Modern Life and Traditional Death Tradition and Modernization of Funeral Rites in Taiwan

Marco Lazzarotti

《Fu Jen International Religious Studies》 8卷1期 (2014/06) Pp. 108-126

並列摘要

Traditionally in Taiwan death is not considerate the terminal moment of a person life, but throughout specific rituals of passage, it is a way to get a different status, the status of ancestors. Ancestors still live with their descendants, very often they influence descends life in order to satisfy their needs, on the other hand they need to be worshiped by their descendants. The rich rituals performed during funerals, the ancestors' worship ceremonies, as well as the festivity of the tomb sweeping day can be considerate as a demonstration of these relationships between those who are already dead and those who are still alive. Nowadays the constant and rapid modernization/westernization of Taiwanese society gets in contrast with these traditional concepts linked with death. Ancestors are directly linked with a family, which ancestor should be venerated by the children of those who are divorced? How can those who work all day long, and even during the night, take daily care of their ancestors' tablets as prescribed by the tradition? How it is possible to combine the popular belief that one of the souls will follow the body inside the grave with the new law made by Taipei City government that, due to the lack of space, requires the cremation of the corpse? What is the answer of the society and of the traditional cultural system to these questions? This article will argue that these problems are not felt and resolved as social problems, but uniquely as personal problems that need personal solutions. In this way this more and more modern society still preserves its old cultural environment. In this way this article will try to challenge the functionalist interpretation that many scholars did talking about Chinese Folk Religion.

並列關鍵字

Ancestors ； cult of the ancestors ； cultural style ； modernity ； tradition