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Abstract
Material manifestations of the Chinese popular deities, Guanyin and Guan Gong, are ubiquitous in Cantonese-Chinese restaurants globally. Yet studies of Chinese popular religion among overseas Chinese have seldom focused on the diverse significance of these deities to Chinese migrants, nor the use of restaurant-spaces to house these deities. This article examines the presence and powers of such deities in Chinese restaurants of Santiago de Chile. We seek to understand how the presence or absence of Guanyin and Guan Gong figures specifically shapes migrant Chinese restauranteurs and workers’ experience of the restaurants as particular kinds of protected, sacred/secular spaces, and how these deities might also affectively shape the restauranteurs’ ways of being and inhabiting the restaurants. Based on semi-structured interviews with Chinese shopkeepers and workers, observation and photography of the spatial organization of 26 restaurants and the aesthetics of their deities, we argue that these restaurants are more than just their primary sources of livelihood. We argue that they approximate Soja’s “thirdspaces” (1996), which on the one hand mediate their interactions with the city and its other residents, and on the other hand mediate relationships between humans in the earthly world and deities in the “other” parallel world.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank everyone who participated in this project for their time and patience. This article has benefited from generous feedback from Diana Espirito Santo, Terence Heng, two anonymous reviewers, and the editors at Material Religion.
Notes and References
Notes
1 According to the Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, bodhisattva in Sanskrit (pusa in Mandarin) literally means “enlightenment being.” where “the etymology is uncertain, but the term is typically glossed to mean a ‘being intent on achieving enlightenment’… a being who has resolved to become a buddha.” (Buswell and Lopez Citation2013, 134). Guanyin 觀音 or Guanshiyin 觀世音 is translated from the Sanskrit (Avalokiteśvara) to Mandarin. Put together, the meaning of “guan” (to observe) and “yin” (sounds) refer to “he/she who observes the sounds of the world,” thus referring to Guanyin’s compassion as one helps humans free themselves from suffering.
2 Paper money is sometimes also known as hell money or spirit money, a standardized currency used for the worship of Chinese spirits, deities, and ancestors.
3 Guan Gong is also typically associated with masculinity and can be popularly found in martial arts spaces.
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Carol Chan
Carol Chan is Assistant Professor at the Universidad Academia de Humanismo Cristiano. She earned her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the University of Pittsburgh (2016), and is author of In Sickness and in Wealth: Migration, Gendered Morality, and Central Java (2018, Indiana University Press). Her research interests are migration, gender, critical development studies, precarious relations, and interethnic conviviality. [email protected]
Ríos María Elvira
Maria Elvira Ríos is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute of Aesthetic, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She holds a PhD and M.A. in Asia and African Studies, specializing in China (Center for Asia and Africa Studies, El Colegio de México, 2015). Her research interests include Chinese religion and language, and Chinese Contemporary Buddhism.