A large proportion of Chinese people believe in a god—yet most report they don’t belong to any religion. In this episode of Crash Course Religions, we’ll learn about two of the Three Teachings of China—Confucianism and Daoism—and explore why Chinese religious practice is much more fluid than the question “What religion do you follow?”
Introduction: A Ghostly Unboxing 00:00
The Ghost Festival 1:29
Religion in China 2:43
Confucianism 4:02
Daoism 7:39
Chinese Popular Religion 10:47
Review & Credits 11:44
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IRPhziWfx72dIlGC1xIuEPWqb_uwnumdtYnmmsR4jto/edit?usp=sharing
***
Support us for $5/month on Patreon to keep Crash Course free for everyone forever! https://www.patreon.com/crashcourse
Or support us directly: https://complexly.com/support
Join our Crash Course email list to get the latest news and highlights: https://mailchi.mp/crashcourse/email
Get our special Crash Course Educators newsletter: http://eepurl.com/iBgMhY
Thanks to the following patrons for their generous monthly contributions that help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever:
Reed Spilmann, Brandon Thomas, Emily Beazley, Forrest Langseth, Rie Ohta, oranjeez, juliebear , Jack Hart, UwU, Leah H., David Fanska, Andrew Woods, Ken Davidian, Stephen Akuffo, Toni Miles, Steve Segreto, Kyle & Katherine Callahan, Laurel Stevens, Krystle Young, Perry Joyce, Scott Harrison, Mark & Susan Billian, Alan Bridgeman, Breanna Bosso, Matt Curls, Jennifer Killen, Jon Allen, Sarah & Nathan Catchings, team dorsey, Bernardo Garza, Trevin Beattie, Eric Koslow, Indija-ka Siriwardena, Jason Rostoker, Siobhán, Ken Penttinen, Nathan Taylor, Barrett Nuzum, Les Aker, William McGraw, ClareG, Rizwan Kassim, Constance Urist, Alex Hackman, kelsey warren, Katie Dean, Stephen McCandless, Wai Jack Sin, Ian Dundore, Caleb Weeks
__
Want to find Crash Course elsewhere on the internet?
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/thecrashcourse/
Facebook – http://www.facebook.com/YouTubeCrashCourse
Twitter – http://www.twitter.com/TheCrashCourse
Hi! I’m John Green, and welcome…to my unboxing video! Today on Crash Course Religions we’re opening up Food For Ghosts. Let’s see what we’ve got in here! We got some Kit Kats, ghosts love that. Oh, we've also got some Boo Berry cereal. Not just food for ghosts, also food by ghosts.
00:15:We've got some rice cakes. Funyuns! Stan, you shouldn't have. And we've got some ramen as well. There's some rice wine in here, everybody likes rice wine. It's also… I don't know what's going on here, but there's some paper money, which is weird- Oh, boy!
01:42:So, you might be wondering what any of this has to do with religion. And trust me, we’ll get there. But first, some background. About forty percent of Chinese adults say they believe in a religious figure, god, or deity. About one-quarter say they regularly burn incense to worship one.
01:57:But only one-tenth say they’re part of a religion. In fact, if you asked the average person in China, “What’s your religion?” they’d probably find your question… quite weird. That’s partially because religious practices of any kind were suppressed
01:11:for decades under Mao Zedong, the former leader of the Chinese Communist Party. Zedong’s death in 1976 eventually led to a loosening of these restrictions, but still, the Chinese government maintains tight control over religious traditions in the country.
01:24:And also other things, like, for instance, uhh… if you’re in China you’re not seeing this video. But one of those traditions is the Ghost Festival. Let’s head to the Thought Bubble… Every year in China, during the seventh lunar month, ghosts come out to play.
02:39:It’s said that ancestral spirits roam the earth, along with some more unsavory specters from Hell. So what’s a human to do? Well, the ghosts are hungry, so it’s best to wine and dine them with whatever you think they’d enjoy—chips, biscuits, wine, Funyuns. Some folks put on performances of operas
02:56:and songs, leaving the front row open for their invisible guests. Heaps of paper money are burned to give the ghosts riches in the afterlife. And some of these ghosts are pretty unhappy, so if you don’t give them offerings, they may just consume you instead.
02:12:In fact, there are a bunch of things you need to watch out for lest you risk running into—and being possessed by—a ghost. Don’t do anything that could attract ghosts to you, like wearing red or hanging clothes outside at night. Want to go for a swim? Well, you may be drowned by water spirits.
02:26:And don’t even think about picking up that coin on the ground. It may belong to someone… who wants you to belong to them. Now, when the Ghost Festival comes to a close, it’s time to send the ghosts home in style.
03:38:Paper boats and lanterns float on the water to guide them, and the humans are left to celebrate. Thanks, Thought Bubble. So while it may seem somewhat religious in nature, the Ghost Festival isn’t unique to one religious tradition.
03:50:It has roots in multiple religious practices and has been going on for centuries. Also, people who don’t identify with any of those religious traditions can still enjoy and appreciate the Ghost Festival, just as lots of
03:01:people who don’t think of themselves as Christians still enjoy a Christmas tree. So it’s not really accurate to say that this is something that, like, brings people together across religious divides—because those divides weren’t really there to begin with.
03:14:If we were to unbox the “officially recognized” religions in China, we would pull out five – Buddhism, Catholicism, Islam, Protestantism, and Daoism – and even those are strictly regulated. On top of that, the Western category of “religion” doesn’t make much sense
04:30:in Chinese culture, where identifying with specifically one religion would typically be reserved for folks like priests or monks. So to really wrap our heads around the Ghost Festival, we’ve got to get acquainted with the Three Teachings of China: Buddhism, Confucianism, and Daoism.
04:47:The Three Teachings aren’t viewed as rivals but as complements to each other. Together, they shape the Chinese Lunar Calendar and holidays, society, and culture. They’re so intertwined that it’s hard to declare a certain practice distinctly “Confucian,” or “Buddhist,” or “Daoist.”
04:03:Now, for more on Buddhism, you can check out Episode 6. But today, we’ll dive into the other two Teachings. First up: the man, the sage, the legend: Confucius. From before Confucius was born, he was destined for greatness.
04:15:Around 551 BCE, a legendary creature called the Qilin appeared before his expectant mother, Yan Zhengzai, and upon his birth, two great dragons circled overhead. But Confucius was a late bloomer. He held a career in government while he thought about ways to make his society better,
05:32:but he didn’t share his ideas until he was in his fifties. First, he wanted to improve the world through filial piety, or xiao: respecting and caring for one’s parents and ancestors. Second, through humaneness, or ren: leading with kindness and compassion toward everyone.
05:48:And third, through ritual propriety, or li: the etiquette and norms that keep society running smoothly. Most of the leaders he shared his ideas with didn’t listen. Some of them put a target on his back. But Confucius spent the rest of his life teaching, studying, and writing,
05:04:amassing thousands of students, who carried his values forward after he died. They compiled his ideas in a single text called the Analects, to be passed on for generations to come. While Confucius was beloved by his students, he was not popular with those in power.
05:20:Like, the Emperor of the Qin Dynasty destroyed as much of Confucius’s writing as he could get his hands on…when he wasn’t slowly poisoning himself with mercury and ordering his subjects to locate the secret to immortality.
06:31:And let that be a lesson to us all, “Live fast, die never, burn books” is a bad life motto. But if you are looking to live forever, cut down on the mercury. It took about three hundred years, but eventually, under the Han Dynasty, the Chinese government
06:46:turned pro-Confucius, especially under the Emperor Wu starting in the 130s BCE. Wu was quite the Confucius stan. He established Confucianism as the state ideology, turned Confucius’s home in Qufu into a state-sponsored shrine, and started an imperial academy for studying Confucian writing.
06:04:Stan, I know you don’t love it when “stan” is used as, like, slang for “huge fan” because of course you don’t love it. You, and I mean this with tremendous love… hate everything. In fact, it became a requirement that anyone seeking a government job had to pass a test on the Five
06:19:Confucian Classics, books of ancient knowledge that Confucius had compiled and edited. That reading list was eventually pared down to just four books. But the requirement stuck around for about a thousand years. And to this day, Confucian values are a big part of Chinese culture.
07:35:The value of li, or ritual propriety, for example, still defines the etiquette for welcoming guests, giving gifts, and bowing hello and goodbye. Xiao, or filial piety, is found in the way Chinese people honor their relatives,
07:48:respecting and listening to their elders even when they disagree with them. And it shows up in how they honor their dead relatives, too, like with the Ghost Festival. And in many Chinese homes, you’ll find a shrine with wooden tablets thought to hold ancestors’ spirits.
07:01:Rituals honoring ancestors are commonly practiced not just at home, but also in public, in cemeteries, and in temples. Right, did I mention there are Confucian temples? People pray in and make pilgrimages to them, especially to the one in Confucius’s hometown.
07:15:And if you’re thinking that all of this sounds quite religious…well, many scholars would agree with you. But others say Confucianism is more like a secular philosophy with some religion inside of it—like an existential Hot Pocket.
07:28:Still others reject the “religious or not religious?” binary altogether, like philosopher Herbert Fingarette who said Confucianism is “the sacred as secular.” Not “either or,” but “yes and”. And here’s where things get a little blurrier.
08:41:Venerating ancestors is definitely an extension of Confucian filial piety — but it’s also a big part of Daoism, the third of those Three Teachings of China. Daoism, sometimes called Taoism, gets its name from The Dao, which literally means “The Way.”
08:57:You can think of the Dao as the mysterious source of all existence. It’s not a god—more like an impersonal cosmic power. Daoism’s core text, the Daodejing, is often credited to Laozi, a philosopher whose name means “Old Master,” thought to have lived around the same time as Confucius.
08:16:During his life, Laozi was said to be a mortal. But after his death, he was eventually deified and worshiped as a god known as Lord Lao. Now, it’s likely that Laozi wasn’t a real, in-the-flesh person, and that the Daodejing was actually written by many different authors.
09:32:But Laozi is remembered today as the legend behind it, both mortal and god. The opening lines of the Daodejing have been translated in many different ways. One version reads like this: “Nature can never be completely described, for such a description of nature would have to duplicate Nature.
09:49:No name can fully express what it represents.” Another translation I really like is “The Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao.” Like there's not even an effort to translate Dao because it's just too complicated a word to translate. You can only know it through context.
09:06:But in either case, those first few lines really drive home the point that the Dao is kinda unknowable. And you might be thinking, why read a book if you’re telling me I won’t understand it? I mean, fair point I guess, but tell that to Faulker.
09:17:Also, the more you read it, the more you understand it. What the Daodejing offers is ways of living in harmony with the Dao and all its grand unknowableness, a harmony that’s believed to not just improve but also prolong your life.
10:32:So actually, maybe “live long, die never, read books” is a good motto? Practices called yangsheng are special techniques for quote, “nourishing life,” that help people connect with the Dao. These can include specific ways of breathing, moving,
10:47:and meditating that improve the flow of qi, or vital energy, coursing through the body. Like, there’s qigong, which involves gentle, coordinated movements that you might’ve seen people practice in the park. But there’s more to Daoism than trying to connect with the universe.
10:01:Making communal offerings to gods, often led by priests at temples, is one of the most important Daoist rituals; it's a way of renewing your connection to the Dao. And during Grand Offerings—which can last weeks and span whole villages or cities—practitioners sing, dance, and lead parades through
10:19:the streets while leaving offerings of fruit, candles, flowers, and wine. They even invite the ghosts of dead family members to join in. So, making offerings, going to temples…this all feels kind of “religious,” right? And yet, most people participating in these Daoist practices wouldn’t
11:35:identify as “religious”— they probably wouldn’t even call themselves “Daoist.” Because, again, that’s a label typically used for priests and nuns who’ve hitched themselves to the Daoist tradition for life. So what do we call these traditions then?
11:49:Well, when Chinese people burn incense, believe in deities, or lay out offerings for ghosts, many scholars would say they are participating in Chinese popular religion, a broad term for beliefs and practices that exist in the general population.
11:04:This term includes practices indigenous to China that have been passed down for generations, practices that have been blended into those traditions, and ones that may or may not be seen as “officially” religious, like venerating ancestors in home shrines.
11:18:Hundreds of millions of Chinese people engage in some aspect of Chinese popular religion, though I’d bet none of them would say “I’m a popular religionist.” Doesn’t quite roll off the tongue. It’s another reminder that there’s a difference between the
12:33:academic understanding or classification of religion and the lived experience of religion. Because, as the Daodejing reminds us, no name can fully express what the Dao represents. As for the Ghost Festival, it’s fruitless to try to pin it to any one tradition.
12:49:Yes, there are hints of Confucianism in its devotion to family – dead or alive. And Buddhism and Daoism are definitely in the box, too. But if you asked the people joining in on the festival how they identify, very few would call themselves Confucian, Buddhist, or Daoist.
12:05:The influence of those traditions in Chinese culture is pulsing and present. But tethering yourself to any one of them is not the point. It’s not a contradiction to be connected to all three but committed to none. Next episode, we’re talking about atheism:
12:21:what does religion look like for people who don’t believe in a god? That’ll be fun and not at all contentious. I’ll see you then. Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Religions which was filmed at our studio in Indianapolis, Indiana, and made with the help of all these nice people.
13:35:If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone, forever, you can join our community on Patreon.
Watch Now
