At some point during the day I slipped away and went for a walk around by myself, stopping in at the temple across from Mr. Zhou’s rice store. For some reason I decided to stop in and ask the god for a favor. I walked into the room of the temple that faces the courtyard, kneeled down on the red cushion in front of the altar, and put my hands up in namaste. “Listen,” I thought to him, “sorry I just disappeared like that. Let me off the hook, will you? Could you make me stop being so damned regretful about everything already? I need a little peace here.” I said most of it in English. I figured he’d understand. Anyway, if he’s anything like everyone else around here, he probably has some relatives in L.A. Eventually someone will translate it for him. The last bit came out in Chinese: 讓我心理平安, rang wo xinli ping’an. Put my heart at peace.
The word 安 an, which means safe, peaceful, is my Chinese surname, and I therefore have a rather ambiguous relationship to it because of something a teacher of mine once told me. My full Chinese name is安雅仁, An Yaren. The character Ya appears in words like文雅 wenya cultured, and優雅 youya, sophisticated. The character仁 ren is one of the eight big Confucian virtues, and is usually translated as humaneness, it’s a kind of loving-kindness toward others, a morality that can only happen in relation to other people. A teacher of mine whose tongue is like a scalpel once commented that it’s the Chinese custom to name children for qualities that they lack (according to their bazi, their astrological reading). “Now your name, for instance, an-ya-ren, peace-sophistication-humaneness, is a perfect example of this practice.”
I dropped a coin in the contributions box and went on my way. And you know, I’ve been feeling a lot more peaceful lately. I mentioned to someone that I seem to go crazy every time I am in Taiwan during ghost month, even though I don’t believe in Chinese ghosts. He said: “Well, the ghosts probably don’t care if you believe in them or not.[i] You should go to a temple and get a protective figure [ie a fetish]. Go to a big temple, it’ll be more powerful.” Maybe that will be a little project for this week.
The Neighborhood yinmiao: altar
[i] This response reminded me of one of my favorite parts of that Arthur Wolf article I mentioned a while ago, where an old woman explains to him what one’s priorities should be in praying. This is not an exact quote but she says something like this: “A man can believe in the gods or not believe in the gods as he chooses; but he has to believe in the ancestors. Otherwise they will come back and make trouble for him.” Since ghosts are in some sense just other people’s ancestors who are not getting cared for properly, I would think that the same should hold for them.
The word 安 an, which means safe, peaceful, is my Chinese surname, and I therefore have a rather ambiguous relationship to it because of something a teacher of mine once told me. My full Chinese name is安雅仁, An Yaren. The character Ya appears in words like文雅 wenya cultured, and優雅 youya, sophisticated. The character仁 ren is one of the eight big Confucian virtues, and is usually translated as humaneness, it’s a kind of loving-kindness toward others, a morality that can only happen in relation to other people. A teacher of mine whose tongue is like a scalpel once commented that it’s the Chinese custom to name children for qualities that they lack (according to their bazi, their astrological reading). “Now your name, for instance, an-ya-ren, peace-sophistication-humaneness, is a perfect example of this practice.”
I dropped a coin in the contributions box and went on my way. And you know, I’ve been feeling a lot more peaceful lately. I mentioned to someone that I seem to go crazy every time I am in Taiwan during ghost month, even though I don’t believe in Chinese ghosts. He said: “Well, the ghosts probably don’t care if you believe in them or not.[i] You should go to a temple and get a protective figure [ie a fetish]. Go to a big temple, it’ll be more powerful.” Maybe that will be a little project for this week.
The Neighborhood yinmiao: altar
[i] This response reminded me of one of my favorite parts of that Arthur Wolf article I mentioned a while ago, where an old woman explains to him what one’s priorities should be in praying. This is not an exact quote but she says something like this: “A man can believe in the gods or not believe in the gods as he chooses; but he has to believe in the ancestors. Otherwise they will come back and make trouble for him.” Since ghosts are in some sense just other people’s ancestors who are not getting cared for properly, I would think that the same should hold for them.
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