Thread by @edwardW2

1.At the prompting of @EPButler , shall speak a few words regarding the situation regarding Shenjiao and Daoism, from my experience growing up in Singapore.

2.Daoism, and Shenjiao—the religion dedicated to the worship of “popular” deities, like the earth god, god of wealth, are lumped together as "Taoism" in Singapore. Experience suggests that the worship of these "folk deities" makes up much of what is called Taoism in Singapore...

3- The forms of Daoism that we would think about when we study the subject in the west such as Quanzhen, Lingbao, etc. do not actually have much currency in Singapore. I did not even hear of these names until i started reading western books on Daoism.

4.In addition to large, purpose-built temples, there are smaller, house temples. These are basically flats in public housing, or in some cases, private houses, which have a temple in them. This sometimes spills outside to the common corridor...

5. Such temples typically arise because they are the residence of a spirit-medium, whose vocation obliges him to construct such a large shrine in his house. These temples are semi-open to the public; Those who have been introduced to the medium can worship at the temple...

6... or go to him for the resolution of problems.
The whole practise of spirit-mediumship in Singapore is really interesting and would be too long to fit into this thread, but I direct you to Fabian Graham’s “Voices from the underworld”

https://twitter.com/edwardW2/status/1259807159648350208

7.Like Much of China, the distinction between “Taoism” (as a composite of the two above) and buddhism is mostly theoretical. The majority of the Chinese population in that nation happily visit both Daoist and Buddhist temples.

8.However, between the two religions, Buddhism does have a slightly better reception. My elders all were of the opinion that Taoism was the very thing that caused China to stagnate intellectually and technologically, thereby allowing it to be so shamefully colonized by the west

9.The archetypal Daoist to my elders was the "Sye-kong" 師公, decked in gaudy robes, chanting incomprehensible spells, and presiding over a ritual that was equally incomprehensible, and involving extravagant sacrifices of burnt paper and houses.

10.They contrasted it with Buddhism, whose rituals were simply less gaudy, and looked more "modern”, even though they held that a lot of buddhist rituals (eg funerals, liturgies of sutra chanting) were equally “superstitions”, that equally corrupted the Chinese soul.

11.One of my relatives made the rather pertinent observation, that many people hired these ritual practitioners (esp. at funerals) simply out of fear; a fear that without these rites, the deceased would haunt them in some manner....

12/ What this implies is the fact that the contents of Daoist rite had ceased to be meaningful to them.

They could hardly be blamed. The texts are written in archaic Chinese, and are recited in a manner that makes them unintelligible save to the trained...

13/ (The same thing, incidentally applies at buddhist funerals. i once was at one, and before the first part of the ritual had ended, some of the mourners had fell asleep)

14/ <I should add that this loss of meaning is not unique to Daoism; most people there engage with religion on a very superficial level...

15/ Take a look at this Singaporean song, 麻雀衔竹枝 which contains the line

“We would run to the FourHorseRoad Guanyin temple
And say “Namo Amithaba”

The Buddhologists would wonder why would anyone invoke Amithaba in a Guanyin temple...

16/ On the other hand, “Namo Amithaba” is basically *the* archetypal buddhist phrase in Singapore; the average person is likely to know no other part of buddhism.

17.More generally, perhaps part of the reason why “taoism” gets this low reputation, is the fact that it is highly pragmatic—or perhaps to use their own word—materialistic. Much of the gods are actually worshipped to bring prosperity, or find lucky lottery numbers, etc.

18. there is a massive temple in Singapore-- the Loyang Tua Pek Kong Temple-- who is dedicated to the God of Earth. Almost every surface of the temple is covered with lottery numbers,

(iirc the temple also bakes a birthday cake of ~ 1 ton every year for the god)

16.There is hardly any type of philosophical content in the popular realm of religion; indeed, experience shows the buddhist text the average Singaporean is most likely to come into contact is not a sutra, but rather a lot-oracle, provided by the FourHorseRoad Guanyin temple...

17. mentioned above. (the official name of FourHorseRoad , by the way is Waterloo street, but the popular chinese name remains 四馬路- FourHorseRoad)

https://twitter.com/edwardW2/status/1311909119675121664

18/ Such is what I have seen.

If @yuxuan_tay or @speechleyish , or any other reader have insights/observations to add, I would be most glad to hear of them.