LETTER FROM BEIJING
Receiving an invitation from the Chinese government for an event that begins with a religious celebration is anything but ordinary. However, on Sunday September 24, in the province of Jiangsu, north of Shanghai, nearly a thousand people – including around a hundred foreigners – got up at dawn to participate at 7:30 a.m. in a ceremony organized in a of the temples of Maoshan, one of the main sacred places of Taoism.
The mist which partly covers the immense statue of Lao-tseu (33 meters high, 106 tonnes), the founder of Taoism, perched at the top of the hill, makes the setting even more magical. Despite the instructions, many participants in the ceremony did not resist and immortalized the moment by taking their cell phones out of their long midnight blue dresses. A temptation all the greater since several Chinese photographers and cameramen working for the official media have taken over the altar without excessive respect for the Taoist master. Imperturbable, he, surrounded by dozens of banner bearers representing as many deities, burns a large yellow envelope in order to warn Heaven of the event that is coming to Earth.
Blessed by the gods, the 5the International Forum of Taoism, to which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had invited us, can therefore begin. For two days, around a thousand people, including a few hundred monks, discussed the current affairs of this religion founded two millennia ago. A large majority of Chinese, of course, but also dozens of people from all over the world. In Maoshan we met Asians but also Russians, North Americans, Italians, Mexicans, French and even an Iranian researcher.
“Taoism will save the world”
This fifth forum – the previous ones were held in 2007, 2011, 2014 and 2017 – marks a notable development. The participants in fact endorsed the creation of a World Federation of Taoism, a structure which brings together 52 organizations from 19 countries and regions. If Master Li Guangfu, president of the Taoist Association of China, is the president, two of the six vice-presidents are foreigners: an Italian, whose Chinese name is Li Xuanzong, president of the Taoist Church of Italy, and a Frenchman, Hervé Louchouarn Trestard, who has lived in Mexico for a long time, where he chairs the Taoist association.
“We were eight presidents of foreign associations to ask in 2011 for the creation of an international organization”, explains the latter. “We must train, inform and act. The world needs spirituality. Taoism will save the world », enthuses Li Xuanzong. From the platform of the forum, he pleads – with very limited success – for increased use of English by this now global organization.
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