See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/279372584

Modern Life and Traditional Death Tradition and Modernization of Funeral

Rites in Taiwan

Article · January 2014

CITATIONS READS

5 1,231

1 author:

Marco Lazzarotti
The International Consortium for Research in the Humanities "Fate, Freedom and Prognostication" at the University Erlangen-Nuremberg
14 PUBLICATIONS   7 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Telling Stories Makes the World. Place and Narration in a Taiwanese Catholic Village View project

The Ancestor's Rites in the Taiwanese Catholic Church View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Marco Lazzarotti on 30 June 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Fu Jen International Religious Studies Vol.8.1 (N. Summer 2014), 108-126

Modern Life and Traditional Death

Tradition and Modernization of Funeral Rites in Taiwan

Marco LAZZAROTTI *
PhD. Candidate Department of Ethnology
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität, Heidelberg

Traditionally in Taiwan death is not considerate the terminal moment of a person

life, but throughout specific rituals of passage, it is a way to get a different status,
the status of ancestors. Ancestors still live with their descendants, very often they
influence descends life in order to satisfy their needs, on the other hand they need
to be worshiped by their descendants. The rich rituals performed during funerals,
the ancestors’ worship ceremonies, as well as the festivity of the tomb sweeping
day can be considerate as a demonstration of these relationships between those
who are already dead and those who are still alive.
Nowadays the constant and rapid modernization/westernization of
Taiwanese society gets in contrast with these traditional concepts linked with
death. Ancestors are directly linked with a family, which ancestor should be
venerated by the children of those who are divorced? How can those who work
all day long, and even during the night, take daily care of their ancestors’ tablets
as prescribed by the tradition? How it is possible to combine the popular belief
that one of the souls will follow the body inside the grave with the new law made
by Taipei City government that, due to the lack of space, requires the cremation
of the corpse? What is the answer of the society and of the traditional cultural
system to these questions?
This article will argue that these problems are not felt and resolved as
social problems, but uniquely as personal problems that need personal solutions.
In this way this more and more modern society still preserves its old cultural
environment. In this way this article will try to challenge the functionalist
interpretation that many scholars did talking about Chinese Folk Religion.
Keywords: Ancestors, cult of the ancestors, cultural style, modernity, tradition

*For comments or suggestions, see www.marcolazzarotti.altervista.org

 Modern Life and Traditional Death 109

Introduction: The taboo of death

Death is one of the bigger—if not the biggest—taboos in Taiwan
as well as in all Chinese and Asian cultures. Just giving a concrete
example, the number four which in Mandarin Chinese is pronounced sì 四,
has the same sound as the word ‘death’ (sǐ 死), therefore it is quite
common that buildings, and consequentially elevators do not have a fourth
floor. The sequence of numbers skips the ‘dangerous’ number letting
people go directly from third to the fifth floor, or—as an alternative—to
floor ‘F’—the initial of the English word ‘four’. When I was teaching
Italian in one Taiwanese university, I noted that none of the students—
who were allowed to choose an Italian name—chose names such as
Alessandra, Alessia or Massimo. When I asked why, they told me that a
name with the sound ‘si’ it is not considered a good name for Chinese
people.
There are lots of taboos linked with the concept of death or, at
least, with something linked to death. The first time I went to a Taiwanese
restaurant the waiter kindly advised me that I could not insert the
chopsticks vertically in my bowl of white rice. Later I discovered that to
insert the chopsticks in vertical way in a bowl full of white rice, is the first
thing that people should do after the death of a person.
In the same way my Chinese teacher told me several times that I
could not use a red pen to write down my name. This also came from the
custom of writing the name of a deceased person in red characters on a
white envelopment during the funeral. If, at first, I considered these
comments as strange or meaningless, later I realized they were all customs,
practical activities, related to the funeral ceremony and, in general, with
the idea of death.
It is through the daily discovery, the meeting—though sometimes
it would be better to say the clash—with these practical activities that I
realized how many taboos are linked with the concept of death, and why
this concept is a cornerstone to understanding and analyzing Chinese
society.
In order to understand in deep this interesting phenomenon, it
seems to me necessary to introduce some basic concepts that are present
inside, and at the same time animate, the cosmology of the Han people.
110 Marco LAZZAROTTI

1. SOULS, SPIRITS, AND THEIR CLASSIFICATION

It is quite hard to make a presentation of Han cosmology in just a
few words. Therefore in order to offer a brief and, at the same time,
exhaustive view I will help myself with a concrete example for
comparison. I will compare part of Han cosmology with corresponding
points from the Christian tradition. I choose the Christian tradition as a
point of reference because, on one hand, I would like to underline how
many similar points, at a deeper level, contrast greatly with the Chinese
view. On the other hand, since I personally am a Christian, the points that
I am going to describe are ones that have struck me the most.

1.1 A brief comparison of two cosmologies

According to the Christian religion, every person has only one soul,
and this soul is in indissoluble way linked to the body. This is a very
important point in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, a point that has
been the subject of many discussions and councils throughout history. We
do not have the ability nor the time to analyze the history of this concept,
but it has been discussed through many centuries and councils in the
Church. The Catechism of the Catholic Church describes it in the
following way:
The human person, created in the image of God, is a being at once
corporeal and spiritual. The biblical account expresses this reality
in symbolic language when it affirms that “then the LORD God
formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils
the breath of life; and man became a living being.” (Gen 2: 7)
Man, whole and entire, is therefore willed by God.179
One of the most important beliefs—and I would say the foundation of
faith—for Christian people is that after death we will rise from the dead:
not only our souls, but also our bodies.
We firmly believe, and hence we hope that, just as Christ is truly
risen from the dead and lives for ever, so after death the righteous
will live for ever with the risen Christ and he will raise them up on
the last day. Our resurrection, like his own, will be the work of the
Most Holy Trinity:
“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you,
he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your

179
Catechism of the Catholic Church #1993.
 Modern Life and Traditional Death 111

mortal bodies also through his Spirit who dwells in you.” (Jn 6:
39-40).
The term ‘flesh’ refers to man in his state of weakness and
mortality. The ‘resurrection of the flesh’ (the literal formulation of
the Apostles’ Creed) means not only that the immortal soul will
live on after death, but that even our ‘mortal body’ will come to
life again.180
According to the Han view, on the contrary, every man has three
hún 魂 and seven pò 魄. I am perfectly aware that any kind of translation
cannot express the real meaning of hún and pò, but anyway, we can refer
to them as the three souls and seven spirits. This is not an easy concept, as
Yu Ying-Shih tries to explain. 181 Yu tells us that the concepts of hún and
pò are very old and deeply rooted in Chinese tradition: we can attest the
presence of these concepts probably before Buddhism arrived in China.
When a man dies his three hún move in three different directions:
one will end up in the tomb with the body; one will go into the tablet of
the ancestors, and the third will go to one of the many purgatories or hells
described by the Daoist texts. So, after death—although they clearly
maintain a kind of structural unit—the three hún can be separated. As for
the pò, we have to say that they are very sensitive, especially those of
children, so they can easily get scared or even taken away by ghosts or
evil spirits. For instance, traditionally when a baby urinated during the
night, the mother changed the diaper or the underwear, but she cannot
change the baby dress, because at night the pò move around the body of
the baby, and if they—or one of them—come back and do not recognize
the dress—and consequentially the baby—it may keep going around and,
thus, be lost from the baby forever. In this way many of the physical or
mental diseases which afflict children and the young are explained. In the
same way, people believe that they have to clean the face of the child
before he or she sleeps, because in this way the pò can easily recognize
the baby and consequentially return to the baby’s body. And it is because
of the strong mobility of these pò that many Taiwanese mothers will not
let their baby remain outside at sunset, a time when, as in many other
cultures, the inhabitants of the underworld begin to come out. For the
same reason little babies and pregnant women are forbidden from taking
part in funeral ceremonies. During this time, in fact, it is believed that

180
Catechism of the Catholic Church # 1993.
181
Yu Ying-Shih, “Zhongguo gudai sihou shijieguande yanbian.”
112 Marco LAZZAROTTI

there is a high presence of ghosts, attracted by the large quantity of food

offered for the deceased person.

1.2 The pantheon of folk religion as a functional metaphor of society

Many scholars, who have analyzed Taiwanese culture, agree that
the life of a person does not end at the moment of the death, but
throughout specific rituals of passage and especially upon some particular
conditions, it continues in a different way. 182 Anthropologists generally
divide what a person can become after death into three main categories:
deities shén 神, ancestors zǔxiān 祖先 and ghosts guǐ 鬼. These three
categories of supernatural beings can be described briefly as follows.183
Firstly, the dead who are worshiped by their own descendants are
considered to be ancestors. Secondly, those who lack descendants to
worship them will become ghosts. Finally, the dead worshiped by a
multitude of people, not only by their own families, are considered as
gods.
Clearly this division suffers deeply from a functionalist
interpretation of the supernatural world that animates Chinese folk
religion. It is a fact that the thesis that Chinese popular religion is in some
ways linked to the power structure of the empire has been expressed by
many anthropologists. A good example is found in the “Domestic and
Communal Worship in Taiwan” by Stephan Feuchtwang, in which the
author describes the religious system reproduced in the annual round of
Mountainstreet’s (nowadays Shiding 石頂 in New Taipei City) domestic
and communal ritual, and seeks to extract a selective definition of society
that the system implies. 184
In order to do this, Feuchtwang analyzes the three major categories
of spiritual beings—ghosts, gods and ancestors—which, according to him,
are arranged in pairs of cross-cutting opposition, and puts these categories
into the domestic/communal contrast as an inside-outside concept. By
placing all of these in a calendrical time of contrast and continuity, he was

182
Watson, J. L., “The Structure of Chinese Funerary Rites,” in Death Ritual in
Late Imperial and Modern China, 4.
183
Feuchtwang, S., “Domestic and Communal Worship in Taiwan,” in Wolf, A.
(ed.), Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, 105-130; Jordan, D. K.. Gods,
Ghosts, and Ancestors: Folk religion in a Taiwanese village; Lazzarotti, M., The
Ancestors’ Rites in the Taiwanese Catholic Church; Wolf, A., “Gods, Ghosts, and
Ancestors,” in Wolf (ed.), Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society 131-182.
184
Feuchtwang, “Domestic and Communal Worship in Taiwan,” 105-130.
 Modern Life and Traditional Death 113

able to assert that we find in the domestic and communal rituals of

Mountainstreet three orders: a paradigmatic order of spatial contrast, a
syntagmatic order of sequence and expense, and an order of inclusion. The
first distinguishes the spiritual beings into several classes; the second
establishes order and continuity between the classes; while the third
arranges the classes as parts of even more inclusive categories.185
His conclusion is that Chinese religion was a recreation of a
metaphor, where gods are a metaphor for the system of authority, the state.
The metaphor is one of gods as rulers and judges and the mass of ghosts
(guǐ) as beggars and supplicants being judged and saved by the gods. Yet
ghosts are also a broken extension of the living into this domain. And
though gods are neither ghosts nor ancestors, they and ancestors are
placed in the same category (shén 神) and worshipped as insiders, in
contrast with guǐ, who are worshiped as outsiders. Where a god is to a
locality like an imperial bureaucrat, a stranger with authority, and
ancestors are natives of the locality, guǐ are unwelcome strangers and
outcast natives.186
This particular vision of Chinese religion as one ‘imperial
metaphor’ was also supported by others eminent anthropologist, like
Weller and Ahern. 187 In particular, Ahern defines popular religion as a
game. By playing this game Taiwanese people learn their relations in
society.
According to Arthur Wolf in his famous piece “Gods, Ghosts, and
Ancestors,” from the point of view of the Taiwanese common people, the
character of the relationships that link the gods in the pantheon of popular
religion is essentially bureaucratic.188 For him “the Chinese supernatural
world through the eyes of the peasant is a detailed image of Chinese
officialdom”. 189 These gods share a clear hierarchy, that represents the
Chinese imperial structure. As an example Wolf, according to his
fieldwork in Taiwan, considers Tudigong (土地公, one of the divinities in
the pantheon of popular religion) as a policeman for a community, with
the secondary role of spying on the affairs of his human charges, keeping
a record of their activities and reporting regularly to his superiors.190 In

185
Feuchtwang, “Domestic and Communal Worship in Taiwan,” 111.
186
Feuchtwang, “Domestic and Communal Worship in Taiwan,” 111-2.
187
Weller, R., Unities and Diversities in Chinese Religion; Ahern, E. M., Chinese
Ritual and Politics.
188
Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors,” 133.
189
Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors,” 145.
190
Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors,” 134.
114 Marco LAZZAROTTI

this way people in Taiwan consider Tudigong as the lowest-ranking

member of a supernatural bureaucracy, where Yuhuangdadi 玉皇大帝
(Pearly Emperor and Supreme Ruler), the mightiest god in the peasant's
pantheon, is but a reflection of the human emperor.191
In his interesting conclusion Wolf links Chinese popular religion
with the imperial power in a very original way because he presents
Christianity as a completely different symbolic system with respect to
Chinese local religions. This may explain why, as we soon will see,
Christian religions are clearly held by the Chinese, and Taiwanese, as
religions of foreigners.
In sum, what we see in looking at the Chinese supernatural world
through the eyes of the peasant is a detailed image of Chinese officialdom.
This image allows us to assess the significance of the imperial
bureaucracy from a new perspective. Historians and political scientists
often emphasize the failure of most Chinese governments to effectively
extend their authority to the local level. Certainly many governments had
difficulty collecting taxes, and some allowed this function and others to
fall into the hands of opportunistic local leaders. Judged in terms of its
administrative arrangements, the Chinese imperial government looks
impotent. Assessed in terms of its long-range impact on the people, it
appears to have been one of the most potent governments ever known, for
it created a religion in its own image. Its firm grip on the popular
imagination may be one reason the imperial government survived so long
despite its many failings. Perhaps this is also the reason China’s
revolutionaries have so often organized their movements in terms of the
concepts and symbols of such foreign faiths as Buddhism and Christianity.
The native gods were so much a part of the establishment that they could
not be turned against it.192
Undoubtedly reading the above mentioned works, it seems clear
that this vision of Chinese folk religion as a metaphor of political power
and of the social order, has deeply influenced the work of scholars who
have approached the topic.
The relationships between supernatural beings and those who are
still living are, for most Taiwanese people, physical and direct. The dead
and the living—man and spirits—share the same time and the same living
space and, maybe most importantly, they also share the same bodily

191
Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors,” 142.
192
Wolf, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors,” 145.
 Modern Life and Traditional Death 115

preoccupations or needs. As Francis Hsu noted in Under the Ancestors’

Shadow:
The attitude of the living toward the dead and that of the living are
functionally one. The relation of the living with the dead is
essentially modeled upon that of the living with the living. By
glorifying the dead, it both idealized and sets the standard and
pattern for kinship relationship.193
There is a Chinese proverb which says, “Give the same service to
the dead as to the living; to the absent as to the present” (Shì sǐ rú shì
shēng 事死如事生). This implies an equality of relationship between the
dead and the living, and, even more importantly, links these two
categories of people together. In some ways, the presence of ancestor
worship gave parents an additional incentive to have sons to perform the
rites and thus secure for their parents and grandparents eternal life. “There
are three things which are unfilial,” says Mencius, “and to have no
posterity is the greatest of them”.194 In this way, we can say that the dead,
the living and their successors share the same life-time and the same
existential world.
Because the complexity of relationship between these categories,
the interaction between the living and the dead (whether ancestors, ghosts
or divinities), are very strong and real for Taiwanese people. The above
mentioned situation involves many concrete actions and rituals that people
have to perform at the grave—such as on the tomb-sweeping festival or at
a burial, placing the body in the grave in the right direction—at home—
taking care of the ancestral tablets, performing particular rituals on the
occasion of a birthday or anniversary of the death of some ancestor—at
the ancestral hall or at the temple. We will return again to these rituals.
What we would like to stress now, it is that the various ceremonies
connected with death and burial, have, as their underlying motive, the
prevailing reverence for ancestors, which forms the basis of the Chinese
system of ethics.195

193
Hsu, F., Under the Ancestors' Shadow, 245.
194
Legge, J. (tr.), The Works of Mencius: wú xiào yǒu sān wú hòu wèi dà 無孝有
三無後爲大.
195
Williams, C.A.S., Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives. 108.
116 Marco LAZZAROTTI

2. BETWEEN MODERNITY AND TRADITION

The recent history of Taiwan could be read as a continuous process
of development in which we can recognize democratic, political and
economic development. After a nationalistic period under martial law and
government by the Nationalist Party (KMT), Taiwan experienced its first
direct presidential elections in 1996. Four years lather the victory of Chen
Shui-bian 陳水扁 and the opposition party, the Democratic Progressive
Party (DPP) put an end to the role of the KMT, at least till 2008, when Ma
Ying-jeou, the current President of the Republic of China and the
Chairman of the KMT, won the presidential elections both that year and
again in 2012. Economically, thanks to post-war economic assistance
from the USA, Taiwan was able to became one of the Four Tigers of Asia,
developing a rich industry especially in the field of information
technology. These developments increased social stability and the quality
of life. But these developments also challenged traditional Taiwanese
society, which up until that time was a rural society. As Tosolini explains:
It seems that Taiwan will cover, over two or three generations, the
experiences that in Europe needed four or five centuries to
elaborate during the so called Modern Age. On the other hand,
after a period of feudalism and on the basis of the exponential
increase in scientific and technological resources, the human
possibilities of dominion over reality and self-fulfillment have
been rediscovered. On the other hand, the typical phenomena of
post-modern Western societies are already widespread: deviant
behaviour, destruction of the basic human relational experiences
such as the family, solitude, incommunicability, loss of meaning.
The young, especially, feel that they no longer belong to a specific
culture.196
The result of this situation is a continual tension between new models—
usually coming from the West—and traditional patterns of life. In other
words there is a kind of cohabitation of contemporary and post-modern
life style with the most traditional systems of beliefs and taboos. On one
hand Taiwanese society is changing very fast, adopting a Western—often
recycled as a Japanese—model of life. Concretely speaking we can see
radical changes introduced by law. Employed women may now stay at
home for three months after giving birth without losing their job.
Architectural styles—especially those intended for residential use—
literary models, the system of education are all subject to change. These

196
Tosolini, F., “Alterity in the Present Taiwan,” 40-41.
 Modern Life and Traditional Death 117

new models are usually quickly accepted by most Taiwanese. On the other
hand, because of the above mentioned cohabitation of man and spirits,
there is a deep rooted traditional way to approach particular critical
moments in life (like death and funerals, but also misfortunes) as well as
the everyday problems that life usually brings. Many people tend to
follow old traditions in order to resolve their problems. I would like to
start my discussion of rituals of death from this evident and interesting
dichotomy, in order to present how traditional elements changed and
integrate the more and more numerous changes imposed by a modern—or
post-modern—style of life.
In order to better understand and explain these concepts, it will be
very useful to remember that, according to Chinese culture, as expressed
by Mencius: “the root of the empire is in the State. The root of the State is
in the family. The root of the family is in the individual”.197 In other words,
according to this traditional point of view, if the individual was properly
brought up, if he was taught to respect authority within his family, he
would also respect it outside the family and be an obedient subject of the
empire. The family, a primary social unit of any social organization, was
consciously cultivated in China perhaps more than in any other country in
the world and achieved greater importance. High respect for family and
paternal authority became a specific feature of Chinese civilization. Filial
piety was proclaimed as “the root of all virtue”.198 Traditionally one of the
main functions of the family was the observance of ancestor worship. As
previously shown, this kind of ritual implies that the ancestors are not
entirely dead, that their souls continue to live and watch over the life of
their descendants. Thus the rites are based on the idea that those who
perform them help both living and dead. An ancestor living in the beyond
is presumed to be endowed with supernatural power which he may use to
help his descendants. He is believed to be better off when he is kept alive
in the beyond through worship than when his existence ceases altogether,
or when he wanders through the world as a ghost, as happens with those
who have no descendants.199
As we can see, the Chinese idea of ancestors is deeply linked with
the concept of continuity between generations inside the same family.
These rituals are the way by which a family keeps its unity over time. One

197
Legge, The Works of Mencius: tiānxià zhī běn zài guó, guó zhī běn zàijiā, jiā
zhī běn zài shēn 天下之本在國，國之本在家，家之本在身..
198
Lang, Chinese Family and Society, 9.
199
Lang, Chinese Family and Society, 18-19.
118 Marco LAZZAROTTI

of the problems brought by the process of modernization/westernization is

that:
The so-called Western models are centered on physical life and
sensation, which are potentially disruptive to positive
interpersonal relationships. These models conquer minds and
hearts in the most delicate moments of the transmission of a
tradition. They succeed in separating generations from each other,
even at short distances in time, in such a way that the individuals
find themselves at the mercy of anonymous forces, which decide
their behavior, both inner and external, without any possibility of
counteraction.200
The traditional patterns that unite a family are put under pressure and
often destroyed by the influence of these anonymous forces, which we
may call ‘cultural styles’. I borrow the term cultural style from the
anthropologist James Ferguson. He uses this term to refer to practices that
signify differences between social categories. Cultural styles in this usage
do not pick out total modes of behavior but rather poles of social
signification. 201 More specifically Ferguson uses the term ‘style’
specifically to emphasize the accomplished, performative nature of such
cultural practices. The importance of this lies in the fact that:
Bringing off the performance involves not only abstract know-
how but also a certain “ease,” which, as Bourdieu has shown, is
related not only to knowledge but to the mode of acquisition of
that knowledge over time. Thus it is not simply a matter of
choosing a style to fit the occasion, for the availability of such
choices depends on internalized capabilities of performative
competence and ease that must be achieved, not simply adopted.
Cultural style thus implies a capability to deploy signs in a way
that positions the actor in relation to social categories. It is a form
of signifying practice—a form of practical signifying activity.202
I think that this dichotomic approach could fit very well in a discussion of
modernity and tradition in the Taiwanese context. Especially because it
seems to me that, when we talk about rituals of Chinese folk religion in
Taiwan, very often we realize that the educational aspect, the passage of
these rituals from one generation to another, is related to a performance

200
Tosolini, “Alterity in the Present Taiwan,” 41.
201
Ferguson, J., Expectations of Modernity, 95.
202
Ferguson, J., Expectations of Modernity, 96.
 Modern Life and Traditional Death 119

rather than to doctrine. As underlined by Standaert, Chinese religion is

based on orthopraxis instead of orthodoxy.203
I have already explained how the death rituals and other world
concepts are linked to the family and to the cultural universe of the family.
It is not, then, inappropriate to ask how these death rituals survive in a
culturally changing environment. In the next section I will describe how
the traditional elements associated with death—or at least with the world
beyond—enter in conflict with modernity, but are, nonetheless, changing
and adapting themselves to massive social changes.

3. ADAPTING TRADITION AND MODERNITY

Before starting to present some of the examples linked with this
article, I would like to explain that I collected this information through my
personal fieldwork that I carried out in Taipei and—mainly—in Yunlin
County 雲林縣 in central Taiwan. These experiences are the result of
many conversations, interviews and confidences that I collected during
my stay in Taiwan. I left Taiwan at the end of 2011. Therefore the
experiences that I am going to write down will reflect the social and
cultural situation of that time.
In Taiwan, death is not considered as the end of a person’s life. It
is believed that the spirit of the ancestors will survive, exerting a
beneficial influence in the form of a tablet placed on the ancestral altar in
the family room of the house, traditionally called the zhèngtīng 正廳.
Since one of the souls of the ancestor lives inside this table, it is easy to
understand why this tablet requires so much attention.
Traditionally, the ancestor tablet is first made of paper and given
to the son of the deceased by the Daoist Master at the end of the funerary
rituals. After one year the paper tablet is replaced by one made of wood,
which the family must put on their ancestral altar. According to the
tradition, during the time when the ancestor is represented by a paper
tablet, the descendants have to take care of him, offering incense and food
every day.
The problem is that, especially in Taipei, the capital of Taiwan—
where almost half of the Taiwanese population lives—people are too busy
because of their jobs or myriads of other activities and things to do. It is

203
Standaert, N., Methodology in view of contact between cultures: the China
case in the 17th century.
120 Marco LAZZAROTTI

clear that family life is influenced by the hectic pace of life. Very often
family members do not even come together for dinner, sometimes not
even meeting during the day. If a family follows these new patterns,
family life is seriously compromised. It is hard to maintain ancient
traditions. On the other hand, if the ancestor does not eat, he will become
a hungry ghost who will cause misfortune and trouble to the family. In
order to solve this problem, there are some places in Taipei where people
can put their paper ancestral tablets and where other persons will provide
offering of incense and food, as in an old people’s home with the only
exception that the residents are souls of the deceased. It seems that the
theory that describes the supernatural world as a metaphor of the society is
strongly present here. On the other hand it is difficult to understand which
realm (supernatural or social) most influences the other. As I see it
people’s approach to these different practices, whether supernatural or
social, is very often the same.
Since one of the souls will remain in the grave with the body, the
disposition of the corpse is of great importance, as the exact place where it
will be located will influence the fate of the descendants. Every person has
their own personal direction which is assigned at the moment of birth
through elaborate geomantic calculations usually made by a geomancer
(fēngshuǐ shī 風水師) or some other shaman.204 These persons are expert
in the art of adapting the abodes of the living and the graves of the dead so
as to co-operate and harmonize with the local currents of the cosmic
breath, the yin and yang. By means of talismans and charms the
unpropitious character of any particular topography may be satisfactorily
overcome.205
This implies that if a person’s orientation is toward the south, it
will be better for him, for his life, business and so on, to look for a house
with the main entrance directed toward the south. This will bring
prosperity and good luck to him and to his family. The same thing is true
for those who already dead. Therefore it is very important that every
corpse is buried according to the specific direction for that person. The
main reason for this is that the dead are in particular affected by, and able
to use, the cosmic currents for the benefit of the living, so that it is in the

204
Geomancy, or fengshui 風水 (wind and water) is the term used to define the
geomantic system by which the orientation of houses, cities and graves is
determined, and the good and bad luck of families and communities is fixed.
Fengshui is based on the belief that climatic changes are produced by the moral
conduct of the people through the agency of celestial bodies.
205
Williams, Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives, 178-179.
 Modern Life and Traditional Death 121

interest of each family to secure and preserve the most auspicious

environment for the grave.206
If the place choosen by the descendants is inappropriate or not well
oriented, the ancestor will manifest his disappointment showing himself in
the descendants’ dreams or by procuring various kind of trouble for his
descendants: illness, misfortune and so on. Usually after a dream or a long
and continuous period of illness or misfortune, a man asks his ancestors
and/or the shaman the reason for the unusual and unlucky situation. The
answer could be that an ancestor in the grave does not feel comfortable, or
that the orientation of the grave is incorrect and so on. At this point it is
sometimes necessary to open the grave and to put the corpse in the right
direction, or to provide for a second burial, in which the bones of the
defunct are collected, put inside a big jar—of course following a particular
disposition the skeleton should ‘sit’ inside the jar—and put into a charnel
tower (líng gǔ tǎ 靈骨塔), usually built inside the cemetery. Of course the
position and the orientation of the urn are important as well as the
orientation of the corpse, therefore the price of the rent of a place in the
charnel tower varies according to the floor and orientation people want.
Traditionally in Taiwan there were no places specifically used as
cemeteries. The dead were buried in one of the family’s fields, because in
this way the ancestor would be able to take care of the field and the
prosperity of the family. Usually a field was chosen among those
belonging to the extended family group (families sharing the same
surname and same ancestors) following geomantic calculations and
designated as a cemetery.207 The selection of a family grave is, in fact,
supposed to be a matter of great importance for the prosperity of the
family. 208 As may be easily inferred, since every grave must follow its
own particular orientation, the graveyard was neither orderly nor
harmonious.
This situation started to change with the Japanese government
(1895-1945) banning burials close to inhabited zones, but it was under the
jurisdiction of the Republic of China (1945- ) that the government
provided public cemeteries and a common law regarding the way to bury
a corpse. Modern cemeteries are generally formed of rows of tombs
206
Williams, Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives, 179.
207
I will not explain the rich terminology used by scholars to describe the
Chinese family. For those interested please refer to the following books:
Freedman, M., Family and Kinship in Chinese Society and Jordan, Gods, Ghosts,
& Ancestors.
208
Williams, Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives, 110.
122 Marco LAZZAROTTI

ordered in a regular way. The interesting thing is seeing how people react
to these new rules, which, by preventing them from freely choosing the
orientation of the grave, are in fact contrary to tradition. Inside the pre-
ordered and aligned graves, the coffin follows the indication of the
geomancy master. There are graves oriented east with coffins inside
oriented west. In this way the new rules and the ancient tradition are
satisfied at the same time.
Another interesting phenomenon is linked with the law made by
the Taipei City government that, due to a lack of space, requires the
cremation of the corpse. Clearly this regulation contrasts with tradition,
but as we will see in Taiwan it is always possible to find a way out. I spent
three years in a township in the Taiwanese countryside. At that time the
neighbouring township built a very large cemetery. This made me a little
perplexed, because the statistics of the township council showed a
constant decrease of the population. Therefore, rationally, there were no
reasons for such a big, and public, cemetery. After I asked some questions
about it, I realized that the cemetery was built not only for the inhabitants
of that township, but especially for the people of Taipei who wanted to
‘escape’ the above mentioned law. Clearly the price was not cheap, and
the most recurrent comment I heard about this was “our neighbours are
making a lot of money with this idea!”
The divorce rate in Taiwan is the highest among the Asian
countries and has kept rising dramatically since the 1970s according to the
ROC Ministry of the Interior in 2005. This reflects a crisis in the
traditional family, which relied on the superior position occupied by men
compared to women. Marriages in Taiwan are responding to modernizing
forces by undermining traditional values and practices based on gender
and age differentials of the patriarchal family, and are becoming more like
families in the West.209 Traditionally after the separation of the parents the
children were left with the father, but nowadays, since children can take
their mother’s surname, it is the mother who usually accepts responsibility
to take care for her children.
This situation leads to a strong and deep contrast with many
aspects of Taiwanese folk religion as well with the popular Taiwanese
(and I would say Chinese) culture that is, the Confucian ideology which is
essentially patrilineal and chauvinist. Very often the children of a couple
are considered as the ‘private propriety’ of the husband or parents. A little

Shen Chiung-Tao, “Factors in the Marital Relationship in a Changing Society.

209

A Taiwan Case Study.” International Social Work 48(3): 325–340.

 Modern Life and Traditional Death 123

child, especially a male child, is considered not as belonging to its parents

but to its grandparents.
These new laws are generally accepted as a sign of cultural
modernity and open-mindedness, but the hard process of integration of
these modern concepts in a traditional cultural context is often evident and
sometimes gives rise to a clash of values.
During my fieldwork I met several persons who lived in this
situation. One of the most typical cases was that of a woman divorced by
her husband who was charged by the judge to take care of their son. She
clearly resented this and, to snub her husband and his family, declared her
intention to change the child’s surname to her own. According to what her
acquaintances said to me, her son suddenly fell ill owing to opposition
from the ancestors—those of his father, of course—to the decision to
change the boy’s surname, because a son must pray and take care of his
patrilineal ancestors. I do not know whether the woman obtained what she
was asking for, but I believe that she changed her mind after the ancestors
had given their advice.

Conclusion: Modern life, traditional death

In this article, I have given some concrete examples of how the
constant and rapid modernization/westernization of Taiwanese society
leads to conflict with traditional concepts linked to death. The changing
pattern of the Chinese family in Taiwan deeply influences traditional
cultural and social structures. New moral values and other kinds of
personal ambition overlap and change relationships within families very
quickly. In this continuous and rapid process, relations between the living
and the dead are affected, since the latter still live with their descendants.
What I would like to point out by these examples is that the
relationships between the living and the dead are felt and recognized as a
problem only when a person meets a critical situation, such as death,
rituals, misfortune or illness. In other words only when these, sometimes
intrusive, presences start to be a problem are the problems felt in a
personal way, since the familiar dimension of these relationships is
affected.
If we limit our field only to death rituals, we can see that the
answer of Taiwanese people to the process of modernization/
westernization is essentially personal. There are no efforts made to
provide a social or common answer to the new rules about the position
124 Marco LAZZAROTTI

and arrangement of cemeteries. Answers to the changes and

transformations are not furnished by society as a whole, but by each
person, and only at the moment when he will meet his specific problems
linked to his ancestors or with—if in Taiwan we can use this expression—
the other world. While many aspects of life are changing and people look
to western models, it seems that individuals can only find a solution for
problems linked to death from within tradition.
As stated by Bloch, generally speaking funerals and other rituals
linked with death are based on the type of three-stage argument which
characterizes ideology: 1) they take over certain pre-cultural biological
and psychological phenomena in order to represent them, in this case
death, sorrow, pollution; 2) this representation then incorporates these
phenomena so that they appear homogeneous with legitimate authority,
the main manifestation of which is fertility; 3) authority is verified by
appearing natural because on the one hand it incorporates the evident
processes of biology and on the other it corresponds to deeply felt
emotions.210 Ideology feeds on the horror of death by first emphasizing it
then replacing it by itself.
Reading the question in this way, we can understand why Umberto
Eco says, “it seems that people believe only what they already know”.211
Funerals and concepts linked to death, which represents a very special
moment in a person’s life, are a way to reinforce the ideological power
represented by all the old traditions and beliefs. When people meet these
extremely critical moments in their life, they can only turn to traditional
ways to address them. This means that while society—with its laws,
educational systems and so on—is affected by deep and dramatic changes,
the basic cultural elements change only in their external aspects. Therefore
they continue to influence and to direct the life of many people and their
families. In this way a society which is becoming increasingly modern
still preserves its old cultural environment.
In conclusion we can say that the dichotomy between the cultural
framework of meaning (embodied in what we call the religious cosmology)
and the patterning of social interaction, can help us to overcome the
metaphor often used by anthropologists and other scholars, because
Static functionalism, of either the sociological or social
psychological sort, is unable to isolate this kind of incongruity

210
Bloch, M., “Death, Women and Power,” in Bloch & Parry (eds.), Death and
the Regeneration of Life, 227.
211
Eco, U., Il Cimitero di Praga.
 Modern Life and Traditional Death 125

because it fails to discriminate between logico-meaningful

integration and causal-functional integration; because it fails to
realize that cultural structure and social structure are not mere
reflexes of one another but independent, yet interdependent,
variables212.
There is strong interdependency between modern life and the traditional
way of dealing with the concept of death in Taiwan, but in the light of the
examples that I gave, modernity and tradition do not seem to be linked in
a functional way. The relationships between them are much more
reciprocal and dialogical than studies on Chinese folk religion have
indicated so far.

Bibliography
Catechism of the Catholic Church, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Citta del Vaticano,
1993 Fully available on http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/P1B.HTM
(consulted 28 January 2014).
Republic of China: Ministry of the Interior
http://www.moi.gov.tw/stat/index.aspx
Bloch, Maurice & Parry, Jonathan (eds.), Death and the Regeneration of Life,
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Bloch, Maurice, “Death, Women and Power,” in Bloch & Parry (eds.), Death and
the Regeneration of Life, 211-231.
Eco, Umberto, Il Cimitero di Praga. Milano: Bompiani, 2010.
Feuchtwang, Stephan, “Domestic and Communal Worship in Taiwan,” in
Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, 105-130.
Ferguson, James, Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life
on the Zambian Copperbelt, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.
Freedman, Maurice, Family and Kinship in Chinese Society, Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1970.
Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretation of Cultures, New York: Basic Books, 1973.
Geertz, Clifford, “Ritual and Social Change: a Javanese Example”, in Geertz, The
Interpretation of Cultures, 142-169.
Hsu, Francis, Under the Ancestors' Shadow: Kinship, Personality, and Social
Mobility in China, New York: Doubleday, 1971.

212
Geertz, C., “Ritual and Social Change: a Javanese Example,” 169.
 126 Marco LAZZAROTTI

Jordan, David K, Gods, Ghosts, & Ancestors: Folk religion in a Taiwanese

village, San Diego CA: Department of Anthropology, UCSD, 3rd ed. 1999
(Published as a WWW document. URL: http://anthro.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan.)
Lazzarotti, Marco, The Ancestors’ Rites in the Taiwanese Catholic Church. MA
Thesis, National Taiwan University, 2008. Fully available on
www.marcolazzarotti.altervista.org.
Legge, James, The Works of Mencius, New York: Dover Publication, 1970. Fully
available on: http://www.sacred-texts.com/cfu/menc/.
Shen Chiung-Tao, April, “Factors in the Marital Relationship in a Changing
Society. A Taiwan Case Study”. International Social Work 48.3 (2005):
325–340.
Standaert, Nicholas, “Methodology in view of contact between cultures: the
China case in the 17th century,” CSRCS occasional paper, 11. Hong Kong:
Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2002.
Targa, Sergio, Tosolini, Fabrizio & Tosolini, Taiziano (eds.), Culture and Alterity,
CSA Asian Study Centre, Isumi Sano, Osaka, 2004.
Tosolini, Fabrizio, “Alterity in the Present Taiwan”, in Culture and Alterity, 40-
41.
Watson, James L. & Rawsky, Evelin S. (eds.), Death Ritual in Late Imperial and
Modern China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
Watson, James L., “The Structure of Chinese Funerary Rites,” in Death Ritual in
Late Imperial and Modern China, 3-19.
Williams, C.A.S., Outlines of Chinese Symbolism and Art Motives, New York:
Dover Publications, 1976.
Wolf, Arthur (ed.), Religion and Ritual in Chinese Society, Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 1974.
Wolf, Arthur, “Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors”, in Religion and Ritual in Chinese
Society, 131-182.
Yu Ying-Shih 余英時 (ed.), Zhongguo sixiang chuantongde xiandai quanshi 中
國思想傳統的現代詮釋 (A Modern Interpretation of Traditional Chinese
Thought), Taipei: Lian Jing, 1987.
Yu Ying-Shih 余英時, “Zhongguo gudai sihou shijieguande yanbian 中國古代
死後世界觀的演變 (The Evolution of the Ancient Chinese View of the
Afterlife),” in Yu Ying-Shih (ed.), Zhongguo sixiang chuantongde xiandai
quanshi, 81-89.

View publication stats