The Souls of China

The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao by Ian Johnson
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Recent surveys indicate that Chinese hold beliefs, but don’t claim to follow a religion.

The Souls of China by Ian Johnson focuses far too much on ritual (particularly funeral ritual) and too little on Chinese thought. If you want to learn about Chinese thought, then enroll in the edX online course on Humanity and Nature in Chinese Thought once it has been archived.

Readers will be surprised to learn about Xi Jinping's patronage of the Buddhist Linji Temple, where the monk Linji Yixuan founded the Linji School of Chan (Zen) Buddhism.

Johnson organizes his stories by seasons/months of the Chinese calendar, but in his afterword, he says that tian (heaven) is the aspiration of the people he followed for the book. Perhaps tian would have been a better way to organize this book. He says that tian suggests a sense of justice and respect and something higher than any one government. Tian might be a non-translatable, an ineffable concept.

For further reading, the Indian magazine Swarajya has an article Maoism Marries Confucianism - How China's Communists Are Appropriating Confucius. Appropriation serves Chinese nationalism, or what the article calls "Chineseness". I also think that Chinese leaders are concerned about materialism, consumerism, and the need for a moral compass.