Final project

This is the link to my final project:

http://hui-in-ningxia.blogspot.com/

Enjoy~~~~

Jews in China

It has been such an eye-opener to see many religions in China being unveiled throughout the course this year. At the beginning of the year, the only religion that I knew to exist in China was Buddhism because this is the only religion that I hear of and witnessed people practicing. Then, I learned that in China there were religions such as Nestorian Christianity, Manichaeism, Islam and now Judaism. Evidences can be found to prove that Jewish settlements in China began as early as the 9th century. This is fascinating because China was a country entirely different from the rest of the world at that time, yet people were still able to unite and live together. It was only by the Silk Roads that connected the east to the west together so that people of various backgrounds could travel and assimilate into other’s culture. It would intriguing to research about how the Jews in Kaifang assimilated into the Chinese culture, were they similar to the Hui, or Uighur. Did they even assimilate into the Chinese culture? If not, then how did the Chinese socially accept them?

This is a video about a Chinese born Jewish female talking about her life. She went Israel to learn Hebrew so that she could to help translate Jewish scriptures into Chinese for the Kaifang community. This is a way of maintaining the Jewish community in China!

Islam today

After reading Hirschkind and Mahmood’s article, I realized just how little I, the individual living in the West know about the East. Due to the media portrayal, we look at the East in a very materialist way, we judge the Middle East by what we hear and the images we see. In reality, what they value is not the same as what we do in the West. The westerns value fashion, education, careers, freedom of speech, and autonomy and many others, we then take these standards and compare them with other cultures. We view the East, in particular the Muslims as ‘bad people’ because men are violent and women are being oppressed by men and are forced to wear veils and burqas. Even in Canada, there are men who physically abuse their wife and children. Do we recognize that Western men to be violent? Women who do not leave their families even though they are being physically abused, aren’t they being oppressed? Where do we draw the line? How can the westerns say that they are right even, when similar things are occurring to them? This is what Edward Said outlined in his article, “The Clash of Ignorance,” the westerns considered themselves to be much more superior but at the same time, Islam has these powers to foretell the future. Where can we find the balance between the East and West? Is there a way for the West to equally treat the East?

Spread of Islam

The above image is just a representation to the spread of Islam during the 6th-8th century.

According to Ayoub’s reading, I find it very interesting how Islam was able to spread so quickly across the Middle East and Asia, while the major religions: Buddhism, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and Christianity coexisted. Today, Islam is one of the major religions in countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei, that were under colonialism . It is fascinating to see how Islam was able to survive and spread even under colonial rule. Furthermore, it would be intriguing to see how Islam was at that time able to fit into other cultures and how people from other cultures accepted them. What makes Islam so special? Why did people back then accept this new religion? Yet, we are having so many issues with Muslims today. I guess the answer to these issues is , according to Ernest, is the fact that today we judge Muslims by what we see outside of them and not taking the time to understand what it really means to be a Muslim.

Group Topic 3: Manichaeism

Before we examine whether Manichaeism is a “syncretic” religion, we must first understand the meaning of syncretism.

The term syncretism refers to the combination of different forms of beliefs and practices. As a result, it creates a new teaching or belief system.

This is what makes Manichaeism so interesting to look because it is a syncretic tradition. In Hans-Joachim Klimkeit’s Gnosis on the Silk Road, it provides a detailed outline of the Manichaeism Doctrine including the basic concepts, principles, creation of the world and man, and salvation and damnation. Mani, the founder of Manichaeism basically, drew parts of beliefs from Christianity, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism and combined them together to make his own religion. He portrays Jesus into three figures, 1. “Jesus the Splendor,” from Christianity 2. “The Messiah Buddha,” from Buddhism and 3. “The suffering Jesus,” captured by darkness from Zoroastrianism. Therefore, he refers himself as the prophet, having all these advanced knowledge and called to preach about it.

H.J. Polotsky points out, “is a remarkably unified, symmetrical system in spite of the great diversity of sources from which it may be gleaned.”

In the end of the day, I can understand Mani’s purpose for creating this ‘new’ religion called Manichaeism. It all comes down to, the attempt to answer the unknown. Who created the world? Who created humans? Which religion in world is correct? These questions can be answered depending on the religion each individual believe in. However, for Mani, he realized that all three religions made sense and if you combined them together, we can get a definite answer and everyone would believe in the same thing. His purpose was to unify all the people in world through a common belief system by syncretising all the major religions in the world.

Group Topic 2: Buddhism in Dunhuang

It’s interesting to know how Dunhuang, a small town in present-day Gansu Province, western China, is filled with so many rich histories. Dunhuang was a convenient ‘meeting place’ for many people travelling along the Silk Road, for it had many temples to various faiths and natural resources. The reason that Dunhuang was able to surpass the traditional monarchy and become a ‘modern culture’ was due to having several failing rulers who failed to establish a political system. In other words, there was nothing preventing the people in Dunhuang from learning about other religions and cultures and including them into their own lifestyles. Buddhism certainly has influenced people’s lives in Dunhuang in little ways such as drinking tea and meditating. In addition, people celebrated holidays and festivals, attended ceremonies with the monks. The paintings found in the caves painted by the monks reflect people’s daily lives in Dunhuang. From the remaining paintings, letters, and manuscripts written by Buddhists we can somewhat reconstruct a blurry picture of the actual practice of Buddhism in the Dunhuang region but more information would be needed to fully paint the whole picture.

What is Buddhism?

The topic Buddhism did not particularly interest me this week. I could not possibly engage with the writer and believe that there was such a person named, Buddha who was able to achieve enlightenment and taught people to turn away from evil desires in this world.

What is so special about this man? What has attracted people over the centuries and millennium to continue following this religion? Why is it listed as the world's fourth largest religion, and how?

At the end of the day, Buddhism is a religion we can hold on to and by believing, we can feel better about ourselves for all the ‘bad’ things we have done. Knowing that we can do good deeds to cleanse away all the ‘bad’ things we have committed before. Then, what can be considered good deeds? Feeding the poor? Donating money to charities? Or, doing volunteer work? After all, Buddha himself was a human being, and what is there to prove that those are actually good deeds? In Xuanzang’s story, he mentioned that one of Buddha’s last words presumed to be were, “All that is composed is perishable. Work diligently for your salvation.” I am uncertain about why we need to work for salvation because we will get nothing in return. We can still practice doing good things and not believe in Buddhism at all.

Standing in a scholar’s point of view, I should not be thinking about those questions but understand how does Buddhism impact lives and why. I believe that in order to understand the whole purpose of Buddhism; it would be beneficial to have some sort of prior experience. To understand something not only requires looking at the physical actions but also being aware of people’s mentality behind doing all the rituals, customs, and daily practices. At the end of the day, we can say anything that we want about a particular religion but we will never truly understand it until we become one of them.