1 Introduction
1.4 Method
國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
21
tradition as continually reinvented.82 In addition, I have found the working definition proposed by Satlow useful as well. Satlow defines tradition as “(I.) static (II.) resources that (III.) individuals, communities, and institutions understand as (IV.) authentic and regard as (V.) authoritative.”83 As a point to note, “static” does not mean that traditions do not change or that they are not reinvented, but that they exercise constraining force on the social actors.
Ritual
In a way similar to the issue of religion, there are different definitions of ritual in the literature. When I entered the field, I was equipped with knowledge of various theories of ritual, as I did not intend to rely on a single general theory in interpreting the observed rituals.
I focused on not only the structure and the goal of rituals, but on what ritual means and does for different participants and observers. When I observed weekend performances in the Taipei Confucius temple, which in several aspects seemed similar to the Confucius birthday ceremony, and when I gradually realized how the sacrifice ceremony in the temple has been being over the time transformed into a republican civil ceremony, I pondered the difference between ritual and performance. Eventually, I decided to abandon the dichotomy ritual vs.
non-ritual action and by taking inspiration from Grimes to see instead a continuum in the degree of ritualizing.84 For example, Victor Turner discussed relationship between ritual and theatre and performative aspects of ritual.85 We can observe that a theatre performance contains many ritualized elements and a ritual contains performative or entertainment elements. In deciding on how to look at rituals and on what to focus, I found the concepts of ritual intentions, functions, and effects, introduced by Grimes, quite useful. Therefore, during my fieldwork I focused on investigating what people intent to achieve by a ritual performance (ritual intention), what are the observable consequence of the ritual (ritual effects), and what the ritual does in reference to social, ecological, political or other systems (ritual function).
1.4 Method
Following the above theoretical framework, my research diverged from textual analysis of Confucian studies, and I decided for my ethnographic research to seek answers for questions that the framework posed. My participant observation in the Taipei Confucius temple started in April 2015 and continued until March 2016. Before starting the fieldwork, I requested permission to do research at the temple office. The staff helped me during the initial orientation because I was overwhelmed at first and was not sure what to pay attention to, and therefore started by looking around the temple and at activities in order to familiarize myself with the setting. I spent most of my time during this phase with participants of the
82 E. J. Hobsbawm and T. O. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
83 Michael L. Satlow, “Tradition: The Power of Constraint,” in Robert A. Orsi (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Religious Studies, Cambridge, England; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 133.
84 Ronald L. Grimes, The Craft of Ritual Studies, Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.
85 Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play, Performing Arts Journal Publications, 1982.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
22
lessons of Classics for Families on Saturday, Four Books Study Group on Sunday, and several ritual masters who helped with rituals events at the temple throughout the year. During this time, I spent every Saturday and Sunday attending the lessons on the Classics and visited the temple at other times to observe other events, not only rituals.
I contacted the Chinese Classics Association, which organizes the Classics for Families, via telephone and asked whether I could come to look at classes and ask a few questions. After a first visit, this inquiry turned into me regularly attending the classes for a full academic year.
In the case of the Four Books Study Group, I arrived at the first lesson and filled in the registration form like other participants. I made sure that the teacher and participants knew I was doing research on Confucius temple and these activities included the lessons. In the case of the official rituals, I got acquainted with several ritual masters thanks to the fact that I had previously known several ritual masters from the Chen family because I had attended rituals in their ancestor hall. Temple staff also introduced me to several ritual masters. In other cases, ritual masters noticed me taking notes during the rehearsals for ritual in September, and they initiated contact by asking what I studied. I did not get to know all the ritual masters, but I had several key informants among the long-time serving ritual masters.
In my interactions with informants, I used standard Chinese, or Mandarin. Several informants habitually used Minnan dialect in their interactions, and in these cases, I asked afterwards for explanations in Mandarin. I wrote my field notes using both Czech and Chinese.
Because I wrote by hand, when I needed quick jottings, I would usually first write down Chinese using pinyin transcription, and afterwards add the Chinese characters.
I conducted several formal interviews, but in most cases, I engaged in informal interviews with participants of the lessons, including teachers, parents and children, and with the participants of rituals, including ritual masters and members of the public attending the rituals and with people visiting the temple. Besides answering my inquiries, people I met often actively directed me to points of interest. Knowing that I was a student writing a thesis, they wanted to help me with explanations and suggestions on what to include. This coupled with another factor, which is that I am a foreigner, and since informants were not sometimes sure, how much I did or did not know about Taiwanese society and culture, they provided me with explanations. I originally intended to use questionnaires, but eventually realized that they do not serve well in answering my research questions. For example, people would not write that they wanted to attend the autumn ceremony celebrating the birthday of Confucius because they wanted to receive a gift after the ceremony. On the other hand, as I observed interactions between visitors and the temple staff, I noticed that many people kept asking the temple staff about the gift. I concluded that questionnaires did not help me in exploring the peoples’
actions and interpretations. In the beginning, I was asking questions about whether Confucius is a deity or not but these kinds of questions left most people baffled. Usually, they paused to recall what they had learned at school on why Confucianism is not a religion and gave me this formal reply. As such, I afterwards instead paid attention to the contexts in which people themselves would raise the issue of religion and its relation to Confucianism.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
23 Classics for Families
I attended the lessons every Saturday, and spent the whole day there from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. There was a pause between morning and afternoon lessons from noon to 2 p.m. I usually ate lunch together with the teachers or parents in restaurants near the temple, and it was an opportunity for informal interviews. After lunch, I would either return with the teachers to the temple where we continued talking, or I sat in the temple on my own observing and talking with visitors to the temple, or with temple volunteers.
During the lessons, I wrote field notes, but I did not record sound or video. On the one hand, I felt it too intrusive because of my introverted personality as I felt uneasy about intruding on others. In addition, I wanted to avoid recordings for privacy reasons due to the presence of children. For this reason, I also avoided photographing participants, but I took pictures of PowerPoint slides and other teaching materials. On the other hand, teachers and parents occasionally took pictures of me during the lessons, and later shared the photos with me via an online messenger. The fact that I was taking notes was enough to make others notice and inquire about what I was writing down, or what language I used in my notes. Later in the school year, as we became more familiar with each other, the teachers occasionally gave a stamped my notebook in a way similar to what they did for the notebooks of children.
Sometimes, children used an empty page in my notebook to draw a picture, or write Chinese characters, and I ask whether I knew their meaning and pronunciation.
The lessons were very open and welcoming. Initially, I saw myself simply as an observer and sat on a chair to the side, but since classroom methodology emphasized interactions between all participants, I was immediately involved in the lessons and was given a position as an honorary teacher. I bought the study materials, which included textbooks and T-shirt worn by the participants during the lessons and outdoor activities. Teachers were at first surprised that I really wanted to buy the materials. Over the course of time, as I grew closer with them, one of the teachers would jokingly scold me whenever I forgot to wear the T-shirt.
People were usually curious about how I learned Chinese, and whether I understood the texts I was studying. I engaged in informal talks with teachers and parents before and after the lessons. The teachers were very helpful and not only provided answers to my questions, but often took the initiative and pointed my out some aspects, or explained the purpose of the lessons and the meaning of various methods of instruction. I was invited to participate in the review discussions, which the teachers held after lessons, and they expected me to share my observations and opinions. This was an opportunity to ask for clarifications about various aspects of lessons, or to point out issues that I noticed. I realized that participating in these discussions focused my attention. I learned what teachers themselves paid attention to, such as when and why the parents and children started to stop paying attention, when and why a child started to cry. In this way, I had an opportunity to better understand their goals and motivations. In addition, I tried to pay attention to problems and bring them up in order to help look for improvement to classroom methodology.
I was also invited to the meetings in the office of the association, which took place several times a year as an opportunity to discuss plans for the school year or to organize
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
24
performance. I was invited to participate in several performances throughout the school year, and, as a result, I often visited the office to attend rehearsals. Therefore, I could observe interactions among participants outside the classroom. The teachers added me to a chat room in the communication program called Line, and the discussions, quotations, and links to online articles helped me better understand what the participants saw as important, what issues and challenges they saw in contemporary society. In addition, I was invited to attend the New Year exchange with participants of the lessons in the Mainland China, which took place in the first week in January 2016 in Chengdu. The Chinese Classics Association paid my expenses.
Over the course of the school year, I became familiar with all teachers, but several teachers were my key informants and were those I approached first whenever I had a question.
After I had finished my field research, we have remained in contact, and I often help as a volunteer whenever there is an event such as ceremonies at the start and end of the school year.
Four Books Study Group
I attended the lessons every Sunday starting at 2 p.m. and ending around 6.p.m.
Because the temple closed for night at that time, I and other classmates returned home. There was not much interaction before and after the lessons. Sometimes before the lesson, I stopped at the temple to observe and talk with visitors and volunteers. I had a status of an ordinary student in the study group and participated in reading passages and writing homework in the same way as the other students. My being a foreigner did not influence the lessons, other than others would occasionally help me during the reading when I encountered Chinese characters I did not know how to pronounce. In my field notes, I noted down the contents of lessons, just like the classmates, and, therefore, I did not stick out in the same way as I did in the Classics for Families class. However, I also wrote down what was happening inside and outside the classroom, classroom interactions, and how others took notes. I did not record the lessons because I felt uneasy asking as I thought it too intrusive. Later, one classmate asked if she could record the lessons. The teacher at first replied, “It is not worth recording”, and even though he allowed the classmate to record, he seemed uneasy.
Eventually, after few lessons the classmate stopped bringing the dictaphone. In addition to field notes, I took pictures of terminology written by the teacher on the blackboard, and, since there were many Chinese characters, some of which are not frequently used, the photos helped me to take notes instead of writing characters by hand.
Interactions outside the classroom took place in Line group chats, which is strictly moderated by the teacher, and the classmates had few opportunities to present their views and interests. The teacher often shared links to web articles or events related to Confucianism, and such posts were sometimes shared with the students as well. In the beginning, I was mainly attending lessons, taking notes, and then going home. This changed towards the end of the year when the size of the group became smaller and together with several classmates, we stayed in contact outside the classroom or group chat. I also attended an opera performance of one of my classmates, and celebrated the Chinese New Year with the family
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
25
of another classmate. With one of the classmates, we became good friends and stay in regular contact even after my research concluded.
Rituals and Other Events
Although I was allowed to do research in the temple, I was not notified of events happening in the temple and I paid attention to the official temple web pages. In case of other rituals that were not organized by the temple, when I had known the organizers before the rituals, they usually informed me about the event and sometimes reminded me not to forget.
I observed performances of rituals in the field, and in some cases observed the preparations.
In addition, I was a direct participant and helped with preparations of several ceremonies organized by the Classics for Families.
I did not make many video recordings of the rituals, because my interest was not so much in the structure of the ritual itself, but rather with the participants and the role of these rituals in society. In addition, I tried to look at rituals from different perspectives, moving from place to place, and paying attention not only to the ritual performance itself, but also to the actions or comments made by the members of the audience. I would observe what went on outside of the ritual, before and after. I performed informal interviews with temple representatives, ritual masters, teachers of ritual dance and music, members of the audience who came to see rituals, and temple volunteers. Several ritual masters were my key informants, whom I could ask the about rituals and the explanations were not only discursive but the ritual masters often showed me how to perform various ritual actions.
Other sources of information
In addition to observation and interviews, and the texts which were used during the lessons in the temple, I made use of other sources of information. I tried to follow the newspapers for articles mentioning the Confucius temple or Confucianism in Taiwan, and online discussions concerning issues of Confucianism in contemporary Taiwan. I learned about many from posts by participants in online group chats, and on official web pages and Facebook pages of the Taipei Confucius temple and the lessons on the Classics. I consulted the Classics for Families yearbooks containing information on the history of organization including newspaper articles, historic photos from events in Taiwan and Mainland China. The school year schedules served for comparison to look for changes in composition of lessons over years.
Where possible, I cross-referenced these primary sources with secondary literature to better understand the context of practices and interpretations I encountered in the field.
Scholarship on the Four Books, and history and contents of other classical texts and primers, provided different translations and interpretations of contents, which I could compare with exegesis I heard at the temple. I consulted literature introducing key concepts and figures of New Confucianism, or scholarly discussions on the history of Taiwan and Confucianism in Taiwan. In the case of autumn Confucius ceremony - thesis provides overview of its structure and history
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
26 Note on Transcription and Translation
When transcribing Chinese terminology, I use the standard Chinese transcription Hanyu Pinyin. Unless stated otherwise, translations from Classical Chinese are from the Thesaurus Linguae Sericae. When transcribing non-English names, I use local transcription whenever possible. In other cases, I use standard Chinese and Japanese transcriptions. This rule applies to usage of Chinese characters. I use traditional characters for classical and Taiwanese sources and proper names. I use simplified characters for Mainland Chinese names, and use Japanese kanji for Japanese terms and names. When possible, I asked my informants to choose the form of address to be used in this thesis. The pseudonyms used in this thesis were chosen by informants themselves. I have not been able to contact my informants by the time I finished this thesis, and make sure how they would like to be addressed. In these cases, I use appellations teacher, master or classmate A, B, C. In cases of those identifiable by their position, I use only surnames.