Word: faithfully
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Outside the mainstream religions--and outside the supervision of the government--are hundreds of independent Chinese religions that gird China like a rural electric network, illuminating lives house by house. In Fujian province each spring, tens of thousands of the faithful parade from town to town in religious "long marches" celebrating localized Taoist gods. Tai Shan, a holy mountain south of Beijing, is one of the country's most popular tourist sites--especially among would-be grandmothers, who trudge to the top, drape red strings over trees and then return home to wait for the grandson this ritual is supposed...
Religious vacations may sound unusual, particularly for a communist country, but some form of faith or superstition weaves its way through every element of Chinese life. The new Shanghai stock exchange is built in the shape of a hollowed square to help trap positive energy, a nod to the ancient geomantic rituals of feng shui. And members of China's new middle class are embracing both state-of-the-art technology to transform their economy and 5,000-year-old superstitions to support their lives. "It turns out that the majority of businesspeople in China believe...
...built on a base of worldly order and ancestor worship that's far different from Taoism's mystical beliefs--they have, over a long history, fused together. They continued to do so outside China and are doing it again within China. Sociologists call what has emerged a syncretic faith, resembling more than anything else a pointillist painting in which every individual's beliefs are shaped and colored by specks of each tradition--and, at the close of the 20th century, by the color of money...
...recent and cataclysmic, the Christian-tinged Taiping Heavenly Kingdom from 1851 to 1864 and the mystical, Kung Fu-like Boxer Rebellion at the turn of the century. Even Mao's militant idealism can be seen in this light. But China's long history is also filled with moments when faith and pragmatism merged to create miracles. What scares China's leaders is that the very first miracle of the nation's new faith may be their disappearance...
When Pauline Einstein learned that her beloved son Albert was consorting with a fellow physics student--one who was older, of another faith and from the backwaters of the Balkans--she was devastated. "If she gets a child, you'll be in a pretty mess," his mother warned him. But the 22-year-old Albert, as roguishly independent in his personal life as he would be in his science, brushed off Mutti's agitated words and continued the romance. On Jan. 27, 1902, nine months after an idyllic interlude at Lake Como, Albert's classmate--and future wife--Mileva Maric...