CUHK Research: Changing the world

A cultural irony Professor Lai Chi-tim’s epiphany came when, as a PhD candidate at the University of Chicago’s Divinity School, he realised that scholars in the West knew more about Daoism than he did. “I was born, raised and educated in Hong Kong but suddenly found that I didn’t understand my own tradition. I was ashamed to tell people that I didn’t know anything about indigenous Chinese culture, or the importance and impact of Daoism in Hong Kong or other Chinese communities.” Back then, Daoism was not considered worthy of serious study in Hong Kong, he recalls. “Daoism was ignored by academia as just the popular beliefs of lower-class people who pray and offer incense to deities,” says Professor Lai. “Yet I could see that Daoism is one of humanity’s most beautiful and rich religious civilisations.” Part of Daoism’s “image problem” has been that it lacks a charismatic historical founder, emerging as it did in the 2nd century CE in Sichuan as an indigenous, localised religious movement of ordinary people – far removed from the elite courtly circles of imperial China. “It’s integrated with religious faith, practice, philosophy, literature, music and other aspects of Chinese culture in daily life,” says Professor Lai. “I came to realise that without studying Daoism, we could not have a balanced, comprehensive understanding of the spiritual world and religious practice of people in China.” A new academic paradigm Encouraged by his American mentor at Chicago – Anthony C. Yu, English translator of the Chinese classic Journey to the West – Professor Lai committed to redress biases back home about Daoist studies. His dream was for it to become a respected academic field with world-class scholarship on par with that, say, of medicine or engineering. In 1995, he returned to his alma mater CUHK and joined the Department of Religious Studies. “The motto of our university is to preserve Chinese culture and integrate China and the West,” says Professor Lai. “I had a very clear mission and vision to put Daoism back into our understanding of Chinese culture, even though this field of study was rare and beyond most people’s imagining.” 50