So perhaps Chinese Paganism may not be "completely forgotten". I visited a Chinatown gift shop, and found them selling statues of Lord Bifrons (Ganesha/Janus), you know, Chinese New Year and all since Lord Bifrons is often associated with New Years and transformations, in my Chinese New Year Post, I did post about Lord Bifrons in both Chinese and Japanese religion, in both systems he is referred to as the "Elephant God", or the "God of Bliss" in Japanese.

The store clerk didn't just scan it "going about their day", seemed very knowledgeable when he's like, "Oh, you must like the Elephant God". Now, I'm not claiming to have "met a guru" or anything or a "possible JoS Chinese" just because he made a one-line reference to the "Elephant God". But in ancient religion, phrases like "liking a God" wasn't just "liking a God" in terms of the modern vernacular, it often-meant you were associated with that God's group of followers, that's how ancient religions were, none of this "one man bullshit" like corporate Hinduism or Catholicism and the pope. But even if the store clerk was atheist, Buddhist or a Christian, at least it delights me that he has at least has a hint of knowledge about his religion, sort of like the way South Asians are familiar with who Lord Shiva and Lord Ganesha is, even if they're Muslim, Christian, Atheist or whatever or Greeks and their knowledge of Zeus and Poseidon in spite of being Orthodox Christian and etc. Most Chinese I've encountered haven't even got a clue that Chinese religion has Gods.

I remember asking a Chinese trick-or-treating family on Samhain/Halloween if they knew who Yan-Lou-Wang was (Lord Andras - God of the Underworld/Realm of Departed Souls), they had absolutely no clue, in spite of dressing their kids up in Chinese Dragon costumes. Imagine my infuriation and my experience at the Chinatown store was a complete contrast to the disappointment during Halloween.

I am also aware that China sends sleeper agents and spies to the U.S. Often-not, their spiritual knowledge is indicative (at least most of the time) of whether they are a CPC spy or legitimate American Chinese wanting to flee from the communist government. Most of the CPC spies tend to be brainwashed atheists without a clue about Chinese spiritual heritage, those who are legal American Chinese tend to further-embrace their spiritual heritages such as Taoism, Falun Gong and Traditional Chinese Medicine, things that are basically banned in China.

HS

Der Orientale 666 said:

... I'm currently learning Japanese right now, we could really use someone to promote Shintoism, we also have a Japanese sub-forum if you'd like to post there.

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I was looking for a kanji book out of curiosity and this seemed to be a very popular book among the language learning community... Hard NOPE for me imo, could save you time and money:

I've got this nice book called Japanese Folktales which is bilingual, with furigana (reading of the kanji) + audio samples. The NHK has a section with easy Japanese News with furigana as well and even Japanese lessons.
Not sure if I will ever dive deep into Japanese but I've come across these sources and thought these could help.

I have not posted for a while, do not mistake this for silence. I am doing lots of research for exciting posts that'll be uploaded to the Oriental sub-forums around the time of the Lunar New Year, the Year of the Dragon (at least for China and Vietnam, Korea and Japan's already begun). If there's one thing about the Chinese, they love to celebrate their New Years loud and with a bang! Hail Emperor Fuxi (Satan) and Emperor Tiandi (Baalzabul)!