitalists are able to make their products much more than a way to fill your stomach, quench your thirst, or brush your teeth. They become a way to demonstrate your national loyalty, keep the faith, and fulfil a ritual obligation. The second process starts with meaning and seeks to express it in a material form. The producers and sellers of these products seek to express the consumer’s pre-existing sentiments to create a product which will be desirable. The significant observation is that religious commodification involves both the production of commodities which embodied religious meaning and the infusion of religious (or ideological) meaning into commodities. In significant ways, this is not so new, but simply an extension of the standard practices of product creation, advertising, and branding.

As for the disclaimer The people who printed these stickers, and hence hold the copyright, are unidentified and unidentifiable. The stickers were sold in markets, on sidewalks, and in small stores. Many of them were mostly printed in small business run out of homes using simple silk screen printing. Even at the time of collection it would have been next to impossible to track down 233

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printers of each sticker. Now with 10 plus years between the stickers and their collection, it is simply impossible. And even if we could track down the printers, it is not assured that they are the copyright holders, as they also printed NBA stickers. In short, these stickers are not the intellectual property of the author but of unknown and unknowable individuals.

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Notes * The people who printed these stickers, and hence hold the copyright, are unidentified and unidentifiable. The stickers were sold in markets, on sidewalks, and in small stores. Many of them were mostly printed in small business run out of homes using simple silk screen printing. Even at the time of collection it would have been next to impossible to track down printers of each sticker. Now with 10 plus years between the stickers and their collection, it is simply impossible. And even if we could track down the printers, it is not assured that they are the copyright holders, as they also printed NBA stickers. In short, these stickers are not the intellectual property of the author but of unknown and unknowable individuals. 1 The author would like to thank Alethia Calbeck, Erin Thrush and Katryne Lukens-Bull for their help. 2 There was one notable exception during this time period, Si Doel: Anak Sekolahan (roughly, Doel: College Kid). This comedy and its spin-offs followed the life of the inhabitants of a poor Jakartan kampong as they struggled with modern life. These shows were the exception rather than the rule in the mid-90s.

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Interviews Kanchit Tanisro, Deputy Mayor of Hat Yai. 28 January 2003. Khreng Suwannawong, former mayor of Hat Yai (1975–2002). 25 February 2004. Kiattipong Sirithanawongsakul, tour company owner and committee member, Songkhla Chamber of Commerce. 25 January 2003. Nikraman Suleiman, lawyer and political aspirant, descendant of the last Sultan of Pattani. 19 September 2006. Songchai Mungprasithichai, President, Songkhla Tourist Guide Association. 28 January 2003.

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INDEX

aesthetics 164 ajarn 73 am 69, 71 Amithaba Buddha 108 amulets 62, 125 anti-Semitic 40 Arahat 142 Arjun Appadurai 220 astral symbolism 59, 62 Aum Shinrikyo 21 Bà Chúa Xú’ 155 bai shen 98 Bang Niao 68 Ban Kathu shrine 68 barami 132 benning 55 bhikkumi 141 biblical epics 39 Big Dipper 59, 76 bin 53 blasé attitude 65 Bodhisattvas 22, 93; Avalokitesvara 114; Kuan Yin 95, 115 border tourism 95 bucha 98, 135 Buddhas 90 Buddhist civility 27 Buddhist internationalism 109 Buddhist Sangha 123 bun (merit) 98, 125, 132; bun niyom 134; bunyabarami 134 Bushel asterism 57 Bushel Mother 60 capitalist ethic 147 cathedral of consumption 202 Catholic hierarchy 42

Câ· u Bé 152 Chan 25 chao 135 charisma 15, 17, 23, 25, 26, 29, 30, 37, 75; charismatic leadership 10; charismatic movements 17 ché 69, 71, 86 chèo 163 Chiang Mai 120,132 Chinese cosmology 78 Chineseness 69 Christianity 18, 34, 37; in Singapore 189 Ciji 25, 27, 28, 29; Ciji Humanity Class 28; Ciji Merit Society 22 City Harvest Church 186, 189 civil disturbance 41 civility camp 27 civil unrest 41 Cô Chin 152 colonialism 44 commodification 6–7, 187–188; of body 44; of religion 42, 49 commodifying blessing 49, 62 commodifying venues 136 commodity 193 commodity economy 19 communism 130 communitas 101, 166 competition 159 Confucian religion 50 Confucian values 15, 20 conspicuous consumption 91, 148 cosmopolitanism 109 cult 142; amulet cult 137; cult of King Rama V 142; cult of properity 135; cult of Suphan Kanlaya 142 cultural tactics 120 cynicism 65

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I N DE X

Daibutsu 90 Dalai Lama 24–25 dana 132 ~ Ðạo Mâ u 151 death of God 37 DeBernardi 101 Deep South 105, 117 democratization of religion 33 de-politicisation of Islam 213 desecularization 6 Dhammakaya 125 diaspora 110, 117, 174 Ðổi mới 147, 148 Doi Moi rituals 10 domestic Hinduism 183 double identity 57, 68 double-yang festival 49 Doumu 59, 61 Durkheim 17 Ecclesiastical Laws 122 economy of the offering 92 Eighteen Lords 19, 21 Emperor of Heaven 152 Erawan Brahma 112 Erawan Shrine 89, 112 ethnic conflict 44 eudemonics 52 eudumonia 51 evangelical Christianity 3 evangelical churches 31 exclusion 164 fate 55–56 fatwa 223 feminism 32 feminist theory 39 festival Hinduism 183 flowers 178 four-faced Buddha 90, 112, 114 Fragrant Mountain 57 Friday sermon 211 global economies of charisma 7 globalization 43 global religion 31 God 198 Golden Peak 57, 58 habitus 92 Halal beer 225 Harvest Times 188 Hat Yai 69, 86, 106

hâ`u bóng 160, 167 Hikayat Patani 104 Hindu Diaspora 169 Hinduism 10, 169; in Singapore 170 Hokkien 52; hok (fu) 52; hokkhi, fuqi 52; hoklok fulu 52 Hokkien shrines 68, 70, 72 Holy Grail 31, 38 homogenization 195 Hualian 22, 26 huat kua 72, 73, 75, 76 Huê´ 159 humanistic Buddhism 122 hybrid popular religion 43 hyper-secularization 118 ideologization of commodities 11 images of Christ 44 images of Jesus 43–44 incense 62 inclusion 164 Indonesia 205 Indonesian Islam 206 institutionalized religion 15, 35 intellectual tourism 38 Islam 205 Islamic revival 102 Islamic televangelism 210 ji de 98 Jui Tui 68 kaiguang 63 Kan Kin Che 115 Karma 55, 132, 133 kathoey 72 Kathu festival 70 Kathu shrine 70 kemanfaatan 214 khatha 129 khatha china banchon 129 khon chuen piti 72, 75 Khreng Suwannawong 116 khro 133 khwam chuea 131 khwamsabai chai 98 khwan 132 King Chulalongkorn 115 King Mongkut 123, 140 King Rama I 121 King Vajiravudh 130 Kinh 151 Kiu Ong 69, 80

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I N DE X

klang latthi 142 Kong Hee 190 Kong U 71 kotang 72, 78 Kotmai Tra Sam Duang 122 Kot Phra Song 121 or kotmai phra song 122 Krabi 70, 82 krasae saiyasat 130 krathang thup 80 Kru-Ze 105 Kru-Ze mosque 97, 104 Kuan Im 69, 75, 95 Kuan To 68, 70, 71, 78 Kuan Yin 107, 114 kula 63 Kuman Thong 71 kyai 224 lao khao 79 latthi khommunit 130 latthi khwam chuea phra si-an 130 latthi phithi 128, 129, 139 latthi phram 130 latthi thue phi 130 latthi ubat 142 lê˜ hôi 149 lên đô`ng 151, 161, 163, 167 Leng Chu Kiang 103, 104 Lim Ko Niao 103, 104, 105 Little India 169, 171 Lord of the Dark Heavens 60 lottery 138 Luang Pho Thuat 102 luck 55; constitutive luck 54; moral luck 54 luk sit 75 McDonaldization model 10, 186–187 magically-oriented Buddhism 122 magic monks 137 Mahayanist 76 mah song 69 Maitreya 93, 126 market amorality 23; commodity 6; cultures 6, 12; economy 5–8; economy-oriented 12; morality 17 Marx 17, 91 Marxism 131 materialistic 50 materializing merit 89 mechanical reproduction 23, 29

media technologies 42, 43 mediumship 74 megabusinesses 202 megachurches 10, 186–187, 191 Meng San 107 merchandising 182 merit 89 merit-making 9 merit-making industry 9 methodism 33 mia 55; mia sia 53 mian 53 Millennialism 130 ming 53, 55 Ming Dynasty 19, 61 modern fundamentalism 43 modernisasi 221 monuments 89 moradok 90 moral 51; action 37, 51; crisis 121; merit 53, 64; perfection 53; principles 53; teachings 50 mo su khwan 133 mo tham 136 Mother Goddess Worship 150 Muslim Malay separatism 95 naga 107 Nanyang Chinese 94, 100 Nanyang Chinese diasposa 108 naptheu 98 Narathiwat 97 new paradigm 32 nhâ· p hô`n thánh 153 Nine Emperor Gods 56, 57, 59, 60, 62, 72, 76, 79 nirvana 93 Nirvana (niphan) 124 Northern Bushel 59, 60 occult economy 49, 132 pai thieo 98, 101 Pattani 97 Paya Terubong Hill 59 Penang 49 performance 159 Perfume River 160 pesantren 206, 221, 228 phi 86, 123 phithi bon/kae bon 129 phithi song chao khao phi 129 phithi wai khru bucha thep 129

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Phra Ket 76; Puttha Bang Bert Lok 111; Rahu 76; Sri Ariya Meytrai 121; Thudong 113 phra kreung 126 phram 133 Phuket 68–69 Phu nam 75 phuttha phanit 9, 93, 121, 125, 139 phuttha wibat 124 pilgrims 100 pi liang 77 Polanyi Karl 17 politics 164 Pope John Paul II 24 popular culture 32, 45 popularism 215 popular religion 32, 36 pornographic 39, 40 post-Socialist Vietnam 148 practical benefits 9 prapheni 131 prayer items 175 Prince Damrong 127 Princess Liê˜u Hạnh 150 Princess Phra Suphan Kanlaya 141 prophet 41 propitiation of the Seven Stars 76 prosperity cults 17, 128 prosperity religions 4–6, 20, 120 Protestantism 15, 20 public sermons 205 puja 178, 181 Qing 53 qin shen 98 Quan Âm 150 Quanzhen Daoist temple 51, 60 Raehlian Movement 142 rationalization 188 Red River Delta 165 reflecting faith 37 relativist culture 35 religification 220 religion (religio) 36 religionalization 7, 16–17 religion-market economy 8 religious behaviour 36; bumper stickers 226; commodifications 6–11; conservatism 35; cultures 35, 42; desecularization 8; entrepreneur 85; enterprises 7, 63; fundamentalists 43; imaginary 31; innovations 34;

intellectuals and institutions 31; legitimation 11; markets approach 33; American religious marketplace 33; phenomena 36; pluralism 36; revivalism 43; services 36; traffic 43; stickers 10–11 revelation 42 revival or religious practices 147 risk 157, 158 risk-seeking behaviour 158 ritual leadership 73; of blessing 8; offerings 62; practices 56; privileges 64 Ronald Bertapa 223 routinization of charisma 42 sacred canopies/sacred canopy 1–3 sacred monuments 8 Sadao 106 sai 130 saiya phanit 126 saiyawet witthaya 130 Sangha Order 123 san qiao 149 Santisuk Foundation 77 santri 207 Sathya Sai Baba 24–25 satsana 128 satsana mai 128 secularization 3–4, 11, 16–17, 34, 37 secularization model 3–4 secularization theory/theorists 3–6 Serangoon Road 172 Siamese Buddhism 123 sila 132 Singaporeans 100 Sino-Malaysians 100 Sino-Thai community 68–69 solidarity 231 somatic society 44 Songkhla 97 spirit (vinyan) 75 spirit medium cults 138 spirit mediums 54, 68, 70, 71, 73, 74 spirit mediumship 148, 159, 167 spirit money 18 spiritualities 31 spiritual market 34, 36, 152; supermarket 37 spirits of consumption 147 stickers 232 Still Thoughts Abode 22, 26, 29 structures of feeling 132

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su khwan 133 Sun Ho 199 Surabaya 206; symbolic commodity 10, 205; economy 7, 9, 89, 92 tactics 136 Taishang 51 tam giáo 149 Tamil Nadu 176 Tamil women 177 tang ki 69 Tao 50 TAT (Tourism Authority of Thailand) 70, 97 tele-preaching 209 tele-public sermons 10 televangelism 5 Teochiu 71 Teochiu shrine 70, 77 Thai Buddism 11; Buddhist amulets 110; deity Kuman Thong 85; Muslim 11 Thai Theravada Buddhists 69 Thaksin Shinawatra 89 Thao Maha Phrom 89, 110, 112, 113, 114 The da Vinci Code 31 theological 73, 74 The Passion of the Christ 31 Thep Na Cha 86 Theravada 76 thewada 86, 123 Thiên Y A Na 160 thun niyom 134 Tibetan Buddhism 25 tôn giáo 149

tourism 95 tourist pilgrimages 8–9 tournament of value 63, 64 traditionalist 221 Traiphum cosmography 123, 140 Tripitaka 122, 142 tuô`ng 163 Turner, Victor 101 ummah 214 universalizing religions 23 vegetarian festivals 8–9, 79 Venerable Zhengyan 28 Vietnam 147 Vietnamese cosmology 153 Vinaya 123 wai phra 97, 98 Wat Khao Roop Chang 106 Wat Phrachetuphon 122 Weber, Max 15, 33, 37, 98 westernization 222 wikrit satsana 127 worship 65 Wudang Mountain 49, 56, 57, 60, 62 xiaozai bihua 61 Yala 97 yang 57, 59; yang world 156 yin 59; yin world 156 Yusuf Muhammad 224 Zixiao Palace 56, 61

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