So my only really real
talk this term (
the other three have all been class visits of one form or another) went well, I think, despite its silly name -
a day ago I wasn't sure it would all come together. Here are some highlights, with some of what my friend G calls my "very Zen" powerpoint slides, but have a listen first to
this. The Beatles' "The Innner Light" - B-side to "Lady Madonna"! It
sounds Indian, but the text is straight from (a translation of) the
Daodejing [
Tao Te Ching]. I found out about it from the anthology which was the focus of my talk, the just-appeared
Norton Anthology of World Religion, large chunks of
which my research assistant at Lang copied and sent me. As you'll perhaps
recall, one noteworthy feature of this massive 4000-page reference work is the displacement of Confucianism by Daoism as the "world religion" from China. What were they thinking? I used this as pretext to describe the book's approach in general, and to Daoism in particular - both of which turned out to be pretty interesting. Here are three antecedents claimed by the main editor, Jack Miles, in his history of comparative religion (in the West). The significance of Bernard and
Picart's
Ceremonies and religious customs of all the peoples of the world and of the Parliament of the World's Religions is clear. What Miles calls the "Renaissance Rehearsal of Comparative Religion" is more idiosyncratic. It grounds the
literary endeavor
of the anthology as a whole (primary texts valuable for religious as well as literary reasons, and for readers with literary as well as religious interests), including the idea that religion can inspire even if we think it fiction. It also prefigures the rationale for canonizing "Daoism, lost and found."
I didn't say much about the Daoism section itself, all 760 pages of which I cannot say I read (or even tried). I was more interested in the rather shabby way in which Confucianism was despatched in Miles' Preface (its texts are already available in English, the Chinese state doesn't list it as a religion, and we don't want to enter the debate if Confucianism is a religion), the sense of adventure in sharing elements of the Daoist Canon that had almost completely vanished - and the interesting selections for the last century (including the Beatles song).
I'll spare you the section on problems with the categories of "religion" and "world religions," though I sense that this material was new for the UHK audience. I said I was unhappy that "world religions" keeps its hold in works like the
Norton Anthology, in the process making interreligious hybridity and interaction seem late and difficult rather than constitutive elements in the history of most religion; but I was hopeful that the anthology's impressive scope would show religions to be the wild woolly things they are. My speculative concluding section was the most fun:
What might the apotheosis of Daoism portend? Supposing the
Norton Anthology to succeed in its effort to establish a canon for religious studies, I suggested six possible results: more people studying Daoism; more Western folks taking up Daoist practices; the development of new ways of being Daoist in traditionally Daoist lands, partly in conversation with the western Daoists (I suggested several analogies with the unfolding of "Buddhist modernism"); further complications for Confucianism; the appearance of Daoist ideas in broader discussions of power, change, politics, etc.; and finally "a Daoist theory of religion." No idea what that would be, but I'm interested to find out!
All in all I think I did pretty well talking about Daoism (which I don't pretend to understand) and the new
Norton Anthology (most of which I haven't read). I mean, the ensuing discussion was good! I take comfort in the words of The Beatles' George Harrison (really
Daodejing ch 47):
(This last was not one of the slides for my talk: made just for the blog!)
The end of my stay in Hong Kong coincided with the end of the Occupy Central movement. I joined crowds of restless people at Admiralty
This was the final slide of my presentation for what turned out to be the final session of the Theory of Religion class at Chinese University of Hong Kong this evening. (Actually, classes ended last month, but these dedicated students keep showing up for extra sessions.) This was my chance to use the religious studies clip from "The Simpsons," which I used it also as a visual frame for the talk - Flanders (in claymation as it's also a tribute to "Davey and Goliath") imagines a future in which he's married Edna Crabapple and his son Todd is graduating from college...
Today my friend G (visiting Hong Kong from Adelaide, but we met in NY) popped over to see Macau. We strolled through the UNESCOfied historic center (above is a detail of little Santas celebrating 15 years since reunion with China) but also went to Cotai, the island where the biggest new casinos are. And are they big! Venice Macau, for instance, has not one but four meandering canal shopping zones (all above street level). This Koonsian polar bear stranded in one of them captured our feeling...
Explored the old center of Macau today, charming in Graham Greenian ways. This little peninsula had its finger on the pulse of history for half a century, a long time ago. All the wealth of trade between China and Japan, the Indies and the West, flowed through it; Matteo Ricci began his relationship with China here. And then history moved on. But the place stayed, Portuguese and Cantonese speaking, Portuguese Catholic and part of the shambolic Portuguese empire. I'm not sure at what point it became one of those shadowy places where smugglers and gamblers hung out, but that was so much its character that Portual apparently had to wait years before the PRC would take it back. Now it's casino central, awash with the gold of China's new rich (though anti-corruption campaigns have apparently reduced the number of government officials dramatically) and a historical theme park, too. What does it all mean to the people who live here, to visitors from the rest of China?
For the weekend I'm in another SAR, Macau, just across the Pearl River delta from Hong Kong but a different world! Enormous casinos flashing above a still Portuguese-seeming old city. My hovercraft-ferry from Hong Kong arrived at 5; got to my hotel just as night was falling. The center (where
I'm staying) is kitted out for Christmas, and it all feels remarkably European. Arcades line the main streets, and pavements and squares are tiled in white and black marble mosaics - just like Lisboa! (I got lost, too, as one does in old ungridded cities.) Can't wait to see how it all looks in the daytime...
My time in Hong Kong is turning out to be full of fun discoveries - I'm spending most of the time with new friends and old. Opportunity even for some photo-ops, not something I usually seek out. But here, for the record, am I with a wise-cracking Cantonese Moses at the Noah's Ark theme park, with my astological sign at Wong Tai Sin, and at Blessed Minority Christian Fellowship (just before going to the the demo- cracy protesters' camp).
Spent a lovely day off the island - in the New Territories which a new friend (who lived a decade in New York, while getting a PhD in sociology at The New School) described as Hong Kong's analog to the Bronx. Above: the view from a coffee shop at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (whose version of Theorizing Religion I'll be visiting on Monday!). Below: sculpted bougainvillea from Nan Lian Garden, a panorama from the Tang-style Chi Lin Monastery, some scenes from Wong Tai Sin Daoist Temple, and finally a banner from CUHK: I want true universal suffrage.
I almost feel guilty how much I'm enjoying Hong Kong this time. (I liked it less the other two times I came, perhaps because I was staying in Kowloon.) It feels like cheating on Shanghai, which seems rather flat and overplanned compared to this densely-packed hill city. Above: the view from my hotel room. Below: one of many stores selling religious articles (here are articles for those wishing for house and fancy cars as well as for those more modestly dreaming of air conditioners, foot massagers, guitars and the like. Then some flyers from the window of the Hong Kong University Student Union - one of them says "North Korea also has one person one vote" - and a view from HKU toward Kowloon.
