Eye to eye

This photo ends our visit to Bangka Qingshan Temple (艋舺青山宮) and the rituals of Ghost Month. It shows a mask for the traditional Lion Dance, another Chinese tradition usually performed during Chinese New Year and a story for another time.

I liked to see the masks being set aside and honored like this. It both shows the mundaneness of religion, shamans and priests have to eat and pay their taxes too, and the utensils for their rituals and magic also need a place to be stored. At the same time, it felt like some of the magic was still stored in them. Like the items from a magicians suitcase that still secretly glow from the joy and wonder they provoked.

Ghost Month is still not over, mind you! So be mindful about what you do!

If you want, you can revisit these and other photos on my website. I also highly recommend A Broad And Ample road, a newsletter by two friends of mine who these weeks wrote a feature on the more scientific background of this week. (Both links below).

Enjoy your weekend. I'll share some side notes next week, together with some shorter and completely different stories.

Links:
- More photos, https://bensahlmueller.com/ghost-money-and-exorcism/
- Essay by Albert Wu and Michelle Kuo, https://ampleroad.substack.com/p/ghost-month-is-almost-here
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🌃 | #street #streetphotography #tradition #spirituality #temple #ghostmonth #spirits

The Ritual

Growing up with a Christian heritage, Taoism is sometimes hard to understand. For a layperson like me, it seem much more local, individual, even magical. It's hard to distinguish its folk religious roots - ancestor worship, spirit believes, and various rituals - from more "official" Taoist doctrines. Doing some research, it seems this distinction - if there even is any - is controversial even among scholars as well.

Thus, much of religious life are smaller rituals and believes that might even differ from family to family, temple to temple. Taoism has strong shamanistic roots. (The word "shaman" even has its root in Northern Asian Manchu language, while in Mandarin "Wu," 巫 is used). It is thus no surprise that the lady in this photo too were later described as shaman.

I still feel very grateful to be able and allowed (and photograph!) this ritual. The nice lady working at the temple described it as a cleansing ceremony. I followed a bunny trail on Taoist exorcism rituals when doing the research, but struggled to find a lot. Who are the spirits or gods dwelling in human bodies? Are they well-spirited (haha) or ill-meaning? Do they give us powers or stealing our Qi? I hope we will not find out personally!

(In the context of last week's post you might even suspect it's Hungry Ghosts taking a ride, but this photo was taken before Ghost Month so the doors to the underworld were still shut...).

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🌃 | #street #streetphotography #tradition #spirituality #temple #ghostmonth #spirits #taoism #ritual #exorcism #cleansing

Jiao Bei

Jiao Bei (筊杯) or "Moon Blocks" are small pieces of wood, about the size of a finger, shaped in a crescent shape. Jiao Bei are divination tools used to seek divine guidance in the form of a yes or no question. After purifying the blocks by circling them around incense three times, you ask a yes-no question and then toss the moon blocks on the floor. If one of them lands on its flat, the other on its round surface, the gods give a positive answer to your question. If they land in any other way the goods might be angry about your question, laugh about it, or don't understand your question. (But fear not, you are allowed to reframe your question and ask again.)

Ideally, you ask your question three times, the answer is then a best-out-of-three. I do have the feeling though that the important part of the process is to find the right question in the first place, and to ask it in a way that the gods properly understand...

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Joss paper

Ghost money or joss paper is square sized bamboo or rice paper you can buy in the temples itself or in specific shops around them. For me, its title "ghost money" originally created the wrong expectations. Ghost money (unlike "hell money"!) doesn't look like play money, but rather like precious letter paper. It is often decorated with stamps, seals, engraved designs, different colored paper pieces, or even images.

But like with many nice things, all this isn't just easy. For once, as the degrees of "copper," "silver," and "gold" joss money for ghosts, ancestors, and gods suggest, there is often a considerable amount of heavy metals in joss money. For this reason, both health and environmental activists advocate to use different offerings or even forgo the burning completely.

At the same time, joss paper is big business for temples. In 2014, joss paper worth $400 million was burned in Taiwan. As you need it to both keep away the hungry ghosts we talked about on Tuesday, and to make sure your ancestors never become hungry (see yesterday's post), this is maybe not surprising. On the other hand these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. Rumor often has it that not few temples are a good facade for money laundering, mafia activities, or Chinese spy rings...

Anyway, the nice lady in the picture is certainly on the good side of things. When visiting her shop after the rituals, she was happy to explain to us the most special and glorious variants of paper she is selling. If you feel you still have to make up for something with your grandparents, maybe she can help!

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Spirits

Hungry Ghosts are not the only spirits. There are also ancestors and gods, and different rituals are important to appease, honor, and communicate with them. It's not always an easy matter: Forgotten ancestors can become hungry ghosts (so honor your grandparents!), but hungry ghosts can marry and become part of the ancestry. (They can even marry humans! No worries, you are allowed to marry another human even if you married a ghost...)

While you try to appease hungry ghosts and hope they will scuffle on, ancestors and gods are usually not only honored but also welcome. Many Taiwanese homes have a small shrine where frequent offerings are made. The altars of gods in Taoist and Buddhist temples are so plenty its hard to keep an overview on the wide diversity of different gods. Still, many of the rituals mirror those for ghosts I wrote about yesterday: you offer food, burn incense - or "Ghost money," as in the picture here.

It is important to know what you are doing, though, as there are three different kinds of ghost money: copper (for hungry ghosts), silver (for ancestors), and gold (for gods). Of course, burning the wrong kind of money might irritate the spirits you try to build a good relationship with.

Offerings like these are not only a private, but also a professional matter. Getting on good terms with the various spirits is important for you business - here for instance for the owner of the food stand we visited last Saturday. As we will see tomorrow, this is especially true for the ghost money business itself...

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Hungry Ghosts

Today is Ghost Day, the day where the door to heaven and hell will open and ghosts will wander earth for another two weeks. (In two weeks, they will be guided back by the burning of water lanterns.) In Taoism and Buddhism, Ghost Day is celebrated through the Ghost Festival (中元節). Food offerings and incense burning should calm the "hungry ghosts."

Hungry ghosts are the "improperly dead" or "marginal dead" (according to anthropologist Robert Weller, via Albert Wu). They are the ghosts who died a brutal or tragic dead - the drowned, killed, starved, or forgotten. Different from ancestors, they do not have descendants who worship them, so they are destined to stay hungry, thirsty, and restless. They scuffle the streets, feeding off human attention.

Out of tradition, sympathy, and caution, people in Taiwan prepare offerings for the hungry ghosts. On small tables outside the houses or offices (you don't want ghosts inside!), you can see food offerings and burning incense, sometimes humble, sometimes exuberant. Luckily, the ghosts also feed off the essence of the food, so after they are gone, you can eat it yourself.

Another reason to call ourselves lucky is that hungry ghosts are asocial, so you usually don't have to deal with many of them at the same time. If you should meet any - and if you did not prepare an offering - make sure to appease them by calling him or her as "good brother" or "good sister."

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