Meihan Boey

“You know, religion -- as you understand it -- is not native to the Chinese. In times past, we grew up with stories of gods and spirits. Very colourful, they are -- we have gods in the heavens, goddesses in the sea, dragons beneath the earth and fairies on the moon. We have a monkey god full of mischief, a beggar god full of vice, and a child god full of vindictiveness. But none of those gods demand loyalty or worship. If you wanted to petition a god for something specific, then you might go to a shrine and light some joss sticks; if you were getting married or having a child, you might go again to seek a blessing. But we were never like the Christians or Muslims; we had no gods who demand obeisance so many times a day, at such-and-such frequency. We left our gods alone when we had nothing to say, and they left us alone if we had nothing to ask.”
― Meihan Boey, The Formidable Miss Cassidy