sustainable china

daoist religion and ecotourism: a visit to maoshan

james — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 16:51:09 +0000

In May this year I had the opportunity to visit Maoshan (Mt. Mao) a Daoist mountain sacred to the Shangqing (Highest Clarity) tradition of Daoism that I studied in my most recent book. Located in Jiangsu province, it is about an hour’s bus ride south of Zhenjiang, a stop on the main high speed railway from Shanghai to Nanjing. I was interested to visit Maoshan not only because of my historical research, but because it was the site of the Maoshan declaration, which in 2008 committed China’s Daoist Association to a ten year program of ecological protection. The result of my visit is a mixed assessment of the possibilities and problems associated with the practical implementation of Daoism and ecology. I’ll be presenting the full details of my conclusions at the forthcoming SASASAAS conference at Furman University on September 24-25, but I’d like to present some key findings now. First of all, the encounter between Daoism and Ecology has to be understood from the perspective of China’s engagement with modernity and especially science. “Ecology” in Chinese does not signify a Romantic attachment to nature undefiled by human habitation, but rather a modern, scientific and ultimately technological enterprise. To make Daoist [...]

chinese religions and economic sustainability

james — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:00:58 +0000

In Sunday’s New York Times, Wayne Arnold published a column on the perennial topic “rethinking the measure of growth.” The story concerns attempts by Asian economists to come up with alternatives to GDP growth as the be-all and end-all of development. As is often the case with the New York Times, I found the most important information buried towards the end of the story, as though the editors didn’t actually think it was important! What is needed instead, some economists say, is a wholesale re-examination of development’s goals. … Beijing, at least, appears to have gotten the message, if its investments in green technology and public transportation are anything to go by. The Communist Party has also revised the promotion criteria for officials so that environmental conditions are included along with gross domestic product. It’s hard to underestimate the significance of this type of policy measure in China. To gain official promotion in China does not simply result in greater financial rewards or abstract “prestige” but rather access to powerful social networks that can result in very real financial, social, and personal rewards. To make this privilege conditional upon an official’s meeting environmental targets, is thus a significant way that [...]

daoism’s quest for relevance

james — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 16:16:45 +0000

In a Wall Street Journal blog today, Christopher Carothers asks, “Is Daoism is losing its way?” He writes: Today, Buddhism is regaining its traditional place as the largest religion in Chinese society. Islam is expanding through the growth of Muslim families in the Hui and Uyghur minority ethnic groups. Protestantism and Catholicism are winning new converts all over China and shaking off the old label of “foreign religion.” Daoism, on the other hand, seems to be standing still. Worse still, he argues, Daoism is often ridiculed by other religions, as was the case in the recent incident in Singapore, in which a Christian pastor was forced to apologize for his anti-Daoist remarks. Singapore has strict rules concerning public speech about religion, so one can only imagine what anti-Daoist sentiments are being expressed in countries without such restrictions on free speech. Carothers offers a reason for this reported decline, quoting unnamed researchers who say “the main reasons for Daoism’s troubles are its poor social networking and the lack of available information about its teachings.” This reason deserves further explanation. It’s certainly true that Daoism is a lineage-based tradition which prizes knowledge and training that are passed on orally from teacher to [...]

new directions in religion and nature

james — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 16:27:57 +0000

I was in LA last weekend to attend the Sixth Annual Conference on Daoist Studies which was organized by my former teacher, Livia Kohn, and LMU Professor Robin Wang. The conference drew the usual mix of academics and practitioners (which was itself the subject of an interesting meta-analysis by Elijah Siegler). My rationale for attending the conference, however, was that one of its focus themes was religion and ecology. I wanted to see how far the field had evolved since I co-edited the first book on this topic, Daoism and Ecology, Ways within a Cosmic Landscape, in 2001, and I’m delighted to report that there has been some excellent progress. The majority of essays in that volume, nearly a decade old now, focussed on correlations between environmental concepts and philosophical and religious concepts in the Daoist tradition. Some focussed more on cultural practices such as fengshui or meditation, but there was generally a lack of historical detail and also theoretical innovation. But it was the first stab at creating such a field, so one can’t be too critical. On the other hand, the papers presented at this year’s conference revealed a greater emphasis on historical detail and also a willingness [...]

avatar vs. confucius

james — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 19:56:25 +0000

What do you do, as a Chinese film board, when the Hollywood science fiction film Avatar smashes Chinese box office records in its first three weeks in theaters, when online chat sites are buzzing about the uncanny parallels between the fictional film plot of developers raping the land and forcibly evicting the people and real life in China? As this report makes clear, Avatar vs. Confucius in China, some Chinese netizens are calling for a boycott of the Confucius biopic, arguing that the government is only promoting Confucianism in order to help suppress political dissent. In contrast Avatar is seen by Chinese people as a fable regarding the power of the state over local communities: “What is ‘Avatar’ about?” asked one contributor on the Web site Mop. “It’s about the government’s forced evictions of people, and about them risking their lives to protest. No Chinese director dares to touch this topic. The report goes on to note that an estimated 30 million people, that’s nearly the entire population of Canada, have been evicted or relocated during China’s rapid economic development. On top of this China has an estimated “floating population” of some 100 million migrant workers who live in poor conditions on [...]

china’s green religion

james — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:24:29 +0000

I’m at the First Summit on Laozi and Daoist Culture, which is taking place this week in Beijing. The Summit is the work of Prof. Hu Fuchen, one of the leading scholars of Daoism, and a professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. This morning, we had the opening ceremony, which was held in the Great Hall of the People. It was my first time in this magnificent building. The purpose of the conference is basically to promote Daoism throughout China and the World. It is being funded by a wealthy donor, and has received backing at a high level from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Daoism has been something of a poor relative lately. Buddhism is better funded. Confucianism receives a very high level of support form the central government. But to many people, Daoism is poorly understood and associated with superstition. As one of the invited foreign delegates, it seems that my job is to demonstrate international support for this venture, to have my photograph taken along with the 500 or so other delegates, and to be part of the ritual theatre that the organizers have carefully crafted to promote Daoism as an essential ingredient of [...]

weekly news digest 2009-11-01

james — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:00:00 +0000

Interview with an American training to be a Daoist priest: Center for Spirituality and Sustainability at S. Illinois U http://bit.ly/1JOMfQ #

weekly news digest 2009-10-25

james — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 20:00:00 +0000

An exhibition introducing the Taoist traditions of ethnic people in northern Vietnam opened in Hanoi on October 21. http://bit.ly/3LopcJ #

weekly news digest 2009-10-18

james — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:00:00 +0000

Blogging the conference on eco-aesthetics at Shu Yen University: China’s contribution to sustainable development http://bit.ly/1xCHPj #

china’s greatest contribution to sustainable development

james — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 05:39:16 +0000

This week I’m at a conference on eco-aesthetics at Shu Yen University in Hong Kong. Today we heard the opening speech from Prof. ZENG Fangren, the former president of Shandong University. He runs a research institute on aesthetics, and is one of China’s leading scholars of eco-aesthetics. In his overview of the field of eco-aesthetics in China, the lasting impression that I received was how the government’s advocacy of “ecological civilization” has had a profound impact on the field. As a result of this leadership, more and more scholars are devoting attention to ecological issues. What fascinated me about his talk was how fluent he was in Western scholarship regarding aesthetics and philosophy. It seems that so often dialogue between China and the west is one-sided, with all Chinese scholars mastering Western discourse and very few Western scholars mastering Chinese discourse. As a result, in the discussions following his presentation, I asked the question of what China can contribute to the world in the areas of eco-aesthetics and sustainability. His first answer was not what I expected. Rather than discussing Chinese wisdom, Confucian philosophy or Daoism, he made a very simple but powerful point. If China can manage its economic [...]