Based on real-life encounters across many of China’s holiest sites, Seeking Immortals: A Modern Daoist Travelogue explores myths and uncovers realities. Elizabeth Kerr sits down with the DB-based author Brock Silvers
Brock Silvers, AK A Lu Xiuquan, would never call himself a Daoist in the purest sense of the word, and he cer tainly wouldn’t claim to be an immortal – in Daoism, a saintlike person of high moral character, who can exhibit seemingly magical abilities. Most of us probably think of Daoist immor tals as old guys with long grey beards and flowing robes as seen in movies by Ronny Yu or Ricky Lau. There’s a great deal of myth rolled into Daoism, or from it, and it remains one of the world’s most misunderstood religions, star ting, Brock says, with who can actually claim to be a Daoist.
“The question of who is a Daoist, at least in English circles, has been a bit of a controversy for many years. People in the West are under the impression that if they appreciate or somehow follow cer tain aspects of Daoism, they can then live their lives in a way that can be called Daoist, whereas the traditional Daoist conception requires initiation into a zi,” Brock opens. “Even the masses of normal folks who may be practising Daoism in China wouldn’t claim a membership. In the West, we want to say I’m Catholic, I’m Protestant, I’m a Jew. In China, knowing that would be presumptuous. It would only be a priest or a monk who might say ‘I am a Daoist’. The lay practitioner would say, ‘This is what I believe or what I follow.’”
A native of Chicago, Brock has lived in Hong Kong just about six years, all of them in Discover y Bay. Before that, he worked in Beijing and Shanghai for 20 years, at the front of the countr y’s investment wave and has become a regular media presence: he can often be found chatting about financial markets with outlets like Financial Times, the Associated Press, Bloomberg and RTHK. With the sheen coming off China in the last few years, Brock was relocated to Hong Kong, which is where he’s staying for now despite the lustre of Tokyo or Seoul. “I’ll go where my career calls,” he says. “It could be Hong Kong. It could be other destinations.
“I came directly to Discover y Bay. It was a great choice. I enjoy it here quite a bit, but it was also beneficial to be here during COVID. I think it was a bit easier in DB than in Mid-Levels or something similar. I’d been visiting Hong Kong for 20 years, when DB was much smaller. In those days, I didn’t really appreciate it, but when I finally moved down from the mainland it seemed to fit the bill for me. In retrospect it was a wonderful choice.”
A VIVID PICTURE OF MODERN DAOISM
But we’re here to talk about Brock’s writing through which he paints a vivid, intimate and often entertaining picture of religious life in China today. Brock was inspired to become an author after partially stumbling into, partially seeking out knowledge of Daoism. As a student of Chinese (where he picked up the name Lu Xiuquan), Brock got a healthy dose of culture, history and theology during the course of his undergraduate and grad studies. Arriving in China as a finance pro, with a solid foundation in its culture, led to a deeper exploration of religion as the years went on.
“I was aware of the places I was travelling to, but a lot of my travels and living were dictated by my career choices,” he notes. “For a good number of years, I coordinated my Daoist travels with work travels – and for work, I’ve been almost everywhere in China.”
These travels ultimately led, first, to The Taoist Manual: An Illustrated Guide Applying Taoism to Daily Life, back in 2016, which Brock describes as a generalised explanation of what Daoism is. Then, this past July, came Seeking Immortals: A Modern Daoist Travelogue, published by Sacred Mountain Press, a collection of essays penned over two decades dealing with “the nature of immortality”.
Brock pushes back on critics who might accuse him of being another white guy exploiting Asian culture to whatever ends. “I’m not wearing Daoism as a costume. I [went to China’s holy sites] trying to see what I could see and what I could learn, and I tried to do it in a respectful manner,” he says. “It was an earnest attempt to get close to a local tradition in a culturally relevant and appropriate manner, so that I could express that tradition to others who were less close.”
That’s most of us, or so you’d think. Brock notes that entry points to Daoism are in fact all around us, and many of us have tapped into them in passing: traditional Chinese medicine, tai chi and other martial arts, meditation and even vegetarianism have ties to Daoism. “I’m just trying to take that initial view, which may have been romanticised somehow, and provide a bit of reality to it,” he says.
“Chinese tradition is replete with stories of immortals who exhibit tremendous magical power,” Brock adds. “Someone will reveal himself in a crowded marketplace as an immortal and float up to heaven on the clarion call of Chinese traditional music… That’s the romantic vision of what immortality would look and feel like. I’m trying to provide the counterpoint, the realistic vision. I thought, all right, let’s put that to the test; let’s see if these people that are omnipresent in literature and culture and tradition, really exist.
THE JOURNEYS OF A TRUE DAOIST DEVOTEE
To research Seeking Immortals, Brock visited – and climbed – five of the major Daoist mountain sites, dozens of secondary mountains and innumerable tertiary peaks. He explored caves, monasteries and temples, among them Man Mo Temple (on Hollywood Road) and Ching Chung Koon, or Green Pine Monastery (New Territories). The book chronicles the places and the people he encountered along the way, including a junkie at the Hanging Monastery near Heng Mountain in Shanxi, and a political-religious abbot leader at Hubei’s Wudang Mountain. Detailed notes and selected translations of traditional and canonical texts provide religious, cultural and historical context.
Through his encounters and findings at Daoism’s holiest sites, Brock sought to understand the nature of immortality – it’s potential reality and meaning in a modern world. Can rarified spiritual masters be found refining elixirs on remote mountains or meditating in mysterious temples? Do they in fact walk among us? At the very least, Brock occasionally found his perceptions challenged, an aspect of himself he was happy to explore as he demystified Daoism.
“The goal of the book was really to find a way to express a more accurate and realistic picture of Daoism to the vast majority of Westerners and even Asians who are less familiar with it. And part of that reality is that Daoism does have contradictions and some questionable aspects as well.”
Brock isn’t ruling out a third book (he didn’t think he had a first one) but he’s adamant he’ll have to be truly inspired to do it, and at present he has no more to say on the subject. Except that he encourages those of us exploring Daoism to “approach [it] on its own terms”. Before signing off, Brock gets one last question: Is Seeking Immortals a travel guide or a spiritual one? “It depends on how the reader wants to take the materials,” he says. A response that lives forever.