The Cult of Wang Yulan

Chi’s article about Wang Yulan, a deified female ghost from the state of Jinmen, explores different aspects of nationalism and the Chinese folk religion. The cult dedicated to this ghost links the global to the local. The state promoted her worship at Qingqi, where her body was found. She is now the symbol of resistance to communism and of chastity, since she had allegedly been killed by PLA soldiers after resisting them (2009, p. 671).

In the official discourse, her ghost cult was transformed into the cult of a goddess (p. 672). However ghosts are metaphors for the socially marginal and worshipping them is not encouraged. But the cult of Wang Yulan allowed the state to link anti-communist hegemony with folk religion, a way to disseminate nationalism (p. 673).

One of the things I found interesting about her cult, was the way her temple was built. The location of her temple outside of the village indicates her marginality in the celestial hierarchy. She is not a full-fledged goddess. Architecturally, the temple is also evidence to her ghostly status. It does not have a door. However the layout inside is evidence of her deification. The centrepiece of the temple is an altar flanked with side altars. A statue of Wan Yulan sits in the middle of the central altar. She is dressed in the traditional gown for female deities. This arrangement is identical to that in shrines for unambiguously full-fledged deities in Jinmen (p. 675-676). The outside and the inside seem to contradict each other a little bit.

There was also something I found interesting about the myth surrounding Wang Yulan’s death. She is seen by most to be a chaste female martyr. Chastity is a traditional value which fits in with what the state wanted to preserve as something to counteract the communist revolution of the PRC. The military therefore emphasized her chastity. Her resistance to the PLA soldiers is seen as a statement of her rejection of communism (p. 678). I can understand why the Jinmen people would think this, as they did not want PRC nationalism to take over their traditional values and practices. A lot of religions and spiritualities have that person that died for something they believe in. That person tends to become more of a myth and stories get altered when they are being told, thus are not always true. Not to be the feminist killjoy again, but I think the reason why Wang Yulan resisted the soldiers was not because she was rejecting communism. I feel like it was more because she did not want to get raped and/or killed by them. Most women in that position would probably also resist, regardless of who was attacking them.

 I also found it interesting that the villagers do not refer to the communist soldiers as such, but as “some people”. And it was not Wang Yulan as a martyr and victim of communism that motivated them to worship her. Rather, they worship her because she instructed them to (p.682). I found this interesting because there seems to be an emphasis placed on her resistance to the PLA soldiers in the story of her martyrdom, yet it has nothing to do with why she is worshipped.

Reference:

Chi, Chan-hui. 2009. “The Death of a Virgin: the Cult of Wang Yulan and Nationalism in Jinmen, Taiwan.” Anthropological Quarterly 82 (3): 669-690.