contributed by Esmond Soh, 28 May 2020

The Circuit Breaker (CB) measures that had been in-place since April 2020 had prompted many religious activities to leap into cyberspace. Among them is the Lorong Koo Chye Sheng Hong (City God) temple, where devotees are invited to worship the temple’s deities through live video-recordings of the premises’ altar from 10.30 A.M. to 12.30 P.M daily. However, while worshipping the City God online is an example of how Chinese religion could move online, it is not the representative example of Chinese religion per se.

Chinese religious specialists and their devotees have a long history of interacting and negotiating with communication technologies. The case of the Sheng Hong temple as mentioned above lends credence to the observation that a deity’s images act as “portals that allow the spirit to enter into the earthly realm,” and through live broadcasting, the deity’s power remains accessible to his or her devotees. As Cline had noted, spirit-mediums in China had used telephones to stay in touch with devotees located afar. Similar dynamics can be observed in Singapore today, where various temple fairs and celebrations become hotspots for photography hobbyists and devotees alike.

Since the senses of ‘sight’ and ‘sound’ can be replicated to some extent via cyberspace and telecommunications technologies, they tend to dominate the conversation at the expense of the other senses: taste, touch and smell. The interaction of digital technologies with Chinese religious practice thus leads us to the following question: Can religious experiences be re-created in cyberspace? Perhaps only partially.

In this post, I am writing both in the capacity as a student and practitioner of syncretic Chinese religion in Singapore. Elaborating on assertions that “a disembodiment and a de-sensorialisation of religious communities and their ritual practices” had taken place, I suggest the trek of Chinese religion into cyberspace remains difficult and incomplete. Here, I am primarily concerned with the Chinese religious experiences, which I interpret as a varied constellation of actions and practices that goes beyond the mere performance of worship. To do so, I examine how Chinese religious practice connects with the five basic human senses.

Sound – an aspect of communal worship – can be re-created in part through live screenings or pre-recorded chanting and rituals. But religious soundscapes are complex and evasive to thorough reproduction. We need not think too far about how audio-visual recordings remain incapable of reproducing the many mundane elements that make up these sacred environments: Even before one steps across the threshold of the now-closed Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple in Waterloo Street, the sound of countless divination slips swishing around in their cylindrical holders will greet one’s ears.

The same holds true for communal chanting sessions organised by many Chinese temples across Singapore. While many devotees continue to practice scripture recitation at home, one wonders about the many senior regulars who rely on these weekly chanting sessions as a means to re-connect and chat with their friends of old.

Smells, for one, cannot be reproduced online, particularly if they are associated with a specific locality. Whenever I enter the Sheng Hong temple, the powerful scent of smouldering incense and smoke is always a mental reminder of the temple’s popularity among its devotees. Indeed, as Habkirk and Chang had pointed out, incense is not only an agent of communicating with the deities, but a medium that “activates all the memories and emotions associated with religious experiences and communities.”

To investigate the power of ‘taste,’ one has to look at the role of food in Chinese religion. Vegetarian recipes have been re-created and made available online by Buddhist nuns for homestayers to replicate in their own kitchens during Vesak Day, which took place in the midst of the CB period. However, what is missing is the element of communal dining, a sentiment that I continue to associate with meals provided during communal worship and celebratory banquets.

Even before the CB was implemented, some temples had taken the difficult decision of cancelling such banquets and gatherings to pre-emptively halt Covid-19’s spread. This break from the norm was not easy, for dining together not only commemorated the successful execution of a communal celebration, but provided avenues for like-minded devotees to interact with one another in a more intimate setting (Photograph 1). Dining without friends and fellow worshippers at home remains an incomplete substitute for the experience of doing the same within the precincts of a temple.

Photograph 1: The author (in white) enjoying a vegetarian lunch alongside other devotees in Sean Hua Zee Temple, Singapore, January 2019. Photograph courtesy of Mr. Francis Tan.

The final sense, touch, remains vital to Chinese religious practice. Here, I broaden ‘touch’ to include kinaesthetic movement as well. Before the CB period, children would run around the open space and take turns mounting the life-sized horse within the Sheng Hong temple’s compound while their guardians worshipped. Likewise, since the Sheng Hong temple is sandwiched within a cluster of combined temples, it is likely that many devotees would not find their excursion to the temple ‘complete’ until they have visited some – if not all – of these adjacent temples and donated some incense-oil money.

For myself, exploring and worshipping at temples across the island was typically a rejuvenating excursion “that involve(d) a distancing from one's daily routines and realities” (Photograph 2). The therapeutic and emotional effects of physically leaving one’s home to perform an act of worship remain a side-lined – but indispensable – part of a holistic experience that was grounded to a halt throughout the CB period.

Photograph 2: The author’s one-day tour of temples in western Singapore, June 2019.

Naturally, this post cannot do justice to the many other aspects of worship that are de-emphasised throughout the CB period. Not all temples have the means – technical and/or financial – of enabling their deities to ‘see’ their devotees through cyberspace, even if the Sheng Hong temple had managed to do so. If anything, Covid-19 has reflected how Chinese religious experiences in Singapore remains a complex body of practices that cannot be transplanted completely into cyberspace. With two more key events in the Chinese calendar – the Seventh Lunar Month and the Festival of the Nine Emperor Gods – approaching, it remains to be seen if these events would be downscaled to correspond with post-CB regulations, or accelerate their movement into cyberspace. Only time will tell.

 

Soh Chuah Meng Esmond is a History graduate student enrolled in the Master of Arts program at the Nanyang Technological University, School of Humanities (SoH), Singapore. His research interests include the history of religion, diasporic Chinese religion and the history of the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia.

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Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the blog editorial team or the Asia Research Institute.

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