Brock Silvers, a Chicago business consultant now based in Beijing, was shocked by what he found several years ago when he traveled through the hinterlands of China in search of Taoist temples. “Many ancient foundations, parts, pieces, wings, etc survived until the modern era,” he writes via E-mail. “Most of that was wiped out by the Red Guards.”
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Taoism–founded in the second century BC–advises its adherents to lead a life unburdened by excess and tension and in harmony with nature. Yet during the heyday of communism, all forms of religion–even the benign Taoism–were banned in China, and only recently has the government relaxed the restrictions. Since then there’s been a resurgence in faith among mainland Chinese. “The people created Taoism, and the people are coming back to their roots,” says Silvers, who studied the religion at Columbia University. “Temples are jammed on holy days. There’s no shortage of young monks and nuns.”
“Our job is to see that the tradition isn’t preserved as a tourist game, a nonreligious shell,” says Silvers. “So we strive to assist in preserving traditional ways. And the locals love us for it. We are working with an abbot to build a new temple, and hundreds of people came out to thank us, giving us food, serenading us with local opera. What an experience!” The list of TRS projects also includes preserving the Taoism-based language of a minority tribe in Yunnan province.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Yael Routtenberg.
