The Transformation of Yiguan Dao in Taiwan: Adapting to a Changing Religious Economy by Yunfeng Lu (review)

Abstract

160 Journal of Chinese Religions highly visible memorial arches and shrines, played a crucial role in the affirmation and dissemination of the cult in the final centuries of the imperial era. Lu also highlights the importance of childhood betrothal in creating a sense in the young girl that she already belonged to another family and the overwhelming importance of marriage in the female lifecycle : “without marriage, a woman’s life was incomplete” (p. 113). Should she live on in her natal home to be a burden to her brothers after the death of her parents? Would she lose a sense of moral integrity if she accepted another suitor? Should she force herself on the home of her deceased betrothed to face an uncertain welcome? The sexual repression required in the lifelong faithful maiden and faithful widow cult could also give rise to the kind of despair that led to suicide as the only choice. As Lu explains, “suicide came only after they saw overwhelming odds against the possibility of living on with the dignity to which they aspired” (p. 133). The cult of the faithful maiden is another example, together with the egregious case of foot-binding, where Chinese women in imperial times persisted with what from a modern perspective would be called oppressive practices that led to their victimization and marginalization. In both cases, women responded to and helped to create elaborate ritual practices and discourses that validated and celebrated their fierce upholding of notions of female heroism. Readers of True to Her Word will no doubt continue to debate the extent to which the cult of the faithful maidens should be judged as a form of female agency or simply the result of restricted life choices and an intoxicating ideology of female virtue. Weijing Lu has made a path-breaking and illuminating contribution to our knowledge of one of the most intriguing phenomena in the history of Chinese women. True to Her Word will be indispensable reading for those with an interest in the cultural, social, and intellectual history of late imperial China. ANNE E. MCLAREN, University of Melbourne The Transformation of Yiguan Dao in Taiwan: Adapting to a Changing Religious Economy YUNFENG LU. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2008. xi, 201 pages. ISBN 978-07391 -1719-4. US$65.00 hardcover. As Daniel Overmyer has pointed out: “the great difference between China and both Europe and Japan is that in the Chinese situation, incipient ‘denominational’ or ‘church’ structures were never allowed to develop to their full potential because of official hostility, an Book Reviews 161 opposition present even during periods of political disunion.”1 For this reason, in Taiwan, after the lifting of martial law in 1987, it is a perfect time to observe this “full potential” of Chinese popular religion. However, the lifting of martial law also brought a newly open and free religious market to Taiwan. Under these circumstances, how can the religious economy model deriving from the observation of the United States be applied to Chinese religions? When these two things―a full potential of Chinese popular religion and a newly open, free religious market―happen at the same historical moment, it does indeed give us a good chance to resolve these puzzles simultaneously. Yet it is also unfortunate that when these two lines intersect, a most confusing moment is produced. The phenomena we are observing could be due to the stimulation from the newly open free religious market, yet it is also very possible that we are just witnessing a full display of Chinese religious logic. The book under review, The Transformation of Yiguan Dao in Taiwan by Lu Yunfeng, is based on his fieldwork conducted in 2002 in Taiwan, and it faces the two issues together. Lu’s main focus is the applicability of the religious economy model to Chinese religions, yet he also has to deal with the problem of the potentiality of Chinese religions. Furthermore, as the author proposes to put these questions within the local context, an entire reflection on contextual and categorical differences between Chinese religions and Western religions is necessary. How much has Lu accomplished toward his ambitious goal? The purpose of this book certainly is both empirical and...