Page 89 - A Study of Traditional Chinese Religions in Malaysia: The Decline and the Path Towards Revitalization

time, her movement also organizes activities to promote volunteerism and creativity.
According to Madam RS, “In our organization, we provide platforms for our members to learn

something new and interesting. They will be able to get involved in some kind of charity
activities that might be able to contribute more to society. In fact, our activities can be
categorized into four aspects, which include culture, charity, education and spiritual practice.

The culture part includes organizing events such as the Zhongyuan Festival exhibition,
Mooncake Festival, etc; charitable activities include providing free veggie food to vulnerable

groups while educational activities include organizing hobby classes and Buddhist meditation
classes.” A similar approach was used by Buddhist Movement B. As mentioned by Mr TA,
his organization provides a platform for volunteers to serve communities, like setting up a

hotline to prevent suicides and providing training courses for the volunteers at the same time.
Besides the counselling service, the organisation also provides other services for its nursing

home. Based on the description given by Madam RS and Mr TA, their organizations are
organizing activities that are able to engage the public. Unlike the conventional TCR
organizations who wait for the public to engage them, they are bringing their organizations

to the people.

5.5.2.4 Proactively but subtly promoting the religion. All these actions and activities aim to

subtly promote TCR. As mentioned by Madam RS, “A child who joins our Buddhist teaching
won a competition. Her mother agreed to bring her out for lunch to reward her. The child

requested her mother to bring her to a vegetarian restaurant. This shows our teachings have
subtly been accepted by her.” Mr SO from Buddhist Movement B pointed out the same view.
According to him, members of the public may not be interested in Buddhism. But after getting

involved in his movement activities, some of them will gradually learn about Buddhism and
eventually accept it. These reflections indicate the success of revitalized TCR organizations

in proselytizing their religion. They have a clear agenda that is to spread Buddhism. To
achieve the agenda, they initiate relevant activities.

5.5.2.5 Sufficient financial support. Nonetheless, it must be noted that all these activities
cannot be held without funding. Buddhist Movements A and B are able to plan and execute
their activities since their movements have sufficient funding. These funding are probably

obtained via donations, which itself is an outcome of their success. In Malaysia, non-Muslim
religious organizations are not directly funded by the government. At most, the Malaysian

government will give them some funds to upkeep their premise. To date, the government has
not directly issued any funds to the non-Muslim religious organizations to conduct their
religious activities. As such, these organizations must be able to self-sustain. To do so, they

must attract donations. The revitalized TCR organizations such as Buddhist Movements A

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