{"id":5812,"date":"2020-05-20T16:12:39","date_gmt":"2020-05-20T08:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.ift.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/?p=5812"},"modified":"2020-05-27T16:17:29","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T08:17:29","slug":"monks-cum-religious-site-wardens-the-case-of-pu-tuo-shan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/monks-cum-religious-site-wardens-the-case-of-pu-tuo-shan\/","title":{"rendered":"Monks cum religious site wardens: the case of Pu-Tuo-Shan"},"content":{"rendered":"\u4e2d\u6587\u6458\u8981 \/ Summary in Chinese<\/span>\n

The visitor management system adopted by monasteries and nunneries at Pu-Tuo-Shan in Zhejiang Province, Mainland China \u2013 one of the 4 Sacred Mountains of Chinese Buddhism \u2013 has proven to work \u201cquite well\u201d over time. That is according to a new study by a scholar from IFTM. The system is based on monks and nuns playing the role of wardens.<\/p>\n

The visitor control system relies on \u201cthe central and \u2013 compared to sacred sites of other religions \u2013 unusual role the resident members of its monasteries and nunneries play as hands-on custodians of their sacred space,\u201d stated IFTM scholar Dr. Cora Wong Un In in a research paper. \u201cIt appears that, by and large, they make sense of this role in a Buddhist spirit and perform it without taking leave\u201d of the principles of their monastic training, she noted.<\/p>\n

The comments were featured in the research paper \u201cSocial interaction in visitor control at a Chinese Buddhist monastic site\u201d. It was published last year in the scholarly journal Tourism Recreation Research.<\/p>\n

The main objective of Dr. Wong\u2019s study was to look into the effects on monks and nuns at Pu-Tuo-Shan of often having to \u201cinterrupt their daily religious routine to act as wardens and inevitably interact with the public,\u201d which she described as \u201ca most un-monastic situation\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dr. Wong\u2019s findings suggested that \u201cby and large the monastic members do not consider the time they spend as wardens as \u2018time out\u2019 from their Buddhist monastic life but as part of it.\u201d According to her, monks and nuns \u201ctolerate or even welcome the constant presence of many visitors\u201d from the laity. This is because such visits give participating members of the public \u201ca chance to become better acquainted with Buddhism\u201d. The monks and nuns \u201cview this hospitable stance as a Buddhist duty for themselves and a natural role for a monastery\u201d.<\/p>\n

The study results were based on individual interviews with 20 representatives of monastic orders at Pu-Tuo-Shan, namely people who had experience acting as wardens. For her research, Dr. Wong was given permission by the heads of a number of monasteries at Pu-Tuo-Shan to speak freely with any monk or nun on warden duty that she wished to approach.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was striking that the informants almost always formulated their comments in the context of Buddhism, rarely expressing themselves from the mundane perspective of a mere warden when talking about themselves in that role,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

Religious tourism in China<\/strong><\/p>\n

Pu-Tuo-Shan is a major Chinese Buddhist pilgrimage site in China, with more than 1,100 years of history. It is located on a small island off the coast of Zhejiang Province. A total of 28 monasteries, nunneries and shrines are scattered around the island, according to Dr. Wong\u2019s study. These venues receive thousands of visitors each day, with the crowds swelling during religious festivals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe larger monasteries that attract the most visitors consist of a number of halls (temples), other monastic buildings, park areas and courtyards,\u201d wrote Dr. Wong. \u201cUnless used by the monks and nuns for devotion, the halls\u2019 doors are open to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pu-Tuo-Shan welcomes more than 7 million visitors per year, almost all originating from elsewhere in Mainland China, according to the IFTM scholar. \u201cOnly a very small minority of the visitors are pilgrims who are lodged in the monasteries, participate [in] devotions and take their meals with the monastic members,\u201d noted Dr. Wong. \u201cMost visitors are day visitors with a whole range of motivations, interests, and behaviours, and who spend only a few hours\u201d on the grounds of the monasteries.<\/p>\n

The IFTM scholar wrote in her paper that religious sites in China were \u201cimportant assets\u201d in the development of the country\u2019s tourism sector. A boom in religious tourism had been taking place over the past 30 years, Dr. Wong said. It had led to a need to introduce visitor-control measures at a number of sites. In the case of Pu-Tuo-Shan, that responsibility had been assigned to the members of the monastic orders there, she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn duty, the monastic members are partly wardens, partly religious mentors and partly knowledgeable on-site guides,\u201d wrote Dr. Wong. \u201cCompared to the traditional forms of monastic work such as agriculture or\u2026 crafts, the occupation of warden requires much more contact with the secular society and as such is more remote from the monastic ideal.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Wong said the monastic-warden approach helped reduce the operational costs of monasteries, by avoiding the expense of employing guards from the secular community. Another advantage of this model was that \u2013 due to their religious position \u2013 monks and nuns could be seen has having \u201cmore authority in the eyes of the lay public than menial lay guards would have\u201d.<\/p>\n

Dr. Wong pointed out in her study that there was a \u201cquasi-absence of visiting rules\u201d at Pu-Tuo-Shan. \u201cThe latitude that the system allows the wardens, in a sense also respects their own free will,\u201d she noted, adding that this chimed with fundamental Buddhist concepts. Dr. Wong added that, according to her experience \u2013 which encompassed 12 visits to Pu-Tuo-Shan over the course of 8 years \u2013 the system had worked \u201cquite well over the years\u201d. The atmosphere at the Pu-Tuo-Shan monastic sites was \u201cserene in spite of the crowding, without any apparent containment or herding of visitors\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

More info<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
The researcher<\/div>\nDr. Cora Wong Un In is an Assistant Professor at IFTM. She holds a PhD from the University of Waikato, in New Zealand. Dr. Wong\u2019s research interests include pilgrimages and religious tourism, cultural heritage interpretation, post-colonialism, tourist travel experience, and tourism impact and visitor management. She is a member of the IFTM team delivering cultural heritage specialist guide training as part of the UNESCO World Heritage Guide Training Programme in Asia.
\n<\/div>\n
The paper<\/div>\n– The paper
\nCora Un In Wong: \u201cSocial interaction in visitor control at a Chinese Buddhist monastic site\u201d, Tourism Recreation Research, Volume 44, Issue 1, pages 66-75, 2019.
\nhttps:\/\/doi.org\/10.1080\/02508281.2018.1523297<\/a>
\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The visitor management system adopted by monasteries and nunneries at Pu-Tuo-Shan in Zhejiang Province, Mainland China \u2013 one of the 4 Sacred Mountains of Chinese Buddhism \u2013 has proven to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5813,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[1367,1365,1368,1366],"class_list":["post-5812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-knowledge","tag-buddhism","tag-pu-tuo-shan","tag-visitor-management-system","tag-zhejiang"],"views":198,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5812"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5818,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5812\/revisions\/5818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}