A Study on Social-Cultural Faith Interaction in South China 第8页However, the new formation won't be roses all the way, it always have swayed back and forth throughout history with the old custom, which is because that people’s thoughts, beliefs follow a frequent and fluctuant course in the real life. And once the old custom is firmly established, it can lastingly control each member of different social classes' thought and behavior inevitably and it can not be easy to abandon for us in a short while. So the old custom would revive at the right time. Therefore, the replacement process follows a tortuous course for quite some time. We are in the process of our modernization drive ages that new customs is replacing the olds, and we are not sure when the long replacement process will end.
A western philosopher once observed, “If people can master their fate by some rules, or usually feel the positive power sent out by their fate, they will never believe in superstition. However, people always entangle in the ineffectual rules, and in most cases, even though they ceaselessly seek the positive power of fate, in real terms they know that would actually be impractical. People have painfully swayed back and forth between hope and fear. As a result, they often show a tendency to believe in certain faith casually.” Life is filled with hidden uncertainties and risk, there is no an absolute criterion to let people follow. People have to find the foundation of survival and development, the ultimate implications of life and the origin of faith from specific facts of life for contending against these hidden uncertainties and risk. In this sense, it is can completely be comprehensive and acceptable that people retain a strong flavor of Long Mu cultural faith in modern times.
4Conclusion
Folk faith is a kind of complicated social belief system. Folk faith has been considered as ignorant and backward feudalistic superstition in modern society and has been criticized and even forbidden for a long time. Since the Third Plenary Session of the Eleventh Central Committee, Chinese Communist Party have decided to resume the correct policies of religion, therefore all kinds of religious sites and activities are being resumed, correspondingly, folk faith have had the upsurge of revival and have deeply exerted influence on social economy, politics, culture and organization structure, and production, living and spiritual conditions.
Human behaviors is embodied his ideology of folk faith. People are always looking for the connection mode with this world, and have to constantly reform the world in order to fit in with their surroundings in their own way, just for one reason, they are the only creatures that can think. And then they have created and developed their brilliant and distinctive culture during a long history of continuous exchanges and contacts with other ethnic groups, all of whom have assimilated and promoted each other's cultures. However, they can not completely accord with each other for their natural rebellious character, at the same time, such has forged our dynamic and colorful world featuring the exchange and mutual reference of different types of civilizations.
Cultural dissimilarity brings diversity to cultural features. The local people always base their opinions on their self-identity modes; Long Mu cultural faith also demonstrates the distinctive cultural features of South China. From what has been discussed above, the author may safely draw the conclusion as followings:
Firstly, the existence of worship of ancestors and gods is based on people’s psychological needs that god’s function could just satisfy. Different social and cultural backgrounds, economic development statuses, stages of social development, etc. could exert an influence on changes of god’s function to a certain extent.
Secondly, different regional religious cultures have different modes of expression. People have different choices of spiritual life, and also have their own modes of expression, including folk faith and sacrificing ceremonies, etc.
Thirdly, actually, the course of revival, reconstruction and development of Long Mu cultural faith in South China, may be described as the rehabilitation and reestablishment of local culture. However, the course is not an action entirely to revive the old faith system, which has been affected by factors of new era. In contrast to the old times, people's pursuit of their economic benefits is in a different situation. Today the life of the people is getting better than before, and even as people continue to pursue economic success and material comfort relentlessly, they would not postpone or neglect their spiritual or cultural development, which are embodied in people ‘s action that profoundly affected by reform and opening-up. In the changeful and developmental times, what ways do people integrate and reform folk faith and what role should folk faith play? The author remarks that further studies are necessary.
Fourthly, it is true that there exist complicated relations between economic development and folk faith. The writer had visited Wu Zhou, Guang Xi province, native place of Long Mu and found differences as followings:
Yue Cheng Long Mu Ancestral Temple VS Wu Zhou Long Mu Temple
Spacious and stately buildings
A small and cramped building
50 Yuan for entrance ticket
5 Yuan for entrance ticket
Prosperous people stream
Little popularity
More than one million visitors per year Less than a hundred thousand visitors per year
［[ Data of the chart are of 2008.]］
So what’re the reasons lead statistics listed above? Primarily, because the disparity of social economic development and external support between Guang Dong and Guang Xi province. Since the reopening in 1983, Yue Cheng Long Mu Ancestral Temple has often been added to, rebuilt and repaired, in an orderly way, and Long Mu cultural faith has been revitalized with a fairly high speed of development, which are inseparable from support and assistance by the people of Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta area.
Generally speaking, folk faith is associated with the lower productive forces in its formative period; but with the increasing development of faith, it would appropriate to the economic development. Start with analyzing present situation of Long Mu cultural faith development, there are two reasons: firstly, the further growth of the national economy and the increase of economic strength have provided a firm material foundation for Long Mu cultural faith dissemination; secondly, many new unstable factors have been arisen along with the economic development, people have became restless, anxious and depressed, especially in the unease and unrest times.
上一页 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] 下一页
A Study on Social-Cultural Faith Interaction in South China 第8页下载如图片无法显示或论文不完整，请联系qq752018766
