While Chiu Hei-yuan (
Chiu quoted polls showing that a growing number of people believe in the potency of ghost month. At the same time, the poll showed, only a small proportion of children liked to watch TV programs about the occult, but a majority of parents were worried about their impact. What are we to make of all this?
These results tell us about growing fears and ignorance -- or, more accurately,"infantilization."
By definition, what we call "occult" is only part of the "unknown." People's fascination with what lies beyond death is in no way different from -- and by nature just as healthy as -- their interest in outer space, molecular science or dinosaurs. Spooky TV programs speak to our unfulfilled fantasies in the same way "Star Wars" answers to our fascination with outer space. The problem comes only when social conditions do not allow this kind of interest to fully develop.
Traditional Chinese society, as we know it today, is highly secular, despite appearances to the contrary. Although in Taiwan people burn more than 200,000 tons of paper money every year, they do so only to appease the ghosts so that they might leave the living alone and help increase the good fortune of the living.
People tend to see ghosts as the "other world," forgetting that it is a group they might have to join in just a few decades. Talk about death is actively discouraged as a taboo almost everywhere. Death is something we are not supposed to understand. People seldom find a proper channel to pursue their interest in matters beyond death -- channels that denote a truly spiritual society. The recent rise of religious trends has so far not yet succeeded in building such channels on a large scale. As a result, many people -- even adults -- do not know how to handle deaths in their families.
People are affected by spooky programs because the stories strike a note in their most repressed, unexplored side. Superstitions grow when people ignore an important part of life -- namely death -- for too long. As long as our society lacks the proper channels for people to explore the occult, our children will always be vulnerable to exploitation by business opportunists.
Aye Nge
Taipei
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