For much of China's history, the state championed a standardized system of cosmology, most dramatically manifested in two important rituals: marriage and mortuary practices. The standardization of these rituals profoundly affected the development and maintenance of China's cultural unity. Thus, on the eve of the Chinese Communist Party's triumphant entrance into Beijing in 1949, there were no fundamental cultural differences in beliefs and ritual practices among its urban and rural populations (with the exception of two or three large port cities). In short, there was at bottom only one China. Since 1949, however, the party's ideology of modernization and urban living has framed a new vision, undermined the standardized cosmological system and,in the process, contributed to splitting China into halves: One urban and the other rural.
Traditional Chinese folk cosmology was organized around the belief that the supernatural is divided into three forces: gods, ghosts, and ancestors. Within the religious pantheon, each god, somewhat like an official in an imperial bureaucracy, was assigned a specific duty and social rank. Ancestors, on the other hand, were the relatives to whom one owed continuing loyalty and support. In turn, the ancestors reciprocated by granting good fortune and by tacitly agreeing not to cause mischief in one's daily life. Finally, ghosts were those deceased individuals who did not belong to one's family. In actual practice, the most-feared ghosts tended to be those of people who died without anyone to care for them (for example, beggars, bandits, widows, and spinsters). They were the disinherited or displaced of society. Without a home, ghosts were perpetually hungry and characteristically undisciplined underworld spirits. And much like our boogeyman, these ghosts were often the frightening personae parents used on the unruly child.
Another tenet of Chinese folk cosmology was the existence of two or three souls (the exact number depended upon the region and temperament of the informant) that dwelled in either the grave, heaven, or if there was only one soul, in the ancestor tablet (a memorial usually made of wood that contained the name of the deceased person). The soul was viewed as a volatile and disoriented spirit in need of continuous care. Failure to perform the appropriate rites would inevitably result in insulting the soul, and it would retaliate by inflicting misfortune upon its descendants. To avoid this, descendants would honor the spirit of the deceased with elaborate mortuary and sacrificial rites, which were to meet the needs of the soul in the afterlife. If the needs were met, the soul would be reintegrated within the family.
In this way, death was not seen as the annihilation of the individual, but merely an alteration of the circumstances in which the dialogue between generations was conducted. The equation was clear. The soul required mourners for aid and sustenance; meeting this requirement, the living could hope to receive good benefits, or "luck." From one viewpoint, the mourning rites themselves constituted a rationalization of grief at the loss of an intimate family member, a symbolic gesture of reluctance to let the dead go, and a statement of hope that death marked not the end but the beginning of another existence for the deceased. The fates of the deceased, the soul, and the mourners were tightly intertwined.
Mortuary rites and practices throughout China proper contained, according to James Watson, the following nine features: public notification of death;
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