Taipei History

Religion

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Date

Institution

Instructor

Course

Religion

Part 1

Besides being a tourist attraction area, Taipei is also a cool place for residence, and that's why I chose to reside here. Taipei is located in Xinyi district. It is full of restaurants and excellent shopping hotspots.  The architect of this place can be traced back to the old silt housing of the famous aborigines in the early colonial periods.  And also the ancient buildings like the cave dwellings which are the classical man-made holes in the stones which were the oldest civilization. But generally, the Taiwan architecture is currently at the peak of its westernization, and the Republic of China has even listed it as an architectural world heritage.

Taiwan has been a highly diversified nation concerning religious belief. There are noticeable practices of Buddhism, Taoism, Christianity, Mormonism, the unification church, Islam, and Hinduism as well as the local native sect which is the primary type of religion in this area. But generally in Taiwan, by a rough estimate, above 65 percent of all the adults are believers in the Chinese Folk religion. And also by another view, the most significant number of Taiwanese believes in this Chinese folk religion, and that is 51 percent. This ancient Chinese folk religion is deeply associated with the local traditions or the local events and festivals that are usually celebrated with pomp and ceremony all throughout the nation. The love that Chinese have for color, ritual, and grandeur is seen in these festivals. It expresses there great believe in superpowers and accurately what is commonly known as ghosts. In this country, the world of demons, spirits and dark forces is widely accepted by many people, and it is seen as an everyday reality in life. Most people consult fortune- tellers, and observe feng shui, while others conduct divination and at times practice qigong. All these practices can be regarded as part and parcel of the traditional Chinese folk religion. Chinese folk religion in Taiwan also includes the belief in mother spirit who protects one from lousy omen, Na Tuk Kong. And most of this folk deities have a particular function and essential territorial domain only that they are believed to be organized into smaller groups of supernatural bureaucracy. There is a noticeable overlap between practitioners in Taiwan of these religions such as Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and Falun Gong.  Their numbers have rapidly increased in recent years to as many as 100000.  But the most dramatic change of all is the fall of membership sharply during the Taiwan significant political transitions and frequent revolution throughout the country.

In this new century, at least every Taiwanese believes in the traditional folk religion. Researchers have proved that almost 80 percent of the Taiwanese population believes in some form of traditional folk religion. And to note, folk religion is the most explicit and most common form of religious practice in the immediate lives of most Taiwanese and mostly those who reside mainly in the local areas. But still, it is diffused in the families based or the individual religious life of those in both the urban an in the rural areas. Throughout the history of the Chinese folk religion, ancestors were worshipped and respected by all members of the society. The religion includes all methods of communication with ancestors and deities. To Chinese folk religion, satisfying the wants and needs of the souls of the departed ones is a constant and significant concern to the believers. Rituals are done to honor the ancestors and help them in the other world or even seek help, guidance, and power from them. Prayers are used as a petitioner as most people particularly pray on an excellent wealth and a stable financial status or massive wealth. The Chinese folk religion has given a staunch symbolic meaning of unity and more so loyalty to the believers in faith. It is seen as a celebration or rather an appreciation of the current and ongoing life. As much as the ancestors are worshipped by their descendants, the descendants themselves prepare to be ancestors. And despite the formal or religions that are considered to be high end, folk religion has still dominated this region, and I believe most parts of the world. Some people who have no idea about this place claim that it is in decline just because it does not conform to the modern culture and the civilized way of doing things.

Part 2

To better understand what makes this religion unique, I’ll have to arrange them in three different paragraphs to better explain what I learned about;

The belief in good and evil spirits. In that, it is antedated to all other faiths within this area, especially in the rural parts. The theory holds that all the phenomena and forces in the world are somehow influenced or controlled by some spirits and also that the souls of the dead are essential in determining the future or fate of an individual. The senses provide the living with the divine protection, and if they are ignored, they cause misfortune. Although this belief has been officially condemned as superstitious practices, most chines folks continue to proliferate in the rural and urban areas of this society.