On April 26th, Daoist Master Jiang Zhirong of Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province, was interviewed by a reporter.
Daoist Master Jiang Zhirong, commonly known as Jiang Yongzhao, is a 63-year-old native of Xinghua, Taixing, Jiangsu Province, and was once the head of the Taizhou City God Temple. He said, “I have been to all the Taoist temples in the country, and I have been to several countries abroad, and the only one that has been badly damaged is the Taoism in China. I think it’s the government’s fault and it’s caused by corrupt officials.”
The Taizhou Taoist Association asked Taoist Master Jiang Zhirong not to petition. (Courtesy of the interviewee)
Deputy Director of the Citizen’s Religious Bureau and Vice President of the Municipal Taoist Association were reported
Taizhou City God Temple was built in the Tang Dynasty, rebuilt and restored during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, covering an area of 2,170 square meters, and is the largest and best preserved City God Temple building existing in Jiangsu, and belongs to the key cultural relics protection units.
Report letter (provided by the interviewee)
Report letter (provided by the interviewee)
Jiang Zhirong Daoist told reporters, “Taizhou City Taoist Association Vice President Zhang Ge Shan will be part of the City God Temple building, converted into a columbarium, and sold to the public (ashes cave), the price ranges from a few thousand to tens of thousands of yuan. The Hall of Gods in the City God Temple is for the faithful to come and see the gods, which is to see the dead? This is to destroy the Taoist faith in Taizhou!”
Taoist priest Jiang Zhirong disclosed, “There is a relationship of interest between Yang Aiming, deputy director of the Taizhou Municipal Bureau of Religious Affairs, and Zhang Ge Shan, vice president of the Taizhou Taoist Association. Yang Aiming used his position to arrange for his wife to be an accountant at the City God Temple for a year, and all the invoices for this period were missing, making it impossible to verify the income and expenses of the City God Temple during this period. City God Temple to build the columbarium and the sale of ashes cave and other things, Zhang Ge Shan are to Yang Aiming ask for instructions to report.”
Daoist Master Jiang Zhirong. (Courtesy of the interviewee)
The reporter called the Taizhou Municipal Bureau of Religious Affairs, and the staff said “the report is not true”. After the reporter asked whether the relevant departments had done an investigation into the report, and if the report was not true, whether the whistleblower had been punished, the staff member said, “The whistleblower had written (a report letter) to several departments such as the discipline inspection department, and he (Jiang Zhirong) had promised to rest the visit.” For Jiang Zhirong Taoist reported “Taizhou City God Temple part of the building was converted into a columbarium for sale”, the staff said, “This thing has stopped doing.” The staff’s response side by side confirms that the problem reported by Daoist Jiang Zhirong is true.
However, Jiang Zhirong Daoist has a different statement on the cemetery stop selling, he revealed, “I began to report in 2010, it has been 10 years. As of now, the Taizhou City God Temple is still receiving the ashes of the residents to place. In order to avoid the economic problems associated with the illegal construction of the columbarium and the sale of ashes caves, it is surprising that Yang Aiming has ignored the major safety hazards associated with the columbarium (the use of large amounts of combustible materials, etc.).”
Jiang Zhirong Daoist said angrily, “I asked them to disclose their accounts, but they did not. After I went to the province, the province asked them to disclose the accounts, they still did not disclose. Every time I went to report, they just did not do anything. If a cadre from above investigates, they invite guests and give gifts.”
“Now those who have the say in the city temple are all communists, all assholes, whoever gives money to the officials of the Bureau of Civil and Religious Affairs has the say, and all have to negotiate the interests with the officials first.”
“We’ve done dozens of joint reports before, all to no avail.” Daoist Jiang Zhirong said, “I and other Daoist masters have been beaten up, and several of them beat one up and beat us away. Now Buddhism is the same!”
He concluded by saying that he would still continue to report and maintain the purity of Taoism in Taizhou.
“China’s so-called ‘freedom of religion’ is a pseudo-freedom, which has a premise of adhering to the leadership of the Communist Party. Simply put, a person can burn incense and kowtow, confess and make wishes, do whatever he wants, but when his beliefs conflict with the Communist Party, he must obey the Communist Party. Pseudo-religious freedom manifests itself in the secularization of religion, the institutionalization of religious groups, the commercialization of religious sites, and the politicization or cadreization of religious leaders.”
The article says that the pseudo-religious freedom of “corrupt officials worshiping Buddha and monks visiting prostitutes” is the most destructive to the orthodox religion, and that many people criticize religion as a place of hypocrisy, enrichment and debauchery, and that this spontaneous criticism has a more far-reaching impact than direct denigration by the Communist Party.
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