Saturday, January 26, 2013

Is Ma a crypto-muslim?

i had a friend whose family name was Ma. She told me she had to go do some religious ritual her family does every year. i was thinking she was talking about something Taoist,and was shocked to hear her say " no my family is muslim". she went on to explain how muslim was her family's religion from way back, how their religion was totally chinese, their eating customs (which were radically different from middle eastern muslims), etc. her family's version of islam was veiled under chinese culture. it resembled Taoism but it wasn't. According to wikipedia, the family name Ma comes from Mohammed (repronounced in chinese as Ma Ha Me). my friend told me that MOST people in taiwan named Ma have a muslim ancestor. so why do we see Ma ying Jiou kowtowing in MaDzu temples? why do we see him holding those incese sticks all the time? is it just to court votes, or is there something deeper about MaDzu (in other words is she really a chinese-ized form of Fatima, or even the Virgin Mary, and is that the real secret that the Tao sects in taiwan want to keep hidden)? this would not be the first thing to have been hidden this way.There are famous cryto "kurisutan" sites in japan as well as in china. even the martial arts may be crypto- occidental. Karate master Mas Oyama said that karate came from greece, by way of alexander to india, then onward into china, and finally to okinawa and japan. the oral traditions of karate state that "karate does not come from buddhism or shinto". it is also beleived that wing chun kung fu may have orignated in egypt, due to its emphasis on triangles.heiroglyphs of simliar movements to wing chun have been found in pyramids. it is beleived the system was transmitted as part of an ancient set of knowledge contained in the libraries of alexandria that made its way to china proper. at any rate, if Ma is a crypto muslim, and indeed his visit to a taipei mosque sometime back may be a hint, coming out of the closet would be a great thing. at least, it would open up a conversaton about what it means to be chinese. not all chinese burn incense and paper money and pray to their ancestors. there are chinese jews, muslims, and christians with a thousand year lineage, not to mention many groups in china practice tribal relgions. are they any less "chinese"?