Research On Religious Life And Culture Of Elderly Respecting And Caring

The Dai people is an ethnic minority living in the southwest part of China.Religion plays an extremely important role in the Dai society,which has had a profound influence on the economy,politics and culture of the Dai people.The elderly respecting and caring of the Dai is also deeply influenced by religion,which forms a unique elderly respecting and caring culture.This paper takes a Dai village of Xishuangbanna in Yunnan as a research object,uses the method of field research of anthropology on the basis of examining the religious life of the Dai elderly,takes a sociological and anthropological discussion on this local conventional elderly respecting and caring culture according to the modern pension policy's practical situation shown in the logical order of individual-family-community(village).At the same time,the relationship between the religions and elderly respecting and caring of the Dai is interpreted by using the theory of interactive ritual chains.Finally,it comes to the conclusion and discusses the related problems.A "ceremony of transition",that is "aged ceremony" of the Dai,was found in the Dai villages,which enriched the kinds of life rituals in Chinese ethnology and folklore on the one hand,and also showed that it played a very important role in the local elderly respecting and caring culture on the other hand.The unique "aged ceremony" of the Dai has formed a special recognition of "old" members of society and become an important mechanism to improve social status of the elderly.Religion also has an important influence on the cognition of "death".The Dai people's local cognition of "death" not only helped the Dai elderly form a life-loving attitude,but also formed a powerful restriction on the issue of elderly--caring.Meanwhile,religion not only serves as a hospice when the elderly are dying but also plays a good consolation role to the bereaved.The "household deity" of the Dai is not only a symbol of elder authority,but also acts as a role of "law" and becomes an important defence for the elderly respecting and caring of the Dai families.Theravada Buddhism made the Dai people form the fertility concept of "no gender preference" and "fewer births".The "household deity" and special kinship prompted the Dai people to form a common practice of custody as well as adoption.And the Dai community is very popular with "matrilocal residence",which makes the Dai people not worry about the future elderly caring in consequence of having few kids or being childless.The Dai's social orientation centered on the village,which has extended the social support system for the Dai elderly from family to village.The local singer "Zhang ha" persuaded filial piety through singing and socialized with the charm of music.As a result of the religious influence,the Dai community formed the "Dan elderly" ceremony to respect the elderly.Due to their keen religious activities,the Dai elder have a high degree of social participation.The elder have consolidated their authority by demonstrating their divine power in various religious ceremonies and strengthened the elder--young order of the Dai society.This paper also examines the institutional arrangement of the state pension in the local,and analyzes the causes of unsatisfactory in the process of implementation of state pension from the perspective of the theory of "great","small tradition".In order to make the state pension system be implemented in local,it was necessary to rely on the local pension system("small traditional")as the carrier of "great tradition" and fully developed the cultural integration function of "great traditional",so that the state pension system could actually be implemented.Emotional energy is a key variable in the various interactive rites of the Dai elderly caring.Successful interactive ritual evokes emotional energy so as to create rhythms that leads to collective excitement and attracts members to participate in the ceremony again.Dai elderly in the successful interactive ceremony not only gain high emotional energy,but also consolidate and strengthen their own authority.The failure of interactive rituals is unable to evoke emotional energy,even consume the emotional energy.The failure of interactive rituals cannot establish collective excitement so that makes ritual members feel annoyed and avoid such occasions.The failure of the interactive ritual increased difficulty for the state pension policy implement and the practice of local elderly association.This research indicated that the religious life constitutes the cultural foundation of the Dai's elderly respecting and caring practice,which is a significant lifestyle for the Dai elders.As a social control medium,the religious life is not only a mechanism of promoting the social status of the Dai elderly,but also shapes and enhances the sacred power and the authority of the elder.Meanwhile,it restrictes the behavior of the Dai people and therefore forms the social norms of the Dai people respecting the elders,which has laid a solid foundation for the elderly caring of the Dai people.The high unity between "elderly respecting" and "elderly caring" is an important feature of the traditional elderly respecting and caring of the Dai people."Dan" and "An zha" not only constitute the local logic of elderly respecting and caring of Dai,but also is an important mechanism for maintaining elderly supporting cultural vitality.The interactive ritual constitutes the core mechanism of the pension for the Dai people.Effective practice of elderly respecting and caring is based on a series of successful interactive rituals.Among them,emotional energy and symbolic capital are the core elements of the effectiveness of elderly respecting and caring practices.Finally,this article further consider the social status and here on the basis to summarizes the religious life,culture of old-age respect and care,and social order of the Dai people.