Guanxi Master

A Goddess of Mercy becomes a Goddess of Fortune

Last week, I wandered into the Buddhist temple at the famous Shanghai water town of Zhujiajiao. People were charged a 10 yuan admission to enter the main temple grounds, but in the annex, worshippers got a freebie. Before paying the fee, one could kneel on a padded bench before a glass-encased Laughing Buddha (Maitreya Buddha) covered in gold paint, with a mischievous-looking Haibao peeking around the corner of the case. The little blue mascot for the Shanghai World Expo 2010 and the golden Buddha are emblems of the same aspiration among the Chinese: conspicuous wealth and a global showcase of modernization.

After paying the fee, one can enter the first shrine of the Buddha and its accompanying bodhisattvas. The color theme here, as in every shrine on the temple grounds, is gold (wealth) and red (luck). The statues and the décor are very consistent in this regard, and are out of place for an orthodox Buddhist shrine. Traditionally, Buddha forbade his followers to touch gold, but here, every representation is covered in it.

Equally unorthodox, the central deity in the main courtyard is a figure of Guan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy. Along the walls facing her are the Lohan or Arhat, direct disciples of the Buddha. A chant plays over a loudspeaker, repeating “Guan Yin” in a wistful major-key tune. I quickly found out that in every shrine of the main temple, she is the central deity, usually accompanied with the Maitreya Buddha above or before her. In each representation, she is larger or more prominent than the others, and, of course, every statue is adorned in gold and red.

The Goddess of Mercy has turned into a goddess of fortune and good luck, and for a Westerner like me, the place seemed to be an Eastern variation of a Marian cult.

The previous Friday evening I had watched the fireworks extravaganza of the opening of the World Expo on TV, and noted the choice of great Western musical masterpieces to accompany the program. One of the main items featured Andrea Boccelli singing (actually lip-syncing) the “Nessun Dorma” aria from Puccini’s opera Turandot.

The setting of the song is a night in ancient Peking, where the brave Prince Calaf has just answered the cold-hearted Princess Turandot’s riddles on pain of death, and has won the right to wed her. The stakes of the riddles were high, and the greatest and wealthiest princess in the world had killed hundreds of her suitors until Prince Calaf fatefully came to court. This goddess of ice was quickly beaten at her own game, and Calaf won her hand, the realm, and the wealth of the world. He sings “None shall sleep” on the night before he takes her to wife – the entire nation is in sleepless anticipation of his miraculous ascension to power and prosperity.

Such wooing in China is further illustrated by the selection of Carl Orff’s “O Fortuna” from the cantata Carmina Burana for the final fireworks display. The piece was probably chosen for its driving rhythms and sublime sound, but the Latin poetry of the text is an expression of enslavement to the goddess Fortuna, cursing her and the life she has fashioned for the human creature. It is a lament that the pursuit of prosperity and fortune, while so sweet, is a cruel and crushing mistress.

The cult of “good luck” has always been a factor in Chinese society. But in recent decades, this cult has achieved an unprecedented renaissance in every form of religion or pseudo-religion, from Buddhism to Asian Christianity. We are witnessing a society that is surging unstoppably towards the promise of wealth as defined by industrial “modernization.” It seems to be the topic of every conversation, the motive for every action toward one’s family and beyond. It is part of the global manifestation of modern “low paganism,” and in such a society one cannot even have the status of personhood without achieving one’s value in money.

As I walked around on the balcony of the top floor of the temple, stone friezes depicted Guan Yin in various poses of blessing and of return upon the back of a dragon at the end of the world. However, will the wealth achieved have an apocalyptic end, as it was seen in the West’s manifestation of Fortuna? Since China is imitating the West’s way of urban modernization, why not make due homage to the old and capricious European deity Fortuna, who has suddenly and so obviously begun to favor them at last?