Papers by C. Julia Huang
The Journal of Asian Studies, 1998
Thirty years ago the buddhist compassion Relief Foundation (Ciji Gongdehui, hereafter Ciji) was v... more Thirty years ago the buddhist compassion Relief Foundation (Ciji Gongdehui, hereafter Ciji) was virtually unknown. Lost in the backwater of Taiwan's eastern coast, the group began in 1966 with a nun, five disciples, and thirty housewives who contributed pin money of NT $0.50 each day (just over a penny at that time) to help supplement medical fees for the poor. The nuns sewed children's shoes to generate a little more income, and their monthly total of funds available for charity was under NT $1,200 (about US $30 at that time). Today Ciji is the largest civic organization in Taiwan, claiming 4 million members worldwide in 1994, and nearly 20 percent of Taiwan's population. It gives away well over US $20 million in chanty each year, runs a state-of-the-art hospital, and has branches in fourteen countries.
Tzu Chi (Ciji), a lay Buddhist charitable movement under monastic leadership, stands out among th... more Tzu Chi (Ciji), a lay Buddhist charitable movement under monastic leadership, stands out among the new and large-scale Buddhist organizations in Taiwan, for its continuous focus on medical care. Presently it runs an island-wide medical network in Taiwan and the largest bone marrow databank of the Chinese diaspora. How and why is medical care important to Tzu Chi? What makes Tzu Chi's medical charity Buddhist? This paper focuses on the core of medical concerns in the Tzu Chi movement and the impact Tzu Chi's mission has on medical practice in Taiwan. I will give a brief history of Tzu Chi's medical charity, to show how it unfolds into an engaged Buddhism and the sacralization of its medical practice. I will argue that the process of bestowing sacramental meanings on the scientific is a Buddhist comment on modern medical practice—a sacralization of medical science.
Tzu Chi (Ciji), a lay Buddhist charitable movement under monastic leadership, stands out among th... more Tzu Chi (Ciji), a lay Buddhist charitable movement under monastic leadership, stands out among the new and large-scale Buddhist organizations in Taiwan, for its continuous focus on medical care. Presently it runs an island-wide medical network in Taiwan and the largest bone marrow databank of the Chinese diaspora. How and why is medical care important to Tzu Chi? What makes Tzu Chi's medical charity Buddhist? This paper focuses on the core of medical concerns in the Tzu Chi movement and the impact Tzu Chi's mission has on medical practice in Taiwan. I will give a brief history of Tzu Chi's medical charity, to show how it unfolds into an engaged Buddhism and the sacralization of its medical practice. I will argue that the process of bestowing sacramental meanings on the scientific is a Buddhist comment on modern medical practice—a sacralization of medical science.
The most popular deity in the Chinese world is probably Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, o... more The most popular deity in the Chinese world is probably Guanyin, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, or “Goddess of Mercy,” whose porcelain statues can be seen everywhere. Even where other gods or ancestors are the main objects of worship, shrines to Guanyin can typically be found as well: in temples, in small domestic shrines in homes, even in open-air altars or at the foot of sacred rocks and trees. Guanyin means “perceiver of sounds” and refers to the deity’s ability to hear the cries of the suffering beings in this world. Guanyin is the Chinese name for Avalokitesvara, who has been worshipped throughout the Buddhist world and has even been described as “the cult of half of Asia.” However, Avalokitesvara has never been worshipped as a goddess in India, Sri Lanka, or Southeast Asia. In Tibet, the Dalai Lama (always a man) is considered to be the reincarnation of Avalokitesvara. Many tenth-century paintings from Dunhuang, on the Silk Road in west China, show him with a moustache. The se...
European Journal of East Asian Studies, 2003
... T'ien Hou (“Empress of Heaven”) Along the South China Coast, 960–1960', in David John... more ... T'ien Hou (“Empress of Heaven”) Along the South China Coast, 960–1960', in David Johnson, Andrew J. Nathan, and Evelyn Rawski (eds ... creation of Compassion Relief, and yet their focus on social welfare did not change the minority status of Chris-tians in Taiwanese society ...
European Journal of East Asian Studies, 2003
Proselytizing and the Limits of Religious Pluralism in Contemporary Asia, 2013
The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi (Ciji)
Foundation of Taiwan is a lay Buddhist movement un... more The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi (Ciji)
Foundation of Taiwan is a lay Buddhist movement under monastic leadership that has a mission of relieving all living beings from suffering. The founder and leader is the Venerable (or the Dharma Master) Cheng Yen (Zhengyan fashi). Cheng Yen is an ordained nun and, at the same time, commands considerable personal appeal. While Tzu Chi’s current
membership of several million does include a significant number of men, the majority of followers, especially the core members, continue to be women. What do Taiwanese women see in Cheng Yen and in Tzu Chi? Drawing from ethnography in southern Taiwan and the Tzu Chi literatures on Cheng Yen, this paper attempts to show a pattern of normalizing female charisma—in the sense that female followers struggle for a breakthrough from the cultural constraints of their female
gender roles by means of, and by virtue of, the Tzu Chi mission.
The Eastern Buddhist, 2013
Books by C. Julia Huang
Governing Gifts: Faith, Charity, and the Security State, Apr 2019
The Venerable Cheng-yen is an unassuming Taiwanese Buddhist nun who leads a worldwide social welf... more The Venerable Cheng-yen is an unassuming Taiwanese Buddhist nun who leads a worldwide social welfare movement with five million devotees in over thirty countries—with its largest branch in the United States. Tzu-Chi (Compassion Relief) began as a tiny, grassroots women’s charitable group; today in Taiwan it runs three state-of-the-art hospitals, a television channel, and a university. Cheng-yen, who has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, is a leader in Buddhist peace activism and has garnered recognition by Business Week as an entrepreneurial star.
Based on extensive fieldwork in Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, and the United States, this book explores the transformation of Tzu-Chi. C. Julia Huang offers a vivid ethnography that examines the movement’s organization, its relationship with NGOs and humanitarian organizations, and the nature of its Buddhist transnationalism, which is global in scope and local in practice. Tzu-Chi’s identity is intimately tied to its leader, and Huang illuminates Cheng-yen’s successful blending of charisma and compassion and the personal relationship between leader and devotee that defines the movement.
This important book sheds new light on religion and cultural identity and contributes to our understanding of the nature of charisma and the role of faith-based organizations.
Edited proceedings by C. Julia Huang
ARI Inter-Asia Roundtable proceedings, 2015
The Inter-Asia Roundtable held at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute ... more The Inter-Asia Roundtable held at the National University of Singapore’s Asia Research Institute (ARI) on 17-18 October 2013, brought together scholars from China and around the world to discuss such innovations in the field of religion and development in China. Their contributions to this volume comprise significant new contributions to our evolving understanding of the implications of these complex developments for the re-configuration of religious communities, the re-negotiation of state-religion-society relationship, the re-imagining of models of civic engagement, and the re-shaping of new kinds of subjectivities in contemporary China.
Questions explored in these papers address the extent to which the involvement of religious individuals and institutions in development leads different levels of state authority to reconsider their own responsibilities for social welfare and their governance of religious organizations. The contributions to the discussions collected here also examine factors affecting the involvement of diverse institutions in social service provision and inform particular ways of conceptualizing what it means to be needy, and who are worthy recipients of aid? The complexities of this can be seen, for example, in the ways in which particular programs either accept, negotiate or contradict the state discourses of social welfare, popular religious understandings of charity and merit accumulation, and/or ‘global’ discourses on poverty, inequality, and development. Through engaging these issues, the discussions of contemporary case studies presented in this volume critically explore the changing faces of religious giving in China, and the broader social, religious, institutional, and political implications of these ongoing transformations.
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Papers by C. Julia Huang
Foundation of Taiwan is a lay Buddhist movement under monastic leadership that has a mission of relieving all living beings from suffering. The founder and leader is the Venerable (or the Dharma Master) Cheng Yen (Zhengyan fashi). Cheng Yen is an ordained nun and, at the same time, commands considerable personal appeal. While Tzu Chi’s current
membership of several million does include a significant number of men, the majority of followers, especially the core members, continue to be women. What do Taiwanese women see in Cheng Yen and in Tzu Chi? Drawing from ethnography in southern Taiwan and the Tzu Chi literatures on Cheng Yen, this paper attempts to show a pattern of normalizing female charisma—in the sense that female followers struggle for a breakthrough from the cultural constraints of their female
gender roles by means of, and by virtue of, the Tzu Chi mission.
Books by C. Julia Huang
Based on extensive fieldwork in Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, and the United States, this book explores the transformation of Tzu-Chi. C. Julia Huang offers a vivid ethnography that examines the movement’s organization, its relationship with NGOs and humanitarian organizations, and the nature of its Buddhist transnationalism, which is global in scope and local in practice. Tzu-Chi’s identity is intimately tied to its leader, and Huang illuminates Cheng-yen’s successful blending of charisma and compassion and the personal relationship between leader and devotee that defines the movement.
This important book sheds new light on religion and cultural identity and contributes to our understanding of the nature of charisma and the role of faith-based organizations.
Edited proceedings by C. Julia Huang
Questions explored in these papers address the extent to which the involvement of religious individuals and institutions in development leads different levels of state authority to reconsider their own responsibilities for social welfare and their governance of religious organizations. The contributions to the discussions collected here also examine factors affecting the involvement of diverse institutions in social service provision and inform particular ways of conceptualizing what it means to be needy, and who are worthy recipients of aid? The complexities of this can be seen, for example, in the ways in which particular programs either accept, negotiate or contradict the state discourses of social welfare, popular religious understandings of charity and merit accumulation, and/or ‘global’ discourses on poverty, inequality, and development. Through engaging these issues, the discussions of contemporary case studies presented in this volume critically explore the changing faces of religious giving in China, and the broader social, religious, institutional, and political implications of these ongoing transformations.
Foundation of Taiwan is a lay Buddhist movement under monastic leadership that has a mission of relieving all living beings from suffering. The founder and leader is the Venerable (or the Dharma Master) Cheng Yen (Zhengyan fashi). Cheng Yen is an ordained nun and, at the same time, commands considerable personal appeal. While Tzu Chi’s current
membership of several million does include a significant number of men, the majority of followers, especially the core members, continue to be women. What do Taiwanese women see in Cheng Yen and in Tzu Chi? Drawing from ethnography in southern Taiwan and the Tzu Chi literatures on Cheng Yen, this paper attempts to show a pattern of normalizing female charisma—in the sense that female followers struggle for a breakthrough from the cultural constraints of their female
gender roles by means of, and by virtue of, the Tzu Chi mission.
Based on extensive fieldwork in Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, and the United States, this book explores the transformation of Tzu-Chi. C. Julia Huang offers a vivid ethnography that examines the movement’s organization, its relationship with NGOs and humanitarian organizations, and the nature of its Buddhist transnationalism, which is global in scope and local in practice. Tzu-Chi’s identity is intimately tied to its leader, and Huang illuminates Cheng-yen’s successful blending of charisma and compassion and the personal relationship between leader and devotee that defines the movement.
This important book sheds new light on religion and cultural identity and contributes to our understanding of the nature of charisma and the role of faith-based organizations.
Questions explored in these papers address the extent to which the involvement of religious individuals and institutions in development leads different levels of state authority to reconsider their own responsibilities for social welfare and their governance of religious organizations. The contributions to the discussions collected here also examine factors affecting the involvement of diverse institutions in social service provision and inform particular ways of conceptualizing what it means to be needy, and who are worthy recipients of aid? The complexities of this can be seen, for example, in the ways in which particular programs either accept, negotiate or contradict the state discourses of social welfare, popular religious understandings of charity and merit accumulation, and/or ‘global’ discourses on poverty, inequality, and development. Through engaging these issues, the discussions of contemporary case studies presented in this volume critically explore the changing faces of religious giving in China, and the broader social, religious, institutional, and political implications of these ongoing transformations.