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From Anecdotes to Jokes--Chinese Buddhism on Weibo
- Author
- ZHANG, YINGJING
- Note
- Through analysis we found that Buddhist anecdotes on Weibo have been well-known for quite a long time, and the actual number of different Buddhist anecdotes spreading online is rather limited. To some extent, they could be some kind of the hackneyed and stereotyped expressions, and the high repetition rate of them may cause people’s boredom and then result in people’s transforming them into jokes. Nevertheless, the popularity of the Buddhist anecdotes shows that Buddhism, especially the Chan Sect is widely recognized in China. In addition, when taking a look at the cultural roots, these Buddhist anecdotes can function as a resource for self-help and to comfort people. When it comes to the Buddhist jokes on Weibo, the jokes about the Chan Master can be interpreted by Incongruity Theory and Superiority Theory, and the image of the Chan Master reflected in these jokes contrasts strongly with people’s original impression towards them as extraordinary and keeping far away from the common custom society. In addition, all these jokes could be classified into the “Maladaptive Humor Styles”, hiding some heavy emotions in them. From my point of view, these Buddhist jokes have something to do with Chinese social transformations these days. China has encountered a host of intertwined problems and difficulties in the course of social transformation, during which the social moral life has also faced big challenges. All the social phenomena, like the treatment disparity between the urban and rural, the gap of income between different places and industries, the allocation of social security and wealth, make some Chinese people feel a kind of injustice. When the anecdotes cannot help to comfort the flippancy of some people, people’s negative emotions are presented by the form of Buddhist jokes which share the similar form of those original non-humorous Buddhist anecdotes. Instead of providing a resource for self-help as the Buddhist anecdotes, the function of the Buddhist jokes is releasing the pent-up feelings to a large extent. Buddhism in modern China is searching for ways of improving and spreading itself and trying to adapt itself to the modern society. In this process, how to avoid the over-secularization and vulgarization of Buddhism still remains an unsolved question.
- Faculty
- Faculty of Humanities
- Specialisation
- History, Arts and Culture
- Supervisors
- Els, Paul van
- ECTS Credits
- 15
- Language
- en