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that Daoism had spread beyond a single ethnic group, and even beyond Chinese borders. As Strickmann remarked:
Embedded in Strickmann’s questions was a more fundamental issue than simply the fact that Yao were Daoist practitioners—what did this fact say about the diffusion of Daoism throughout China and beyond Chinese borders, and what other Chinese political, religious, and cultural traits were simultaneously propagated in this process?
Strickmann’s initial question—how have these Daoist texts come into the hands of impoverished Yao villagers in the mountains of northern Thailand—connotes a sense of surprise at the fact that Daoism could have transcended Chinese and other national borders (as if there was a wall), and reached the hands of impoverished villagers living in the mountains. His use of the words, “come into the hands,” implies that the texts somehow mysteriously traveled south to Thailand and reached the mountainous terrain where Yao dwell, where he would expect to find primitive, illiterate villagers. There is no agency in Strickmann’s question, other than the question word: “how.” His emphasis is the texts that he holds in his hands, not the exchange between actors. Because of this, he does not consider that those very impoverished villagers came to Thailand from Central and South China with their texts and ritual paraphernalia already in hand.
The surprise that Strickmann expressed upon discovering that Yao religion was fundamentally Daoist is understandable, given that he saw Daoism as intricately bound to Chinese language and ethnicity— a factor which marks a major difference between how Daoism and Buddhism have been viewed in contemporary discourse. Daoism is