Research methods

In this thesis, I describe a collection of concrete cases of conflict in order to analyze how the religious groups involved have moved across the border between tolerance and rejection. At the center are two case studies that each investigate one interreligious dispute in-depth: the Da’an Park Guanyin Statue conflict and the 218 Event at Yu Shan Yan Luminary Temple. For each case, there is a need for triangulation between different types of sources on the same events, to achieve a more balanced picture of the different perspectives on the conflict.

The primary research data includes cultural texts and academic literature. Cultural texts include any texts where “one can ‘read’ some meanings into the phenomena” (Walliman, 2011: 82). Firstly, this is the “official” information as published by institutions that interpret religious conflicts. To start with, I read reports from international organizations that focus on religious freedom and conflicts. It appears that the human rights organizations Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have not published a single article on the religious situation in Taiwan, which means they have not identified any issues in that area. Moreover, the annual Religious Freedom Report by the U.S. Department of State consistently applauds the level of religious freedom in Taiwan. The issues that are mentioned in these reports have arisen either within a religious tradition or between the secular government and religion in general.

Continuing my search for interreligious conflicts in Taiwan, I first conducted several interviews with scholars of religious studies in Taiwan. The main reason for this was that although this topic has not been researched in this way before, the individual cases have caught the attention of these scholars.

Second, I gathered materials published by the religious organizations involved (e.g., on their websites), including statements from these organizations’ leaders. Because Taiwanese religionists usually follow their leaders’ words, the writings and spoken recordings of these leaders will show how each issue is perceived within their organizations. By contrast, blogs and other Internet publications can paint a different picture from official texts. Owing to freedom of expression, these articles are able to offer conflicting opinions. They can generally be expected to contest the officially published information, since the Internet is an excellent platform for such views, for better or for worse. Third, I conducted observations to record data on the activities or the nature or condition of objects. For example, some cases revolve around statues of deities. Even if a conflict has already ended, it is interesting to learn about the current conditions of these objects and how they are now worshipped and by whom. The results of this initial search are presented through brief descriptions of the conflicts in chapter two and

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are the basis for the model of interreligious conflicts in modern Taiwan. The model differentiates between three types of conflicts, based on the reasons behind them: discrepancies in the worship practices of the same deity, unfair treatment by the government, and the syncretic use of orthodox teachings by New Religious Movements.

During the next stage of the research, I searched for reports in leading Taiwanese newspapers to see which of the conflicts are deemed so intense that they are newsworthy. The two in-depth case studies in this thesis are first and foremost based on articles related to the disputes and their key actors that were published throughout the development of the conflicts in the newspapers. The case studies of the Da’an Park Guanyin conflict and the 218 Event at Yu Shan Yan Luminary Temple serve to further explore the different types of interreligious conflict, falling in the categories of unfair treatment by the government and discrepancies in the worship practices of the same deity, respectively. These two cases are selected based on the amount of news material available on each case. First of all, there were enough news reports to form a comprehensive understanding of the facets involved with the conflicts and the developments of the conflict over time. Moreover, these conflicts have ended, so that it is unlikely to encounter future plot twists. Consequently, this research method favors cases that have been in the public eye and with distinct incidents that make it newsworthy. The third type of conflicts, disputes over the syncretic use of orthodox teachings by New Religious Movements, tends to simmer along under the surface with less clear and open incidents. With the New Religious Movements that challenge the traditional beliefs tending to stay more underground, the news reporters are less able to interview them to provide the other side of the story in a well-rounded news article.⁸ As a result, this last category of interreligious conflicts is not represented by an in-depth case study of news reports but would ask for a sociological approach.

The leading Taiwanese newspapers used in this thesis are, first, the Central News Agency (中央社, Zhongyang She), a state-owned news agency that was founded in 1924 by the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang) but after the lifting of martial law transitioned into a non-affiliated organization that is still the official news agency of Taiwan. Second is the China Times (中國時報, Zhongguo Shibao), which was established in 1950 and originally maintained close relations with the Nationalist government, but since the 1980s has become more liberal and more often supportive of the opposition parties. Third and fourth are the United Daily News (聯合報, Lianhe Bao) and its related evening newspaper the United Evening News ( 聯合晚報, Lianhe Wanbao). An aspect of Taiwanese newspapers that merits consideration is their affiliation with and often strong support of the main political parties through the blue-green division between the Nationalists and the Democratic Progressive Party. However, with regard to the religious issues presented in the case studies here, political affiliation appears to be less important and news reports are fairly neutral in this aspect. Nevertheless, this combination of newspapers offers a variety of viewpoints and thereby gives a balanced overview. I have gathered a

8 Professor Tsai Yuan-lin, personal communication (2018-06-13).

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total of 155 news articles related to the Da’an Guanyin dispute and 51 news articles related to the 218 Event at Yu Shan Yan Luminary Temple, as well as several tens of news articles for the five other cases of conflicts. These articles consist of both momentary depictions throughout the disputes and several longer reports with overviews and reflections, as well as some scholarly contributions.

There is no scholarly research available that specifically applies the abstract concept of “religious tolerance” in concrete situations in Taiwan. A more extensive search on the two in-depth case studies indicated that academic research on the Da’an Guanyin conflict is limited to a collection of master’s theses. The two master’s theses most closely related to the approach that this thesis employs are by Xiao Zi Jun (1995) and Liao Bi-De (2009). Xiao’s thesis in particular has been helpful in that it presents more historical background through a combination of news articles and interviews with key actors, which gives an overview of the dispute on which Liao Bi-De later based his thesis. However, both theses are primarily written from a political science perspective, with the latter focused on grassroots pressure from the Buddhist side of the dispute and the former on the influence of the contemporary administration on the religious groups and their political activism. This is a different focus than the interaction between religious groups that is analyzed in this thesis. Other theses that also mention the Da’an Park Guanyin conflict are written from the perspectives of either artistic value or public space.

One interesting master’s thesis in the latter category, by Liao Shu-ting, gives an alternative version of the dispute through an interview with the then-Taipei City Mayor Huang Ta-chou (黃大洲) (2002: 100-103).

Other than these sources, few publicly accessible or university resources have been published by any of the key actors and written solely from their own point of view. From the Christian side, there have been some articles published in the Christian Tribune (基督教論壇, Jidujiao Luntan) that mention or reflect on the issue, but this is a private medium. Other later publications from key actors are a collection of distinctly Buddhist reflections by Venerable Chao Hwei (釋昭慧法師)⁹ and a book with contemplations on the dispute by Mayor Huang Ta-chou,¹⁰ but these are beyond the scope of this master’s thesis.

For the 218 Event at Yu Shan Yan Luminary Temple, the main sources are also articles from the aforementioned newspapers, including scholarly analyses by Lee Feng-mao (李豐楙) and Lin Pen-Hsuan (林本炫). There is a small amount of other academic writing on this temple, which is clearly divided by the two groups involved in the dispute. Research on the Luminary Buddhists is focused on their gender and the influence of this fairly unique all-female nunnery on feminism in Buddhism (Lin, 2010; Devido, 2010) and on their education, both their own exceptionally high educational levels as well as their engagement with society and the spread of the dharma through public education (Yü, 2010). In contrast, the literature on the Yu Shan Yan folk religionists mainly revolves around the local Hakka cultural identity and is related to the geographic area, with a focus on the yearly pilgrimage temple festival (Chyr and Xie, 2012; Liu, 2010). The 218 conflict is mentioned only briefly, if at all, and (with the exception of

9 Shih Chao Hwei. 1994. Compassionate Guanyin (Ciqing Guanyin, 慈情觀音). Taipei: Dharma Drum Publishing.

10 Huang Ta-chou. 2001. Transformation: The Birth of Da’an Forest Park (Tuibian: Da’an Senlin Gongyuan de Dansheng, 蛻變：大安森林公園的誕生). New Taipei City: Cheng Chung Bookstore.

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Yeong-Shin Chyr) is largely based on information published by the Luminary nuns on their website and in their magazine. Nevertheless, they offer some interesting findings that have contributed to the understanding of the 218 Event, but primarily reflect back on the issue from over a decade later. Most importantly, during fieldwork for his master’s thesis in the 1990s, Chyr was able to record the legend behind the original establishment of the temple as told by the village elders, which was later published in the magazine of the Luminary Buddhists. I found that this latter publication eventually found its way back to the newer generations of villagers (the exact same story is reprinted in Chyr and Xie, 2012). The religious groups themselves have made a small number of additional contributions. The Luminary nuns have primarily done so through their website and the Glorious Buddhism Magazine published through their temple, including the March 1997 theme issue that reflects on the dispute.¹¹ The Yu Shan Yan folk religionists have primarily contributed through their Facebook page.¹²

Since the main data involves both written and spoken words, a two-pronged method is required for the evaluation of these texts and the messages that they communicate on how the religious groups involved have developed and solved conflicts. First, a narrative analysis will serve to extract themes and structures from the accounts of the disputes. This will mainly involve examining what is said and how it is said, but equally interesting is what is not said and how parts of the story are circumvented. Moreover, a rhetorical analysis will focus on the techniques used to persuade the listener or reader. This method involves vocabulary, structure, and arguments that “may appeal to, and engender belief, in the target audience, but is likely to repel and undermine the confidence of others” (Walliman, 2011: 141-142).

Both during the development of each conflict and after it is resolved, how the events are reflected upon by all sides will show which party is thought of as “more right” than the other. This is especially interesting considering the aforementioned Taiwanese ethical standard. Walliman states that credibility markers “indicate the ‘rightness’ of the author and the ‘wrongness’ of others, such as assertions about the ‘correct’ moral position, claims or privileged understanding and dismissing alternatives as unbelievable” (142). Religious leaders, in particular, might use these markers to instruct their followers, and government and other “official” sources will likely also want to ensure that their interpretation of events is accepted by the public.