The Standardization of Ritual in the Chinese Culture - Essay Example

MAINTENANCE OF A UNIFIED CHINESE CULTURE: THE STANDARDIZATION OF RITUALS By Introduction Chinese culture is popular for being amongst the oldest cultures in the world. To this day, in a world overloaded with globalization and modernity, significant traits of Chinese culture still remain. Evidence is seen in their upholding of martial arts, opera, dressing, wedding, and burial ideologies, all aligned to Chinese frameworks drawn from deep within their culture. One reason why Chinese culture has survived this far is because it was, and still is, practiced uniformly all over China. In this, dissolution and fading of cultural aspects was minimized. Further research into how the Chinese have been able to create and maintain a unified culture has provided varying results. According to James Watson and Evelyn Rawski’s book Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China, the creation and maintenance of a unified Chinese culture were enabled by the standardization of rituals. The following study will provide evidence to justify this statement by evaluating several depictions of ancient and modern Chinese culture. Evaluation Watson and Rawski (1988, p. 4) define [Chinese] cultural unification as the acceptance and adherence to set ritual routines by ordinary citizens. Standardization on its part, was the way in which these cultures were made known, proper and acceptable. They further reveal that standardization, which contributed to cultural unification, was in most cases voluntarily taken up by citizens without the use of force. As such, any Chinese aspects seen in the world today are by-products of the ancient processes of ritual standardization. Ritual in Watson and Rawski’s case is defined an active process of transforming something from one state into another wherein “something” could refer to things, people, or other beings. Again, rituals have a transformative power (4). Funerals had a uniform structure of rites that were practiced all over China, and particularly during the Late Imperial Era. Although it is not widely practiced in China today, some areas such as Hong Kong and Taiwan still practice them. Watson and Rawski (1988, p.7) state that the rites were standardized and practiced all over China, and they in turn played the role of “cultural” cement that bound the Chinese community together. In standardizing burial rituals, the Chinese believed that in death, the body and soul should not be allowed to separate before a ritual was done. It was said that if this happened, the community would experience some form of disaster. Again, they standardized the belief that death should not separate couples and as such, they were to be buried in close proximity. Finally, death was not seen as an end to one’s social status and that in death as well as life, kinship dominated. Therefore, they practiced ancestor worship to uphold the continuity (Watson & Rawski 1988, p. 42). Mortuary practices in China remain one of the most dominant forms of Chinese Culture as Watson (1993, p.87) states. Having attended well over twenty Chinese funerals, he concluded that there was a similar pattern that occurred with regards to the rites performed during funerals. Again, they were performed uniformly irrespective of whether the emperor or a peasant farmer had died, and in this portraying the aspect of unified culture. As such, it means that the mortuary and funerary rituals were standardized and had to be performed at every funeral or on a dead person. Watson (1993, p.88) highlights the nine-sequence acts performed after death. First, women usually wailed to announce the death. Second, people would wear hempen gard to show mourning. Third, there was a ritual in the form of bathing the corpse. Fourth, the deceased’s possessions were transferred through burning them. Fifth, a soul tablet written in Chinese was prepared. Sixth, silver and copper coins were used in a ritualized context. Seventh, high-pitched percussion and piping marked the transition. Eighth, the corpse was sealed in a wooden coffin, followed by the final step of expelling the coffin from the community. The statement that the creation and unification of Chinese culture was done through standardization of rituals is supported by Dittmer and Kim (1993, p.92). In their assertion, two revelations emerge; that indeed, standardization of rituals happened, and also that the Imperial State directly worked to impose the rituals to Chinese locals. Unification of China using culture was a key objective in the Imperial state and as such, the state itself came up with wedding and funerary rituals which were to be the “acceptable” norms. However, in China being a vast state, the Imperial State required more subtle means of spreading the rituals. The State decided to use its officials to further its standardization efforts. “Accepted norms were enshrined in manuals available in even the smallest towns of the realm” (Dittmer and Kim 1993, p.92). In this, the dedication of the state in inflicting rituals as indicated by Watson and Rawski is evident. Additionally, it is revealed that practices termed as unacceptable were either suppressed with time or altered to conform to the acceptable (centralized) rituals (Ward 1979, p.19). During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, a period popular as Neo-Confucianism, Chinese scholars sought to restore a “lost golden age” using Confucian texts which they inflicted by exalting ritualized behavior (Kendall year, p.57). In short, the scholars devised or rather standardized several rituals which they were sure would influence the Chinese people into creating social harmony as well as effecting moral order of the lost age. One way that this was done was through printing books and distributing them across China. One popular literature was done by Chu His and was titled “Family Rituals”. The book was more of a manual that sought to inform the Chinese on the acceptable practices of Chinese ancestor rites, funerals, and weddings. The literature was designed to promote social order, thus unified culture. In addition, it was made available to both poor and rich Chinese as a way of fostering the standardization of the rituals (Kendall year, p. 58). The Imperial court dictated more than just funeral and wedding rituals in Chinese culture. Religion too, was not spared. The Imperial court approved deities, both male and female who would play the role of gods and goddesses in ancient China. The resulting “religion” was defined by action more than beliefs as would occur in normal religions. One way that this religion was standardized was by making citizens to build temples for the deities and pay attention to them (Yang n.d., p.144). Additionally, after the temples were dedicated to the deities, the deities were given meaning which they represented in Chinese settings and which the citizens were expected to adhere to. For instance, the Qianlong emperor in 1737 referred to Tianhou deity as “the empress of heaven” for having “assisted imperial officials” by helping them suppress pirates (Boltz 1986, p.211). After that, the Chinese were not allowed to pay attention to other deities but Tianhou. Again, the existing deities, termed as not being part of the imperial pantheon were gradually suppressed. In this, Watson and Rawski’s assertion that standardization of rituals played a key role in unifying Chinese culture is supported. The rituals included paying reverence to approved gods and goddesses and also building temples for them. Money was possibly introduced to the Chinese during the Han Dynasty of around 206 BCE to 220 CE when knife coins of dao were being cast. Dao were miniature knife-shaped bronze casts that were used at marketplaces as mediums of exchange, or money. The Han Dynasty deliberately introduced the knife coins, which in this case take the form of rituals, to foster unified Chinese culture. Dao, which replaced barter trade, ensured non-kin trade could happen, and that the Chinese did not have to necessarily know their trading partners before conducting business with them. Money qualifies to be a ritual because Watson and Rawski define a ritual as an active process of transforming something. Therefore, the sense that money replaced the need to trade goods with goods, and also acted as a medium of preserving value, it qualifies to be a ritual. Standardization emerges in the money aspect in that the Dao were used all over China (Nietupski&O’mara 2011, p.22). In this therefore, a unified Chinese culture was supported as per Watson and Rawski’s statement. The final and very effective means of creating a unified Chinese state bound by the adhesive of culture occurred in the early 1950s when it was decided that a national language would be effective in achieving it. According to Beckett and Postiglione (2013, p.22), the then majority language, Han, was to be simplified so that mass literacy could be achieved as well as a modernized phonetic writing system. In short, the complicated Han Chinese was termed difficult for the illiterate to learn or understand, therefore limiting the aspect of unity. Following this, a simplified version of Han, Pinyin was proclaimed (Haili 2015, p.63). It had two functions; to act as a standard spoken Han, and second, to function as a pronunciation assistant system. The concept was to create a single medium of communication through which all Chinese could understand each other. As Beckett and Postiglione (2013) state, “The standardization of a language… can serve all social, political, administrative, scientific and cultural needs of the people and unify the nationality” (22). Back to Watson and Rawski’s statement, the standardization of Pinyin language was used as an instrument in creating and maintaining a unified Chinese culture. Conclusion The above discussion highlights potential reasons as to how and why the Chinese culture portrays a unique unification of culture. According to Watson and Rawski, the standardization of rituals is what led to the creation and maintenance of the unified culture. As the study supports, funerals, weddings, and religion were in most cases pre-defined by the Imperial state through the Imperial court and the Chinese were expected to adhere to the set patterns. In short, most of their practices were done uniformly without any discrimination or classification whatsoever. Religion, based on deities, was also pre-determined and defined by the state, upon which deviation from the set frameworks would land one in trouble with the state officials. The standardization was done by using state officials as examples or distributing affordable manuals to the masses. In this way, much of what was done in China was uniform. Finally, money and a common language sealed the standardization processes, and collectively, China stood out as a unified culture. Bibliography Beckett, G, & Postiglione, G 2013, China’s Assimilationist Language Policy: The Impact on Indigenous/ Minority Literacy and Social Harmony. New York: Routledge. Boltz, J 1986, “In Homage to T’ien-fei”, Journal of the American Oriental Society 106(1): 211-232. Dittmer, L, & Kim, S 1993, China’s Quest for National Identity. Cornell University Press. Haili, M 2015, Urban Politics and Cultural Capital: The Case of the Chinese Opera. Ashgate Publishing. Kendall, L 1996, Getting Married In Korea: Of Gender, Morality, and Modernity. California: University of California. Nietupski, P, & O’Mara, J 2011, Reading Asian Art and Artifacts: Windows to Asia on American College Campuses. Lehigh University Press. Ward, B 1979, “Not Merely Players: Drama, Art and Ritual in Traditional China”, MAN 14. (1): 18-39. Watson, J 1993, “Rites or Beliefs? The Construction of a Unified Culture in Late Imperial China” in China’s Quest for National Identity. Cornell University Press, 80-103. Watson, J, & Rawski, E 1988, Death Ritual in Late Imperial and Modern China. California: University of California Press. Yang, CK n.d., “Religion in Chinese Society”, 144-165. Read More