The vocabulary of prayer in modern China
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Many of the comments on the disappearance of MH370 by Chinese netizens mention their prayers (qídǎo 祈祷). Since most Chinese are not religious (i.e., are not Christians, Buddhists, etc.), to whom are they praying? In what way are they praying? Even if they are Buddhists, is prayer (qídǎo 祈祷) an integral part of Buddhism? Perhaps it would be common for Chinese Muslims to use this expression, but my sense is that most of the commenters quoted in the link below are not Muslims.
I really wonder when this expression of praying (qídǎo 祈祷) became such a common part of Chinese vocabulary. I don't seem to recall it being very prevalent 40 years ago, except among Christian communities.
"Malaysian Airlines MH370 Plane Crash, Chinese Reactions"
You can see the original Chinese comments by mousing over the English translations.
Note that both of the characters in the expression qídǎo 祈祷 ("prayer") have the "spirit" radical / semantic signifier. The characters that have this element usually are related to religious concerns.
Perhaps the religious significance / function of qídǎo 祈祷 has become diluted in modern China, such that it now just means "hope" or "wish". Even so, I'm interested in the process whereby it was transformed. Consequently, I asked about a dozen Chinese friends and students, as well as several scholars of Chinese religion, their opinions on this matter. Here are the results (I have added Hanyu Pinyin for all Chinese terms and English translations when the meanings of terms were not clear from the context).
From a Chinese historian:
I think on the high end of education attainment, current Chinese intelligentsia has received very strong American cultural influences. The popularity of St Valentine Day and April Fool's Day are two examples. Qídǎo 祈祷 would be a natural word to use by these people. Also after the "cultural genocide" (an apt phrase by an Italian reporter) inflicted by Mao, Christianity is making unprecedented inroads. However, two traditional expressions, púsà bǎoyòu 菩萨保佑 ("[may] bodhisattva bless / protect [us]") and zǔzōng bǎoyòu 祖宗保佑 ("[may] the ancestors bless / protect [us]"), still have currency among less educated folk. Such expressions probably used to be called qiúfú 求福 ("seek happiness / blessings / good fortune / bliss") and xǔyuàn 许愿 ("wishing"), but nowadays would also be characterized as qídǎo 祈祷.
Another word for púsà bǎoyòu 菩萨保佑 ("[may] bodhisattva bless / protect [us]"), etc. is qífú 祈福 ("pray for happiness / blessings / good fortune / bliss"), sounding a bit less "Westernized"than qídǎo 祈祷.
From a Chinese-American translator and scholar of literature and philosophy:
Chinese people my age did not seem to have any religion. My parents' generation didn't seem to have any religion either, but in times of great stress (such as a child dying), they would qiu fo (appeal to Buddha). Daogao (pray), and qidao (pray) strike me as Western terms, from Christianity. Many Chinese from the Mainland go to Christian churches and Bible classes here. One graduate Chinese Mainland student explained to me that Christianity fills a lack in the Mainland Chinese. It's about God's personal love for the individual, which you don't find in communism, or in Confucianism. I think to pray to an Almighty in times of great personal stress is a basic human
instinct. But I think daogao and qidao are words translated from the West and part of the whole imported Western culture, such as Western clothes, Western cars, Western food and drink, Western school system, Western manners….
My grand-aunt was a tragic but stoic figure who immersed herself in Buddhism after her husband abandoned her for a younger woman, his university student. She came to live with us, and a word I heard for "prayer" in my childhood was nianjing 念經 ("recite sutras / scriptures"), which she was always doing.
From a scholar of Buddhism:
Unless it is Kwan Yin or Manjusri, I am not sure who they are praying to. This sounds very Christian or Islamic to me. Thai and Lao Buddhists do chant the Ratanasutta and the Jinapanjara and other parittas when in stressful situations like this. Chinese, of course, pray to a series of deities, but the use of the term "god" in these comments, sounds more Christian. I would have to read more in context to understand this situation.
From a Chinese graduate student in Egyptology:
Although most Chinese people are not religious, it does not mean that they are atheists. Most people just xiàng lǎotiān / shàngcāng qídǎo 向老天/上苍祈祷, which means they pray to the sky ("old heaven" / "cerulean above"). The concept of shàngtiān 上天 ("heaven above") is very abstract. It is not a god or goddess nor does it have any cult image, but people do believe there is some kind of divine power, which is above in the sky and determines the fate of everybody (not the fate-determination in the ancient Mesopotamian mythology!). So we usually say tīngtiānyóumìng 听天由命 ("heed heaven and follow fate").
For Chinese Christians, they seldom use the word qídǎo 祈祷 ("pray"). Instead, they use dǎogào 祷告("pray-tell") as a formal religious term for prayer to God. For Muslims, I think they use lǐbài 礼拜 ("worship") rather than qídǎo 祈祷 ("pray").
For Buddhists, I do not think they pray. In this case, what they can do is to niànjīng 念经 ("recite scriptures / sutras"). Or they can say qífú 祈福 ("pray for happiness / blessings / good fortune / bliss"). But the way to qífú 祈福 is still niànjīng 念经. If you want the Buddha to do something for you, you have to xǔyuàn 许愿 ("wish") (also called qiú 求 ["request; seek; beg; beseech; entreat"]) before the cult image of the Buddha. If the Buddha fulfills your wish, you have to come before him again to huányuàn 还愿 ("redeem a vow to a god; make a votive offering; fulfill one's promise") by making offerings to him (e.g., incense, a sutra that you have copied many times, and / or money to support the temple). If the Buddha does not fulfill your wish, you should not complain. This may be what Buddhism means to ordinary people who are not Buddhists.
From a Chinese graduate student in history:
I think "prayer" (qídǎo 祈祷) is commonly used in China. I still remember there was a song named "Qidao 祈祷" which was very popular in the 1980s and 90s, and I think most Chinese who are not religious can pray to many different deities, such as heaven (tiān 天), the ancestors, the local deities such as Guan Yu (关羽), let alone the Buddhist and Daoist deities. I guess the fact that whether or not a man is religious does not affect his prayers. The prayers here are more like "wishes" and "hopes".
From a specialist on contemporary Xinjiang society:
The traditional Buddhist version should be qífú 祈福 ("pray for happiness / blessings / good fortune / bliss")。 Qídǎo 祈祷 ("pray") is more likely a newer phrase that had some influence from Christianity or Islam, as the proper word for praying in Christianity or Islam often is dǎogào 祷告 ("pray" [lit., "pray / supplicate-tell / inform"]).
From a lecturer on Chinese language:
They pray to lǎotiān 老天 'the heaven'. When Chinese people mourn their deceased parents, they would cry "Wǒ de lǎotiānyé a 我的老天爷啊" ("My old heavenly father, ah!") . It is a shìsú de 世俗的 ("secular") god.
From a Chinese Muslim:
I would translate qídǎo 祈祷 ("pray") not in a religious way, but as "hopes / wishes"….
There was a pop song that went "wǒ qídǎo 我祈祷" that means "I wish", i think, in the Chinese context.
From a graduate student of medieval Chinese poetry:
It is not a religious word. I think Chinese learned this from Western movies and TV dramas. No God for Chinese; they just "pray" to nobody (maybe heaven) for what they want.
From a graduate student in Chinese Islam:
I came across dǎo 祷 ("pray; supplicate") just recently in an 1871 inscription for the renovation of a tomb-shrine by a Muslim general from I think Sichuan who was stationed in Quanzhou. Talking about how the shrine would be able once again to bring blessings to the people (not just Muslims — it seems by the inscriptions that the shrines were visited by a lot of different kinds of people), he said shì zé wǒ jiào zhī xìng, yì yú suǒ shēn dǎo zhě yě 是则我教之幸，亦余所深祷者也 "this would be a blessing for our religion, and would be what I have prayed for deeply." I tried to figure out where else dǎo 祷/禱 ("pray; supplicate") is used other than bài 拜 ("worship") or in the Quanzhou shrine's case shàngxiāng 上香 ("present incense"). In Digital Dictionary of Buddhism there is an entry associating dǎo 祷/禱 with zhùdǎo 祝禱 ("benediction"): "On the first and fifteenth day of every month a benediction tablet (zhùdǎo pái 祝禱牌) is prepared to pray for the well-being of the emperor and the country and placed on the altar in the Buddha hall in the morning. The tablet is also prepared on the emperor's birthday and on official holidays." It might have some specific domains of religious use, and is maybe associated more with Islam, but I've only seen it in that one instance as far as I can remember.
From a scholar of Chinese philosophy, literature, and art:
Marx followed in the wake of Hegel. Hegel culminated the great era of German theology and turned it on its head. There is a faith-based world view that is implicit in the whole Marxist order as the "excluded other."
For a couple of decades in China, intellectuals were reading more Marxist works in translation than they read of anything else. Now everyone in China has to work through the legacy and aftereffects of Marx and Hegel. Now that Marx and Hegel have been superseded, Chinese people are naturally letting the "excluded other" trickle back into their thinking. Thus it seems natural to talk about prayer and perform prayer, acting in a way that would be natural in a faith-based world. It doesn't even require an explanation or a profession of belief.
Not only do they have to work through what Marx suppressed, they have to work through Heidegger's massive corrections to Hegel. To me Heidegger's concerns with Being are like trying to struggle out of the quicksand of a faith-based worldview only to go deeper into it. There is such ultimacy to his concern with Being, but it is after all only meaningful if it's an ultimate dimension of reality, not as a language-based attempt to re-order our take on reality. Now the high-power academics in humanities have to know something about Heidegger. More imperiousness of the ultimate concern.
The Chinese people seem to keep stumbling onto corrections of the corrections, or maybe they'll just adopt Christianity wholesale in the end. It's a legacy of Marxism.
I think Buddhist "prayer" has been affected by this. Buddhism was bigger on vows and transfering merit and empathetic compassion. Now as Buddhism comes back, it seems to be picking up a little of this "excluded other" from the Marxism that it endured under.
For many people, it may be necessary to focus one's prayers on a deity. In this sense, one prays to a god. For others, one may simply pray that there will be such-and-such an outcome, without the intervention of any supernatural being or force being necessary or expected. Comparing the religious practices that I observed in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China thirty to forty years ago with what we are witnessing now in the PRC, it would seem that the norms of monotheistic Christianity are gradually exerting an ever more powerful influence on religious belief and practice there, even for those who do not profess to be Christian.
J. W. Brewer said,
April 7, 2014 @ 12:23 pm
In the pluralistic and semi-secular U.S. you can get formulations as when after a horrible event some politician or other public figure will utter something like "I'm sure everyone in the community will join me in keeping the families of those affected by this tragic event in their thoughts and prayers." This basically covers a variety of different understandings of "prayer" but also has "thoughts" thrown in to basically say "those of you don't engage in a practice you would describe as prayer, please do whatever it is that you do instead."
It may also be worth noting (to underscore the difficulties of translating fine distinctions across languages and cultures) that the semantics of "pray" have narrowed over time in English – it was not originally so specifically religious a word, but just meant something like "request," as when Shakespeare has one mortal character say to another "I pray thee, over-name them; and as thou namest them, I will describe them" etc etc. American lawyers still use certain fixed phrases like "prayer for relief" (= something like "formal written specification in a document filed with the court of what you want the court to order the other side to do for the benefit of your client"), which is not evidence that courts are thought of as quasi-divine entities but merely evidence that legal jargon sometimes contains archaisms.
Stephan Stiller said,
April 7, 2014 @ 12:36 pm
@ J. W. Brewer
Legal jargon sometimes contains archaisms? ;-)
(This might actually be correct, depending on your understanding of "sometimes", but I had to smile. And I hope to read more about legal jargon on LL.)
GeorgeW said,
April 7, 2014 @ 2:18 pm
There is a picture in today's paper with an AP story. The picture shows a group of people with their eyes closed and heads bowed. The caption says, "Chinese relatives of passengers aboard Malaysian Airline Flight 370 hold LED candles as they _____ (something is missing) during a mass prayer for the missing plane in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on Sunday,"
Bruce Rusk said,
April 7, 2014 @ 2:19 pm
With my class, I've been reading one of the earliest Christian documents in Chinese, the "Nestorian Stele" (Windows spell-check wants to turn that into "Newtonian Stele") of 781. Its list of misguided religious practices that the Messiah wanted to do away with includes 或禱祀以邀福: "Some prayed in order to invite good fortune," with dǎoqí (the two parts of qídǎo, in reverse order) for "pray." This inscription is full of interesting reworkings of the religious terminology of the time—from Buddhist, Daoist, and other sources—so the term must have been somewhat current at the time, though I am not equipped to speculate about precisely what it would have meant.
Stephan Stiller said,
April 7, 2014 @ 3:09 pm
Thinking about it, "wishing" someone else good luck or success in a Western context and in general is nothing more than an expression of goodwill and hope. It's not like if I wish someone well, that's gonna do anything beyond maybe conferring a quantum of motivation or leaving a happy but weak memory.
And when a curse is cast in some fantasy world in a book or movie, the mechanisms of the imagined underlying foul magick are never explained. (So, how exactly can I curse someone? For example, today I want to curse all those victims of indoctrination that put their commas and periods obligatorily before closing quotation marks.)
julie lee said,
April 7, 2014 @ 8:02 pm
Bruce Rusk:
I think the characters 禱祀 in the sentence you quote, "或禱祀以邀福", is actually dao si "pray and worship".
Matt said,
April 7, 2014 @ 8:53 pm
FWIW, the Japanese 日本国語大辞典 dictionary has a cite for the literal "pray[er] to a deity" in the Shoku Nihongi (so, very close to the beginnings of Sinitic literature in Japan), and a cite for the metaphorical "wish for something" from the late 19th century. Interestingly, though, the Christian influence is quite clear in the latter cite:
普通教育論〔１８９２〜９３〕〈柏木義円〉二「聖書を以て徳育教育の基本とするに至らんことは是れ実に吾人教育の大主義にして亦吾人の祈祷なり」
Roughly, "That the Bible should be made the foundation of moral and practical education: this, indeed, is the core of my approach to education as well as my 祈祷."
I do not think it is very commonly used in this sense, though, and certainly not today. (The most similar common word in the non-secular "sincere wish" category would probably be /inoru/, a native Japanese word usually written with the 祈 character.)
jdmartinsen said,
April 8, 2014 @ 5:31 am
Two of your sources note that Chinese Christians prefer 祷告 dǎogào, but 祈祷 qídǎo is the term overwhelmingly used in Catholic contexts.
julie lee said,
April 8, 2014 @ 3:49 pm
One of the great tragedies of modern China is that almost all of us Chinese have lost our spiritual heritage. Prayer and the desire to seek spritual solace is instinctive in humans. But faced with a calamity such as Malaysian Flight 370, we Chinese can only used Westernized words such as daogao and qidao to describe our praying. This is because, as French sinologist Jacques Gernet in his history of China has recognized, the Chinese of the twentieth century had become deracinated, torn from their cultural and spiritual roots. Because of the incursion of the West, Chinese people increasingly became Westernized, so that many Chinese even stopped learning their own language, Chinese, and adopted Western culture wholesale, including Western dress, housing, transportation, medicine, education, law and administration, music and dance, entertainment, science and technology and so on. Also Western philosophy and religion. Did the Chinese, before this wholesale Westernization, not have their own culture of and words for prayer? Yes, as Victor Mair's post and some of the comments have noted. But where are the old Chinese prayers? I went to English-language Catholic schools, and one of the greatest gifts of that education was exposure to the vast literature of beautiful prayers and devotions in the Catholic Church, composed over many centuries. Then the the vast literature of sacred music. China must have had a similar heritage of prayer and sacred music, but where is it now? Yes, there are the Buddhist sutras, but where are the Confucianist or Daoist devotions? Confucianism was the dominant religion of China. The devotional literature has not all disappeared, but they are now of scholarly rather than popular interest. I know that many Chinese used to recite poetry as a spiritual devotion, as prayer. This devotion was not to the Christian God or to Jesus. It was more to a benevolent Nature or the Great Becoming (tahua大化，God if you will). One of my favorite "prayers" or "devotions" is the famous poem by Tao Yuanming, a medieval poet and erstwhile minor official who is also a great favorite in Japan, and probably in Korea too. It is the poem "O, I will go home" (gui qu lai xi 归去来兮) . I have often recited it from memory in difficult times. Here is the opening paragraph from a fair prose translation of the poem, found on the Internet :
"My yard is turning into a wilderness. It is time for me to go home to take care of it. I no longer feel upset since I realize that it is not worthwhile to enslave my mind to earn a living. Although I cannot change my past, I can still pursue a new life. Let bygones be bygones! Fortunately, I have not gotten in too deep. I am determined to correct my mistakes in the future.
"The canoe glides lightly, driven by easy strokes. The breeze is blowing my clothes. After landing at my home town, I ask a passerby for directions to my home. It is dawn. I hate that the sunlight is not bright enough for me to hurry. Upon seeing my house, I start to run with great joy as if I were bringing back bountiful gifts for my family. The servants welcome me home and my child is waiting at the door. The paths in my garden have become covered with many weeds. However, the pine trees and chrysanthemums still endure. Holding my child’s hand, I enter the house. There is a crock brimming with wine. I pick up a pitcher and a glass, and begin to drink. With tilted head, I study a branch in my yard to amuse myself. By leaning against the southern window, I regain my freedom. Now I finally realize that peace and happiness can also be found in a small place like my room. Over time, I become fascinated with my daily walks in the garden. Although my house has a door, it is often closed. I love to walk with a cane and then take a rest as I please. Oftentimes I crane my neck to enjoy the view. Clouds depart from mountain valleys without a destination. Birds fly back to their nest after an exhausting day. It is getting dark. The
sun has almost set, but I still cherish the solitary pine tree and linger, reluctant to leave.
"Since returning home, I have stopped socializing altogether. I have no interest in advancing my station and feel no need to flatter and impress others. The only social interaction I enjoy is conversing with my relatives. The joy I derive from my zither and my books eliminates my sorrows. Farmers tell me that Spring has arrived and we should cultivate the western field. Sometimes we drive a curtained wagon, and sometimes we paddle a canoe. We might visit a …."
julie lee said,
April 8, 2014 @ 4:34 pm
p.s.,
The entire translation can be found on Google at:
归去来兮辞中英 – 自在飞
zzfei.com/going-home/
Petrus said,
April 8, 2014 @ 8:22 pm
On the tea leaf nation, a short article that claims that "the atheist Chinese Communist Party, known for its sometimes heavy-handed policies towards religions, from Islam to Christianity to Tibetan Buddhism, seems far more willing to allow Christian terminology to appear on Weibo than Communist argot, according to data taken from search results on the platform conducted April 3."
http://www.tealeafnation.com/2014/04/infographic-jesus-more-popular-than-mao-on-chinas-twitter/
julie lee said,
April 8, 2014 @ 9:34 pm
Here is the first part of Lin Yutang's translation of Tao Yuanming's poem.
Ah, Homeward Bound I Go!
by Tao Yuanming
Ah, homeward Bound I Go! why not go home, seeing that my field and garden with weeds are overgrown?
Myself have made my soul serf to my body: why have vain regrets and mourn alone?
Fret not over bygones and the forward journey take.
Only a short distance have I gone astray, and I know today I am right, if yesterday was a complete mistake.
Lightly floats and drifts the boat, and the wind gently flows and flaps my gown.
I inquire the road of a wayfarer, and sulk at the dimness of the dawn.
Then when I catch sight of my old roofs, joy will my steps quicken.
Servants will be there to bid me welcome, and waiting at the doors are the greeting children.
Gone to seed, perhaps, are my garden paths, but there will still be the chrysanthemums and the pines!
J. W. Brewer said,
April 9, 2014 @ 2:37 pm
I just saw someone in a different context link to this https://www.chinafile.com/Chinese-Atheists-What-Pew-Survey-Gets-Wrong, which seems like it might be relevant here if only for the claim (which may or may not be accurate – I'm not competent to say) that a survey of religious attitudes in China got bad data because it used the wrong lexical items in phrasing the questions and that rephrasing the questions with near-synonyms that were a little more generic and less sectarian/particularistic would have yielded different results.