Marc L. Moskowitz

This book is based upon the author’s PhD-dissertation about fetus worship in modern Taiwan. With modernisation came individualism, freer contact among the sexes, more complicated priorities of people and families, but only limited sex education. The pressure to produce a male heir to the family is still real in Taiwan. As a consequence upto 35% of women have an abortion during their life time. This does not mean that it is a decision taken lightly by Taiwanese women and (in quite a few cases) their husbands or boyfriends. Hence, fetus worship, which in its modern version is a post-colonial import from Japan. Taiwan has now various fetus temples, with some aiming at extracting money rather than comforting people. And fetus worship may be for various reasons, as fetus ghosts may behave benign as well as revengeful.

Overall this is an interesting dissection of modern Taiwan that is easy to read. As far as I was concerned, the author could have written an even better book if he had widened his scope a bit more.… (mehr)