RLG 245 Blog

Final project

2010-03-29T21:46:00.000-07:00

This is the link to my final project:

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

Enjoy~~~~

Jews in China

2010-03-22T20:27:00.000-07:00

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

2010-02-09T12:50:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-01T18:34:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-11T19:08:00.000-08:00

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

2009-11-23T21:48:00.000-08:00

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?

2009-11-10T19:46:00.000-08:00

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.

Blog Entry #3, October 19, 2009

2009-10-19T19:04:00.000-07:00

After reading about the Sogdians in Wood’s textbook, Marshak and Negmotov’s Sogdiana and the translation of the “Ancient Sogdian Letters,” I realized how unfortunate this group of people was. During the beginning ages of the Silk Road, the Sogdian’s empire played a large role in the Silk Route by having Sogdian merchants entirely controlling the Silk Road. Even though, they had the knowledge for business, their empire was not strong enough to prevent outside invaders. The Sogdians were always under the control of other empires. Thus, this leads the Sogdians to be unknown of, despite of their works.
On the other hand, we can view the Sogdians as heroes rather than unfortunates because they were the ones after all, who spread a new style of fashion, art and architecture, scripts and religion along the Silk Road. In particular, the buildings of a house, at first were simple, detached, and made of compressed clay and mud brick. Then as time progressed, the houses became more complex, taller, and spacious. Even storekeepers and craftsmen were well off and lived in two-storey houses. Many private houses had murals that depicted daily life or an image of their god and small figures of Sogdians before the fire. It is difficult to know which religion these people followed because of the variety of religions they had. Even with the variety of religions in place, the Sogdians were still able to be better off than anyone else was. This town was not an ordinary town compared to the others during the Silk Road years. The Sogdians were influential regardless of the empires that ruled their state and spread many of their works around Asia. These people were ‘born to their trade’ as the Chinese described them in their stories.
Despite of all of the great work the Sogdians had accomplished, their name is less known to the world today. Having once been powerful, controller of the Silk Routes and spreading the influential arts and architecture, and religion to other regions, it is unfortunate for them that all their hard work is unknown to us. All we can do is appreciate the leftover works from centuries ago.

Blog Entry # 2, October 13, 2009

2009-10-12T09:55:00.000-07:00

In Frances Wood’s: The Silk Road: Two Thousand Years in the Heart of Asia, chapter four is about a group of nomads inhabiting China’s northwestern borders and the Han Dynasty (Chinese). This group of nomads known as the Xiongnu has no fixed home and moves according to the seasons from place to place in search for food, water, and grazing land. The Chinese highly disliked this group of people and their Chinese two-character name literally means ‘fierce slaves.’ “The Chinese described the Xiongnu to be good for nothing because they live in the desert and grow in the land that produces no food. They have no houses to shelter themselves, and make no distinction between men and women. They take the entire wilderness as their village and the tents as their homes. They wander to meet in order to exchange goods and stay for a while in order to herd cattle (Wood 50).” Interestingly enough, despite of the way the Chinese viewed them, during the Han Dynasty, the Xiongnu still managed to have power over the Chinese and acquired many of their expensive silk and ornaments. These annual ‘tribute gifts’ amounted to ten percent of the Chinese state revenues.
Another point that I found interesting in this chapter, was that the Chinese were very superstitious in folktales, and thought that Heavenly horses would take them to the heaven gates where they could see God. In addition, these heavenly horses were immortal and they could ride across the dangerous mountains ranges and bring you to the home of immortals. This just shows the lack of education in society during that period. Another reason, people are so fascinated with these horses is that it is rare in China. “They cannot be successfully bred in China due to calcium deficiency in organic matters, even water.” Therefore, these horses were very precious to the Chinese.
Now about the Hou Hanshu, in a way it can be considered a historical reading because it is an old writing and it records many historical figures that we would never be able to know. Even though, the author was not quite precise on each topic and the story he was trying to tell. In most cases, it seemed like the author just decided to throw in all those dates, events, stats, the rulers and their successors and geographic locations together without much further explanation. I cannot agree that it is a complete historical reading but the way the author presented the material was intriguing.
For this reason, since the Hou Hanshu was written so long ago, it is significant to include some ethnographic descriptions. Ethnography is a method used to describe people in writing. The Chinese calling the Xiongnu, ‘fierce slaves’ and the Da Qin described as “the people of this country are all tall and honest.” This is the language that people during that time used even though, it sounds mean in today’s terms. It is important for us to be aware of language used at that time because it will help us understand how different their culture was compared to today.
Overall, Wood and the Hou Hanshu reading revealed many cultural differences and perspective in thinking and works.

Blog Entry # 1, september 22

2009-09-21T19:22:00.001-07:00

Overall, I found this book, The Silk Road: Two thousand Years in the Heart of Age, to be an interesting read because there were many new facts that I did not know about. The author was quite descriptive about the topics depicted in each chapter.

I particularly enjoyed reading chapter two about how silk was made because I would have never imagined that it was made by the cocoons of a silkworm. For the first time in my life have I heard such thing called silkworm. It is fascinating to know that many thousands of years ago; tending silkworms was a career for people. Whereas now a days, doing such career would be looked down upon because it’s not part of the society’s career norms. We do not value tending silkworms as much because there are other resources available to help us and there are other fabric materials available to replace silk. I would like to try having silkworm as a pet someday and experiencing all the hard work people back then had to go through.

When reading about the description of the Silk Road, I found it very confusing to follow the names of the cities, towns, provinces, and body of waters presented in the chapters. Additionally, following the types of people who lived near or on the Silk Road was also one of the struggles that I had. Although, there were some challenges, I really enjoyed reading about the different lifestyles and cultures that these people brought to the history of the Silk Road.