Article Sidebar
Downloads
Main Article Content
Abstract
Currently, the most common methods for preserving supernatural beings from foreign lands involve conducting religious ceremonies and beseeching spiritual creatures in close proximity. This inquiry aims to explore the spiritual significance and function of the Yogacara Ulkā-Mukha ritual practices in the redemption of Chinese spirits that are residing abroad. The research design employed a phenomenological approach, involving nine monks in Thailand as participants. The data-gathering process involved conducting in-depth interviews and engaging in participant observations. Subsequently, the data were subjected to thematic analysis to ascertain the significance and function of the difficulties in the execution of the ritual. The study yielded three significant findings: first, the Yogacara Ulkā-mukha ritual embodies the concept of Buddhist compassion and the duty to rescue wandering souls in their quest for tranquility; second, it explores the adaptation and challenges faced in preserving tradition and cultural heritage within the modern context; and third, it examines the potency of intention and prayer in transcending the constraints of space and time. These findings are elaborated in the concluding section of this paper. Moreover, this study suggests the creation of a ritual adaptation model that considers the use of technology to enhance the participation of overseas Chinese communities in preserving spiritual customs.
Keywords
Article Details
Copyright (c) 2025 Yaoping Liu, Wenchen Du
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY-SA) 4.0 License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work’s authorship and initial publication in this journal.
References
Agarwal, R., & Jones, W. J. (2022). Social media’s role in the changing religious landscape of contemporary Bangkok. Religions, 13(5), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050421
Bhatia, S. (2002). Acculturation, dialogical voices and the construction of the diasporic self. Theory & Psychology, 12(1), 55–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354302121004
Bhatia, S., & Ram, A. (2001). Rethinking ‘acculturation’ in relation to diasporic cultures and postcolonial identities. Human Development, 44(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1159/000057036
Bun, C. K., & Kiong, T. C. (1993). Rethinking assimilation and ethnicity: The Chinese in Thailand. International Migration Review, 27(1), 140–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/019791839302700107
Burusratanaphand, W. (1995). Chinese identity in Thailand. Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, 23(1), 43–56. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24492376
Cai, Y. (2024). Cultivating the concept of the Chinese ethnic group community from the perspective of cultural identity. Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, 39, 340–345. https://doi.org/10.54097/c5dpay48
Chan, Y. K. (2008). Popular Buddhist ritual in contemporary Hong Kong: Shuilu Fahui, a Buddhist rite for saving all sentient beings of water and land. Buddhist Studies Review, 25(1), 90–105. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsrv.v25i1.90
Chen, L. (2024). Integration practice of outstanding traditional Chinese culture and ethnic education from the perspective of cultural philosophy. Trans/Form/Ação, 47(6), e02400296. https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-3173.2024.v47.n6.e02400296
Cheung, G. C. K. (2004). Chinese Diaspora as a virtual nation: Interactive roles between economic and social capital. Political Studies, 52(4), 664–684. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00502.x
Cheung-Blunden, V. L., & Juang, L. P. (2008). Expanding acculturation theory: Are acculturation models and the adaptiveness of acculturation strategies generalizable in a colonial context? International Journal of Behavioral Development, 32(1), 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025407084048
Chiu, T.-L. (2022). When Mahāyāna meets Theravāda: The position of Chinese Bhikṣuṇīs in contemporary Myanmar. Religions, 13(7), 662. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070662
Chung, E.-J. (2024). Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia and the establishment and the change of Chinese ethnic schooling therein: From the end of the Qing Dynasty to before 1949. Institute for Historical Studies at Chung-Ang University, 61, 109–162. https://doi.org/10.46823/cahs.2024.61.109
Cruz, W. M., & Demeterio Iii, F. P. A. (2024). Preserving heritage in diaspora: A study of Kapampangan identity in Winnipeg. Philippine Social Science Journal, 6(4), 63–71. https://doi.org/10.52006/main.v6i4.882
Davis, E. (2015). Deathpower: Buddhism’s ritual imagination in Cambodia. Columbia University Press.
DeBernardi, J. (1984). The hungry ghosts festival: A convergence of religion and politics in the Chinese community of Penang, Malaysia. Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, 12(1), 25–34. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24490855
Eng, I., & Lin, Y.-M. (2002). Religious festivities, communal rivalry, and restructuring of authority relations in rural Chaozhou, Southeast China. The Journal of Asian Studies, 61(4), 1259–1285. https://doi.org/10.2307/3096442
Faure, B. (1996). Visions of power: Imagining medieval Japanese Buddhism (P. Brooks, Trans.). Princeton University Press.
Friedmann, J. (2007). Reflections on place and place-making in the cities of China. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 31(2), 257–279. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00726.x
Fu, Y., Long, P., & Thomas, R. (2014). Guanxi and the organization of Chinese new year festivals in England. Event Management, 18(3), 247–263. https://doi.org/10.3727/152599514X13989500765682
Fuist, T. N. (2015). Talking to god among a cloud of witnesses: Collective prayer as a meaningful performance. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 54(3), 523–539. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12209
Gaffney, A. M. (2023). Minority influence and social change. In A. M. Gaffney, Oxford research encyclopedia of psychology. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.254
Guccini, F., & Zhang, M. (2021). “Being Chinese” in Mauritius and Madagascar: Comparing Chinese diasporic communities in the western Indian Ocean. The Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies, 4(2), 91–117. https://doi.org/10.26443/jiows.v4i2.79
Guo, S. (2022). Reimagining Chinese diasporas in a transnational world: Toward a new research agenda. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48(4), 847–872. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2021.1983958
Gyatso, T., & Hakim, C. (2010). Essentials of Tibetan traditional medicine (Illustrated edition). North Atlantic Books.
Holyoak, L. (2007). Obstacles to rural development in China: Local minorities, cadres, and ritual. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, 36(1/2), 73–113. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40553543
Ji, Z. (2006). Non-institutional religious re-composition among the Chinese youth. Social Compass, 53(4), 535–549. https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768606070418
Kanchan, S. (2020). Hybridization of cultural identity of Indian diaspora. International Journal of Engineering Research And, 9(7), 1627–1629. https://doi.org/10.17577/IJERTV9IS070692
Keyes, C. F. (1987). Theravāda Buddhism and its worldly transformations in Thailand: Reflections on the work of S.J. Tambiah. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 21(1), 123–145. https://doi.org/10.1177/006996687021001012
Kuhn, P. A. (2006). Why China historians should study the Chinese Diaspora, and vice-versa. Journal of Chinese Overseas, 2(2), 163–172. https://doi.org/10.1353/jco.2006.0015
Lai, W. L. (2004). Chinese Diasporas: An overview. Caribbean Quarterly, 50(2), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/00086495.2004.11672229
Leong, K.-Y. (2022). Keepers of the grave: Ritual guides, ghosts, and hidden narratives in Indonesian history. Space and Culture, 25(2), 295–308. https://doi.org/10.1177/12063312211063087
Li, M. (2022). Libation ritual and the performance of kingship in early China. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 65, 101370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101370
Li, Z. (2017). Ancestors and orphan ghosts: Henghua Salvation Rituals of the festival of universal deliverance of the seventh lunar month in Malaysia. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 18(4), 617–631. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649373.2017.1391459
Litke, E. (2013). Nationalism, westernization, or neither? How international exposure is impacting the views of Chinese youth on the ideas of nationalism and Chinese cultural superiority. University of North Carolina at Asheville Journal of Undergraduate Research, 166–178. https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/unca/listing.aspx?id=17797
Liu, H. (2011). An emerging China and diasporic Chinese: Historicity, state, and international relations. Journal of Contemporary China, 20(72), 813–832. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2011.604502
Liu, H. (2016). Opportunities and anxieties for the Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia. Current History, 115(784), 312–318. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48614199
Liu, Y. (2024). Sacred resurgence: Revitalizing Buddhist temples in modern China. Religions, 15(5), 627. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050627
Ma, Z. (2024). Cross-border religiosity and the revival of Theravada Buddhism in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China. Asian Studies Review, 48(4), 789–808. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2023.2298201
Norenzayan, A., Shariff, A. F., Gervais, W. M., Willard, A. K., McNamara, R. A., Slingerland, E., & Henrich, J. (2016). The cultural evolution of prosocial religions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14001356
Obeyesekere, G. (1979). Religion and polity in Theravada Buddhism: Continuity and change in a great tradition. A review article. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 21(4), 626–639. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417500013220
Oxfeld, E. (2004). ’When you drink water, think of its source”: Morality, status, and reinvention in Ryral Chinese funerals. The Journal of Asian Studies, 63(4), 961–990. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911804002384
Panesar, N. S., & Graham, C. A. (2012). Does the death rate of Hong Kong Chinese change during the lunar ghost month? Emergency Medicine Journal, 29(4), 319–321. https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2011-200015
Perera, S. (2023). Spirit possessions and avenging ghosts: Stories of supernatural activity as narratives of terror and mechanisms of coping and remembering. In V. Das, A. Kleinman, M. Lock, M. Ramphele, & P. Reynolds (Eds.), Remaking a world: Violence, social suffering, and recovery (pp. 157–200). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.8501074
Poston, D. L., & Wong, J. H. (2016). The Chinese diaspora: The current distribution of the overseas Chinese population. Chinese Journal of Sociology, 2(3), 348–373. https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X16655077
Rotman, A. (2021). Hungry ghosts. Wisdom Publications.
Shen, Y. (2023). The power of wish-vows: Ethics and ritual transformation in Buddhist temples in contemporary China. Material Religion, 19(3), 211–235. https://doi.org/10.1080/17432200.2023.2251356
Shen, Z., Ge, S., & Zhang, Z. (2024). Treatment of health disparities through cultural practices: Insights from Gesar culture in Sichuan. American Journal of Health Behavior, 48(6), 1732–1748. https://doi.org/10.5993/AJHB.48.6.24
Smith, R. P. P. (2008). Kintanti kinų tapatybė globalėjančiame pasaulyje [Chinese changing identities in globalised world]. Information & Media, 45, 122–130. https://doi.org/10.15388/Im.2008.0.3378
Sun, Y. (2024). On Chinese traditional culture and its creative transformation and innovative development. Advances in Social Science and Culture, 6(4), 30–36. https://doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p30
Tam, W. L. (2018). Unity in diversity: The deliverance of soul ritual in south China. Studies in Chinese Religions, 4(1), 112–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2018.1429145
Tan, Y., & Liu, X. (2022). Measuring diaspora populations and their socio‐economic profiles: Australia’s Chinese diaspora. Geographical Research, 60(4), 589–609. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-5871.12557
Tang S., & Zhang R. (2020). Practice and discussion on the innovative expression of contemporary material language and Chinese traditional culture. Journal of Gems & Gemmology, 22(2), 48–54. https://doi.org/10.15964/j.cnki.027jgg.2020.02.006
Teiser, S. F. (1988). The ghost festival in medieval China. Princeton Univ Pr.
Tobias, S. F. (1977). Buddhism, belonging and detachment—Some paradoxes of Chinese ethnicity in Thailand. The Journal of Asian Studies, 36(2), 303–326. https://doi.org/10.2307/2053725
Toyota, M. (2003). Contested Chinese identities among ethnic minorities in the China, Burma and Thai borderlands. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 26(2), 301–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987032000054448
Walsh, F. (2020). Loss and resilience in the time of COVID-19: Meaning making, hope, and transcendence. Family Process, 59(3), 898–911. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12588
Wang, Y., Lu, Q., Penpat, I., Wu, J., Abulikemu, D., Zeng, F.-C., Huang, J.-Y., & Hu, Z.-H. (2024). Clinical effect of acupuncture at ghost points combined with fluoxetine hydrochloride on mild-to-moderate depression. World Journal of Psychiatry, 14(6), 848–856. https://doi.org/10.5498/wjp.v14.i6.848
Weihua, T., Chun, L., Zolvinski, S., & Guang, T. (2021). Beyond rational and utilitarian action: Moral and emotional giving within Chinese folk religion. Society, 58(5), 365–379. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-021-00628-1
Weller, R. P. (1987). The politics of ritual disguise: Repression and response in Taiwanese popular religion. Modern China, 13(1), 17–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/009770048701300102
Wen, X., Zhou, Y., Li, Y., Lv, Y., Han, S., & Zhao, J. (2023). A randomized controlled trial examining a Tranquil sitting intervention compatible with Confucian values. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1118481. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1118481
White, E. (2003). The cultural politics of the supernatural in Theravada Buddhist Thailand. Anthropological Forum. https://doi.org/10.1080/0066467032000129879
White, L., & Leung, D. (2014). Wishing you good health, prosperity and happiness: Exploring the rituals and traditions of Chinese New Year. In J. Laing & W. Frost (Eds.), Rituals and traditional events in the modern world (pp. 78–89). Routledge.
Whitehouse, H., & Kavanagh, C. M. (2022). What is the role of ritual in binding communities together? In J. L. Barrett (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of the cognitive science of religion (pp. 278–302). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190693350.013.14
Wilt, J. A., Stauner, N., Harriott, V. A., Exline, J. J., & Pargament, K. I. (2019). Partnering with God: Religious coping and perceptions of divine intervention predict spiritual transformation in response to religious−spiritual struggle. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 11(3), 278–290. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000221
Wong, S. (2020). Soul-searching in the Chinese and Indian diasporas. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 29(2), 269–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0117196820935684
Xu, J., Ma, E. T., Tashi, D., Fu, Y., Lu, Z., & Melick, D. (2005). Integrating sacred knowledge for conservation: Cultures and landscapes in Southwest China. Ecology and Society, 10(2), Article 7. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26267737
Yang, M. (2015). Shamanism and spirit possession in Chinese modernity: Some preliminary reflections on a gendered religiosity of the body. Review of Religion and Chinese Society, 2(1), 51–86. https://brill.com/view/journals/rrcs/2/1/article-p51_4.xml
Yao, Y.-S., & Gombrich, R. (2022). Chinese Buddhism today: Conservatism, modernism, syncretism and enjoying life on the Buddha’s light mountain. Equinox Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1558/isbn.9781800502314
Yip, K.-S. (2004). Taoism and its impact on mental health of the Chinese communities. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 50(1), 25–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764004038758
Yow, C. H. (2016). The Chinese Diaspora in China–Malaysia relations: Dynamics of and changes in multiple transnational ‘scapes.’ Journal of Contemporary China, 25(102), 836–850. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2016.1184896
Yu, A. C. (1987). “Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!” Ghosts in traditional Chinese prose fiction. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 47(2), 397–434. https://doi.org/10.2307/2719188
Yu, N. N., Mair, J., Lee, A., & Ong, F. (2022). Exploring community festivals in the context of the Chinese Diaspora. Event Management, 26(4), 931–947. https://doi.org/10.3727/152599521X16288665119585
Yü, Y.-S. (1987). “O soul, come back!” A study in the changing conceptions of the soul and afterlife in pre-Buddhist China. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 47(2), 363–395. https://doi.org/10.2307/2719187
Yuzhen G. (2015). An analytical research on the ritual music of Yogacara Ulkā-Mukha Dharma Service of the Traditional Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan [Master’s thesis, Nanhua University]. https://nhuir.nhu.edu.tw/ir/handle/987654321/23253
Zhang, D., Kong, C., Zhang, M., & Kang, J. (2022). Religious belief-related factors enhance the impact of soundscapes in Han Chinese Buddhist temples on mental health. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 774689. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.774689
Zhang, L.-T., & Zhao, S. (2020). Diaspora micro-influencers and COVID-19 communication on social media: The case of Chinese-speaking YouTube vloggers. Multilingua, 39(5), 553–563. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0099
Zhang, S. (2023). The interaction between custom and ritual in Chinese society. Journal of Chinese Humanities, 9(3), 264–282. https://doi.org/10.1163/23521341-12340157
Zhou, W., & Feng, Y. (2023). When religious folk practice meet Karl Marx: Courts’ response to ghost marriage in modern China. Religions, 14(6), 764. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14060764
Zhou, X., & Huang, J. (2024). The heritagization of cultural politics: Anthropological research on Chinese cultural heritage. International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology, 8(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41257-024-00113-7
Zhu, T., Martina, D., Heide, A. V. D., Korfage, I. J., & Rietjens, J. A. (2023). The role of acculturation in the process of advance care planning among Chinese immigrants: A narrative systematic review. Palliative Medicine, 37(8), 1063–1078. https://doi.org/10.1177/02692163231179255
References
Agarwal, R., & Jones, W. J. (2022). Social media’s role in the changing religious landscape of contemporary Bangkok. Religions, 13(5), Article 5. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13050421
Bhatia, S. (2002). Acculturation, dialogical voices and the construction of the diasporic self. Theory & Psychology, 12(1), 55–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959354302121004
Bhatia, S., & Ram, A. (2001). Rethinking ‘acculturation’ in relation to diasporic cultures and postcolonial identities. Human Development, 44(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1159/000057036
Bun, C. K., & Kiong, T. C. (1993). Rethinking assimilation and ethnicity: The Chinese in Thailand. International Migration Review, 27(1), 140–168. https://doi.org/10.1177/019791839302700107
Burusratanaphand, W. (1995). Chinese identity in Thailand. Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, 23(1), 43–56. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24492376
Cai, Y. (2024). Cultivating the concept of the Chinese ethnic group community from the perspective of cultural identity. Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, 39, 340–345. https://doi.org/10.54097/c5dpay48
Chan, Y. K. (2008). Popular Buddhist ritual in contemporary Hong Kong: Shuilu Fahui, a Buddhist rite for saving all sentient beings of water and land. Buddhist Studies Review, 25(1), 90–105. https://doi.org/10.1558/bsrv.v25i1.90
Chen, L. (2024). Integration practice of outstanding traditional Chinese culture and ethnic education from the perspective of cultural philosophy. Trans/Form/Ação, 47(6), e02400296. https://doi.org/10.1590/0101-3173.2024.v47.n6.e02400296
Cheung, G. C. K. (2004). Chinese Diaspora as a virtual nation: Interactive roles between economic and social capital. Political Studies, 52(4), 664–684. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9248.2004.00502.x
Cheung-Blunden, V. L., & Juang, L. P. (2008). Expanding acculturation theory: Are acculturation models and the adaptiveness of acculturation strategies generalizable in a colonial context? International Journal of Behavioral Development, 32(1), 21–33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0165025407084048
Chiu, T.-L. (2022). When Mahāyāna meets Theravāda: The position of Chinese Bhikṣuṇīs in contemporary Myanmar. Religions, 13(7), 662. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel13070662
Chung, E.-J. (2024). Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia and the establishment and the change of Chinese ethnic schooling therein: From the end of the Qing Dynasty to before 1949. Institute for Historical Studies at Chung-Ang University, 61, 109–162. https://doi.org/10.46823/cahs.2024.61.109
Cruz, W. M., & Demeterio Iii, F. P. A. (2024). Preserving heritage in diaspora: A study of Kapampangan identity in Winnipeg. Philippine Social Science Journal, 6(4), 63–71. https://doi.org/10.52006/main.v6i4.882
Davis, E. (2015). Deathpower: Buddhism’s ritual imagination in Cambodia. Columbia University Press.
DeBernardi, J. (1984). The hungry ghosts festival: A convergence of religion and politics in the Chinese community of Penang, Malaysia. Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science, 12(1), 25–34. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24490855
Eng, I., & Lin, Y.-M. (2002). Religious festivities, communal rivalry, and restructuring of authority relations in rural Chaozhou, Southeast China. The Journal of Asian Studies, 61(4), 1259–1285. https://doi.org/10.2307/3096442
Faure, B. (1996). Visions of power: Imagining medieval Japanese Buddhism (P. Brooks, Trans.). Princeton University Press.
Friedmann, J. (2007). Reflections on place and place-making in the cities of China. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 31(2), 257–279. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2007.00726.x
Fu, Y., Long, P., & Thomas, R. (2014). Guanxi and the organization of Chinese new year festivals in England. Event Management, 18(3), 247–263. https://doi.org/10.3727/152599514X13989500765682
Fuist, T. N. (2015). Talking to god among a cloud of witnesses: Collective prayer as a meaningful performance. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, 54(3), 523–539. https://doi.org/10.1111/jssr.12209
Gaffney, A. M. (2023). Minority influence and social change. In A. M. Gaffney, Oxford research encyclopedia of psychology. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.254
Guccini, F., & Zhang, M. (2021). “Being Chinese” in Mauritius and Madagascar: Comparing Chinese diasporic communities in the western Indian Ocean. The Journal of Indian Ocean World Studies, 4(2), 91–117. https://doi.org/10.26443/jiows.v4i2.79
Guo, S. (2022). Reimagining Chinese diasporas in a transnational world: Toward a new research agenda. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 48(4), 847–872. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2021.1983958
Gyatso, T., & Hakim, C. (2010). Essentials of Tibetan traditional medicine (Illustrated edition). North Atlantic Books.
Holyoak, L. (2007). Obstacles to rural development in China: Local minorities, cadres, and ritual. Urban Anthropology and Studies of Cultural Systems and World Economic Development, 36(1/2), 73–113. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40553543
Ji, Z. (2006). Non-institutional religious re-composition among the Chinese youth. Social Compass, 53(4), 535–549. https://doi.org/10.1177/0037768606070418
Kanchan, S. (2020). Hybridization of cultural identity of Indian diaspora. International Journal of Engineering Research And, 9(7), 1627–1629. https://doi.org/10.17577/IJERTV9IS070692
Keyes, C. F. (1987). Theravāda Buddhism and its worldly transformations in Thailand: Reflections on the work of S.J. Tambiah. Contributions to Indian Sociology, 21(1), 123–145. https://doi.org/10.1177/006996687021001012
Kuhn, P. A. (2006). Why China historians should study the Chinese Diaspora, and vice-versa. Journal of Chinese Overseas, 2(2), 163–172. https://doi.org/10.1353/jco.2006.0015
Lai, W. L. (2004). Chinese Diasporas: An overview. Caribbean Quarterly, 50(2), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/00086495.2004.11672229
Leong, K.-Y. (2022). Keepers of the grave: Ritual guides, ghosts, and hidden narratives in Indonesian history. Space and Culture, 25(2), 295–308. https://doi.org/10.1177/12063312211063087
Li, M. (2022). Libation ritual and the performance of kingship in early China. Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 65, 101370. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaa.2021.101370
Li, Z. (2017). Ancestors and orphan ghosts: Henghua Salvation Rituals of the festival of universal deliverance of the seventh lunar month in Malaysia. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 18(4), 617–631. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649373.2017.1391459
Litke, E. (2013). Nationalism, westernization, or neither? How international exposure is impacting the views of Chinese youth on the ideas of nationalism and Chinese cultural superiority. University of North Carolina at Asheville Journal of Undergraduate Research, 166–178. https://libres.uncg.edu/ir/unca/listing.aspx?id=17797
Liu, H. (2011). An emerging China and diasporic Chinese: Historicity, state, and international relations. Journal of Contemporary China, 20(72), 813–832. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2011.604502
Liu, H. (2016). Opportunities and anxieties for the Chinese Diaspora in Southeast Asia. Current History, 115(784), 312–318. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48614199
Liu, Y. (2024). Sacred resurgence: Revitalizing Buddhist temples in modern China. Religions, 15(5), 627. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel15050627
Ma, Z. (2024). Cross-border religiosity and the revival of Theravada Buddhism in Xishuangbanna, Southwest China. Asian Studies Review, 48(4), 789–808. https://doi.org/10.1080/10357823.2023.2298201
Norenzayan, A., Shariff, A. F., Gervais, W. M., Willard, A. K., McNamara, R. A., Slingerland, E., & Henrich, J. (2016). The cultural evolution of prosocial religions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, e1. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X14001356
Obeyesekere, G. (1979). Religion and polity in Theravada Buddhism: Continuity and change in a great tradition. A review article. Comparative Studies in Society and History, 21(4), 626–639. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417500013220
Oxfeld, E. (2004). ’When you drink water, think of its source”: Morality, status, and reinvention in Ryral Chinese funerals. The Journal of Asian Studies, 63(4), 961–990. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0021911804002384
Panesar, N. S., & Graham, C. A. (2012). Does the death rate of Hong Kong Chinese change during the lunar ghost month? Emergency Medicine Journal, 29(4), 319–321. https://doi.org/10.1136/emermed-2011-200015
Perera, S. (2023). Spirit possessions and avenging ghosts: Stories of supernatural activity as narratives of terror and mechanisms of coping and remembering. In V. Das, A. Kleinman, M. Lock, M. Ramphele, & P. Reynolds (Eds.), Remaking a world: Violence, social suffering, and recovery (pp. 157–200). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.8501074
Poston, D. L., & Wong, J. H. (2016). The Chinese diaspora: The current distribution of the overseas Chinese population. Chinese Journal of Sociology, 2(3), 348–373. https://doi.org/10.1177/2057150X16655077
Rotman, A. (2021). Hungry ghosts. Wisdom Publications.
Shen, Y. (2023). The power of wish-vows: Ethics and ritual transformation in Buddhist temples in contemporary China. Material Religion, 19(3), 211–235. https://doi.org/10.1080/17432200.2023.2251356
Shen, Z., Ge, S., & Zhang, Z. (2024). Treatment of health disparities through cultural practices: Insights from Gesar culture in Sichuan. American Journal of Health Behavior, 48(6), 1732–1748. https://doi.org/10.5993/AJHB.48.6.24
Smith, R. P. P. (2008). Kintanti kinų tapatybė globalėjančiame pasaulyje [Chinese changing identities in globalised world]. Information & Media, 45, 122–130. https://doi.org/10.15388/Im.2008.0.3378
Sun, Y. (2024). On Chinese traditional culture and its creative transformation and innovative development. Advances in Social Science and Culture, 6(4), 30–36. https://doi.org/10.22158/assc.v6n4p30
Tam, W. L. (2018). Unity in diversity: The deliverance of soul ritual in south China. Studies in Chinese Religions, 4(1), 112–137. https://doi.org/10.1080/23729988.2018.1429145
Tan, Y., & Liu, X. (2022). Measuring diaspora populations and their socio‐economic profiles: Australia’s Chinese diaspora. Geographical Research, 60(4), 589–609. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-5871.12557
Tang S., & Zhang R. (2020). Practice and discussion on the innovative expression of contemporary material language and Chinese traditional culture. Journal of Gems & Gemmology, 22(2), 48–54. https://doi.org/10.15964/j.cnki.027jgg.2020.02.006
Teiser, S. F. (1988). The ghost festival in medieval China. Princeton Univ Pr.
Tobias, S. F. (1977). Buddhism, belonging and detachment—Some paradoxes of Chinese ethnicity in Thailand. The Journal of Asian Studies, 36(2), 303–326. https://doi.org/10.2307/2053725
Toyota, M. (2003). Contested Chinese identities among ethnic minorities in the China, Burma and Thai borderlands. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 26(2), 301–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987032000054448
Walsh, F. (2020). Loss and resilience in the time of COVID-19: Meaning making, hope, and transcendence. Family Process, 59(3), 898–911. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12588
Wang, Y., Lu, Q., Penpat, I., Wu, J., Abulikemu, D., Zeng, F.-C., Huang, J.-Y., & Hu, Z.-H. (2024). Clinical effect of acupuncture at ghost points combined with fluoxetine hydrochloride on mild-to-moderate depression. World Journal of Psychiatry, 14(6), 848–856. https://doi.org/10.5498/wjp.v14.i6.848
Weihua, T., Chun, L., Zolvinski, S., & Guang, T. (2021). Beyond rational and utilitarian action: Moral and emotional giving within Chinese folk religion. Society, 58(5), 365–379. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-021-00628-1
Weller, R. P. (1987). The politics of ritual disguise: Repression and response in Taiwanese popular religion. Modern China, 13(1), 17–39. https://doi.org/10.1177/009770048701300102
Wen, X., Zhou, Y., Li, Y., Lv, Y., Han, S., & Zhao, J. (2023). A randomized controlled trial examining a Tranquil sitting intervention compatible with Confucian values. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1118481. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1118481
White, E. (2003). The cultural politics of the supernatural in Theravada Buddhist Thailand. Anthropological Forum. https://doi.org/10.1080/0066467032000129879
White, L., & Leung, D. (2014). Wishing you good health, prosperity and happiness: Exploring the rituals and traditions of Chinese New Year. In J. Laing & W. Frost (Eds.), Rituals and traditional events in the modern world (pp. 78–89). Routledge.
Whitehouse, H., & Kavanagh, C. M. (2022). What is the role of ritual in binding communities together? In J. L. Barrett (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of the cognitive science of religion (pp. 278–302). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190693350.013.14
Wilt, J. A., Stauner, N., Harriott, V. A., Exline, J. J., & Pargament, K. I. (2019). Partnering with God: Religious coping and perceptions of divine intervention predict spiritual transformation in response to religious−spiritual struggle. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality, 11(3), 278–290. https://doi.org/10.1037/rel0000221
Wong, S. (2020). Soul-searching in the Chinese and Indian diasporas. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal, 29(2), 269–282. https://doi.org/10.1177/0117196820935684
Xu, J., Ma, E. T., Tashi, D., Fu, Y., Lu, Z., & Melick, D. (2005). Integrating sacred knowledge for conservation: Cultures and landscapes in Southwest China. Ecology and Society, 10(2), Article 7. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26267737
Yang, M. (2015). Shamanism and spirit possession in Chinese modernity: Some preliminary reflections on a gendered religiosity of the body. Review of Religion and Chinese Society, 2(1), 51–86. https://brill.com/view/journals/rrcs/2/1/article-p51_4.xml
Yao, Y.-S., & Gombrich, R. (2022). Chinese Buddhism today: Conservatism, modernism, syncretism and enjoying life on the Buddha’s light mountain. Equinox Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1558/isbn.9781800502314
Yip, K.-S. (2004). Taoism and its impact on mental health of the Chinese communities. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 50(1), 25–42. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020764004038758
Yow, C. H. (2016). The Chinese Diaspora in China–Malaysia relations: Dynamics of and changes in multiple transnational ‘scapes.’ Journal of Contemporary China, 25(102), 836–850. https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2016.1184896
Yu, A. C. (1987). “Rest, rest, perturbed spirit!” Ghosts in traditional Chinese prose fiction. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 47(2), 397–434. https://doi.org/10.2307/2719188
Yu, N. N., Mair, J., Lee, A., & Ong, F. (2022). Exploring community festivals in the context of the Chinese Diaspora. Event Management, 26(4), 931–947. https://doi.org/10.3727/152599521X16288665119585
Yü, Y.-S. (1987). “O soul, come back!” A study in the changing conceptions of the soul and afterlife in pre-Buddhist China. Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, 47(2), 363–395. https://doi.org/10.2307/2719187
Yuzhen G. (2015). An analytical research on the ritual music of Yogacara Ulkā-Mukha Dharma Service of the Traditional Chinese Buddhism in Taiwan [Master’s thesis, Nanhua University]. https://nhuir.nhu.edu.tw/ir/handle/987654321/23253
Zhang, D., Kong, C., Zhang, M., & Kang, J. (2022). Religious belief-related factors enhance the impact of soundscapes in Han Chinese Buddhist temples on mental health. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 774689. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.774689
Zhang, L.-T., & Zhao, S. (2020). Diaspora micro-influencers and COVID-19 communication on social media: The case of Chinese-speaking YouTube vloggers. Multilingua, 39(5), 553–563. https://doi.org/10.1515/multi-2020-0099
Zhang, S. (2023). The interaction between custom and ritual in Chinese society. Journal of Chinese Humanities, 9(3), 264–282. https://doi.org/10.1163/23521341-12340157
Zhou, W., & Feng, Y. (2023). When religious folk practice meet Karl Marx: Courts’ response to ghost marriage in modern China. Religions, 14(6), 764. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel14060764
Zhou, X., & Huang, J. (2024). The heritagization of cultural politics: Anthropological research on Chinese cultural heritage. International Journal of Anthropology and Ethnology, 8(1), 12. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41257-024-00113-7
Zhu, T., Martina, D., Heide, A. V. D., Korfage, I. J., & Rietjens, J. A. (2023). The role of acculturation in the process of advance care planning among Chinese immigrants: A narrative systematic review. Palliative Medicine, 37(8), 1063–1078. https://doi.org/10.1177/02692163231179255