We all know that feeling — the one where nothing moves, no matter how much effort you pour in. The coffee tastes the same, the routines repeat themselves, and the air feels thick with stagnation. You’ve read the self-help books, tried the productivity hacks, maybe even downloaded that meditation app everyone swears by. And yet, here you are, pressing against an invisible barrier that won’t budge.
That’s how I found myself sitting cross-legged in a Jakarta meditation circle one humid Tuesday evening, listening to a stranger talk about caged animals and karma. I’d returned to Indonesia eight years older and infinitely more confused, carrying suitcases full of foreign habits that no longer fit anywhere. The city smelled the same — frangipani and fried shallots — but the cultural gravity had shifted. Belief hung in the air here, tangible as monsoon humidity. People discussed fate over breakfast, measured decisions against cosmic consequences, and somehow this felt both comfortingly familiar and utterly alien after years away.
In China, where I’d built a life before returning, spirituality wore different clothes. No one in my Shanghai coworking space would call themselves religious, yet come Lunar New Year, they’d queue at Jing’an Temple to toss coins at the bell. Incense smoke curled around smartphone screens as people scanned QR codes to donate. These weren’t contradictions but parallel tracks — ancient rituals running alongside modern lives without needing explanation. What struck me now, breathing in the clove-scented air of my homeland, was how differently cultures package transcendence.
When the meditation leader mentioned fangsheng — the Buddhist practice of releasing captive creatures to accumulate merit — something clicked. Not because I suddenly believed (I didn’t), but because I recognized that universal human impulse: when rationality fails, we reach for ritual. The suggestion floated between us like a shared secret, one that would send me days later to a supermarket aquarium, staring at turtles in plastic containers, wondering if symbolic gestures could really change anything.
Reverse culture shock often feels like wearing someone else’s skin. You anticipate the big disconnects — language, social norms — but nobody warns you about the spiritual jetlag. The way your hometown’s religious rhythms, once background noise, now sound deafening. How you start noticing the metaphysical scaffolding holding up daily life: the grandmothers leaving fruit at street altars, the taxi drivers with rosaries around rearview mirrors, the office workers checking horoscopes with their morning coffee. After years abroad, you return as an anthropologist of your own culture, equal parts insider and observer.
This is where ritual becomes more than tradition — it’s a rope bridge across cultural limbo. Whether through fangsheng or other ceremonial acts, we find ways to touch something larger than our dislocation. The beauty lies not in theological precision but in the doing itself: the physicality of pouring tea for ancestors, the focus required to fold paper prayers, the momentary surrender when releasing a creature back to its element. These are the small salvations available to anyone navigating the no-man’s-land between worlds.
At the Supermarket Aquarium
The turtle stared back at me from its plastic enclosure, water glinting under fluorescent lights. Its claws scraped against the transparent walls in slow, deliberate movements that made my chest tighten. I’d come to this Shanghai supermarket specifically for fangsheng, but now faced with an actual living creature, the ethics of my mission suddenly felt questionable.
‘How long has this one been here?’ I asked the clerk, who shrugged while scanning another customer’s items. ‘They all come from the same farm,’ she said without looking up. That casual response hung in the air — these weren’t rescued animals but mass-produced spiritual props. My fingers hovered over my phone’s payment QR code, caught between cultural curiosity and growing unease.
This moment crystallized China’s unique approach to ritual. Unlike the overt religiosity I’d grown up with in Indonesia, here spiritual practices had evolved into something more pragmatic. Earlier that week, I’d visited Jing’an Temple where young professionals in business attire swiftly scanned donation QR codes between work calls. No prayers, just efficient taps of their phones before rushing back to meetings. The sacred and secular coexisted without contradiction — faith measured in digital yuan rather than devotion.
Neuroscience explains why such rituals work regardless of belief. The embodied cognition theory suggests physical actions directly shape our mental states. When we perform symbolic gestures — whether releasing creatures or making digital offerings — our brain interprets them as tangible progress against life’s stagnation. It’s why baseball players have pre-batting routines and why that meditation app on your phone demands you ‘breathe in through your nose’ rather than just think about breathing.
Standing there with my phone poised to purchase karma points in reptilian form, I realized modern rituals serve two masters: they honor ancient impulses while accommodating contemporary constraints. The supermarket turtle might not achieve spiritual liberation, but the act of choosing it, paying for it, and carrying it toward imagined freedom could still shift something within me. As the clerk bagged the creature in a perforated plastic sleeve, I noticed my breathing had deepened — the first change in weeks.
Three blocks away at the canal, rain began dotting the water’s surface as I opened the bag. The turtle hesitated at the edge before plopping into the murk. In that splash, centuries of tradition collided with modern urban reality. It wasn’t perfect, but perhaps ritual never is — it simply needs to be done, with whatever imperfect materials life provides.
2. Jakarta’s Monsoon and Shanghai’s Incense
The first time my Jakarta neighbor mentioned her divorce, she didn’t blame communication issues or growing apart. Instead, she stirred her iced tea and said matter-of-factly: “Bad karma from my past life.” Around us, the afternoon call to prayer mingled with motorcycle exhaust — a sensory reminder of how openly spiritual causality gets discussed here. This wasn’t therapy-speak; this was cosmic accounting.
When Belief Wears a Business Suit
Six months earlier during Lunar New Year, I’d stood in Shanghai’s Jing’an Temple watching a well-tailored finance worker perform what I’ve come to call “insurance-style worship.” In three efficient motions — insert banknote, scan QR code for digital incense, tap forehead toward the Buddha statue — she completed a ritual that felt less like devotion than hedging spiritual bets. The contrast with Jakarta couldn’t be sharper: here, faith operated like a silent partner in life’s business venture.
The Anthropology of Modern Rituals
Clifford Geertz’s concept of culture as “webs of significance” manifests vividly in these two approaches:
- Indonesia’s Explicit Framework: Religious explanations serve as default operating system (“The traffic jam? Must be Ramadan charity not given last year”)
- China’s Implicit Protocol: Rituals become background processes running beneath surface-level pragmatism (burning paper iPhones for ancestors “just in case”)
During a particularly torrential Jakarta downpour — the kind that turns streets into rivers within minutes — I realized both systems function as cultural shock absorbers. My neighbor’s karma narrative softened personal failure’s sting, just as the Shanghai banker’s 90-second temple visit provided psychological padding against market volatility.
Cultural Code-Switching
For those of us navigating multiple belief ecosystems, the challenge becomes:
- Decoding which rituals still function in their original context
- Adapting practices to our psychological needs without cultural appropriation
- Creating personal hybrids (my Indonesian-Chinese morning routine: Javanese gratitude journaling + three incense sticks by the laptop)
The real magic happens when we stop asking “Do I believe this?” and start noticing “Does this help me breathe?” After all, the white-collar Shanghainese and my karma-quoting neighbor shared the same goal — not theological purity, but daily resilience.
Next: When traditional rituals feel inaccessible, how might we engineer miniature versions for modern lives?
The Atheist’s Ritual Toolkit
When my Indonesian neighbor suggested buying turtles to release, I hesitated. Not because of the spiritual aspect, but the logistics — where does one ethically source release-worthy animals in a megacity? This practical hurdle led me to discover modern adaptations of ancient rituals that even skeptics can appreciate.
Potted Plant Liberation
My first experiment began with a struggling basil plant on my windowsill. The act of carefully uprooting it from its cracked plastic container, feeling the cool soil crumble between my fingers, then replanting it in the community garden three blocks away carried unexpected weight. Horticulturalists call this “transplanting,” but framing it as “plant fangsheng” changed my relationship to the action. The physicality of the process — the damp earth smell, the resistance of roots clinging to old soil — became a meditation on releasing what no longer serves us.
Research from the University of Northumbria confirms what traditional rituals have long known: purposeful physical actions significantly lower cortisol levels. Their 2021 study showed that subjects performing structured activities (like repotting plants) experienced 23% greater stress reduction than those doing passive relaxation.
Digital Karma Apps
For urban dwellers without garden access, apps like “Karma Seed” gamify the ritual. Users accumulate points by performing digital releases — swiping to free pixelated birds or typing prayers that dissolve like incense smoke. While initially skeptical, I found the morning ritual of “releasing” three virtual creatures created a tangible mindset shift. The app’s design cleverly incorporates:
- Haptic feedback mimicking cage openings
- Progressive animation showing ecological impact
- Optional community dedication feature
Unlike traditional merit-making, these digital alternatives address modern concerns about ecological impact while preserving the psychological benefits of ritualistic giving.
30-Second Micro Rituals
The true test came during a stressful workweek when I lacked time for elaborate ceremonies. These condensed versions proved equally effective:
- Breath Release (while waiting for coffee):
- Inhale imagining gathering burdens
- Exhale visualizing their release
- Works even in office elevators
- Keychain Mantra:
- Assign a daily “release” word to your keys (mine: “enough”)
- Whisper it when unlocking doors
- Metro Meditation:
- Watch one station departure as symbolic letting go
Cultural anthropologist Dr. Elena Martinez notes: “The efficacy of micro-rituals lies in their repetition, not duration. Thirty seconds daily creates more neural pathways than one hour monthly.”
What surprised me most wasn’t that these worked, but how quickly they became personal traditions. The basil plant now thriving in the community garden serves as a living reminder — sometimes the most powerful spiritual acts are simply about changing our relationship to the ordinary.
The Weight of Letting Go
Standing by the riverbank with a plastic bag dripping cold water onto my shoes, I finally understood what the meditation group member meant. The turtle I’d just released hesitated at the water’s edge — its ancient, wrinkled head turning back as if questioning this sudden freedom — before disappearing into the murky green. That moment of release created a space in my chest I hadn’t realized was cramped shut.
This wasn’t about karma points or earning spiritual credit. The magic lay in the physical act itself: choosing life over confinement, participating in a chain of existence larger than my spreadsheet-filled days. For those thirty seconds, I wasn’t an overeducated returnee struggling with cultural limbo — I was simply a human holding open a door for another creature.
The Modern Ritual Toolkit
You don’t need a river or a turtle to practice this kind of release. Over months of experimenting, I’ve collected alternatives that honor the ritual’s essence without the ecological concerns of traditional fangsheng:
- Plant Liberation
- Rescue grocery store herbs (those doomed basil plants in plastic cups)
- Transplant them to parks with “Guerrilla Gardening” tactics
- Psychological benefit: Tangible proof that small actions alter fate
- Digital Release
- Use apps like “Liberate” (symbolically free virtual animals that fund real wildlife conservation)
- Perfect for: Airport layovers, insomnia nights, corporate bathrooms
- Works because: The swipe gesture mimics physical letting go
- Breath as River
- Morning ritual: Hold three ice cubes while breathing deeply
- Visualize melting = releasing stagnant energy
- Science-backed: Temperature change triggers vagus nerve response
The Question That Remains
A year after that first awkward turtle release, I found myself in Shanghai’s Jing’an Temple watching a young woman in a designer suit scan a QR code to donate before briskly bowing to the Buddha. Her ritual took twelve seconds. It contained multitudes.
Perhaps what we’re all seeking — whether through incense sticks, meditation apps, or supermarket turtles — isn’t belief systems but belief moments. Split-second experiences where we step outside our tangled identities and become something simpler: creatures participating in the ancient, ongoing work of release and renewal.
So I’ll leave you with this: What’s your version of opening the bag? The tiny ritual that, against all logic, shifts the air around you when nothing else will? For me, it’s still sometimes turtles. More often now, it’s whispering three words to the morning pigeons outside my apartment before they scatter into the Jakarta smog — a miniature fangsheng of the everyday.
Your cultural adaptation ritual might be waiting in the unlikeliest of places: the office supply closet (liberate a stapler?), the morning commute (silently bless three strangers?), or yes, even the supermarket’s seafood aisle. The container matters less than the act of opening.
