Andre > Recent Status Updates

I have to keep in mind that in traditional chinese sources, any number over thousand is often either the fictitious ten thousand or based on an exceptional event. The author mentions a few cases were the given numbers are too high to be logistically or even geographically possible.

Well, since the author saw it as necessary to basically recap the following chapters in the introduction, I simply skipped them.

If I had my ebook reader with me, I would have put this book down already, but currently, I have nothing else to read. I am were Chiang had already fled to Taiwan but even with all the maneuvering within the KMT and all, this simply has trouble holding my interest.

If there wasn't this entry on the possibility of an independent Yunnan state, I probably would have put this book down already. It is so dry right now.

This is getting a bit dry. Too many details over too many pages within a short time span, that it has difficulty still holding my interest.

Looking back. Georg Kerr was probably right in assessing that a Taiwan governed by local Taiwanese and not Chinese mainlanders would best serve Americans' interest in the Far East. The Nationalists were at the time just as colonialist and imperialist as the Communists were.

Ok, the book did mention some of economical downfall of Taiwan in the first year of Chinese takeover, but not the medical downfall. Also, I had forgotten how much the KMT were also imperialist in wanting places like Tibet etc. In addition Chen had ordered to exterminat traitors some time after the feb28 incident and the phrase is su jian and there is jian again. I saw that several times in my life.

If it hadn't been for that story of the young medium and how his station benefited him, I might have skipped this part. Now that it goes into details of a sect, it becomes quite dry.

Wait, is the author using Taiwanese as synonymous with Hoklo and that is why he mentions Hakkas as a minority within this sect? And the account he quotes states that the sect was basically founded in the 39th year of the republic (1950), and talks about all of China. Sounds like a heavy influence from the KMT laws. AFter all, the account states that the Venerable Mother came down in Hualien.

I do wonder whether this condemnation of people going to dance halls and cinema too often is really just anti-western sentiments as the author suggested or might be based also in old sentiments towards any sort of entertainers.

naturally, a way to become immortal includes diminishing yin and refining yang. Which makes it even weirder than in another sect it is told that due to their ability to give birth etc it is easier for women to cultivate the real (yes that is what it is called), than men. The author even points out that this is in contrast to what the Great Enlightenment book says.

Naturally, the prostitute is depicted as evil. Never mind that back then it was a way of life, barely anyone ever chose. And what is this nonsense about another woman, a wife, being sentenced to be reborn for a life as a beggar and prostitute? Wouldn't that mean her sins would just accumulate anew? That sounds like a rigged system.

Hm, reading about the stance of the Roosevelt and later Truman administration is interesting. About Chen Yi, I already knew alot.

Reading about how Chiang wanted the Ryukyu Islands to be returned to China is really worrying as they were never part of the Qing empire but a tribute state. By his logic they should have wanted Korea returned to them. Luckily he removed both from the list before the Cairo conference. And its not as if his stance on Taiwan wasn't murky either.

So far nothing truly new for me what I read in the introduction. I knew the basics already.

well, I should have guessed that some of the rules for good behavior would include women being subservient to men. I did not expect that it would directly state that women have it harder to be good and have to work twice as hard.

Great Saint Equal to Heaven? Is that referring to Sun Wukong? I would not be surprised if this was the monkey king, I saw it before that this fictional character became somehow a folkloric god.

An immortal wearing western dress and visiting a sugarcane factory. That is interesting.

I can see why the Kangxi emperor of the relatively new Qing empire would not like it if there is an alleged dragon pool in Taiwan that has such good geomancy that it would create a new emperor (a true dragon).

A Taiwan born sect called the Religion of the Yellow Emperor and it was founded in the 1950s? Was it founded by Mainlanders? It sounds like it.

descent of the phoenix, supporting the phoenix and the flying phoenix and apparently each time the word luan means phoenix. I was confused and looked it up and based on AI, the term Luan does not refer to the fenghuang but a different bird, the one actually associated with emperors and new ages and harmony. Hm, that explains a few things here and in other cases. So they should have termed the book the flying Luan.

transmitted by the flying phoenix? Are they suggesting these texts were actually transmitted by the fanghuang or is this just a figure of speech?

Odd, these teachings do not mention anything that could be intepreted for how to act towards daughters and sisters. Mothers can be subsumed under filial piety but there is nothing in regard to daughters and sisters. This is very male centric.

Not only are ther classical heretics but apparently these "Five demons" were let by "Ku-chiu Sa-Tan"? Was there some christian/jewish/muslim influence on these sect teachings?

Oh, so according with to the Venerable Mother, prostitution is something bad. Hm, that clashes directly with what others I have read about stated about the Qing empire.

Invite the phoenix? Is that some figure of speech or could that guy actually invite the fenghuang?

sorceress? Where these spirit mediums women? Later on the book states that while most accounts are from literati and so male, in the pre-literati phase there was a greater involvement of women and girls.

So spirit writing rituals in Taiwan are a manifestation of a tradition first developed in the Sung empire among commoners... but I wonder how much they still had in common.

Proscribed as a heretical religion and when it became too successful, patriach Yin was arrested, imprisoned for six years and then executed in 1582. But that cannot be, tons of people stated and state that "China" was totally religiously peaceful and knew no religious persecution.

Are spirit mediums still such a prominent characteristic in chinese religion in Taiwan? And is what the author claims colored by the belief that Taiwan was some window into chinese culture? This book came out in 1986 and I think back then that was a prominent belief.