Gao Bingzhong is professor of Sociology at Peking University. He is also General Secretary of the China Folklore Society and Vice-Director of the Center for Civil Society Studies at Peking University. He received a Ph.D. in Folklore from Beijing Normal University in 1991. He is co-editor of the five-volume Cultural Studies (Wenhua Yanjiu) published by Tianjin Social Sciences Academy Press 2005.

This talk is based on nine years of research on two religious buildings, one in Beijing and the other in rural Hebei, each of which is known by two different names -- something that is not uncommon in China. Via a case study of ceremonies and naming practices associated with the Hebei building in particular, the talk will explore issues and raise questions associated with the tensions between public and private and official and folk understandings of religious issues and objects in the recent Chinese past.