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我很悲哀的因为我不喜欢我的新女发式。我不快乐的所以我不能学中文。

女发式nu4fa4shi4 hair style
悲哀的bei1ai1de sad

"Women in Daoism" by Catherine Despeux and Livia Kohn

Women in Daoism was not on the list of "recommended readings" for my course, but another book on Daoism by Livia Kohn was. She seems to be one of the leading scholars in the field having published what looks like 20 books on the subject. Catherine Despeux is at a university in Paris and I haven't read any of her other books as well my French isn't good enough to read scholarly works on Daoism, at least not yet!

But I thought this book would be very relevant to what I was hoping to study as part of my course next year. I have to say parts of it were extremely useful and parts not very interesting at all. The book was divided up into three sections, Goddesses, women practitioners and inner alchemy. The section on Goddesses covered a lot of information I had seen before. The chapter on the Queen Mother of the West seemed to be taken almost entirely from the work of Suzanne Cahill, whose book on the subject I'd already read and so there was little new information for me there. However the two later Goddesses talked about did contain new information for me. As well as the Goddesses histories, Cahill and Despeux looked at how the practical side of how many women worshiped the Goddesses and what impact they had. While only a few paragraphs they were very interesting and contained lots of quotable bits.

The chapter on immortals also contained work that I was already familiar with, being Robert Ford Campany who I really admire. The chapter on the lives of medieval women and Daoism though was by far my favorite. I marked so many passages, and found several good references in the bibliography of other books on the subject to try and pursue. Specifically they talked about the flourishing of Daoism in the Tang and how it was more liberating for women than the other religions. The conclusion stated a very interesting reason for this, that of inner alchemy, the subject of the last third of the book. With the tradition in Daoism that a person's body leads them to immortality and sex being part of that quest then women cease to be seen as something "unclean" and desire towards them ceases to be evil and distracting. (251)

I did only skim the last part on inner alchemy, I just don't find it as interesting. Though there were some interesting diagrams and ideas presented.

I did like this book a great deal. I wish it had focused more on the areas I am interested in, actual historical women, but I did enjoy reading about the Goddesses and what information that was there was very useful. I think I will definitely need to track down Kohn's book on medieval Daoist monasteries as I think it will contain much more of the information I am looking for.

Daoist nuns and priestesses under the Tang dynasty came from all walks of life and found themselves in rather beneficent circumstances, able to pursue their particular calling and talents, be they organizational, literay, communal or spiritual. These women underwent a basic training followed a fundamental code of rules, and worked towards the enhancement and cultivation of qi. In doing so, they continued the practices of ancient immortals and earlier renunciants, but were blessed by a more extensive social network and greater personal freedom and responsibility. Female practitioners were more numerous than in earlier times; they were fully accepted as priests in the official Daoist hierarchy. Although less active than their male counterparts, Daoist women were not nearly as restricted as women of mainstream Chinese society, and also enjoyed more personal freedom and respect under the Tang than other Chinese dynasties p125-125

A long quote but I think it sums up very well part of what I'm wanting to study in my MA.

2005年八月十二日

今天比昨天很好。我中午起床。我又看“笑傲江湖”。下午我到饭馆去吃晚饭。后来我到咖啡馆去学习中文。今天晚上我和我丈夫约我朋友去跳舞。