Religious Ambiguity, ICH, and Mulian Performances in Contemporary Huizhou, China

Abstract:Mulian performance has been an important part of the popular cultural imagination and religious practices of different Chinese cultural groups since at least the Ming Dynasty (1368–1644). In late imperial Huizhou, it underwent a Confucian transformation to convey orthodox values and religious precepts. Through fieldwork on local Mulian traditions in three villages (Lixi 曆溪, Limu 栗木, and Mashan 馬山) of Qimen County, Anhui Province, since 2015, this paper discusses the contemporary theatrical and contextual transformations of Huizhou Mulian performances against the social and cultural background of folk religious revival amid the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) movement. I argue that since the popular religious practice of Mulian performance obtained the ICH designation, its ritualistic aspects of communal exorcism, magic spells, and deity worship have been systematically removed by the government through the strategies of fossilization, segmentation, and commodification. However, local performers and villagers might still harbor the religious orientation of eliciting good omens and fending off evil forces as well as belief in the supernatural and karmic retribution while acknowledging the official discourse. I use the term religious ambiguity to describe both the government's simultaneous ban on and tolerance of popular religious expressions and local people's uncertain, indefinite, and ambiguous attitude toward the supernatural in government heritage projects amid the ICH movement. This case study contributes to debates about how to "modernize" Chinese traditions without totally transforming them as well as discussions about how heritage politics and current Chinese socialist ideology affect local religious expressions and individual responses to revived folk traditions.