By contextualizing the images of Buddhist nuns in the early postwar Taiwan setting, this paper will attempt to explore the power relations reflected in those images. How are women indoctrinated to aspire toward playing some certain social roles—i.e., daughter, wife, and mother—by the dominant male-centered Confucian tradition in Taiwan? I will first discuss the meanings of the Chinese term jia—the "family"—from its social and economic perspectives, in order to bring out the notion that Buddhist nuns are not perceived as fulfilling culturally and socially defined expectations. Secondly, by a discussion of two prevailing images in early postwar Taiwan, based upon Shiu-kuen Fan Tsung’s fieldwork—that nuns are women whom no one (no man) wanted, and those who are "failures" in love life and/or married life. I will draw out the similarities implied by these images, and link them with Chandra Talpade Mohanty’s self-critique of third world mid-class feminists envisioning their rural sisters as "victims."
And finally, I will bring the notion that, in Talal Asad’s terms, these images should be "the historical product of discursive processes." These historical products are the consequence of power relations operated by different social-cultural structures. In addition, I will conclude by discussing what marriage and discipline mean to a woman, in light of a piece of Michel Foucault’s theory—i.e., the notion of "the use of pleasure"—as well as his theory of "power of life and death."
