Social interaction in visitor control at a Chinese Buddhist monastic site

This article discusses some aspects and consequences of the distinctive way visitor control is practiced at an important Chinese Buddhist monastic site. While there is some literature on how specific religious and sacred sites open to lay visitors perform this function, there has been little research done on how visitor control styles differ across sites pertaining to different religions. The present article reports on an ethnographic study of some social interaction aspects of visitor control as it is practiced at Pu-Tuo-Shan, one of the four Sacred Mountains of Chinese Buddhism, which is today the destination of many secular visitors. It focuses on the central and – compared to the sacred sites of other religions – unusual role the resident members of its monasteries and nunneries play as hand-on custodians of their sacred space. It appears that, by and large, they make sense of this role in a Buddhist spirit and perform it without taking leave from their monastic training.