From Round to Square (and back)

For The Emperor's Teacher, scroll down (↓) to "Topics." It's the management book that will rock the world (and break the vase, as you will see). Click or paste the following link for a recent profile of the project: http://magazine.beloit.edu/?story_id=240813&issue_id=240610

A new post appears every day at 12:05* (CDT). There's more, though. Take a look at the right-hand side of the page for over four years of material (2,000 posts and growing) from Seinfeld and country music to every single day of the Chinese lunar calendar...translated. Look here ↓ and explore a little. It will take you all the way down the page...from round to square (and back again).
*Occasionally I will leave a long post up for thirty-six hours, and post a shorter entry at noon the next day.

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Just Do It Over (5)—Leap Day

[a] Leap Feb RF
It takes a big event to knock Seinfeld Ethnography off the front page of Round and Square on a Wednesday morning. Not "this week" big. Not even "this month" big. No—we are not even talking "biggest thing this year"...big. The only thing that would get in the way of super-powered shower heads for Kramer, Jerry, and Newman (next week) is Leap Day. This is "once every four years" big. This is February do-over big. The shortest month of the year just got a little bit less short.

[b] Leap RF
Do you know that if you were born on February 29, 1960...you would only be thirteen years old? My dad told me a version of this when I was a North Dakota sprite—just old enough to know that he was pulling my leg but still young enough to be mildly bewildered, so habituated had I (already) become to the equation: birthday=birthday. No, no, I can hear pre-kindergarten (2008) Leap Day'ers cry. "S/he would have had only thirteen celebratory birthdays on Leap Day," you shout in unison, "but s/he still grows older every year."

[c] Nope RF
Yes, of course. Actually, the details are a little bit "off" in the example above, but for reasons that not everyone (other than Leap Day babies) might grasp, so enculturated are we (do you sense a theme?) to celebrating birthdays. It's very simple, though. Of course, you were around for Leap Day 1960, since you were born on that day (this is not a difficult concept; it is akin to the traditional Chinese idea that a baby is one on the day of birth). So 1960 would be one—one Leap Day, not one year, of course. 1964 made it two, and 1968 made it three. 1972, 1976, and 1980 made it four, five, and six. An Orwellian timbre dominated as 1984 made it seven. Eight, nine, and ten followed in the Olympic and (U.S.) election years of 1988, 1992, and 1996. The turn of the millennium made it eleven, and then...(bear with me) 2004, and 2008 made it twelve and thirteen. Today makes fourteen. If you were born on Leap Day in 1960, you are now a member of AARP, if not actually retired. Right? So you have "seen" fourteen Leap Days come and go, as it turns out, fifty-two year-old.

Happy Birthday, Tony (Awaken the Giant Within) Robbins.

So I have a quick question. Do Leap Day kids (or adults) celebrate a Leap Day birthday differently than the other three in the cycle? Is it extra-special? 

This is structure and culture, stuff, and I will be devoting a new series to it soon on Round and Square. The structure does not allow the little cherub to celebrate on 2/29 three out of every four years. That is a calendrical structure and it cannot be willed away; a child (and family) must choose. Choosing to celebrate on 2/28 or 3/1 (or 1/1 or Super Bowl Sunday or Armistice Day) is the choice that intersects with structure. Assuming that people will celebrate on a day near the vanished 2/29 is culture (not to mention a fair dose of common sense). So what do Leap Day birthday folks do? I am looking forward to hearing your comments on the matter. How do they "negotiate the structures" of intercalation?

[d] Yup RF
We aren't quite done, though. There is one more little turn of the rack to consider before we (non-Leap Day mortals) stop thinking about it for another four years. Let me raise the issue in the form of the same simple question above. We established that Anthony Robbins and other people born on February 29, 1960 are fifty-two years old and have seen fourteen Leap days. Check ✓. 

But what if you were a former Prime Minister of India, born on February 29, 1896? How many leap days would you have passed before you...well...before you became prime minister in 1977? "Well that is simple," I hear you mutter. "It's the same as before, and we won't forget Prime Minister Desai's day of birth in 1896 this time. It's one for every four years...duh."

Seeing my impatience, you begin to count, exaggerating the years for their effect on this question-asking moron. "1896, 1900, 1904, 1908, 1912...do I really have to continue with every American presidential election and summer Olympic Games (scheduled, but some canceled because of World Wars)?" 

"Yes, please proceed." 
[e] Computing RF
"O.k., dull-boy, here goes: 1916, 1920, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944...this is beginning to seem like an exercise in American politics...Truman, Eisenhower, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Carter. There, you have it. Twenty-one Leap Days. Morarji Desai was eighty-one years old and had passed twenty-one Leap Days when he succeeded Indira Gandhi and became prime minister of India in 1977. Duh."

"Well, duh yourself," I reply. 

Only calendrically aware Leap Day babies (or really old ones) know this bit of Gregorian trivia. Desai was, indeed, eighty-one when he became prime minister, but he had only lived through twenty Leap Days. How is this possible? Structure, event (choice), and culture—that's how. Born in 1896, Desai enjoyed his first Leap Day on February 29, 1896 (the British pretty much forced the use of the Gregorian calendar; colonial power is like that)

[f] Structure and event RF
He was a little under four years of age in 1900 when he (I speculate) realized that he had been ripped off, just as turn of the century Leap Day babies had been in 1800 (and, in retrospect, for all of the "00" years of the Common Era except those that are multiples of 400). Young Mr. Desai did not get another Leap Day until 1904—the little guy's eighth "birthday." Of course, after that he had nineteen consecutive Leap Days, in four year intervals, until he ascended to the Prime Ministership in 1977. More would follow after that. He lived until ninety-nine, and fell just ten months short of getting another Leap Day on his centennial. 

So what's up with that?," I hear you cry. "No Leap Day in 1900? Was there a war or something? 

Yes, there was a war or something. There is always a war or something, but it doesn't have much of anything to do with the calendar.

[g] Calendrical drift RF
Lack of a Leap Day in 1900 has everything to do with structure, history, and culture. You see, there is this quite unalterable structure called the year—and, no, by that I do not mean human calendars. I mean the precise amount of time it takes for the earth to orbit the sun. We learn from early on that it takes 365.25 days. About 365.25 days. February 29th is all about 365.25. Simple, right? Add an extra day every four years and you get 365.25. Perfect.

No, that would be rather imperfect, my friend. It's about 365.25. It actually is 365.242199 days (365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds). Those lost eleven minutes and fourteen seconds can start to add up over very long stretches of time. So how do we resolve the unchanging structure that is the year with the calendar? And don't get me started on the fact that "the year," too, is in a long process of change, or we'll never finish. Great minds have struggled through time with this question. Here's how they do it deep in the heart of Gregoria: they skip February 29th in "00" years that cannot divide evenly into four hundred. That means that, out of every four hundred years (let's say 1601-2000) there will be 97 leap days rather than 100. In its own culturally strategic way, it comes close to resolving those problematic little eleven plus minutes of shortfall, year after year. 

And don't get me wrong. 11:14 can add up. Just ask "Julian."

[h] Text 11:14
Rosemary Wood can misplace that much (and half again more) White House tape and have it make for some largish political and historical questions. If the last 11:14 was cut off of a sleepy NBA basketball game in Hershey, Pennsylvania on March 2, 1962, Wilt Chamberlain would only have scored sixty-nine points. You can bake a tray of cookies and boil al dente thick spaghetti in that amount of time. You can read the opinion pages of the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, and you can hear the first segment of the Morning Joe on MSNBC—all in a little more than eleven minutes. You can order, savor, and eat a Chicago-style hot dog and still leave time to wash it down with a cup of coffee. You can drive from Chinatown to the University of Chicago in light traffic, and you can make it through your TSA check (usually) in that amount of time. 11:14 is nothing to sneeze at (indeed, nothing at which to sneeze).

And you can also seriously mess up the agricultural life of your people if you let those minutes and seconds add up over, say, a few millennia. Even if you just let them accumulate over several centuries, they will start to gum up that calendar on your castle wall. Next thing you know, the vernal equinox is ten days early. Next thing after that, Ben Franklin goes to bed (early) on September 2nd and wakes up (early) on September 14th. That's pretty jarring, but it is how structures rear their mighty strengths..and human beings (eventually) deal with them—negotiate them.

Enough of that for now. You don't need to spend all of Leap Day reading about Leap Day, even though I haven't even begun discussing the other little adjustments that are made—like adding an extra second to a year every now and then. We've just covered the big issues of Leap Day, and we'll leave further micro-calendrical calculations for our Structure, History, and Culture series (starting next week).
***  ***
So happy birthday, Morarji Desai, Tony Robbins, and other Leap Day birthers. You have struggled with your yearly "calendrical negotiations" of birthday time since Beijing was polishing the Bird's Nest for the Summer Games. After the barren years of 2009, 2010, and 2011, you've earned this day. And if you were born on one of the last few Leap days, you might—if you take good care of yourself—just be around long enough to get ripped off and cheated of your Leap Day in 2100. Book your anger management programs in advance. You'll have much more important things to celebrate on February 28+, 2100.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Divinatory Economics (5)—Sacred Mountain Incense-e

For the introduction to the Round and Square series "Divinatory Economics," click here.
[a] Calculated RL
The next half-dozen posts center on a research question I have been pondering for some time—the way pilgrims spend their incense on China's southern sacred mountain (南嶽衡山). I gave a lecture on the topic at Erlangen University in November, and then expanded some of that work into an Asian Studies Faculty Research Seminar—an ongoing series in the Beloit College Asian Studies program—in December. Although I will be continuing my research and writing on this subject, I thought that this might be a good time to begin exploring in depth some of the implications of "divinatory economics." If you have not read the introduction to the series, I would recommend it as the place to begin. If you have, settle in for a series of posts that describe the Chinese mountains (the first post, below, re-covers some of the territory from the Longevity Mountain series so that readers without that background are "ready" to spend their incense). I have tried to make these posts reasonably entertaining—even the "theoretical" sections to come next week. 
1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8          9         10
Variations on a Temple Theme
The combinations (tens of them) for these variables make the microeconomic equation very difficult, indeed. On the other hand, it is really no more complicated than any other set of microeconomic issues. Choice is difficult to explain under any circumstances—fish and chips, fish or chips, codfish soaked in lye. The stable points in almost all mountain operations include the following, and I am continually struck by the relevance in these matters of Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, on the one hand, and Marshall Sahlins’s analyses of structure and history, on the other. I will return to both of these thinkers as we discuss the theoretical implications of these itineraries. Note that that almost all pilgrims “engage” both base and peak temples.

          ·  90% +                        Supplication at base temple 
          ·  Highly Varied             Intensity of engagement at base temple
          ·  Varied                          Travel up the mountain (see above)
          ·  Varied                          “Sectarian” commitment (佛道儒)
          ·  Varied                         Supplication at mid-mountain temples
          ·  Varied                          pecialization within temples (e.g. 送子殿)
          ·  Highly Varied              External supplications (e.g. stone altars on path)
          ·  90% +                         Supplication at Zhurong Peak Temple 
          ·  Varied                          Intensity of engagement at peak temple
          ·  Extremely Varied        Visiting other temples on the “winding descent”
[b] Spent RL

This remains only the beginning. For example, the enormous array of temples between the base and the peak (clearly the start, climax, and finish of most incense-bearing journeys) are inaccessible to many travelers—arguably most of them today. While hikers have access to most temple sites on the long ascent, and cars or motorcycles can reach perhaps two-thirds of them, bus riders miss almost all temples on the mountain. Those who take the bus to mid-mountain may stop there to visit temples, but a cable car trip will take out of play all but two of the rest—even forcing pilgrims to backtrack to reach one of the major mountain temples at South Heaven Gate. In short, only the mountain-hiking pilgrim (a rapidly shrinking group) comes anywhere close to “blanketing the mountain” with incense. Moreover, there is no firm evidence that the “authenticity” of such travel is much valued, as we shall see.

What, then, are we to make of this? How can we find a way to theorize, and not merely to note clusters of ethnographically observed cases, as we have done up until now? Before we proceed, let us quickly review a number of intersecting themes at work on China’s southern sacred mountain.

          ·  Buddhist “feel” (serious “religiosity”)
          ·  Joint travel (almost no one travels alone)
          ·  Rock carving (the pilgrim climbs through caverns of text)
          ·  Historical issues (the Nationalists are commemorated)
          ·  Longevity (a theme closely connected with the mountain)
          ·  Secularism (today’s China takes this seriously, even on sacred mountains)
          ·  Cosmology (the long tradition still shows itself everywhere)
[c] Detail RL

The danger here is, indeed, to be found in a profusion of historical, cosmological, and cultural detail. These things matter, and I have struggled to find a way to portray them in the rich detail they deserve, even as I seek to refine the analysis of "mountain spending." The interplay between cultural detail, historical context, and theoretical focus is always difficult in this kind of analysis. I would argue, however, that this "messiness" is precisely what the anthropologist can bring to the table in a full discussion of microeconomic choice on a sacred mountain.

1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8          9         10
NEXT
Spending Religiosity
We'll get into the nitty-gritty of the microeconomic equation tomorrow before proceeding in our final three days to theoretical matters.

Monday, February 27, 2012

Divinatory Economics (4)—Sacred Mountain Incense-d

For the introduction to the Round and Square series "Divinatory Economics," click here.
[a] In-between RL
The next half-dozen posts center on a research question I have been pondering for some time—the way pilgrims spend their incense on China's southern sacred mountain (南嶽衡山). I gave a lecture on the topic at Erlangen University in November, and then expanded some of that work into an Asian Studies Faculty Research Seminar—an ongoing series in the Beloit College Asian Studies program—in December. Although I will be continuing my research and writing on this subject, I thought that this might be a good time to begin exploring in depth some of the implications of "divinatory economics." If you have not read the introduction to the series, I would recommend it as the place to begin. If you have, settle in for a series of posts that describe the Chinese mountains (the first post, below, re-covers some of the territory from the Longevity Mountain series so that readers without that background are "ready" to spend their incense). I have tried to make these posts reasonably entertaining—even the "theoretical" sections to come next week. 
1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8          9         10

Religiosity In-Between
There is a good deal of “religiosity” (most of it, in fact) between these two extremes, and that is the bulk of what I wish to consider here. Nonetheless, the extreme cases help us to delineate some of the key features of what I call, in slightly combative terms—at least in the realm of the humanities—divinatory economics. Three key elements must be considered, for every one of them plays a significant role in the calculations of pilgrims. Of importance, though lesser consideration, are the costs of travel to and from the mountain, staying near the mountain, food and drink, as well as costs of going to sites in the area (such as Mao’s birthplace). These are hardly inconsequential, but they pale in comparison to the key religious calculations we shall consider here.

·  Supplication at both the base temple and peak temple
·  Means of transportation from base to peak
·  Allotment of yuan for incense, hell money, and other accoutrements.
[b] Peak RL

These are the invariables, as it were, in the divinatory equation. Everyone participates in religious activity at the base and the peak. Everyone “goes up” the mountain in some way (and this is dizzyingly variable). Everyone, consciously or not, makes choices about the amount to be paid for incense and other items. The range of financial, social, and even “cultural” choice in just these three items is considerable, and I maintain that all other factors pale in comparison to these three “market” (and marketing) choices.

From these three key elements—shared even by the “extremes” we have encountered thus far—we can add the choices that guide and vary the situation for individuals and small groups. I cannot stress enough that divination on the Southern Mountain makes no sense without a pilgrimage from base to peak. The foundational sacrifice (in ancient times called the feng) and the peak sacrifice (called the shan) were the poles of an out-and-back journey that was completed by the performance of another ceremony at the base to complete the experience. In-between, imperial journeys varied between uneventful flights up the mountains (pausing for tea and contemplation along the way) and terrifying ascents and descents under the strain of frightful weather and overly eager carriers.
[c] Choice RL

Yes, carriers. Every significant “climber” before 1800 (I am being overly careful here) was carried up the mountains by attendants. There were (basically) two options until 1950. Be carried or walk on your own. Even these simple variables were somewhat more complicated in earlier eras. For example, “carrying” for wealthy patrons meant being carried by men in a palanquin of sorts (these varied over the ages). It could also mean horses and donkeys, not unlike experiences today for many people exploring the Grand Canyon. Mt. Tai, in particular, has several sections that are so steep that horses cannot manage the ascent. There is a famous arch on Mt. Tai dedicated to precisely the ridge (it is about forty percent of the way up the mountain) where “the horses turn back” (迴馬嶺). Donkeys are far more adept at, say, fifteen percent grades, but even donkeys cannot manage the final stairway to heaven that comprises the last five hundred or so meters up China’s most famous mountain. Truly, up the “eighteen bends,” it was a matter of walk or be carried. Emperors were carried. Peasants walked. Even in, say, 1100, there was some room for variation.

Today that variation is enormous. On the southern sacred mountain (the focus of our study), the range is greater than ever. Even in early times, donkeys could manage the entire route on the southern mountain. This is different in kind from all four of the other sacred mountains, where certain parts of the ascent and descent make only human movement (in one form or another) possible. On Longevity Mountain today, though, the twenty-first century variables are difficult to choose from, much less analyze. Here is a gradation from emphasis on walking to carriage of one kind or another.

·      Walking from base to peak (and even this cannot ever by “complete”).
·      Bus to South Heaven Gate (南天門) and walk to peak (another hour).
·      Bus to mid-mountain followed by hike to peak (two to three hours).
·      Bus to mid-mountain followed by cable car to South Heaven Gate, 
       followed by the hike to the peak (another hour).
·      Motorcycle to the peak.
·      Car to the peak.
·      Motor up (by any of the above means) and hike down.

Of course, it is possible to conjure plausible variations even within these parameters, but none significantly change the key “equations.” One might expect an entire mountaintop taxicab/cycle economy, with cars and motorcycles waiting for the throngs who get off buses at South Heaven Gate, an hour from the Zhurong Temple at the peak. This is not the case, and the few cabs or motorcycles I have seen (I always make it a point to talk to the drivers about why they are waiting there) have been “abandoned” by their patrons, who chose to take another way down the mountain.
[d] Carriage RL

There is one further variable—a small one in an economic sense, but an enormous one in terms of culture and power dynamic. At no other point on the mountain today does one see what appears right after a ten-minute hike down a small valley and steeply up to a small rest area on the hike to the topmost temple. With about thirty- to fifty-minutes of walking left for most pilgrims, the chairs appear. For a fee, one can be carried up the rest of the climb by two men hoisting a palanquin held by sturdy bamboo handles. It is a vestige of earlier times, when hierarchy, demand for labor, and pilgrimage made this the most common form of transportation for any pilgrim “of means,” and is a distinct reminder about the historical and, indeed, structural nature of all economic transactions.

Aside from being carried to the Zhurong Temple, everyone—even those who ride motorcycles or drive cars—must walk the last half-kilometer of slowly ascending steps to the temple proper. It is possible (unlike the matter on a sacred mountain such as Mt. Tai, where a good deal of hiking and steep climbing is required even of bus and cable car riders) to avoid walking almost from the time she finishes burning incense at the base temple until this last half-kilometer.
[e] Homestretch view RL
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NEXT
Variations on a Temple Theme
Tomorrow, we'll look at the variety of ways that people make choices about transportation, supplication, and shared experience.

Sunday, February 26, 2012

Just Do It Over (4)—Oui, oui, Mademoiselle, er, jeune femme

[a] That would be madame RF
Attention textbook publishers: it looks like a reprint might well be in order for chapter one of Conversational French. At least on official forms, Mademoiselle is going the way of Fräulein and Miss, not to mention Señorita (with "apologies" to a certain Monsieur Timberlake). It's a language do-over, and the part that I find especially interesting is the way that these things work out in France. You see, language is ever-changing. That is a big reason why Germans have tired of Fräulein and very few Americans use the term "Miss" anymore. In France, the same cultural changes have been in the works for some time, although it is possible—just possible—that a certain political figure with the initials DSK might have accelerated the process...just a little. Many women and not a few men have found that they DiSliKe the gender politics and language of their era.

[b] Mademoiselle Antoinette RF
So, if you were hoping for either cheers or condemnation, well, you must be new to Round and Square. I am not interested in diatribes against political correctness or cheering social progress. Still, just so that I don't give the impression that I sit on fences, I will say that I like the change. If you want to paint me with a broad political brush, go ahead. That is the political era in which we live, I guess.

It misses the larger point, though. The "fact" is that I am much more interested in language and culture than in politics. Moreover, I am very interested in the administrative forces that pontificate about language and culture.

France is quite particular about language...and culture. Here in the United States (and most of the rest of the world) language ebbs, flows, and sputters. "Hopefully" is entering the mainstream (and has been for decades); split infinitives are beginning to powerfully take-off (just a little grammar joke there). On the other hand, "groovy" just won't stick, no matter how hard Ron Paul's ad-makers try ("dude" is holding steady, though). "Miss" is pretty much gone these days, except as a tender verb and an old abbreviation for an American gulf state.

[c] Lex-icon(ic) PD
This is true in other places where I have a little bit of language familiarity. I created quite a scene many years ago in Taiwan when I referred to potatoes as 土豆, earth beans. I had looked it up in an old dictionary (and have since heard several strong defenses of "earth bean" and its rich, regional place in the language). The tables were turned a few moments later when a young woman at the table referred to the Irish Spud Famine. I didn't know where to begin—with the fact that "spud" was a word grandpa used at dinner or with cautionary counsel against using a nickname term for a terrible disaster. In either case, the word had gone out of use.

Funny how language works that way. 

Yes, Virginia, even in France. Terms sputter, gasp, and fade. Others muscle into the speech patterns of everyday people looking for hard drives, software, or even (mon dieu!) hamburgers. The difference between France and China or the United States is that some people in France take these matters très sérieusement. Well, some people in the United States and China (and Germany and Poland and the Lesser Antilles—sovereign and non-sovereign territories alike) take these things pretty darned seriously, don't they?...I hear you cry. They write grammar books and hand out style guides in class, for Pierre's sake. Right? Right?
[d] Mademoiselle de Fitz-James RF

That would be correct.

The difference is that William Strunk, William Safire and Kate Turabian are not members of a governmental organization that "decides" these matters. They and other lovers of languages other than French are not members of anything like the Académie Française. They may aspire to deathless prose, but they are not immortels. Although the Académie cannot create policy, it shapes both language and lexicon in ways that most other countries (and speakers of various languages) find baffling.

So that's it? The Académie crushed the word mademoiselle? Nope. Gouvernement did. If you have thought about language (and culture) at all, you must know by now that it is not possible for even a glorious institution of learning to change the way people talk (and pass le pizza, please). If that worked, college professors would read exquisitely crafted papers every day during their working lives. I am not sure whether to greet this idea with the word "chimera," "utopia," or "delusion." As David Foster Wallace once wrote in a learned and hilarious review of a grammar book, the problem with grammar books (I paraphrase) is that only the people who already care...buy grammar books.

Oh, but you can create a language do-over another way. While you can't make people stop, you can give them nowhere to turn (a phrase) on official documents. Non, monsieur...you cannot check the little box that says "mademoiselle" on your family documentation. There is no longer a box to check marked "mademoiselle"; your daughter will no longer (on official papers at least) be called "ma" (my) "demoiselle" (little lady). And, non, madame. It is just vous and your cherubic little enfant(s). The patriarchal and possessive form—with a questionable connotation of Neolithic kinship structure—has been taken off the page. Literally.

It is, quite literally...well, figuratively...a do-over.

Read a little bit about it on Twitter and in a few major newspapers. In a few weeks, I will look at language do-overs in a different way—considering names that, once outdated, have made comebacks (or are trying to). Is anyone betting on a resurgence for Millard...or Beulah? For now, though, consider language, change, and administrative do-overs with honorifics en Français.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Divinatory Economics (3)—Sacred Mountain Incense-c

For the introduction to the Round and Square series "Divinatory Economics," click here.
[a] Smoking RL
The next half-dozen posts center on a research question I have been pondering for some time—the way pilgrims spend their incense on China's southern sacred mountain (南嶽衡山). I gave a lecture on the topic at Erlangen University in November, and then expanded some of that work into an Asian Studies Faculty Research Seminar—an ongoing series in the Beloit College Asian Studies program—in December. Although I will be continuing my research and writing on this subject, I thought that this might be a good time to begin exploring in depth some of the implications of "divinatory economics." If you have not read the introduction to the series, I would recommend it as the place to begin. If you have, settle in for a series of posts that describe the Chinese mountains (the first post, below, re-covers some of the territory from the Longevity Mountain series so that readers without that background are "ready" to spend their incense). I have tried to make these posts reasonably entertaining—even the "theoretical" sections to come next week.
1          2          3          4          5          6          7          8          9         10
Sacred Mountain Spending
Today’s Chinese temples show a formidable array of diverse religious activity—from ever-so-serious, procedurally correct divination to what could almost be called a slapdash, get-it-over-with form of supplication. Because the divinatory terrain is so rich and varied, let us consider the two extremes of divination and ascent on China’s southern sacred mountain, Mt. Heng (衡山). More commonly known as Longevity Mountain (壽嶽), it has been a serious point of religious interest for three millennia in China. The teeming religious energy on the mountain recalls the intensity that I have seen only on China’s four Buddhist mountains; none of the other members of the “five peaks” configuration rubbed with care and planning on Mt. Tai that day—not even Mt. Tai itself—shows even a shred of the seriousness of purpose that can be seen from the base temple to the peak of Longevity Mountain.
[b] Gathering RL
Emile Durkheim’s (1858-1917) perspective on religious and social ecstasy is still useful here, almost exactly a century after its first publication. Religious energy builds as people gather together. Even more importantly, Durkheim’s students added key elements to their teacher’s perspective. Les deux Marcel—Mauss (1874-1950) et Granet (1884-1940)—developed the linked concepts of reciprocity and cyclicality, and did much to explain why pilgrimage maintains and builds momentum through patterned movement. This is as true of travel up, down, and around sacred mountains as it is in the socio-religious revolutions around the Kabala. Finally, a scholar we might call Durkheim’s “grandstudent,” Rolf Stein (1911-1999) gave further depth and nuance to the social and cosmological pattern by emphasizing the overwhelming force and clarity provided by miniaturization—from placing the five mountain construct onto a single slab of granite to modeling the architecture of the heavens in the earthly palace in the world below.

Social gathering. Religious energy. Reciprocity, cyclicality, and continual movement. Finally, miniatures and the shrinking of large scale devotion to a manageable size that can be carried in the pocket, as it were. These are some of the theoretical perspectives we will consider as we work though this ethnographic account of religiosity on Mt. Heng.

Two Extremes
[c] Assent/ascent RL
Let us begin with the first extreme. It is mentioned in numerous sources for both the southern peak and Mt. Tai in the east. This highly gendered (I have only seen it refer to women; never men), methodical, and devoted ascent style is said to exist even to this day, although I have never seen it in my hundreds of days on the mountains. Informants, including fellow pilgrims, assure me that it is, indeed, still a part of the vast panoply of devotional activity on the mountain. The method is simple, if almost impossibly slow and demanding. The pilgrim walks three steps, then performs the ketou (kowtow), climbs three more, kowtows, and so on. The literal meaning of ketou (磕頭) is to “touch the head,” and that is exactly what the devout climber does—touch the head respectfully on the stone almost 2,500 or more times on an all-day climb, while stopping for further devotions at temples dotting the path to the peak.

Now consider the other pole of devotional energy on the mountain. This is one that I have witnessed often, and it is as efficient as the three-step ketou is laborious. Indeed, I was able to take the trip from base to peak with one no-nonsense businessman from Hubei, who left little doubt as to his intentions and interpretation of the costs and benefits of time, incense, hell money, and car travel. The other examples I have seen fit the pattern well, so I will relate it as a brief, verifiable case study. This extreme in the channeling of religious energy is also gendered. In a hundred days on the southern mountain (the only one of the five with a road from base to peak—or just a third of a kilometer from it) I have only seen men behave in this manner. It remains atypical in the extreme, but it is hardly hypothetical.
[d] Bottom line RL
First, with spouse, paternal parents, and children trailing, the head of household enters the Southern Peak Temple (南嶽廟) from the rear entrance, openly scoffing at my reminder that temples have cosmological directions flowing from south to north. “Just show me the furnace,” he grumbles. Reaching the fires, he gathers up the incense sticks of wife and son. He appears about to take those carried warily by his parents before relenting in a kind of filial pique and leaving them to their own divinatory methods. The stash he carries with him is formidable—a quiver of expensive dragonhead (longtou; 龍頭j) incense sticks at almost ¥90 apiece and big piles of hell money. Into the fire they went, without pause or reflection. Jaw set, he waited patiently for his parents to make their far more elaborate preparations and bows before whisking the crew back through the exit (this time moving in the correct direction), past many other shrines to the gods of wealth, luck, and longevity. I asked him about these, and he replied politely but curtly that the big furnace at the base temple is all that mattered.

Back to the illegally parked car (in front of a neighboring incense stand), we all packed in for the trip up the mountain. Stopping to buy tickets took almost as much time as the rest of the ascent. Once on the road, the Mercedes powered through the turns like an uphill Formula One race car, passing buses and motorcycles, with several close calls along the way. Past a dozen temples, the car sped up the incline, parked illegally right by the sign explaining the history of the tip-top shrine, and emptied. The father led his little group over the approximately half-kilometer to the temple, where, with little time for contemplation, he tossed in another large and expensive load of incense sticks, slapped his hands together in the international language of “now that’s done,” and headed for the car.
[e] Perspectives RL
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Religiosity In-Between
We've looked at the extremes. Now let's examine the bulk of divinatory behavior on China's southern (sacred-cosmological) mountain.