CHINESE TRADITION: THE CULTURAL CONTEXT We once asked an old
lady who spent a lot of her time visiting temples in Hong Kong
whether she was Daoist or Buddhist. She looked at us as if we
were stupid. To her, whether the temple had a gold-tiled roof
(Buddhist) or a bottle-green tiled roof (Daoist) was irrelevant.
There was no difference. Whether the figures inside were gods or
bodhisattvas, they were all "Buddhas!" And they deserved the
same respect as they had received for 1000s of years. In many
ways this typifies Chinese tradition. It is a complex tangle of
ancient legend, lifestyle, ritual and unquestioned assumption
that defies truly objective study. It's a collection of symbols
and achetypes that makes Chinese people what they are - whether
or not they practice any of the "old ways" overtly from their
soaring glass-clad offices in Shanghai, Singapore or Hong Kong.
Chinese tradition just "is." Buddhism, Daoism, Conficianism, Wu
Xing, Feng Shui ... they have all dissolved and merged inside
the Chinese psych