Organized Religion

As the Chinese son of a father who was raised as a converted Catholic and a mother who was raised in the mix of Chinese Buddhist, Taoist and Confucianist traditions, you can imagine organized religiion has never been particularly important in my life. But it has certainly been running through my life for as long as I can remember.

My dad is his own paradox when it comes to religion. He'll tell anyone who asks that he's a Catholic, yet he'll pray with my mother in a Buddhist temple, and talk about Buddhist and Confucius teachings. It just goes to show you, that you can convert a Chinese person to Western teachings, but the Chinese teachings never leave you.

Buddhism has sort of been an on and off thing with my mother. When we were growing up there weren't many chances for her to go to Buddhist temple. We were out in the middle of nowhere, and the few trips out to New York City we did make, were the few times she got to go pray in temple. My oldest memories of Buddhist temple, were always of incense filled, smoky temples. Of my mother lighting incense, holding the sticks of incense to her head and bowing to the temple gods, then kneeling and bowing, before inserting the sticks of incense in the altar holder. Often she would make me follow her with my own stick of incense, and tell me to pray to the gods, as well as to our ancestors.

I would ask her as, young boy perhaps only 8 or 9, what I was supposed to say, and she would respond in Chinese, "Bei-bei" the word for pray, and she'd say pray to your grandmother, grandfather. Ask them to watch over and take care of you. At least those are the things I remember, I'm not sure if somehow my memory is slightly off. I think as young as I was I only understood that I was supposed to say the words "bai-bai".

I also remember the time we were pretty young, the three of us and my father took us to a Catholic church on Sunday for mass. Afterwards, he asked us if we'd like to go back. As you can imagine, none of us wanted to go back, and I think it was a relief to my father as well. Although he might have professed to be Catholic, he never actually in my recollection went to church.
But in America, you can't avoid religion, so I have been to church many times since, for weddings, for mass just to keep company with a school friend, for award ceremonies. Each time I enter a church, I have that feeling of wonder that religion means so much to so many people, but to me, it is only a passing notion in my life.

I remember going to Taiwan with my mother sometime ago, maybe 6-8 years ago. My aunt, Lih-yen who lived in Taiwan at the time, agreed to take me to see my grandfather's (my dad's dad) burial place. As is traditional in Chinese culture it was on a hillside with good feng-shui. I remember my Aunt, and my two cousins, Mimi and Peter, all praying to my grandfather, in traditional Buddhist fashion. At that time of my life I was all-American, so rather than pray in Buddhist fashion, which I felt extremely disconnected with, I instead made my own prayers to a Christian God, and for my grandfather. My how I've changed.

Last year, in November of 2003, I went to China with both my parents and with Lars. This was a trip I'd wanted to do for a very long time. I wanted to see China through my parent's eyes, and I asked them to where they wanted to go, so I made the arrangements to go to Bei-jing, Shanghai and Fuzhou. Bei-jing where my father lived his early years, Shanghai, since my mother had never been, and Fuzhou, my ancestral homeland. In addition we made day trips to Hangzhou and Xiamen, both cities my mother wanted to see.

Peppered throughout the entire trip, we visited a great number of Buddhist temples. At one point in our trip, when Lars asked me where we were going, I responded in English, we're going to "Yet another temple". My dad got pretty upset with us at that point. He said it's not just another temple, that's like saying Westminster Abbey, was just another church. It was the passion of that statement, that showed me Chinese Buddhist side of my father, although he didn't pray much at any temple we went to, whereas my mother, took to her Buddhist rituals, and prayed at every Buddhist temple. And I followed suit with my mother, praying and bowing alongside with her, an illustration that in recent years I've re-examined the Chinese side of myself, and discovered that I am indeed proud to follow not only the Buddhist traditions, but the Chinese ones as well. It's a part of me, something I might have disavowed from time to time, but inherently a part of my character and make up.

I can envision myself, much older, years from now, and perhaps going to a Buddhist temple to find solace, to make a connection with my ancestors, and touch base with my own roots.