• Media type: E-Article
  • Title: Merit And Mothering: Women and Social Welfare in Taiwanese Buddhism
  • Contributor: Julia Huang, Chien-Yu; Weller, Robert P.
  • Published: Duke University Press, 1998
  • Published in: The Journal of Asian Studies, 57 (1998) 2, Seite 379-396
  • Language: English
  • DOI: 10.2307/2658829
  • ISSN: 0021-9118; 1752-0401
  • Origination:
  • Footnote:
  • Description: Thirty years ago the buddhist compassion Relief Foundation (Ciji Gongdehui, hereafter Ciji) was virtually unknown. Lost in the backwater of Taiwan's eastern coast, the group began in 1966 with a nun, five disciples, and thirty housewives who contributed pin money of NT $0.50 each day (just over a penny at that time) to help supplement medical fees for the poor. The nuns sewed children's shoes to generate a little more income, and their monthly total of funds available for charity was under NT $1,200 (about US $30 at that time). Today Ciji is the largest civic organization in Taiwan, claiming 4 million members worldwide in 1994, and nearly 20 percent of Taiwan's population. It gives away well over US $20 million in chanty each year, runs a state-of-the-art hospital, and has branches in fourteen countries.