They probably don’t understand it
The officially atheistic People’s Republic of China has five official religions. Buddhism, Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism and Daoism. In one sense, Daoism — it also gets translated into Taoism — might be the most prevalent religious practice in modern China, a half-century after it was nearly stamped out under Mao's Cultural Revolution. But Daoism is also hard to really put your finger on. And that’s because the 2,500-year-old traditions are closely wrapped up with Chinese folk religion. To get a short assessment on Daoism’s place in China today, I spoke with Ian Johnson. He’s a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist based in Beijing who’s written a lot about religion in the People’s Republic. Q. How much is Daoism thriving in modern China? Of the five main religions, Daoism is probably the weakest in terms of organization and members and places of worship. There are long historical reasons for that, which are somewhat complicated. But I think Daoism’s importance is more that it ...
