Xinran
http://www.guardian.co.uk/women/story/0,36...1054809,00.html

In China, god is god. Or possibly an emperor. Or a communist leader. Or a rural husband

Friday October 3, 2003
The Guardian

I got an email from an Irishman last week. He told me he has a Chinese girlfriend who is very beautiful with an extremely gentle and kind mind. But he cannot understand why she prays in front of Buddha at home every evening and goes to the Catholic church every Sunday. He has tried very hard to imagine how those two religions work together in her soul, but he can't work it out. He asked me if there was something wrong with his girlfriend.
My answer is: she is perfectly all right. She is not the only one who has two beliefs. There are even a good many Chinese women who believe in all the religions of the world. During my researches between 1989 to 1997 in China, I heard and saw so many Chinese women who were struggling "to catch up" their beliefs after religious freedom was declared in 1983. Most Chinese people who prayed were only doing so to ask for wealth or other benefits.

I came across one Christian woman, who had one Buddhist grandparent and one Taoist grandparent. The two were constantly arguing. Away from the joss sticks, the woman had set up a cross. The grandparents constantly scolded her for this, saying she was cursing them to an early death. The girl's mother believed in some form of qigong [a form of meditative exercise similar to tai chi] and the father believed in the god of wealth. They, too, were always quarrelling: the woman said that the man's desire for money had damaged her spiritual standing, and the man accused the woman's evil influences of attacking his wealth. The little money this family had was spent on religious rituals or holy pictures, but they had grown neither richer nor happier.

Another woman I came across was said to be very religious. In public speeches, she would hail the Communist party as China's only hope; once off the podium, she would preach Buddhism, telling people that they would be rewarded in their next life according to their deeds in this one. When the wind changed, she would spread word of some form of miraculous qigong. Someone in her work unit said that she would wear a Communist party badge on her coat, fasten a picture of Buddha to her vest and pin a portrait of Great Master Zhang of the Zangmigong sect to her bra. Seeing my look of incredulity, I was told this woman was often mentioned in the newspapers. She was named as a model worker every year, and had been selected as an outstanding party member many times.

Are those Chinese women crazy? No, what they are is frightened since they lost their own human god. Over the last 5,000 years, the Chinese regarded their emperors and political leaders as their god, whose every word could mean the difference between life and death. In the early 20th century, China was plunged into chaos as the feudal system came to an end, and in all this bloodshed, the role of saviour was taken over by the warlords. They all understood that the Chinese could not do without their gods, as props to their spirits. No matter how different the theories of nationalism, democracy, socialism and communism represented by Sun Yat-sen, Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong were, most ordinary Chinese in the period from 1920 to 1980 did not look on them as political leaders but as new emperors with modern names - and as their gods.

Given this, it is easy to understand the hysteria of the Red Guards during the cultural revolution, and the way intellectuals and peasants and workers alike unquestioningly obeyed their leader's commands, bowing their heads and allowing their gods to throw them into prison.

I know it is difficult for the rest of the world to understand this aspect of Chinese history. But having observed the zeal with which people from profoundly religious societies offered their most prized possessions - or even their children - to their gods in the past, you will understand the feelings of ordinary Chinese people who need a central power or belief for their security when they are not sure who should be their next god.

In my interviews with around 200 Chinese women, I found that for most uneducated rural women, their god is their husband. As for many young Chinese city women, they are waiting and seeing: as a Chinese girl in Nanjing told me, her belief will depend on what religion is in fashion next! So my reply to the Irishman was: please give your girlfriend more time to decide what she really believes.



· Xinran's The Good Women of China is published by Vintage, £6.99.

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