Ching Hai

Ching Hai (born Trịnh Đăng Huệ; 12 May 1950), referred to by followers as Supreme Master or Suma Ching Hai, is a Vietnamese-born British spiritual leader of the Guanyin Famen transnational cybersect, which she founded in the 1980s. Based out of Taiwan, she is estimated to have 2 million followers worldwide.
Ching also founded the Loving Hut vegan restaurant chain and vegan Celestial Shop fashion company under her company, the Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association.
Life and career
Ching Hai was born to a Vietnamese mother and an ethnic Chinese father, on 12 May 1950 in a small village in the Quảng Ngãi Province in Vietnam. According to her official biography, Ching was born to a well-off naturopathic family in Âu Lạc, Hanoi, Vietnam. She states that she was raised as a Roman Catholic but learned the basics of Buddhism from her grandmother.
At the age of 18, she moved to England to study, and later to France and then Germany, where she worked for the Red Cross. In 1969, she began a relationship with a German scientist. They married, but divorced after two years, as Ching had wanted to focus on spiritualism. She thereafter moved to India to study religion.
Ching states that she practised surat shabd yoga and attended different ashrams in India, before receiving a spiritural breakthrough from a Himalayan master named Khuda Ji, who showed her the Quan Yin method. Her unwillingness to reveal more about her master has been described as "unusual among Oriental religious teachers". Some academics, including Christopher Partridge and David C. Lane, argue that Ching was initiated by Thakar Singh, a Ruhani Satsang Sant Mat master, but denied her association either to remain eligible for Buddhist ordination or to avoid controversy as a result of Singh's sexuality.
In 1979, she met a Buddhist monk in Germany, whom she followed for three years, despite his monastery denying entry to women. At one point, Ching attempted to buy a copy of the Bhagavad Gita from a bookshop near the Ganges. Despite the shopkeepers' assertions that they did not have a copy, an extensive search revealed one in a sealed box. This led to rumours of her having a third eye circulating by 1982. In 1983, she met a Vietnamese Buddhist monk in Taiwan named Jing-Xing, who ordained her in 1984 as "Thanh Hai", meaning "pure ocean".
According to Ting Jen-Chieh, assistant research fellow at the Academia Sinica, by the early 1990s, Ching was at odds with the Buddhist establishment in Taiwan. Ching would later sever all connections to Buddhist organisations, abandoning Buddhist dress codes and setting out to create her own independent group.
Some of her meditation centres in America have tax-exempt status as religious organisations. She also presides over an organisation which owns restaurants and sells her jewellery and clothes.
In 2003, park rangers discovered a man-made island and boardwalk that had been illegally constructed in Biscayne National Park in Florida, near Ching Hai's property. The estimated cost to remove the boardwalk and restore the ecological damage was US$1 million. Miami-Dade seized the property of Ching to help recover the costs of restoration. According to the Miami Herald, federal investigators were unable to recuperate any costs from Ching, who had left the country thereafter.
Guanyin Famen operations
Ching is the founder of the Loving Hut restaurant chain, which in 2017 had 200 locations in 35 countries worldwide. The restaurants are run on a franchise basis, with devotees managing each one and most workers belonging to the movement.
Liam D. Murphy, professor of anthropology at California State, has stated that "Ching Hai is a textbook example of what social scientists call a charismatic prophet" and that the abuse of power over her own members in Loving Hut is a possibility. Murphy states her movement is more accurately described as a new religious movement rather than a cult. The University of British Columbia's Database of Religious History, describes Guanyin Famen as non-proselytising and suppressed in multiple regions.
International organisations
In late 2008, Ching Hai launched a media campaign in Australia and New Zealand encouraging veganism and environmentalism. The Supreme Master Ching Hai International Association has made submissions to the Garnaut Climate Change Review, advocating large cuts to livestock production. Ching is in favour of a meat tax.
According to political scientist Patricia Thornton at the University of Oxford, the Ching Hai World Society's heavy reliance on the internet for text distribution, recruitment and information-sharing, marks the group as a transnational cybersect. Thornton claims that the source of income behind Hai's numerous business ventures is unknown and that much of the media produced by her television programmes is heavily self-referential and promotional and aims to "build a public record of recognition for group activities."
Anthropologist Saskia Abrahms-Kavunenko at Max Weber Center for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies states that, similar to the Ravi Shankar movement, Ching Hai's group does not identify as a religion and is ecumenical. Abrahms-Kavunenko has also noted that Ching's television broadcasts in Mongolia have influenced many Buddhists' ideas on meditation and enlightenment, even though her claims have dubious Buddhist authenticity.
Religious studies research associate Jennifer Eichman of SOAS University of London gathered that Ching's movement was considered by many to be Buddhist heresy and a cult. Ching's response to the accusation has been that that participants were free to leave at any time.
Humanitarian aid and Philanthropy
A 1996 United States Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs report states "[Ching's] members reportedly are active in many humanitarian and charitable causes... Ching Hai's greatest humanitarian activity continues to be working for the more than 20,000 Vietnamese refugees still in camps dispersed throughout Southeast Asia." The report also lists humanitarian aid to victims of the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines, the Great Flood of 1993 in the United States, and the 1995 food shortage crisis in Cambodia. According to a report issued by the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy in Hong Kong, prior to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, Ching donated 6 million dollars to Vietnamese refugees and other people who needed help.
ReliefWeb cites Ching has having contributed aid to the victims of 1996 Bangladesh tornado, the 2009 Namibia floods, the 2015 European migrant crisis via the Croatian Red Cross, and South Sudanese refugees via the Sudanese Red Crescent. Humanitarian aid has also been reportedly dispersed in Florida during Hurricane Ian, to 2011 flood victims in Belize, during the 2018 Northern Province floods in Sri Lanka, in support of the Ghana Red Cross Society during the Covid-19 pandemic, and during the 2022 Assam floods in India. In Taiwan, Hai has been active in homeless street outreach. Ching's website lists 1663 instances of donations and humanitarian aid between the years 1989 to 2018.
Hai has a set of awards titled the World Shining Awards, which recognises and awards funds to individuals for social impact. Award recipients have included the Iranian Red Crescent Society, for its humanitarian aid to victims of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, International Animal Rescue Indonesia for its conservation work, a young boy from Ohio who bought special harnesses for police dogs, and a lady from India for inventing non-violent silk saris.
Awards
1993 – Frank Fasi, mayor of Honolulu, presented Hai with honorary citizenship.
1994 – World Humanitarian Leadership Award, presented by Barbara Finch, chair of the International Federation for Human Rights.
1994 – World Spiritual Leadership Award, presented by General Secretary Chen Hung Kwang of the World Cultural Communication Association.
2006 – 27th Annual Telly Award Silver Winner for "The Peace Seeker" featuring Ching Hai's poetry.
2006 – Gusi Peace Prize, presented by President of the Philippines Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.
In popular culture
Actress Joanna Ampil portrays Hai, in the 2011 Musical "The Real Love". The musical follows Ching's life in Germany from when she met her husband (portrayed by Adam Pascal), and her decision to follow her spiritual quest.
Bibliography
See also
Cybersectarianism
Notes
References
External links
1950 births
Living people
Founders of new religious movements
Hoa people
Self-declared messiahs
Shabda
Women restaurateurs
Veganism activists
Vietnamese religious leaders