The Cult of Wang Yulan and Nationalism

            In article by Chang-hui Chi “The Death of a Virgin: the Cult of Wang Yulan and Nationalism in Jinmen, Taiwan”, the author talks about the death of a woman named Wang Yulan who a symbolic complex was built around her to prevent the spread of communism. They used her as a means to promote nationalism within the village to ensure that order was respected.

            As a Quebecer I find it quite interesting that Wang Yulan was used as a symbol to promote nationalism since I feel that currently with the Quebec elections Pauline Marois is being used as a symbol to also promote nationalism. Although the nationalism both are being used as symbols for are quite different, and only one of the women actually has a say in what they’re promoting since Wang Yulan was only being used as a symbolic complex after her body washed ashore in Jinmen.

  

Politicians will use anything they can get their hands on in order to promote their own agendas, in both cases nationalism was their goal. Currently in Quebec the Parti Quebecois’s main goal is to be elected as a majority in order to have absolute power within the National Assembly in order to further promote their own agenda and their ultimate goal is to pass a referendum to sepearate from Canada. Their strategy is to gain support from the “True French Canadians” in order for the Parti Quebecois to be elected as a majority and have ultimate power within the National Assembly. However, in Taiwan in order to promote their nationalist agenda they used Wang Yulan and promoted her worship where her body was round and made her the symbol of resistance to communism and the exemplar of traditional Chinese values in general (2009; 671). Their main strategy became to use traditional values in order to gain support and encourage people to join them in the resistance against any sort of change, as a means to promote and ensure that the countries core values don’t waiver.

 

                            

Both Quebec and Taiwan are fighting for the right to become their own countries and not have other people made decisions on their behave and allow others to dictate what their laws and value system should be. Although, to an outsider to seems that Taiwan is it’s own country, I’m sure within Taiwan its people do not feel the same way, however from a Quebecer’s perspective unlike Taiwan we own a Canadian passport and are part of a country, whereas Taiwan keeps getting shifted back and forth from Japan’s hands to China’s without their input. Taiwanese nationalism as well as Quebec nationalism is a sense of pride of where one comes from, it shows your origins and allows people to identify with a specific set of customs.

             

Image Source:

Protest sign - http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m1i68475Dl1qhuzeso1_500.jpg

Quebec Nationalism - http://thepoliticalbouillon.com/en/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Flag_Map_of_Canada_with_Independent_Quebec.png

Taiwan Nationalism - http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/2953/taiwanisnotchinawn1.jpg

References:

Chi, Chang-hui. 2009. “The Death of a Virgin: the Cult of Wang Yulan and Nationalism             in Jinmen, Taiwan.” Anthropological Quarterly 82 (3): 669-690.