美国国家公共电台 NPR 'The Souls Of China' Documents Country's Dramatic Return To Religion

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

When the writer Ian Johnson made his first trip to China in the mid-1980s, he says religious life seemed to be dead. There were few worshippers left in a country that once had a million temples. Now he says the country is experiencing a dramatic return to religion with roughly a quarter of the country embracing Buddhism¹, Taoism, Christianity, Islam and other faiths. Johnson explores this resurgence² in a new book called, "The Souls Of China: The Return Of Religion After Mao." I asked him if I would see signs of religious life if I traveled through China today.

IAN JOHNSON: I think you would, especially if you got outside of Beijing. Beijing is where the government's control is the strongest. But when you go out to the countryside or if you go to temples on certain holy days, the number of people are incredibly large. You can see in temples, they have these stone tablets called steles. And if you look at the stele³, you can see the amount of money that people donate to these temples. It's amazing.

You can look at a temple and count up quickly a million U.S. dollars in donations. And you can also see churches being built and mosques⁴ being built depending on the part of the country that you go to.

SHAPIRO: Some of the people who practice these faiths are quick to tell you that what they are doing is culture. It's not religion. It's not politics. One guy says, as you write, culture - C-U-L-T-U-R-E. Why is this distinction so important to them?

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Well, religion is something that's very tightly controlled by the Communist Party. It has this political feel to it, something that's a little dangerous. So if you just say you're doing culture, then it's a lot easier to do what you want.

I've been to temples where people are praying, and the local officials say, see, this is traditional Chinese culture. And I say, well, it looks like religion to me. They're kowtowing in front of statues. They're lighting⁵ incense⁶. And he's like, oh, no, no, no. It's not religion because if it's religion, it's got to be approved by the government et cetera, et cetera. If we just call it culture, then it's sort of something we can do on our own.

SHAPIRO: There is such an interesting relationship between these emerging religious practices or returning religious practices, I guess we should say, and the government. There are several instances where you talk about sort of local government observers sitting in the back of a religious ceremony, and the preacher trying to thread this needle where he can deliver a message that might be a little bit barbed but deliver it not so explicitly⁷ that the government agents will shut down the ceremony.

JOHNSON: Yeah, especially with Christianity. There's a suspicion of it from the government side. They see Christianity as foreign-influenced. So in that particular case, yeah, there were plainclothes police at the back of the hall - this was a big Christmas service that I attended - and they were listening in. And I think they were eager to find an excuse to shut it down, but they didn't.

On the other hand, the so-called traditional faiths are often really encouraged by the government. And we can see this under Xi Jinping, that he's given a lot of money and support to traditional religions like Buddhism and Taoism.

SHAPIRO: Yeah. You say that the government has decided⁸ to co-opt religious groups, at least the traditional ones, rather than crush them. What's behind that decision?

JOHNSON: Well, I think there's a couple of things. If you want to be cynical⁹, you could say the Communist Party has always viewed religion as the opiate of the masses but now wants to use it for its own purposes to opiate the people to keep them docile¹⁰ and not thinking of politics.

But I think there's also in a more positive sense that the government recognizes that there is a lack of values in society - that people don't believe in anything and there's a great uncertainty¹¹ in society, a national malaise. And they also recognize that most people really don't believe in communism anymore. So they look at the traditional faiths as a way of instilling¹² some kind of morality, basic principles for good living and that sort of thing.

SHAPIRO: There's one sermon you describe that, for me, really distilled¹³ part of the appeal of this, where the man delivering the sermon at a funeral uses the common phrase, long live so-and-so, which is usually applied¹⁴ to high-ranking Communist Party officials. And in this case, he was applying it to this typical working-class woman who had died.

JOHNSON: Yeah. This pastor¹⁵, Wang Yi (ph), in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu was probably one of the best pastors¹⁶ I've ever heard. And this sermon was just a great sermon because he said, this woman deserves long life.

SHAPIRO: What is that phrase?

JOHNSON: Wansui. So they often say, you know, the Communist Party wansui, Chairman Mao wansui. And he was saying those people don't have wansui. It's this woman who has eternal life because she was a good person, and she believed in Christianity and so on. And people were sort of shocked when they listened to that. In the congregation, they were sitting there looking at him going, oh, my gosh, what's he talking about? Then they really got it, and the congregation bonded¹⁷ with him. You could see it happening right there.

SHAPIRO: Some of the religious leaders you spoke¹⁸ to seemed almost like social activists¹⁹. In a society where many forms of civil society are not allowed, it often seemed that these churches and other religious groups kind of took the place of the unions, the civic²⁰ organizations, the institutions that might hold local government officials to account or otherwise organize the populace. Is that the function that these groups are serving right now in China?

JOHNSON: Yeah. I think this is the double-edged sword of religion. On the one hand, you can say, well, it's something that will keep people in line maybe or keep them happy so they don't think about politics. But all religions have an appeal to higher senses of justice and righteousness, and it inspires people to social action.

SHAPIRO: Do you think that poses a threat to the government structure as it exists now?

JOHNSON: I don't think it's going to be like, say, in the Cold War in Poland where the Catholic Church was a separate force that helped undermine communist rule. It won't go that quickly. But I do think that it does create values that are higher than any government's values - ideas of righteousness and justice that people are inspired by and that will inspire them to action if they feel that they are unjustly treated by the government.

SHAPIRO: Ian Johnson is a Pulitzer Prize winning writer based in Beijing, and his new book is called "The Souls Of China: The Return Of Religion After Mao." Thanks so much for joining us.

JOHNSON: Thank you.

1 Buddhism   

n.佛教（教义）

参考例句：

• Buddhism was introduced into China about 67 AD.佛教是在公元67年左右传入中国的。
• Many people willingly converted to Buddhism.很多人情愿皈依佛教。

2 resurgence   

n.再起，复活，再现

参考例句：

• A resurgence of his grief swept over Nim.悲痛又涌上了尼姆的心头。
• Police say drugs traffickers are behind the resurgence of violence.警方说毒贩是暴力活动重新抬头的罪魁祸首。

3 stele   

n.石碑，石柱

参考例句：

• Many temples on the mountain,stele,Qulang Pavilion,shade trees.山上殿宇林立，碑碣夹道，亭阁曲廊，绿树掩映。
• The inscription on the stele tells the history of Lamaism.碑文讲的是喇嘛教史。

4 mosques   

清真寺； 伊斯兰教寺院，清真寺； 清真寺，伊斯兰教寺院( mosque的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Why make us believe that this tunnel runs underneath the mosques? 为什么要让我们相信这条隧洞是在清真寺下？
• The city's three biggest mosques, long fallen into disrepair, have been renovated. 城里最大的三座清真寺，过去年久失修，现在已经修复。

5 lighting   

n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光

参考例句：

• The gas lamp gradually lost ground to electric lighting.煤气灯逐渐为电灯所代替。
• The lighting in that restaurant is soft and romantic.那个餐馆照明柔和而且浪漫。

6 incense   

v.激怒；n.香，焚香时的烟，香气

参考例句：

• This proposal will incense conservation campaigners.这项提议会激怒环保人士。
• In summer,they usually burn some coil incense to keep away the mosquitoes.夏天他们通常点香驱蚊。

7 explicitly   

ad.明确地，显然地

参考例句：

• The plan does not explicitly endorse the private ownership of land. 该计划没有明确地支持土地私有制。
• SARA amended section 113 to provide explicitly for a right to contribution. 《最高基金修正与再授权法案》修正了第123条，清楚地规定了分配权。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法

8 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

9 cynical   

adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的

参考例句：

• The enormous difficulty makes him cynical about the feasibility of the idea.由于困难很大，他对这个主意是否可行持怀疑态度。
• He was cynical that any good could come of democracy.他不相信民主会带来什么好处。

10 docile   

adj.驯服的，易控制的，容易教的

参考例句：

• Circus monkeys are trained to be very docile and obedient.马戏团的猴子训练得服服贴贴的。
• He is a docile and well-behaved child.他是个温顺且彬彬有礼的孩子。

11 uncertainty   

n.易变，靠不住，不确知，不确定的事物

参考例句：

• Her comments will add to the uncertainty of the situation.她的批评将会使局势更加不稳定。
• After six weeks of uncertainty,the strain was beginning to take its toll.6个星期的忐忑不安后，压力开始产生影响了。

12 instilling   

v.逐渐使某人获得（某种可取的品质），逐步灌输( instil的现在分词 )；逐渐使某人获得（某种可取的品质），逐步灌输( instill的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Make sure your subordinates understand your sense of urgency and work toward instilling this in allsubordinates. 确保你的下属同样具备判断紧急事件的意识，在工作中潜移默化地灌输给他们。 来自互联网

13 distilled   

adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华

参考例句：

• The televised interview was distilled from 16 hours of film. 那次电视采访是从16个小时的影片中选出的精华。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Gasoline is distilled from crude oil. 汽油是从原油中提炼出来的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

15 pastor   

n.牧师，牧人

参考例句：

• He was the son of a poor pastor.他是一个穷牧师的儿子。
• We have no pastor at present:the church is run by five deacons.我们目前没有牧师：教会的事是由五位执事管理的。

16 pastors   

n.（基督教的）牧师( pastor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Do we show respect to our pastors, missionaries, Sunday school teachers? 我们有没有尊敬牧师、宣教士，以及主日学的老师？ 来自互联网
• Should pastors or elders be paid, or serve as a volunteer? 牧师或长老需要付给酬劳，还是志愿的事奉呢？ 来自互联网

17 bonded   

n.有担保的，保税的，粘合的

参考例句：

• The whisky was taken to bonded warehouses at Port Dundee.威士忌酒已送到邓迪港的保稅仓库。
• This adhesive must be applied to both surfaces which are to be bonded together.要粘接的两个面都必须涂上这种黏合剂。

18 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

19 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

20 civic   

adj.城市的，都市的，市民的，公民的

参考例句：

• I feel it is my civic duty to vote.我认为投票选举是我作为公民的义务。
• The civic leaders helped to forward the project.市政府领导者协助促进工程的进展。