Celestial Cops; the Ba Jia Jing

[Brian L. Kennedy]

My wife and I are doing a series of pieces on different aspects of Taiwanese street Daoism for Kung Fu Tai Chi magazine. The editor is a guy named Gene Ching and he has been super helpful in getting the series going.

The Jan/Feb issue features a piece on the 8 Generals (八家將). What I have called the 8 Generals is probably more accurately translated as the 8 Retainers in the sense of staff officers working for a court official. And actually what they are quite close to, in a weird sense, is cops, police officers and detectives.

Their job is to investigate, arrest and punish evil spirits, ghosts and other banes on the neighborhood. This kind of comes out with the photo. Several of the guys are carrying wooden handcuffs and badges (the kind of wooden fan thing in the guys hands).

In real life the performers usually study some form of southern shaolin, and they almost are always major users of meth---as was evidenced by 73 of them getting busted down in Tai Chung about a week ago.

 

 

Take care,

Brian

Edited January 24, 2008 by Brian L. Kennedy

[Mal]

Hi Brian,

 

Cheers, I'll have to keep an eye out for that one. I often enjoy the Kung Fu and Tai Chi magazine.

 

Is the meth use for spiritual reasons

[Brian L. Kennedy]

Edited January 24, 2008 by Brian L. Kennedy

[minkus]

and they almost are always major users of meth---as was evidenced by 73 of them getting busted down in Tai Chung about a week ago.

 

lol ?

 

edit: doesnt sound very taoist, this temple was a dancetempel ? raving at club DAO or sumthing lol o.O

Edited November 21, 2007 by minkus