| Benevolent hall or benevolent society, a significant non-governmental organization in China, having been in the regional society for a long time and played an important role since Ming and Qing dynasties. I believe, to penetrate through the history of the regional society on the base of studying benevolent halls and its history is of great significance.Being different from the benevolent halls in the traditional sense,there is another form of benevolent hall with regional characteristics in my hometown——the area of Chaoshan. The core of belief system of these benevolent halls is the worship of Dafeng, a Buddhist Monk.They have done a lot to help people in need. These benevolent halls set afoot earlier,and they proliferated in the this area,in which they played an active roll during the late Qing dynasty and early Republic of China. What’s more,these benevolent halls are still active in the present regional society.In this paper, the author intends to delve deep the benevolent halls,study its function in rural governance, so as to supply some references for other NGO in their rural governance.This paper consists of six parts. In the first part, the purpose and significance of this study in this field are expounded, and the pioneer academic achievements have been reviewed. In the second part, the appearing cultural backgrounds, the belief systems, and the history of the benevolent halls are combed. In the third part, the author studies further the organizational form and service systems. In the fourth part, two benevolent halls, Da Ma Tou Benevolent Hall of Linxi and Tong Feng Benevolent Hall of Anbu are set as cases, to reveal different functions with different works of the benevolent halls in different rural status. In the fifth part,the social functions and basic features of the benevolent halls are analyzed and generalized. In the last part, based on the above researches, the author try to provide some reference experiences of successful operation of the benevolent halls to the other NGO in the governance of rural society is explored. |
