The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao

397 Pages·2017·4.44 MB·English

by  Ian Johnson

ALSO BY IAN JOHNSON
A Mosque in Munich: Nazis, the CIA, and the Rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in
the West
Wild Grass: Three Stories of Change in Modern China

Contents
Cover
Also by Ian Johnson
Title Page
Copyright
Epigraph
Cast of Characters
Map
PART I: The Moon Year
 1 Beijing: The Tolling Bell
 2 Ritual: The Lost Middle
 3 Shanxi: First Night
 4 Chengdu: Long Live Auntie Wei
PART II: Awakening of the Insects
 5 Ritual: Awakening the Past
 6 Beijing: You Can’t Explain It
 7 Ritual: The Caged Master
 8 Practice: Learning to Breathe
PART III: Clear and Bright
 9 Ritual: Martyrs
10 Shanxi: The Buried Books
11 Chengdu: Good Friday
12 Beijing: Ascending the Mountain
PART IV: Summer Harvest
13 Chengdu: Recitation
14 Practice: Learning to Walk
15 Ritual: New Star
16 Beijing: The Flower Lady
17 Shanxi: Source of the Divine
PART V: Mid-Autumn
18 Practice: Learning to Sit
19 Beijing: The Sacred Slum
20 Ritual: The New Leader
21 Chengdu: The New Calvinists
PART VI: Winter Solstice
22 Practice: Following the Moon
23 Shanxi: City People
24 Beijing: The Great Hermit
25 Ritual: Eastern Lightning
26 Chengdu: Searching for Jesus
PART VII: Leap Year
27 Ritual: The Fragrant Dream
28 Chengdu: Entering the City
29 Shanxi: Ghost Burial
30 Beijing: The Wondrous Peak
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Permissions Acknowledgments
About the Author
Heaven sees as my people see. Heaven hears as my people hear.
—BOOK OF DOCUMENTS
But now they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.
Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he
has prepared for them a city.
—HEBREWS 11:16
Cast of Characters
THE BEIJING PILGRIMS
Ni Zhenshan, or Old Mr. Ni: the family patriarch and head of a pilgrimage
association that runs a shrine on Miaofengshan, Beijing’s holiest site.
Ni Jincheng: the older son who becomes a reclusive Buddhist.
Ni Jintang: the younger son who helps run the pilgrimage association.
Qi Huimin: the tough manager of the association and devout believer.
Wang Defeng: the Communist Party official who led the reconstruction of
Miaofengshan and remains its influential manager.
Chen Deqing, or Old Mrs. Chen: founder of a shrine on Miaofengshan and patron
saint of a summertime pilgrimage to the Temple of the Central Peak.
THE SHANXI DAOISTS
Li Bin: the ninth-generation Daoist yinyang man, or funeral master, fortune-teller,
and geomancer. He moves into the city against his father’s wishes.
Li Manshan, or Old Mr. Li: the father of Li Bin, he stays in the family’s ancestral
village.
Li Qing: the Li family’s late patriarch, who revived traditions after the Cultural
Revolution.
THE CHENGDU CHRISTIANS
Wang Yi: the former human rights lawyer and pastor of Early Rain Reformed
Church.
Jiang Rong: Wang Yi’s wife and early convert to Christianity.
Zhang Guoqing: Early Rain’s liaison to marginal groups in society.
Zha Changping: the cerebral pastor of the Spring of Life Reformed Church.
Peng Qiang: former entrepreneur and Communist Youth League member who
runs the Grace and Blessings Reformed Church.
Ran Yunfei: “Bandit Ran,” a mercurial essayist and Chengdu’s best-known public
thinker, who is drawn to Christianity.
THE MASTERS
Nan Huai-chin: Buddhist meditation guru and interpreter of Chinese classics, he
lives in a hermitage on Lake Tai.
Wang Liping: charismatic practitioner of a Daoist meditation technique called
neidan, or internal alchemy, who teaches courses in the caves of southern
China.
Qin Ling: Wang’s chief disciple in Beijing.
Xiao Weijia: Qin’s husband and scion of an important Communist Party family.

PART I
THE MOON YEAR