Making A Malefactor A Benefactor: Ghost Worship In Taiwan

All Native American cultures have strong beliefs in life after death, although the means of reaching the next life may vary from tribe to tribe. They traditionally believe that death is a part of a natural cycle in which their spirits are transported back and forth between this world and the spirit world so that they can bring renewal and new life when they return. Most consider this transition to be an honor or privilege since it will ensure the survival of their people. In Native American culture, it is believed that neglect of tribal rituals can result in death and sickness, because the spirit returns without blessings, having been unable to enter the other world. According

Spirits are known as the souls of a people that are intangible and immortal. Buddhism affiliates spirits as souls of people who are in the constant cycle of reincarnation and suffering. It is a believed that the souls of people are what carry them throughout the universe in the cycle as Buddhists believe in a constant state of change and that the physical existence and identity is never permanent; thus, everyone is associated with a spirit in this cycle of reincarnation. However, some spirits in Buddhism are also seen as deities which are those who attained a level of enlightenment yet instead of enlightenment, they stay to

When comparing their religious views, Ancient South Asia and China were very different. In Ancient South Asia, they held that trees and animals were sacred because of their associations with vital forces. In comparison, Ancient Chinese people believed in their ancestor’s presence and they believed in their continuing influence. Family heads, in Ancient China, presided over the rites of honoring their ancestor’s spirits.

Shamanism and ancestor reverence are key religions of the Chinese. Shamans are spiritual healers who call on spirits while they are dreaming to relieve an individual from uncertainty or cure an individual from a disease (Laughlin & Rock, 2014). Shamans are seen as elders of the Chinese community and are respected for the tremendous healing power they have on others. Furthermore, ancestor reverence is the respect many younger generations have for their

Legend says that a "crying lady"ghost hants the area. The places you can hear the "crying lady" are found in many LA and Zwolle, LA. There are many reasons why you hear her cries, but popular one is that she cries because her baby was stolen.

In the novel The Woman Warrior Maxine Hong Kingston uses ghosts to represent a battle between American and Chinese cultures. The two cultures have different views of what a ghost is. The Chinese believe the ghost spirits may be of people dead or alive. Chinese culture recognizes foreigners and unfamiliar people as ghosts because, like American ghosts, they are mysterious creatures of the unknown. Americans view ghosts as spirits of the dead that either help or haunt people. American ghosts may or may not be real. There spirits are there but physical appearance is a mystery.

The primary meaning of the word "ghost" in the work is, of course, "American" or "white person". "White person" might seem more attractive because of the idea of paleness that we associate with ghosts, but there are "Mexican ghosts" and "Negro ghosts" - so "American" is more accurate. This is supported by the idea that those Chinese born in America are considered ghosts: "They would not tell us children because we had been born among ghosts, were taught by ghosts, and were ourselves ghost-like. They called us a kind of ghost. Ghosts are noisy and full of air; they talk during meals. They talk about everything" (183-84). Even one generation makes this difference. The mysterious Chinese name given to the "assimilated" Chinese by the new immigrants is "Ho Chi Kuei" (204), which Kingston is unable to translate in full (further demonstrating her assimilation) - but "Kuei" she knows means "Ghosts". This idea of Americans as ghosts goes even further in some of Kingston's titles for Americans,

At the core of any nation’s culture are its religious beliefs. In China there are the “Three Jewels” Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism, as described in Lopez (1996). There are small numbers of people practicing other religions such as Christianity and Islam, but these are the three dominant beliefs of the region. While they are separate in content, they have coexisted for several thousand years. Lopez (1996) goes on to say, “Historical precedent and popular parlance attest to the importance of this threefold division for understanding Chinese culture…Buddhism is the sun, Daoism the moon, and Confucianism the five planets…suggesting that although they remain separate, they also coexist as equally indispensable phenomena of the natural world.” Each belief system stands alone, and at the same time needs the other(s).

* What causes a group of people to hold or sponsor this ritual? -most commonly used in Tibet as a rite for turning away demons

In Chinese culture, the influence of ancestors is great. They were buried in expensive graves at the best location people could think about. People will invite their ancestors to come back to enjoy a delicious meal one set day in a year. I, literally helped my ancestors finish their meal, always wondered how we could not see them and yet believed their presence. This tradition is commonly practiced in my hometown until today. We ask the ancestors to bless us and protect us during their meal and send them off by cracking

Perhaps incident to its appearance and association with death and dying, the ghost is often labelled as an abject category which society regards as impure, dirty and unclean. In Japan, kegare translates to ‘impurity’ and is a form of unspoken taboo. In her book, Impurity and death: A Japanese perspective, Chikara Abe mentions three main types of kegare: 1) Shi-e, loosely translated to ‘death impurity’, 2) ketsu-e loosely translated to ‘blood impurity’ and 3) san-e, meaning ‘childbirth impurity’. She states that in Japan, people avoided touching kegare, also known as syoku-e, to ensure a state of purity. Coming in contact with shi-e, in particular, was deemed abhorrent and a form of contamination. In ancient Japan, the concept of shi-e was intrinsic

In the Confucianism religion, rituals are held to bring people together. The core unifying factor of rituals is worship. One of the oldest rituals in the Confucian is the worship of the ancestors. Confucians took ancestors worship as a source of their moral and spiritual fulfillment something that brought harmony in the society. The rise of Han dynasty in 202 BC, endorsed Confucianism as a leadership ideology, and it came with the incorporation of the ancestors worship (Dubs, 1938). Shrines to ancestors mostly consisted of pictures of the dead elders and to show respect to them, one was required to clasp incense in the hand and kneel before the picture to place the burning incense in the holder. Ancestors are taken to be a link to the Supreme Being and the people. The respect for the dead was caused by the belief that a person has two souls, namely hun and po. The two souls are associated with yang and yin

For example, the movie Spirited Away, is about a little girl who finds herself in a different, spirit-filled world where her parents get turned into pigs because they ate the spirits' food. She then has to work for a witch, who runs a bath house for spirits, in order to save her parents from permanently becoming pigs. Along her journey, she comes across a water spirit named Haku, who she relies on for surviving the harsh working conditions, and learns how to please the different kinds of spirits (Bak, 2003). In the movie, Spirited Away, humans are greatly looked down upon. They carry a particular scent and personality that is repulsive to the spirits of that world. However, as the little girl becomes familiar with the ways of the spirit world, the spirits begin to value her presence, which then turns into building a better relationship between spirits and humans. Some of the spirits that are seen throughout Spirited Away include radish spirits, dragons, origami birds, ducks, and decapitated

Since the introduction of Buddhism to the region in the 800s, sky burials have become the most common way to dispose of the dead. They're also among the most captivating social practices to appear from a

I trust she is well in America?’ He always asks about our daughter. He often drove my wife and me to visit her at the College of Medicine in Enugu. I remember that when Ebere died, he came with his relatives for mgbalu and gave a touching, if rather long, speech about how well Ebere had treated him when he was our driver, how she gave him our daughter’s old clothes for his children” (Adichie