Time and Materials at the Changhe Temple in Hsinchu Taiwan

188 Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies , 7.2 (2024): 188–221 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE Lehmen College, CUNY Abstract: Temple managers in Taiwan engage in practical theorizing about the relationship between material objects and ritual. Their varied responsibilities include acquiring materials, overseeing renovations, recruiting ritual specialists, and taking part in ceremonies. In temple publications, they reflect on commonalities among these activities, and their insights can contribute to the academic study of material culture. This article illustrates the point through a case study of the renovations and subsequent ritual celebrations at the Changhe Temple in Hsinchu Taiwan from 1998 to 2004. The construction project and subsequent performance of a Daoist jiao offering were part of the same process. The underlying idea of improving and extending through time (Ch. xiu 修 ) linked renovations and rituals. Managers viewed both as ways to renew the temple community, to protect temple buildings, and to pass liturgical and craft knowledge to future generations Keywords: Taiwan, religion, Mazu, jiao , Daoism, maintenance, renovations, material culture, temple architecture DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.15239/hijbs.07.02.06 Time and Materials at the Changhe Temple in Hsinchu Taiwan

189 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 1 Gerritsen and Riello, ‘Introduction’, 3; Li, Lishi, jiyi, yu zhanshi , 6–15; Zhuo, Cong simiao faxian lishi , 41–46 2 Catherine Bell has described the process of differentiating certain acts as privileged or exceptional as ‘ritualization’. Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice , 90–91. For an application of this idea to the Chinese term li , Zito, ‘Ritualizing Li ’ I n Taiwan as in the United States and Europe, the study of material culture has become a growing focus of academic research as scholars have used physical objects to complement written sources, to shed light on groups not well represented in extant texts, to reframe old questions, and to formulate new areas of inquiry 1 Temple managers, however, must address different needs. They see themselves as bearers of a heritage of devotion to powerful gods. They wish to transmit that heritage, to extend the relationship between gods and worshippers into the future. To that end, they seek to maintain the physical space of the temple against varied forces of decay, including earthquakes, rain, wind, termites, and daily wear and tear. Because maintenance and repair entail regular action in the symbolically charged space of a temple, managers sometimes treat repairs as rituals, and they make choices about what kind of rituals ( li 禮 ) to perform in the care of materials ( wu 物 ) 2 Their practical theorizing of how to renew and perpetuate the worship of deities can inform our scholarly understanding of material culture. The managers of the Changhe Temple 長和宮 in Hsinchu, Taiwan, have over the past decades devoted their energies to preserving the temple buildings and to meeting the changing material needs of worshippers. Yang Jintu 楊金土 (b. 1947) has served as the director of the managing committee ( 管理委員會 ) of the temple since 1984. In 1996 he commissioned a survey of the state of the temple in preparation for a large-scale renovation project that would eventually take place between 1998 and 2004. He subsequently raised money to hold a Daoist jiao 醮 offering to celebrate the completion of the repairs. The ceremony took place in December 2004. Yang and other managers and devotees of the temple had a great deal to say about the entire process of renovation and ritual, explaining their goals and the choices they made. Their reflections demonstrate that repairs to the

190 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE 3 Meyer, ‘Religion as Mediation’, 7 4 Ibid., 3. For a different application of Meyer’s ideas to contemporary Taiwan, see Hatfield, ‘Remediation and Innovation’, 266–69 5 On the decay and need for care of god images, Kendall, ‘Things Fall Apart’, temple building and the performance of the jiao ceremony were part of the same process of renewal Maintenance and Materials Although the specific challenges of repair and upkeep are individual to each institution, the Changhe Temple offers a case study that illuminates the more general issue of how groups of people use objects to express religious ideas, and how rituals arise from the care of these objects. Devotees of the temple worship unseen gods, but they do so through the medium of things: wooden god statues, painted god images, incense and incense burners, the temple building itself, and so forth. Their veneration of Mazu 媽祖 , goddess of the sea, and other deities depends on materials, so maintaining the materials becomes an important element of their religious practice My understanding of religious objects follows anthropologist Birgit Meyer, who has argued that it is productive to treat religion as a form of mediation within a given community and between that community and a ‘professed beyond’, which is usually described as ‘spirits, gods, demons, ghosts, or God’ 3 A group of people come to understand themselves as a religious community, and their artifacts embody their relationships to other people and realms. As Meyer observed, religion involves making the ‘non-empirical sphere—a beyond—’ tangible 4 The religious nature of these artifacts is perhaps most evident when their use is highly ritualized, as for example when practitioners make use of them in ceremonies. However, the objects tend to remain significant in other, more mundane contexts, as when they need to be put away, cleaned, or fixed. Indeed, religious objects, like almost any useful object, are subject to near constant change, and so require upkeep 5

191 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 861–64; Lin, Materializing Magic Power , 48–50. On the helpful notion of ‘artifacts as process’, in which seemingly stable objects like San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge undergo multiple transformations, not only to address wear and tear, but also to address changing needs, see Young, ‘Technology in Process’, 67–68 6 Russell and Vinsel, ‘After Innovation’, 7 7 Jackson, ‘Rethinking Repair’, 221. See also Mattern, ‘Maintenance and Care’. 8 Russell and Vinsel, ‘After Innovation’, 7–13 9 In considering time, I am inspired by Zhang, Wenhua Mazu , 63–105 Following the lead of recent research in the history of science, I describe this regular upkeep as ‘maintenance’, which in the definition of Andrew Russell and Lee Vinsel is ‘the work that goes into preserving technical and physical orders’ 6 Focusing on maintenance takes up the suggestion of Steven Jackson, scholar of media studies, that we take ‘erosion, breakdown, and decay, rather than novelty, growth, and progress’ as a starting point in thinking about material culture 7 Russell and Vinsel explain that any technology must exist long after its moment of invention, and technical systems do not simply function indefinitely of themselves, but rather require labour 8 The experience of Changhe Temple managers reminds us that among other things, a temple is a technical system, an assemblage of materials, complex practices, and symbolic meanings. The need to preserve and repair has dictated that temple managers attend to both the materials of the temple and the passage of time 9 I view the work of temple managers to preserve the temple space as a form of maintenance, which in this case was an extension of devotion to the temple’s gods, a form of religious practice. Because the main building material for many of Taiwan’s historic temples, including the Changhe Temple, is wood, and because of the many forces that undermine wood’s structural integrity, large-scale repairs are typically required at intervals of about thirty years. These structural repairs are but one example of the upkeep for which temple managers are responsible. At shorter timescales, there is daily sweeping, washing, and polishing. Managers must also plan for occasional

192 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE damage, like a broken board or a roof leak. Although they cannot predict when a specific problem will arise, they can expect that some kind of repair will be necessary each year. In other words, temple structures and the objects within them are like clocks, demanding attention at regular intervals, marking a material form of time. This sense of extending and improving, expressed in the Chinese term xiu 修 , inspired managers to hand ritual knowledge and craft skills to future generations. For managers and devotees, ‘ritual’ and ‘materiality’ were of a piece. Both gave form to relationships with deities extending over time, graspable to participants, yet otherwise invisible FIG. 1 Altar to Mazu, Changhe Temple, Hsinchu. Author photo.

193 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 10 Lin, Qingdai Zhuqian , 184–96; Zhuo, Zhuqian Mazu , 2–83 11 For most purposes, it makes sense to think of them as a single temple. The door to the temple of Sea Immortals is kept shut; the only access is through the Mazu temple. There is no separate administration or financing for the sea immortals. However, the Changhe Temple and the temple of Sea Immortals do have separate designations for purposes of cultural heritage laws, and as a result separate construction reports. In popular parlance and in tourist literature, the emphasis is on Mazu, and the temple is often referred to as the ‘Outer Mazu Temple’ 外媽祖廟 because it is located just outside the (no longer extant) north gate of the former city wall of Hsinchu 12 CSTR, 3–4 The Changhe Temple Today Hsinchu is best known as the centre of Taiwan’s semiconductor industry, but in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it was a port city, home to houses who held licenses from the Qing Dynasty, which controlled Taiwan from 1683 to 1895, to trade across the Taiwan Strait 10 These groups financed the expansion of the Changhe Temple throughout the nineteenth century. Local government officials sanctioned the founding of the temple in 1747. Its patron deities were Mazu and the Sea Immortals 水仙 , who gave protection to sailors. Although there is little documentation from the eighteenth century, there are records of major renovations in 1819 and 1835. From 1863 to 1866, merchants expanded the structure into a ‘double temple’ ( shuangmiao 雙廟 ), with Mazu and the Sea Immortals each receiving one hall, as shown in Figure 2 11 In 1928, during the period of Japanese rule, patrons further enlarged the temple with a rear hall dedicated to Guanyin 觀音 , bodhisattva of compassion 12 This Japanese-period layout is now registered as a level three historic site, meaning that when managers make decisions about maintenance, they must follow the regulations of Hsinchu City government regarding historic preservation. When Director Yang described the reasons the temple conducted a 1996 survey to plan for repairs, he told a broader story of growth and transformation. He is a descendent of the merchant families

194 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE FIG. 2 Floorplan of Changhe Temple showing double-temple layout. CTBR, 20. Reprinted with permission of Hsinchu City Government.

195 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 13 CSTR, 6. See also Hsinchu Changhe Temple Management Committee and Yang, dirs. and eds., ‘Hsinchu Changhe Gong’ . The ‘two generals’ are temple guardians Qianliyan 千里眼 and Shunfenger 順風耳 common in Taiwan Mazu temples. The former sees all; the later hears all. They are popular figures in temple processions. On the ghost festival in Hsinchu: Lin, ‘Qingmo Taiwan Xinzhu Chenghuang Miao de zhongyuan jiyi’, 101–07. who supported the temple from the late eighteenth through early twentieth centuries, and as a child he became quite attached to Mazu following the loss of his father. According to the temple regulations in effect at the time, and in force since 1969, only those related to the original merchant patrons of the temple could serve in leadership positions. Yang recalls that in 1984 the temple had only 25 New Taiwan Dollars (less than USD $1) in funds. In desperation, the temple committee turned to Yang even though he had no experience. He is credited with saving the temple from insolvency. In the 1980 s he was elected district representative ( lizhang 里長 ) of the area, and he also spearheaded a reorganization of temple administration in which descendants of the original merchant groups played a smaller role in temple affairs, and more power was granted to groups that took part in temple ceremonies, particularly the Two Generals Society (Erjiang hui 二將會 ), which engaged in processions in yearly festivities, notably Ghost Festival rituals in summer 13 In 1989 the Temple Administration Committee, with approval of the goddess, reinstituted triennial pilgrimages to Meizhou 湄洲 , a district of Putian, Fuzhou. The Mazu statue at Changhe Temple was originally the third statue of the Meizhou temple. That is to say, it was not the main god image at the altar in the temple, but rather one used for processions. In the early eighteenth century, immigrants from Meizhou to Hsinchu had taken the statue with them and established the Changhe Temple as an incense division ( fenxiang 分香 ) temple subordinate to the Meizhou Mazu Temple. The two temples had maintained ties until 1949. In reinstituting these ties, the temple leadership sought to further honour the god. Director Yang viewed the temple renovations as a continuation of the broader revival of the temple’s fortunes The beginning of Yang’s tenure as director also corresponded to

196 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE 14 Huang, Simiao jingying yu guanli , 174–79; Lin, Taiwan wenhua zichan , 97–98 15 Huang, ‘Miao jilu de fangfalun’. Below I abbreviate the 1997 Changhe wider changes in Hsinchu and in Taiwanese society more broadly. The end of martial law in 1987 and the first direct presidential election in 1996 corresponded to a renewed interest in Taiwanese identity, and a corresponding desire to preserve Taiwan’s cultural heritage. Furthermore, in Hsinchu, the 1980 opening and 1985 expansion of the Hsinchu Science Park with central government investment in telecommunications, biotechnology, and in particular semiconductors and integrated circuits, had by the early 1990 s brought an economic boom to Hsinchu. Hsinchu landowners saw the value of their property increase considerably. These changes meant that the historic meaning of the Changhe Temple took renewed importance in the eyes of many templegoers, and that the temple found itself relatively flush with resources to follow through on their vision. By the mid-1990 s, temple leadership had both the desire and means to conduct major renovations, which in turn would force managers to confront the materiality of the temple itself. Sources A variety of sources allow an examination of how the ritual as well as the construction of the temple furthered the cause of renewing worshippers’ relationships with the temple’s gods, particularly Mazu. Regulations in Taiwan stipulate that temples and other sites of historic importance must first publish survey and planning information and subsequently document all work and file it in the culture office of the appropriate local and/or national government 14 The reports include assessments and photographs of damage and repairs. They are required by law, but their format is not wholly bureaucratic; rather, they allow leeway for temple management to provide historical context, statements of religious commitment, and other idiosyncratic kinds of information 15

197 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE Temple planning survey as ‘CTPS’. The temple itself published the survey, for which it recruited a number of different experts. The Changhe Temple building report is CTBR, 2002, compiled by the engineering consulting firm Liyuan 力園 . The Shuixian Temple building report of 2003 is STBR, compiled by the architecture firm of Fu Hongren 符宏仁 . Both building reports were published by the Hsinchu City Government 16 The title of the publication is rather unwieldy, so I will refer to it as the ‘Changhe and Shuixian Temple Record’, hereafter abbreviated as ‘CSTR.’ The DVD is not dated, nor does it name a director or producer, but it is titled Jiashen nian qingcheng qi’an sanchao qingjiao dadian 甲申年慶成祈安三朝清醮 大典 [Great Ceremony of the Three-Day Pure jiao Celebrating Completion and Praying for Peace in the jiashen Year (2004)] 17 John Lagerwey describes another jiao performed in Taitung ‘to celebrate the completion of the temple,’ in which Chen Rongsheng was the ‘priest of high merit’. Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History , 53 18 Goossaert, ‘In memoriam’, 223. Seidel, ‘Chronicle’, 266 19 On Hsinchu Daoists, see Saso, The Teachings of Daoist Master Zhuang . But see reviews by Strickmann, ‘History, Anthropology, and Chinese Religion’; and Yan, ‘Pingjie’, 94–100. For activities of Hsinchu Daoists, with an emphasis For the jiao rituals that took place in 2004, I am reliant on the temple’s own publications, particularly a DVD of highlights and a temple record, essentially a gazetteer, that describes the process of planning, construction, and ritual performance while also commemorating the many people, companies, and institutions who donated money 16 These materials neglect large swaths of the month-long festivities. They do, however, emphasize what temple leaders found most significant or entertaining, itself a useful view into their understanding of the significance of the event and how it linked to earlier construction projects. Other scholars have described the liturgy for the Daoist temple rites, which were mostly left off the DVD 17 The priest selected to oversee the jiao was Chen Rongsheng 陳 榮盛 (1927–2014), famous in Western academic circles as a teacher of Kristofer Schipper and John Lagerwey, among others 18 The choice was controversial at the time, because Chen was from Tainan, but Hsinchu is home to its own Daoist groups 19 Director Yang

198 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE on their participation in temple rituals, see Xie, ‘Xinzhu Du Chenghuang miao de fashi fuwu’, 143–46. 20 Published studies of the temple include Chen, ‘Xinzhu Shi Changhe Gong’; Wang ‘Xinzhu Shi Changhe Gong Shuixian Gong’; Zhang, ‘Xinzhu Tianhou gong tantao’; Zhuo, Zhuqian Mazu . insists that all decisions be approved by Mazu, and her approval is determined by casting moon blocks ( zhi jiao 擲筊 ) in front of the god statue. The blocks are rounded on one side and flat on the other— if they land so that one is round side up, and the other is flat side up, it indicates Mazu’s assent. Yang explains that after losing his father at a young age, he became rather unruly, and the only being he trusted was Mazu. A contrarian child, he did not generally like to be told what to do, but could be convinced if he thought Mazu, rather than any given bossy human adult, wanted him to do something. He would then be taken to the temple for the moon blocks to signal the will of the goddess. Yang has since applied this method to nearly all temple business. Appealing to the god may on occasion deflect responsibility for the results and avoid a certain level of social awkwardness for unpopular decisions; however, it does not render temple leadership immune from criticism. Disappointed parties to this or other matters might fairly argue that Yang controls the choices presented to the deity, and so may take the blame even for the goddess’s directions One of Mazu’s relatively recent decisions was to create a temple museum in a large tower. It opened in 2020. The building contains not only the museum, but also office space, guest rooms, an auditorium, and rooms for preparing items needed for ceremonies. The museum sponsors a speakers series and otherwise promotes scholarship on the temple 20 Discussions with the managing director of the museum, Wang Jingqiu 王靜秋 , as well as professor Sun Zhiwen 孫 致文 of National Central University, consultant to the temple on matters of historic preservation, and Director Yang form an additional source. Director Yang speaks Taiwanese, and I don’t, so I relied on Wang and Sun to translate. I met with them in May and July of 2021, and they accompanied me through the temple and museum

199 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 21 Weller, Unities and Diversities , especially page 86: ‘There is thus no explicit, self-conscious, institutionally propagated interpretation of ghosts. The structure of ritual offerings is the closest thing to such an explicit system of meanings, but it is open to various interpretations.’ Jordan, ‘The Jiaw of Shigaang’, 105, has pointed out that the nature of a jiao , in which many different activities involve different actors in different places, lends itself to diversity of interpretation and answered my many questions. (I had been to the temple on several occasions previously, but not with this project in mind.) Spring and summer 2021 was a period of increased COVID-19 restrictions in Taiwan, but all were generous with their time and information. Like my other sources, their views reflect those of the administrative committee, rather than the temple’s various other constituencies, like groups that conduct rituals, opera troupes, neighbours and casual visitors to the temple, or other worshippers. Anthropological scholarship has shown that different worshippers in Taiwan’s temples may have different levels of engagement with a given temple, and they may hold radically divergent understandings of the nature of the temple’s deities, the meaning of rituals, and/or the most appropriate modes of veneration of a given spirit. I have tried to emphasize such points of disagreement as I have discovered in my sources: disparities of emphasis and interpretation between Daoist liturgies and temple publications, and disputes over the best use of the temple courtyard. I did not witness the jiao offering, and Director Yang is the only person I spoke to who was present on the occasion. I am thus mostly reliant on temple publications, which probably reflect some attempt to reconcile other forms of diversity of interpretation, but the nature of those potential disputes remains largely opaque to me 21 Despite these limitations, it is clear that one intended result of managerial decisions about the appearance of the temple or a particular ritual performance is a sense of community. Managers hope that renovating buildings and performing rituals will help cultivate moral qualities in worshippers, extending their collective relationship with powerful gods. Maintenance is thus a window on how Director Yang and others sought, in a period of social transformation in Taiwan, to perpetuate through time worship practices inherited from their forebears.

200 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE 22 Lin Huicheng gives an example of a temple in Changhua that fought against its historical designation to avoid being stuck indefinitely with the same structure. Lin, Taiwan wenhua zichan , 113 23 Among many examples, CTPS, 85, 116, 119, and especially 121–26; CSTR, 3, 17, 53; CTBR 19, 23, 56, STBR 2-1, 2-6, 3-1, 3-8 Construction When temple managers throughout Taiwan consider the challenges of maintenance, they frequently must navigate a tension between, on the one hand, desiring to grow and expand a temple, and in particular to equip it with amenities like bathrooms and heating, and on the other hand wishing to emphasize historic preservation. In addition to legal constraints, these decisions involve different understandings of the needs of templegoers as well as different perceptions of how best to honour temple deities (maybe Mazu likes big, new, ornate five-story temples with elevators, parking, and recessed lighting better than plain, single-story historic temples) 22 At the Changhe Temple, the ascension of Director Yang meant that the discourse of historical preservation tended to win out, but there were always compromises involved (a counter [ guitai 櫃檯 ] where people can ask questions and purchase incense and other items, for example, is a postwar addition). There are tensions among different goals for the temple. Repairs are a moment when constituents negotiate their understanding of the past. The Changhe Temple illustrates the result of deliberations that are all the more interesting because they are not straightforward solutions to the problem of continuity. It is important to all concerned, however, that they approach these and all other questions with a sense of piety, of ‘seriousness and sincerity’ ( qiancheng 虔誠 ). The varied Chinese terms to describe temple improvements generally include the character xiu 修 . These include xiuli 修理 (repair), weixiu 維修 (maintenance), chongxiu 重修 (rebuild), xiujian 修建 (construct), xiufu 修復 (restore, restoration), xiuhu 修護 (renovate and protect, preservation), and zhengxiu 整修 (refurbish) 23 Following Susan Naquin, I would translate xiu itself in the context of a building as ‘renovation’, which could include ‘enlarging, replacing,

201 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 24 Naquin, ‘Is it Finished?’; idem , Gods of Mount Tai , 26–27. 25 CTPS, 116 26 Ibid., 109 27 Ibid., 117 28 Ibid., 116 rearranging, and rebuilding’ as well as merely fixing 24 Xiu , however, has a much broader semantic register, and can imply extending and/ or improving in a variety of contexts, including book editing, self-cultivation, achieving a refined or elegant manner, and performing rituals. Although not explicated in temple publications, these overlapping senses of xiu seem to connect the varied views of renovations, which gave worshippers occasions to improve and display their own moral capacities even as they contributed to refining and adorning the appearance of the temple and in so doing extended their relationship with Mazu When the managers of the Changhe Temple in 1996 conducted a survey to plan for needed repairs, they identified structural damage, particularly to wood beams, that demanded action to prevent collapse. They described these problems as ‘objective’ ( keguan 客觀 ) needs driven by the materials used 25 In the same survey they also stated a desire to ‘largely maintain the original appearance’ ( 大致維 持原貌 ) of the temple 26 In addition to personal preferences, Taiwan’s historic preservation law required them to strive for the temple’s ‘original appearance’ ( yuan mao 原貌 ), ‘original materials’ ( yuanyou cailiao 原有 … 材料 ), ‘traditional skills and methods’ ( 傳統之技術及方 法 ), and to only engage in new construction when absolutely necessary 27 Temple managers, however, recognized that there was no single point of origin that they could return to, that any repair involved ‘subjective’ ( zhuguan 主觀 ) considerations of temple needs alongside ‘objective’ considerations of structural integrity 28 One example of ‘subjective’ change involved the environment around the temple. Venders and food stalls lined the temple courtyard around the temple, and Director Yang in particular felt that the shops crowded the temple and distracted from its solemn and dignified ( zhuangyan 莊嚴 ) appearance. Similarly, the 1997

202 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE 29 CTBR, 25 30 Director Yang also serves as lizhang 里長 , head of the Changhe urban district, a position that may have helped the temple in its application. For the 1990 s renovations, the cost came to 25,551,025 New Taiwan Dollars, with three quarters of the sum coming from the national government and one quarter from Hsinchu City government. CTBR, 42 31 CTBR, 32–36 planning survey blamed the addition of terrazzo and ceramic floor tiles, in addition to white plaster walls, for marring the consistency of the interior, again obscuring what the authors took to be the temple’s ‘original appearance’. Beyond that, temple management hoped to return painted surfaces to their original colours, to use materials originally employed, and to only rebuild or replace temple sections if absolutely necessary 29 The outcome of these tensions took on concrete form in the material makeup of the temple itself. In 1998, the temple secured government funding, and construction took place between 1998 and 2001 30 The steps included first constructing a scaffolding and providing protection for undamaged areas of the building. The start of construction also provided a convenient moment to clear out the food stalls. In the front courtyard, workers built a temporary temple ( xing gong 行宮 ) and a two-story temporary structure with an office above and storage on the ground floor. There was no room for vendors. The primary enemies of wood construction in Taiwan are moisture and bugs. Load-bearing beams have a limited life before they begin to split or otherwise become unable to function. In this as in other matters there are a symbolic as well as structural considerations. Nobody wants a roof collapse, but the collapse of a temple roof holds the additional problem of dishonouring the gods. Removing roof tiles to get access to the structural beams, clearing away the damaged wood, and constructing support systems to hold up the temple while newly shaped beams are inserted, as shown in Figure 3, took up ten months of the construction process 31 Afterwards, construction turned to treating the wood with insecticides, replacing roof tiles, and

203 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE FIG. 3 Before (top), during (middle), and after (bottom) photographs of construction on roof and rafters of the Changhe Temple. CTBR, 4. Reprinted with permission of Hsinchu City Government.

204 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE 32 GTBR, 3:35–3:36 33 CTBR, 61–70 34 She says the phrase in the YouTube video (Changhe Temple Management Committee and Yang, dirs. and eds., ‘Hsinchu Changhe Gong’), but she and Director Yang often emphasized in our conversations the twin ideas of preserving ( baocun 保存 ) in order to transmit ( chuancheng 傳承 ) knowledge as contained in material objects. inserting waterproof material to prevent leaks. Then they repainted the dragons and beams on the roof. The temple did not record the percentage of the total amount of wood that needed replacing, but in the nearby Guandi Temple in 2007 38% of the large beams in the side halls of the main temple building were kept as-is, 34% had to be restored, and 28% were discarded and replaced completely. In the main temple space, only 14% of the wood could remain untouched and an additional 46% needed repairs, leaving 40% to be replaced completely 32 Earlier renovations had taken place in 1983 and 1987, suggesting that 30–40% of load-bearing wood in Hsinchu temples needs replacement in roughly twenty-year increments. The staff of the Changhe Temple, when they spoke of ‘original appearance’ were generally referring to the temple’s Japanese-period layout, but they understood that from a material perspective, the wooden beams of the temple were entirely postwar Following the work on the wood frame, construction turned to indoor spaces. For example, in the main hall ( zhu dian 主殿 ) housing the Mazu god image, workers removed tiles and cleaned and repaired the stone floor. They removed plaster and paint, replaced damage bricks, and repainted wall paintings. They also touched up the altars. The overall effect was one of less decoration, with white plaster walls and exposed brick replacing painted walls and coloured tile 33 Museum managing director Wang Jingqiu noted that these choices, combined with the activities at the temple, allow visitors to perceive ‘the culture of Mazu beliefs’ ( 媽祖信仰文化 ) immediately upon entering the temple. That cultural knowledge, including the craftsmanship of the temple itself, is what the administrators seek to ‘transmit to future generations’ ( 傳承給下一代 ) 34 To treat the past with care is

205 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 35 While scholarship on the jiao tends to emphasize the ways Daoists displace local gods, or render those gods subordinate at the altars that priests set up in temples, the DVD ( Jiashen nian qingcheng qi’an ) and temple report emphasizes Mazu’s power over the priests, noting that she selected Chen Rongsheng, deliberating among choices for seven days before making her candidate clear by means of moon blocks. CSTR 55 36 A useful survey of recent scholarship, and of changing developments in the performance of rituals in Northern Taiwan, is Menheere, ‘Ritual Change’. Lagerwey described Chen Rongsheng’s offering to celebrate completion in Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual , 51–167. A classic ethnography is Liu, Taipei shi Songshan qi’an jianjiao jidian . Xie, ‘Guanyu zhuanshu dangdai “Taiwan Daojiao shi”’ is a helpful historical survey in that it shows the difficulties of writing a historical survey. Wang, ‘Xinzhu Shi Changhe Gong’ makes use of the same sources I do to another aspect of sincerity. It allows continuity, helping participants see themselves as linked to a past and future religious community. It should make sense, then, that the Changhe administration, like practitioners throughout Taiwan, would see the jiao offerings of renewal as connected to temple construction Offering Following the renovation, the temple in the tenth lunar month of the jiashen 甲申 year (December 2004) staged a pure offering ( qing jiao 清醮 ) ceremony to celebrate completion ( qingcheng 慶成 ) and pray for peace and stability ( qi’an 祈安 ). As used by participants, the term jiao sometimes referred to the entirety of the festivities, which lasted most of the month, or sometimes to the five days of rituals performed under the direction of Daoist master Chen Rongsheng 35 Chen’s liturgies involved two parts: the two-day sequence of the offering to dispel fire ( rangying jiao 禳熒醮 ), followed by three days of the offering to celebrate completion of the temple. I want to highlight ways that temple managers and other participants treated the jiao as serving the same purposes as renovations, completing a long process of rebuilding and renewal 36 In particular, temple publica-

206 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE demonstrate the cultural meaning and growing popularity of the temple in the early twentieth century, which he attributes in part to the success of the jiao . 37 On such rituals, see Reich, ‘In the Shadow’, 307–10 38 CSTR, 83 tions emphasized the role of the jiao in the protection of the temple, in cultivating piety and morality, and in transmission of cultural knowledge and aesthetics Like the renovations, which sought to enhance protection against water damage and bugs, several aspects of the jiao involved work to allow the temple to continue to function. The jiao depicted threats to the temple as unseen: demons, elements personified as spirits (for example, fire gods), or deities who, though not otherwise spiteful, nevertheless may have been disturbed in the process of construction. The ritual described these risks, made them manifest in visible forms, and then addressed each one. Offerings, then, were forms of maintenance that might enable the temple to persist through time Although preparations for the festivities began on October 5, 2004, and various performances and festivities took place in the following weeks. The Daoist-led rituals did not commence until December 1 (the twentieth day of the tenth lunar month). The priests that morning assembled an altar in the newly cleared out temple courtyard. The fire offering began with loud drumming. The priests arrayed paper and papier mâché god statues and food offerings on the altar and performed the liturgy of ‘opening the radiance’ ( kai guang 開光 ), painting eyes onto the statues as the gods inhabited them 37 While the Daoists chanted scriptures, the assembled worshippers bowed to the gods. The culmination of these rites was ‘respectfully bidding farewell to the fire king’ ( gongsong huowang 恭送火王 ). The priests arrayed buckets of burning oil in the courtyard. Wielding fans and brooms, they performed a series of choreographed steps while fanning the flames. Eventually the burning oil, along with the fire gods, was taken on a procession out of the temple and through the city to a bonfire, where the fire king Zhu Rong 祝融 was dispatched to his palace, thus ‘preventing’ further ‘visits’ from him ( 避免祝融的 光臨 ) 38 This ritual technique sought to prevent fire, much the way

207 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 39 Li Fengmao reports that some Daoist masters, in addition to driving away demons with sword and special water, also wield their swords against termites. Li, ‘Taiwan zhaijiao’, 40 40 Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual , 51–59. See also Saso, Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal , 118–56. For a general discussion of the jiao offering celebrating completion of work ( 慶成醮 ), see Li, ‘Taiwan zhaijiao’, 38–54 41 Schipper, The Taoist Body , 80 42 CSTR, 83–85 43 Ibid., 91. In recent years, these ‘rice dragons’ ( 米龍 ) have been the subject of considerable attention, with temples vying to create dragons with larger and larger amounts of rice, and after the ceremonies donating the rice to charitable causes. The practice is considered to combine religious beliefs, artistic skill, ‘culture’ writ large, and compassion. See, for example, Li, ‘Shijie zuida de mi pintu’. that wood treatments in the renovation process sought to prevent termites 39 Following the fire offerings, the priests embarked on the three-day celebration of completion 40 In this ritual sequence, Daoist masters assembled gods, organized them into hierarchies, and dispelled demons and impurities, helping to bring about cosmic harmony and blessings on the assembled worshippers 41 Some elements of the ritual purified the temple space, as in the ‘firing oil to drive away dirt’ ( 焚油 逐穢 ) opening. One priest carried a wok of burning oil, and another added alcohol, causing the fire to flame up. Assembled worshippers passed their hands over the spitting flames, so the ritual reached not only the temple space, but also those who cared for it 42 Another element of the sequence addressed the disruption that the temple renovations had caused. ‘Settling the dragon and thanking the earth’ ( 安龍謝土 ) involved setting up an altar to dragon gods in the Shuixian Temple. The concern was that work on the temple could have unsettled dragons residing in veins of the earth. A dragon image was fashioned from white rice, with eggs, spoons, plates, and incense sticks to fashion eyes, ears, and other dragon-like features. Worshippers made offerings and paid respects to the dragon, allowing it to settle 43 Similarly, templegoers believed that jiao offerings rid the temple of any malicious spirits who might have snuck in while

208 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE 44 CSTR, 91 45 In other words, the tip and end of the stalk form a pun with the phrase ‘ 有頭有尾 ’, meaning ‘where there’s a start, there’s a finish’, i.e., to carry things through 46 CSTR, 69–70 the temple’s own gods were displaced during construction 44 This too was a kind of maintenance, work done to protect the temple against future calamity Statements in temple publications about the connections between jiao and temple renovations described Daoist liturgies, but often put them in the larger context of the ways both renovations and ritual cultivated morality. The writings tend to consider the totality of the month-long festivities, and in particular the moments when temple organizers were active participants. They tend to locate ritual action not in the Daoist canon or the transmission of texts, but rather in the context of the history of the Mazu temple and the varied activities of its supporters. For example, the DVD follows Director Yang and other members of the jiao organizing committee on the sixteenth day of the tenth lunar month as, in preparation for the temple rites, they go into the woods to locate tall, straight bamboo trunks, which will serve as posts for lanterns ( denggao 燈篙 ) at the temple for the duration of the festivities. Finding and cutting down such stalks is laborious, and those on the expedition pray to the mountain gods for success (and invite them to the jiao ). Participants often have to cut down several bamboo trees with a chainsaw to get access to the right trunks. When they find a suitable specimen, they have to dig it up by the roots. The act is symbolic. On the DVD, Yang explains ‘It’s necessary to keep the top and end of the bamboo for lantern poles to convey the meaning of finishing what you start’ ( 燈篙竹頭尾要保 留以表有頭有尾的意思 ) 45 The lanterns are said to announce the jiao to spirits and invite them to enter and participate. In particular, the light of the lanterns should lead orphaned ghosts to the ceremonies designed to provide care for them 46 Here, and throughout their descriptions of the jiao , temple publications emphasize attention to detail, following through, and other forms of sincerity. The temple

209 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 47 CSTR, 53 48 Ibid., 137–84 49 Ibid., 108 50 For discussion of scholarship on urbanization and religious change in Taiwan see Katz, ‘Bridging the Gaps’, 48–53 51 Wang Yuanci has argued that managers were correct, that the number of worshippers at the temple grew steadily following the jiao, which he attributes to the way the temple was able to appeal to a growing, relatively wealthy urban class. Wang, ‘Xinzhu Shi Changhe Gong’, 147–50. report noted that repairing a temple and holding a jiao both required labour, materials, and money, and that assembling the necessary elements required reliance on large numbers of people. Attaining this cohesion was a sign of the ‘seriousness and sincerity’ ( qiancheng 虔誠 ) of their devotion to Mazu 47 Temple managers also viewed the entirety of the jiao as honouring Mazu through a display of generosity. Unlike the temple renovations, the jiao was funded entirely through donations, and the temple report proudly displayed the names of 4759 people and institutions who had contributed amounts ranging from 1000 to 300,000 New Taiwan Dollars 48 Not all the money was used for festivities: the temple donated a new ambulance to the Hsinchu City government 49 These actions demonstrated, at least to those who considered themselves part of the temple community, that the Changhe Temple was not merely newly refurbished, but newly revitalized, prepared to take a new role in helping people in the surrounding urban district 50 Temple managers made a point of emphasizing that all, not only Mazu worshippers, were welcome to partake in festivities and feasting, and claimed that sustained public interest in performances and processions showed growing enthusiasm for the activities of the temple 51 Temple managers described the Changhe Temple as a special kind of space, and in their view both renovations and ritual contributed to its role as a ‘sacred space’ ( 神聖空間 ) that could resonate in wider circles to contribute to national prosperity and cosmic harmony. They agreed with scholars of Daoism in regarding one effect of the

210 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE 52 CSTR, 92. Compare Li, ‘Taiwan zhaijiao’, 38: ‘A symbolic hierarchy of the cosmos is constantly recreated’ in jiao rituals ( 象徵宇宙秩序不斷地再創造 ) 53 CSTR, 55 54 CSTR, 21 rites as ‘newly reviving cosmic order’ ( 讓宇宙序秩重新恢復 ) by banishing potentially harmful, even demonic, entities to realms where they could not contribute to material or moral decay 52 This cosmic resonance helps explain why the selection of Daoist priests was so significant and why temple managers felt that enlisting the priests was worth the cost. The Daoists serve as mediators ( meijie 媒介 ) who can communicate across the space between people and gods ( 人與神 明之間溝通者 ), expressing gratitude for their favours ( gan en 感恩 ) and bringing appeals of good fortune ( qifu 祈福 ) from the people ( baixing 百姓 ) 53 The priests could also reach spirits not venerated in the temple. The jiao as performed by the priests allowed worshippers at the Changhe Temple to see their restored temple space as contributing to a larger renewal and restoration, one that echoed well beyond Hsinchu Finally, temple leaders regarded the jiao and the renovations as parallel techniques for curating and transmitting cultural knowledge. The jiao festivities gave onlookers the rare opportunity to view the ‘dignified, solemn’ ( 莊嚴隆重 ) Daoist rituals alongside the ‘beauty of the architecture’ ( 建築之美 ) of a temple restored to its historic appearance. Each was a kind of message from the past. According to temple record, the bricks, stones, and wood of the temple, in addition to their practical usefulness as building materials, also formed ‘the expressive spaces of master craftsmen’ ( 匠師的表現空間 ) where viewers could gain knowledge of traditional means of representing auspicious meanings ( 吉祥意涵 ) 54 The embedded meaning included blessings of more children, stability, wealth, and peace and prosperity for the country and people ( 國泰民安 ). The architecture, and in particular the newly refurbished architecture, contributed to the goals of the ritual occasion as a whole. Moreover, it served, and would continue to serve, as a physical reminder of the temple’s purpose. Just as Daoist priests served as middlemen between people and spirits,

211 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 55 CSTR, 123 56 CSTR, Yang preface, n.p temple administrators positioned themselves as middlemen between past and future temple communities—preserving what ancestors had left for them and handing that knowledge to future generations. By bringing about both renovations and ritual, the temple had fulfilled a certain ‘ambition to artistic culture’ ( 藝術文化之志業 ) 55 At least in the eyes of managers, the temple was able to create beautiful spaces and sponsor august rituals. More importantly, it also had supported the people (craft workers, specialists in historic preservation, Daoist priests) who had the skills to ensure that such achievements would be possible in the future. Conclusion After it was all over, after the Daoist priests had returned to Tainan, the workers had broken down the temporary stages, the god statues had returned to their usual resting spots, and the worshippers had returned to their daily and weekly, rather than extraordinary, veneration of Mazu and the Water Immortals, director Yang Jintu wrote a preface to a gazetteer describing all that had taken place. His after-the-fact explanation of the renovations helps to show how he theorized the connection between material practice (renovations) and ritual ( jiao ) Yang saw the temple renovations and the jiao ceremony as inextricably linked. He felt that Mazu had offered protection to the forebearers of the current temple community, and that she continued to bestow blessings today. Similarly, in expanding and renovating the temple, devotees of the gods had shown across generations their ‘seriousness and sincerity’ ( qiancheng 虔誠 ), visible in their care for temple building and grounds, their repairs to damaged roof beams and tiles, their attention to the aesthetics of interior spaces, and their desire to preserve historic architectural details 56 Performing maintenance expressed their devotion and inscribed it into the temple,

212 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE 57 CSTR, Yang preface, n.p renewing a relationship to the deities and making the temple community seem tangible across time The jiao ceremony both completed and complemented the renovations. It celebrated the success of the restoration projection, thanked the deities for their grace, and united templegoers with Daoist priests in prayer for continued peace and protection. Director Yang argued the ceremony also brought about moral renewal. For him, Taiwan’s rapid industrialization, urbanization, and social transformation required ‘reconstructing ethical relationships and morality’ ( 重建倫理道德 ), and he thought that the ceremony together with the renovations would serve as an example of making historic practices relevant in a changing Taiwan 57 He thought the skills needed for work on the temple, the ritual specialties of the participants (particularly the Daoist priests), and the objects preserved in the temple museum all allowed transfer of knowledge from past to future. Yang felt that he and templegoers shared stewardship of this knowledge and that this responsibility followed from the temple’s special relationship with gods, particularly Mazu. In Yang’s view, maintenance of the structure, performance of the ritual, and other forms of public outreach and education all helped produce a sense of community In addition to giving insight into the decisions of temple managers, Yang’s analysis suggests new questions that we might ask of material practices in a variety of contexts: notably, what, if anything, are they extending through time? To what extent are they repertoires of xiu ? Although not germane to all the papers presented at the 2023 Ritual and Materiality in Buddhism and Asian Religions conference, many of which are featured in this special issue, phrasing the question this way does offer some leverage on the issues that came up repeatedly. Neither the rituals nor materials of the Changhe Temple have much in common with the sixth-century Buddhist practitioners described in Kate Lingley’s article, but the idea of xiu seems embedded in the story of Jin Jiangwei 金將微 , who did not seek to extend wealth (‘transitory as a flash of lightening’), but rather to carve a Buddhist image in marble, extending the presence of the Buddha

213 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 58 Lingley, ‘Against Impermanence’, 50 59 Liu, ‘Arhat Cave Belief’, 31 60 Wargula, ‘The Material Imagination’ 61 Dine, ‘Ritualized Word’, 272–73 62 Saka, ‘Embedding Prayers in Cotton, Ramie, and Silk’ 63 Wu and Yang, ‘Entangling Bodies and Places’; Lin, ‘Foundations of an Incense-Centric Society’, 4–5 64 Liu, ‘Negotiating Boundaries’, 115 ‘in the wake of his departure from the world’ 58 Liu Shufen, in her study of arhat caves, quotes a Song scholar’s description in which one sees an extension of the sacred through refinement of the built environment: ‘constructing a mountain out of flat ground, transforming the mundane realm into the sacred’ 59 Similarly, in Carolyn Wargula’s account, one finds that materials act to extend sound across time, unending utterances, words made material and capable of stimulating responses in viewers and bringing about future acts of transformation 60 Extension of voice and sound also appear in Susan Dine’s paper, most vividly in the image of buddhas springing from the monk Kūya’s 空也 (903–972) mouth 61 In Chihiro Saka’s contribution, the clothes change ritual both serves as a kind of maintenance for the clothing of god images and extends the performer’s karmic connection to the deity 62 The concerns of Ching-chih Lin, Keping Wu, and Wenxuan Yang are perhaps closest to my own. Wu and Yang show how villagers in Xitang Township create and extend their sense of temple community forward even while lacking actual temples, and Lin demonstrates how burning incense, rather than maintaining god statues, can similarly extend a group 63 Obviously, none of these papers should be reduced to this idea. Indeed one could also find examples of rituals of destruction, as in the burning of a written document, or of misfires, as in the worries expressed by the monk Zhuhong in Jingyu Liu’s paper that the ritual spectacle may cause such a crowd that it ‘brings conflict with ghosts and deities, and excessive emphasis on trivial matters.’ 64 The point is not that xiu underlies everything, but rather to point out that rituals and materials can be seen as elements of a toolkit for seeking other goals.

214 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE Pairing examination of materials with consideration of ritual is one means for scholars to discover the field of meaning in which objects were embedded, and to show moments when actors reinforced, contradicted, or improvised: what they discarded, and what they carried on Acknowledgments Thanks to Paul Katz, Chang Lung-chih, Lin Yu-ju, Lin Kuei-ling, and Lin Hsin-yi for introducing me to the study of Hsinchu, to Stephen F. Teiser, Susan Huang, Justin McDaniel, Laurel Kendall, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments, and especially to Yang Jintu of the Changhe Temple, Wang Jingqiu of the Changhe Temple Museum, and Sun Zhiwen of National Central University. I am grateful to the Culture Bureau of the Hsinchu City Government for permission to reproduce photos from the construction report Bibliography Abbreviations CTBR Changhe Temple Building Report. See Zhuang et al., eds CSTR Changhe and Shuixian Temple Record. See Changhe Temple Management Committee and Yang, eds CTPS Changhe Temple Planning Survey. Xie and Lin, eds GTBR Guandi Temple Building Report. See Xu et al., eds STBR Shuixian Temple Building Report. See Fu et al., eds Sources Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice . New York: Oxford University Press, 1992 Changhe Temple Management Committee 長和宮管理委員 會 , and Yang Jintu 楊金土 , eds. Jiashen nian Changhe Gong, Shuixian Gong qingzhu chongxiu luocheng, jiangong 263, 142 zhounian gongzhi ji qingcheng qi’an qingjiao 甲申年長

215 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE 和宮、水仙宮慶祝重修落成、建宮263、 142 週年宮誌暨慶成祈 安清醮 [2004 Changhe and Shuixian Temple Celebration of Completion of Renovations, Temple Record of the 263 and 142 Year Anniversaries of Construction, and Pure jiao Offering Celebrating Completion and Praying for Peace]. Hsinchu: Changhe gong 長和宮 , 2007 Changhe Temple Management Committee 長和宮管理委 員會 , and Yang Jintu 楊金土 , dirs. and eds. ‘Hsinchu Changhe Gong’ 新竹長和宮 [Hsinchu Changhe Temple]. YouTube. October 20, 2020. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb 72 dzHvGFQ&ab_ channel=%E 9%AB%98%E 9%BB%9 E%E 9%9 B%BB%E 8%A 6%96 Chen Litai 陳立台 . ‘Xinzhu shi Changhe Gong jingguan jianzhu zhi tantao’ 新竹市長和宮景觀建築之探討 [Discussion of the Architecture and Landscape of Hsinchu Changhe Temple]. Zhuqianwenxian zazhi 竹塹文獻雜誌 [Hsinchu City Archives Quarterly] 39 (2004): 109–40 Dine, Susan. ‘Ritualized Word: Material Networks in Thirteenth- Century Japan’. Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 7.2 (2024): 254–93 Fu Hongren 符宏仁 , et al., eds. Xinzhu shi guji Shuixian Gong xiuhu gongcheng zhi shigong jilu ji gongzuo baogao shu 新竹市古蹟水 仙宮修護工程之施工紀錄暨工作報告書 [Construction Record and Work Report of the Restoration Engineering of the Hsinchu City Historic Site, Shuixian Temple]. Taipei: Fu Hongren jianzhushi shiwusuo 符宏仁建築師事務所 , 2003 Gerritsen, Anne, and Giorgio Riello. ‘Introduction: Writing Material Culture History’. In Writing Material Culture History , edited by Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello, 1–13. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. Goossaert, Vincent. ‘In memoriam Kristofer M. Schipper (1934– 2021)’. T’oung Pao 107.3–4 (2021): 221–31 Hatfield, D. J. ‘Remediation and Innovation in Taiwanese Religious Sites: Lukang’s Glass Temple’. Asian Ethnology 78.2 (2019): 263–88 Huang Jiping 黃季平 . ‘Miao jilu de fangfalun: Taiwan sanci miao pucha anli de bijiao’ 廟紀錄的方法論：台灣三次廟普查案例的比

216 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE 較 [On the Methodology of Temple Records: A Comparison of Three Examples of Temple Surveys in Taiwan]. Minsu quyi 民 俗曲藝 [Journal of Chinese Ritual, Theatre, and Folklore] 142 (2003): 7–53 Huang Qingsheng 黃慶生 . Simiao jingying yu guanli 寺廟經營與 管理 [The Operations and Management of Temples]. Taipei: Yongran wenhua 永然文化 , 2000 Jackson, Steven J. ‘Rethinking Repair’. In Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society , edited by Tarleton Gillespie, Pablo J. Boczkowski, and Kristen A. Foot, 221–39. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2013. Jiashen nian qingcheng qi’an sanchao qingjiao dadian 甲申年慶成祈 安三朝清醮大典 [Great Ceremony of the Three-Day Pure jiao Celebrating Completion and Praying for Peace in the jiashen Year (2004)]. DVD. Hsinchu: Changhe gong 長和宮 , n.d Jordon, David K. ‘The Jiaw of Shigaang (Taiwan): An Essay in Folk Interpretation’. Asian Folklore Studies 35.2 (1976): 81–107 Katz, Paul R. ‘Bridging the Gaps: Methodological Challenges in the Study of Taiwanese Popular Religion’. International Journal of Taiwan Studies 1.1 (2018): 36–63 Kendall, Laurel. ‘Things Fall Apart: Material Religion and the Problem of Decay’. The Journal of Asian Studies 76.4 (November 2017): 861–86 Lagerwey, John. Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History . New York: Macmillan, 1987 Li Fengmao 李豐楙 . ‘Taiwan zhaijiao’ 台灣齋醮 [Taiwan’s Purification and Offering Rituals]. In Jinxiang, jiao, ji yu shehui wenhua bianqian 進香 , 醮 , 祭與社會文化變遷 [Pilgrimage, jiao , Sacrifices, and Sociocultural Changes], edited by Xie Guoxing 謝 國興 , 19–97. Taipei: Guoli Taiwan daxue chubanzhongxin 國立 臺灣大學出版中心 , 2019 Li Huizhou 李惠洲 . ‘Shijie zuida de mi pintu! “Milong” bao ping’an, chuguo bisai po Jinshi shijie jilu’ 世界最大的米拼圖！ 「米龍」保 平安 , 出國比賽破金氏世界紀錄 [World’s Largest Rice Jigsaw Puzzle! ‘Rice Dragon’ Blesses for Peace, Breaks Guinness World Record in International Competition]. Ziyou shibao 自由時報 [Liberty Times Net], June 9, 2018. https://playing.ltn.com.tw/

217 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE article/9889 Li Jianwei 李建緯 . Lishi, jiyi, yu zhanshi: Taiwan chuanshi zongjiao wenwu yanjiu 歷史 , 記憶與展示 , 臺灣傳世宗教文物研究 [History, Memory, and Display: Studies in Taiwan’s Extant Religious Cultural Relics]. Taichung: Fengrao wenhua 豐饒文化 , 2018 Lin, Ching-chih. ‘Foundations of an Incense-Centric Society: Annual Rotation and Ritual Alliance of Ang Gong 尪公 Worship in North Taiwan’. Paper presented at ‘Ritual and Materiality in Buddhism and Asian Religions’, Princeton University, June 13–15, 2023 Lin Huicheng 林會承 . Taiwan wenhua zichan baocun shigang 臺灣文 化資產保存史綱 [Historical Outline of Taiwan’s Preservation of Cultural Property]. Taipei: Yuanliu 遠流 , 2011 Lin, Wei-Ping 林瑋嬪 . Materializing Magic Power: Chinese Popular Religion in Villages and Cities . Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2015 Lin Xinyi [Lin Hsin-yi] 林欣怡 . ‘Qing mo Taiwan Xinzhu Chenghuang miao de zhongyuan jiyi fanying de shehui dongyuan yu difang rentong’ 清末臺灣新竹城隍廟的中元祭 儀反應的社會動員與地方認同 [Social Mobilization and Local Identity as Reflected in the Ghost Festival Rituals of the Hsinchu City God Temple in Late Qing Taiwan]. Lishi renleixue xuekan 歷史人類學學刊 [Journal of History and Anthropology] 19.1 (April 2021): 97–126 Lin Yuru 林玉如 . Qingdai Zhuqian diqu de zaidi shangren jiqi huodong wangluo 清代竹塹地區的在地商人及其活動網絡 [Local Merchants in Qing Period Zhuqian (Hsinchu) and the Networks of Their Activity]. Taipei: Lianjing 聯經 , 2000 Lingley, Kate. ‘Against Impermanence: Women, Ritual, and Materiality in Medieval China’. Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 7.2 (2024): 41–69 Liu, Jingyu. ‘Negotiating Boundaries: A Comparative Study of the Shuilu (Water-Land) Rituals in Late Imperial China’. Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 7.2 (2024): 70–131 Liu, Shufen 劉淑芬 . ‘Arhat Cave Belief as Seen in Four Stele Inscriptions and the Daitoku ji Paintings of Five Hundred

218 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE Arhats’. Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 7.2 (2024): 1–40 Liu Zhiwan 劉枝萬 . Taibei shi Songshan qi’an jianjiao jidian 台北市 松山祈安建醮祭典 [Liturgy of the Offering of Praying for Peace in Songshan, Taipei]. Taipei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan minsusuo 中央研究院民俗所 , 1967 Mattern, Shannon. ‘Maintenance and Care’. Places Journal , November 2018. https://doi.org/10.22269/181120 Menheere, Yves. ‘Ritual Change in a Taoist Tradition: The Development of the Jiao in Northern Taiwan’. Huaren zongjiao yanjiu 華人宗教研究 [Studies in Chinese Religions] 11 (January 2018): 1–35 Meyer, Birgit. ‘Religion as Mediation’. Entangled Religions 11.3 (2020): n.p. https://doi.org/10.13154/er.11.2020.8444 Naquin, Susan. Gods of Mount Tai: Familiarity and the Material Culture of North China, 1000-2000 . Leiden: Brill, 2022 ⸻. ‘Is It Finished? Problems in the History of Chinese Buildings’. Paper presented at the 14 th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia, Paris, July 6–10, 2015 Reich, Aaron K. ‘In the Shadow of the Spirit Image: The Production, Consecration, and Enshrinement of a Daoist Statue in Northern Taiwan’. Journal of Chinese Religion 49.2 (November 2021): 265–324 Russell, Andrew L., and Lee Vinsel. ‘After Innovation, A Turn to Maintenance’. Technology and Culture 59.1 (January 2018): 1–25 Saka, Chihiro 坂知尋 . ‘Embedding Prayers in Cotton, Ramie, and Silk: The Symbolism of Textiles in Datsueba Worship’. Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 7.2 (2024): 333–59 Saso, Michael R. Taoism and the Rite of Cosmic Renewal. Spokane: Washington State University Press, 1989. ⸻. The Teachings of Daoist Master Zhuang . Revised third edition. Los Angeles: Oracle Bones Press, 2012 Schipper, Kristofer. The Taoist Body . Translated by Karen C. Duval. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994 Seidel, Anna. ‘Chronicle of Taoist Studies in the West, 1950-1990’. Cahiers d’Extême-Asie [East Asian Journal] 5 (1989): 223–347.

219 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE Strickmann, Michel. ‘History, Anthropology, and Chinese Religion’. Harvard Journal of Asian Studies 40.1 (June 1980): 201–48 Wang Yuanci 王願慈 . ‘Xinzhu shi Changhe gong Shuixian gong zhi yanjiu’ 新竹市長和宮水仙宮之研究 [Study of the Changhe and Shuixian Temples in Hsinchu City]. M.A. thesis, Hsuan Chuang University 玄奘大學 , 2016 Wargula, Carolyn. ‘The Material Imagination of a Japanese Tendai Welcoming Descent of Amida Embroidery’. Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 7.2 (2024): 294–332 Weller, Robert P. Unities and Diversities in Chinese Religion . Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1987 Wu, Keping, and Wenxuan Yang. ‘Entangling Bodies and Places: Material Agency in Urbanizing China’. Hualin International Journal of Buddhist Studies 7.2 (2024): 222–53 Xie Conghui 謝聰輝 . ‘Guanyu zhuanshu dangdai “Taiwan Daojiao shi” de quanshi jiangou shitan: jianlun Taiwan bentu shiye daotan yu daofa chuancheng puxi de xiangguan yanjiu tupo wenti’ 關於撰述當代 《 臺灣道教史 》 的詮釋建構試探 : 兼論臺灣本土世業道壇與道法傳承譜系的相關研究突破問題 [Regarding Trying Out an Interpretive Structure for Narrating a Contemporary ‘History of Taiwan Daoism’, with Discussion of the Question of Breakthroughs in Relevant Research on Taiwan’s Native Hereditary Daoist Lodges and Transmitted Pedigrees of Daoist Techniques]. In Dangdai Taiwan zongjiao yanjiu jingcui lunji 當代臺灣宗教研究精粹論集 [Concise Collection of Studies of Religion in Contemporary Taiwan], edited by Jiang Canteng 江燦騰 , 203–22. Taipei: Boyang 博揚 , 2014. Xie Weixun 謝偉勳 , and Lin Yijun 林怡君 , eds. Xinzhu shi disanji guiji Xinzhu changhe gong diaocha yanjiu ji xiuhu jihua 新竹 市第三級古蹟新竹長和宮調查研究暨修護計畫 [Survey and Plans for Repair and Preservation of the Changhe Temple, Xinzhu City Level Three Historic Site]. Hsinchu: Hsinchu City Government 新竹市政府 , 1997 Xie Zongrong 謝宗榮 . ‘Xinzhu du chenghuang miao de fashi fuwu yu zhongyuan jidian 新竹都城隍廟的法事服務與中元祭典 [The Ritual Services of the Hsinchu Metropolitan City God Temple

220 CHUCK WOOLDRIDGE and the Liturgy of the Ghost Festival]. Taiwan zongjiao yanjiu 臺灣宗教研究 [Taiwan Journal of Religious Studies] 14.1 (June 2015): 141–72. Xu Yujian 徐裕健 , et al., eds. Xinzhu shi disanji guji Xinzhu Guandimiao xiufu gongcheng baogaoshu ji shigong jilu 新竹市第 三級古蹟新竹關帝廟修復工程報告書暨施工紀錄 [Restoration Engineering Report and Record of Construction of the Hsinchu City Third-Level Historic Site Hsinchu Guandi Temple]. Hsinchu: Hsinchu City Government, 2008 Yan Fangzi 顏芳姿 . ‘Pingjie The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang jianlun Linjia de Daojiao shiye’ 評介 The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang 兼論林家的道教事業 [Review of The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang with Discussion of the Daoist Projects of the Lin Family]. Zhuqian wenxian zazhi 竹塹文獻雜誌 [Hsinchu City Archives Quarterly] 5 (October 1997): 94–100 Young, Mark Thomas. ‘Technology in Process: Maintenance and the Metaphysics of Artefacts.’ In Maintenance and the Philosophy of Technology: Keeping Things Going , edited by Mark Thomas Young and Mark Coeckelberg, 38–85. New York: Routledge, 2024. DOI: 10.4324/9781003316213-4 Zhang Denan 張德南 . ‘Zhuqian Tianhou Gong tanwei’ 竹塹天后宮 探微 [Detailed Discussion of the Tianhou Temples of Hsinchu]. Zhuqian wenxian zazhi 竹塹文獻雜誌 [Hsinchu City Archives Quarterly] 24 (July 2002): 69–79 Zhang Xun [Chang Hsun] 張珣 . Wenhua Mazu: Taiwan Mazu Xinyang yanjiu lunwenji 文化媽祖：臺灣媽祖信仰研究論文 集 [Cultural Mazu: Collection of Studies of Mazu Belief in Taiwan]. Taipei: Zhongyan yanjiu yuan minzuxue yanjiusuo 中 央研究院民族學研究所 , 2003 Zhuang Minxin 莊敏信 , et al., eds. Xinzhu shi disan ji guji Xinzhu Changhe Gong xiuhu gongcheng shigong jilu gongzuo baogaoshu 新竹市第三級古蹟新竹長和宮修護工程施工記錄工作報告書 [Report and Work Records on Engineering and Construction for the Restoration of the Changhe Temple, Hsinchu City Level Three Historic Site]. Taichung: Liyuan gongcheng guwen 力園 工程顧問 , 2002 Zhuo Kehua 卓克華 . Zhuqian Mazu yu simiao 竹塹媽祖與寺廟

221 TIME AND MATERIALS AT THE CHANGHE TEMPLE [Mazu and Temples in Hsinchu]. Taipei: Yangzhi 揚智 , 2010. ⸻. Cong simiao faxian lishi 從寺廟發現歷史 [Discovering History from Temples]. Taipei: Yangzhi 揚智, 2003 Zito, Angela. ‘Ritualizing Li : Implications for Studying Power and Gender’. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 1.2 (Fall 1993): 321–48.

Other Religion Concepts:

[back to top]

Discover the significance of concepts within the article: ‘Time and Materials at the Changhe Temple in Hsinchu Taiwan’. Further sources in the context of Religion might help you critically compare this page with similair documents:

Wall painting, Temple building, Temple construction, Buddhist studies, Material object, Moral decay, Pure offering, Fire offering, Materiality, Religious practice, Sacred space, Cosmic harmony, Main Hall, Material needs, Material culture, Cultural knowledge, Main temple, Temple structure, Religious community, Future generation, Structural damage, Religious object, Historic site, East Asia, Religious site, Chinese religion, Daoist priest, Technical system, Original appearance, Construction process, Construction project, Taiwanese society, Material Agency.