Working 12-hour days at a department store in downtown Chiayi doesn’t give Elisa much time for extracurricular activities. She’s grateful for the meager income to pay her husband’s gambling debts, but despite visiting the temples and worshiping her ancestors, she wrestles with feeling that life is meaningless.

Population and Location

Elisa is one of the 15 million people (60-70 percent) in Taiwan who comprise the Taiwanese working class. Less than 0.5 percent are Christians. Due to differences in education, mindset and background, most working-class people do not fit easily into the already existing Taiwanese churches. They are often alienated from society or belong to subcultures to which the Christians have difficulty relating. Although there are believers who are seeking to reach some of these groups, few resources are concentrated on them.

Language and  Culture

Most of the working-class people are Taiwanese-Hokkien speakers, which make up around 74 percent of Taiwan’s population and are part of the 49 million Hokkien-speaking Chinese people worldwide. They trace their roots to Fujian province in Mainland China.

The working-class people prefer oral forms of learning and concrete concepts, rather than abstract. They are very relational; often small groups of people are found sitting on the roadside during the day, visiting and watching people go by. Storytelling is an important way of life.

Livelihood and Economic Situation

The working class labor in factories, run small shops and restaurants, or offer other types of services, such as car repair, hair cutting and taxi driving. Many have achieved only junior high or high school education. They are primarily paid by the hour—not salaried—causing their earnings to be significantly less than those who are more educated.

Religion

The Taiwanese working class’s religion is a mixture of traditional Chinese religion and folk religion. Traditional Chinese religion is a mixture of ancestor worship, Buddhism and Daoism. Taiwan’s folk religion is animistic in that they strongly believe in spiritual forces having power over their daily lives. Various rituals must continuously be completed in order to ward off the bad luck the spirits might bring; incense sticks are burned in temples, rooms are not to be swept during the New Year celebration and taxi drivers decorate the interior of their cars with the appropriate gods. It is polytheistic in that the working class people worship many gods, such as the kitchen god, the door god and the god of the New Year. Folk religion is syncretistic in that it blends different folk beliefs, even when these beliefs are contradictory. Often temples have a Taiwan folk deity and a Buddhist goddess being worshiped side by side. Taiwan has 16,000 registered temples, the most per capita of any country in the world.

Ancestor worship is very important. The Taiwanese working class believe that every person who dies becomes a ghost. The descendants of the dead person then carry the responsibility of making the ghost happy through worship. If this does not happen, the ghost becomes “hungry” and will cause unpleasant things to happen, such a sickness, relationship trouble or financial loss. Ancestor worship is accomplished by setting up a shelf in the house. On the shelf is an ancestral tablet listing the names of the deceased ancestors. Offerings are placed in front of this shelf to placate the ancestors. One of the barriers in becoming a Christian is the pressure of unsaved parents wanting their children to worship them after they die.

Missions

Although overlooked in the past, there is a new emphasis on reaching the working class of Taiwan. Mission agencies are brainstorming creative ways to connect with the unique life situations and work around the very busy schedules of the working-class people, along with creating house churches that are not the structured “traditional” churches found in the middle class. There are new initiatives taking place that are helping educate and promote prayer for the Taiwanese working class.

Prayer Points

• Praise God that the government of Taiwan allows freedom of religion.
• Pray that God will give missionaries creative ideas in how to reach the working class in culturally sensitive ways, such as is now happening through chronological Bible-story teaching and non-traditional house churches.
• Pray that the working class will respond to God’s love and goodness and will have courage in taking the first step in investigating Christianity.
• Pray for Bible study materials now being developed to train new believers in God’s word.
• Pray for those Christians who face opposition from their families.
• Pray that God’s power will overcome the traditions, superstitions and pagan practices of the working-class people.
• Pray for God’s love to break through in the lives of alcoholics, drug addicts and the homeless.
• Pray that the middle-class churches in Taiwan will be mobilized to reach the working class.