The Gender of Charisma: Notes from a Taiwanese Buddhist Transnational NGO

Abstract

In 1997, at the beginning of the end-of-the-year convocation of volunteers at the Taipei branch of the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi (Ciji) Foundation, a young emcee in staff uniform asked the full house of 700 mainly middle-aged women: “Why do you volunteer for Compassion Relief?” There was a brief silence, then slowly an answer was sounded by diffident yet distinct female voices from different corners of the auditorium: “[Because we] love the supreme person (ai shangren).” Blushing, the emcee smiled and in a schoolteacher-like tone said: “Oh. Of course, we all love the supreme master. But we volunteer for Compassion Relief because we are shanxin dashi (benevolent persons). We are here because of da’ai (great love, universal love).”

An earlier version of this chapter was presented at East Asian Language and Culture at Washington University, St. Louis in May 2007, the Center for the Research of Civic Culture at University of Southern California in April 2010, the Gender Studies program at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in November 2010, and the Chuan Lyu Lecture at University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, in May 2012. I thank Letty Chen, Lori Meeks, Emma Teng, Adam Chau, and the participants of these events for their feedback and contributions.