ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the ways that laypeople interact with China’s various official and unofficial religious spaces and what they do in them. It focuses on the many ways that people integrate larger cultural ideas to inform their explanations and practices–with plenty of concrete examples. The chapter discusses Daoism because it plays a prominent role in the lives of laypeople as well as clergy. It also examines a wide range of religion in public, such as lighting incense and candles in temples, temple activities for good luck, and temple divination practices, among many other practices and ideas. Since 2000, Confucianism is being revived by people re-opening temples, performing Confucian-based liturgy and rituals, and reviving local lineage associations with their ancestral kinship shrines. It seems that the majority of Chinese laypeople treated Confucianism, Daoism, and Buddhism co-equally – and many do. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.
