Lunar New Year's Day (105歲次正月初一)

February 10, 2016 in Travel, Temples, Photo Post, Hsinchu

The Lunar New Year holiday is a 15 day long celebration celebrated by Asian cultures throughout the world. In Taiwan, before the New Year arrives, people spend a lot of time preparing for the celebrations to come. Yesterday was the first day of the New Year known as "Chu Yi" (初一) and is another busy day spent with family. Families in Taiwan typically wake up in the early hours of the morning to perform certain religious rituals known as “Bai-Bai.” (拜拜) and visit various temples before having another meal together.

2015 Blog Post about Lunar New Year's Day (初一)

Temples at this time are extremely busy as almost every family in Taiwan will visit at least one and there are of course a few temples that people absolutely must visit. I followed the same schedule as last year and visited three smaller Hakka temples near home and then ended the day with a visit to the “Mecca” for Hakka people in Taiwan - “Yi-Min Temple” (義民廟) which is dedicated to Hakka heroes hailed as patriots for giving their lives defending Taiwan from a revolt during the Qing dynasty.

Yi-Min Temple was just as busy this year as it was last year with Hakka people from all over the country congregating at one of their most important cultural shrines. The temple was filled with hundreds if not thousands of people making offerings to the gods, having a free lunch provided by the temple and trying their luck gambling outside of the temple with scratch tickets and the lottery.

Everyone seemed to be in really good cheer and having fun. I enjoyed that the weather was great and the sun shining in the temple made for some nice shots. Yi-Min temple is only about a 40 minute drive from my place and is in Hsinchu county, but despite that I was still able to run into people I know from Taoyuan showing just how important the temple is to the Hakka people in the area.

When Taiwanese people visit temples during Lunar New Year, they usually buy tools for worship at little shops near the temple which include incense sticks, ghost money and some kind of food offering. After lighting the incense they will make their way to a shrine and raise the sticks to their heads and introduce themselves to the God afterwards making a request for good health for themselves and their family as well as a little prosperity if the god sees fit.

Once they finish speaking to the god they bow several times and thank him (her or it) and move on to other shrines. When they finish with all the shrines in the temple (usually there are several) they will leave a food offering on a table in front of the temple which is offered to the god as thanks.

Apart from visiting Yi-Min Temple I also visited Huang-De Temple (皇德宮), a yet to be completed folk religion temple known for its beautiful display of roses and the San-Sheng Palace (聖帝廟), a century old folk-religion temple that mixes Taoism and Buddhism and has a great view of the valley below. I visited Huang-De Temple last year but while on my way to Yi-Min temple I noticed a lot of traffic heading in the direction of San-Sheng Palace so I decided to check it out on my way back!

After a long day of temple-hopping and and breathing in way too much incense, it was time for me to head back home and rest. Taiwanese people on the other hand typically go to temples nearby their "old home" (老家) which means that they will eventually make their way back there to spend more time with their family and have another big meal together!

The second day of the Lunar New Year (初二) is when women typically go back to their home for a reunion with their families which involves more eating yet is a bit more relaxed than New Year's Eve and New Year's Day.

For me though, I'm done with the celebrating for a few days - I'm planning on going hiking for the next two days before heading down south for some more Lunar New Year temple festivities. Below are a few shots of the sunset on the first day of the Lunar New Year with the sun reflecting in the water on a rice paddy on my way back home.

I hope everyone in Taiwan is enjoying the weather and is having a great vacation!

For everyone else - Happy Lunar New Year! 新年快樂!

Gallery / Flickr (High Res Shots)

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Longshan Temple (艋舺龍山寺)

December 30, 2015 in Photo Post, Temples

This post is a continuation on my series of posts on the historic Monga (艋舺) district of Taipei. In the first three posts I shared photos of Qingshan Temple and the Qingshan King Festival which is a lively Taoist festival which takes place every year in late November/early December. Then I continued with a short series of street shots from around the district. Today I'm finishing the series with a look at Longshan Temple which is considered in some circles to be the most important temple in the city. If you haven't seen the five two posts in the series I've linked to them below:

Qingshan Temple and King Festival (青山宮/青山靈安尊王)

Part 1 | Part Two | Temple

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Bangka Park | The temple | Streets of Bangka

Well this is it, the day has come - I started this website and this blog over fifteen months ago and I've travelled all over the country introducing Taiwan to people mixing my photography, language ability and my experience to the best of my ability, but the day has finally come, after introducing many other temples, it's time for me to talk about Longshan Temple!

Longshan temple is one of Taiwan's most iconic temples, at any given time of the day you will find it is full of Taiwanese and tourists alike and it clearly deserves all the accolades it gets. I know this will be a post that gets more web traffic than all my other temple posts but what I hope I can do is offer some great information about the temple but also include some slight nudges that point tourists in the direction of Taiwan’s other beautiful temples, places that don't get the attention they deserve.

I love Longshan temple and I've probably been inside it more than a hundred times. I hope the introduction above didn't make you think I was going to be hard on the temple – If you look at my photoshop catalogue of photos over the years I'm sure you'll notice a recurring theme of randomly visiting the temple once every few months. Not much changes in the temple, but what makes it most interesting is all of the activity and the people inside and that is what keeps me coming back.

Monga Longshan Temple (艋舺龍山寺) is an 1800 square meter temple in the Monga district of Taipei. It was built in 1738 by Hokkien settlers from Fujian province who settled in the area. The original temple was modelled after a temple of the same name in Quanzhou (泉州) which is in Fujian province. When the temple was completed in 1738 the resident Guanyin statue was brought from China to share some of its “power” (分靈) with the newly constructed temple in the same sort of way that the Matzu statue from the popular Jenn Lan Temple (鎮瀾宮) does every year during the Dajia Matzu Pilgrimage (大甲媽祖繞境進香.)

The temple has a long history in Taipei but what most travel guides don't tell you is that what we see today isn't exactly the same as what you would have seen in 1738. The temple has met with disaster several times and each time it had to be rebuilt. The first such disaster was in 1815 when a strong earthquake caused massive damage. The next time was in 1867 when a terrible storm tore it apart and finally in 1945 the temple was bombed by allied forces due to intelligence that said that the Japanese were hiding weapons inside. The temple may have been in the same spot for over 260 years but what we see today is for the most part only 70 years old. We can say that Longshan Temple is the oldest temple in the district, but both Qingshan (青山宮) and Qingshui (艋舺清水祖師宮) temples are older in terms of construction and original material.

Longshan Temple is primarily a Buddhist place of worship dedicated to Guanyin, the Chinese Buddha of Compassion. In the Chinese Buddhist tradition Guanyin manifests as a female deity but in Tibetan Buddhism, the Buddha of Compassion is none other than the Dalai Lama himself. The Guanyin in Longshan temple is quite large and the shrine room is exceptionally beautiful. (Check out the 1000 arm statue of Guanyin at Guandu Temple) Despite the fact that the temple is Buddhist, it has also incorporated Taoism and folk religion as well which like almost every temple in Taiwan shows the tolerance people have here for different religious traditions.

The temple is currently split into three different areas – The first of which is somewhat of a greeting area (前殿) where people light incense and candles and perform religious activities facing the main hall. This area is always full of people and tends to be a bit crowded. The main hall (大殿) is in the middle of the complex and is where you will find the statue of Guanyin (觀世音菩薩) with Manjusri (文殊師利) and Samantabhadra (普賢菩薩) on the sides with the eighteen Arhats (十八羅漢), the Buddhist version of the twelve disciples on either side of the statues.

The rear hall (後殿) was completed in 1792 and is dedicated to Taoist deities which include the Goddess Matzu (天上聖母), the God of Literature (文昌大帝), Lord Guan (關公) the god of war, the Earth God (福德正神) and the City God (城隍爺) as well as several other patron deities which are important for finding love, exam success, etc.

The importance of Longshan Temple to the people of Monga as well as the whole of Taipei cannot be underscored. It is one of the three most important places of worship in the city and has been recognized as as a second grade historical site for its importance with regard to its history, culture and religion. It is a fine example of traditional Chinese architecture with Taiwanese characteristics and a popular tourist spot for people coming to Taiwan.

Getting to the temple is quite easy – Simply take the blue line of the Taipei MRT to Longshan Temple station (龍山寺捷運站) and walk through the underground mall or walk through Bangka park until you arrive. If you are coming to Taiwan, this temple should be made a priority on your list of places to visit!

That will do it for my series of posts on Monga! I hope you like what you saw and learned a little bit about the district. I will undoubtedly be back many times in the future to shoot various other activities as it is always an interesting place with something cool happening. If you have any questions, comments or criticisms don't be shy. Comment below or send an email through the contact section.

Gallery / Flickr (High Res shots)

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December 16, 2015 in Temples, Photo Post, Taipei

This post is a continuation on my series of posts on the historic Monga (艋舺) district of Taipei. In the first two posts I shared photos of the Qingshan King Festival which is a lively Taoist festival which takes place every year in late November/early December. Today I'm continuing the series with a more in depth look at Qingshan Temple, the place where the 'king' has made his home for the last 161 years. If you haven't seen the first two posts in the series I've linked to them below:

Qingshan King Festival (青山靈安尊王) - Part 1 | Part Two

The Bangka district of Taipei is the most historic and culturally important areas of the city. Hokkien immigrants from Fujian settled in the area hundreds of years ago bringing with them their culture and religious beliefs as well as traditional Southern Chinese architectural styles that influenced the whole of Taiwan.

Situated on what is known as “Taipei’s First Street” (台北第一街), the Mengjia Qingshan Temple (艋舺青山宮) is one of the oldest temples in the city and is probably the best examples of Southern Chinese temple architecture left standing in the city. The temple was built in 1854 and while it doesn't predate its neighbour Longshan Temple (龍山寺), it was left intact after World War 2 which devastated parts of the city and most of the original Longshan Temple which had to be rebuilt after the armistice.

If you take a walk along “Taipei’s First Street” you will notice that a lot of the buildings are built in the Baroque style (which means the façade of the buildings have a Western and Asian fusion.) These types of buildings are usually put on display on most of Taiwan's “old streets” like the ones in Daxi, Hukou and Beipu which I have previously covered - but are also an indication of the age of the buildings in the area around the temple.

The Mengjia Qingshan Temple was built in between two of these buildings and while it isn't a huge temple, it is certainly grand in its importance to Taipei and the people of Bangka district. The temple is dedicated to the Qingshan King (青山王) or the “King of the Green Mountain” (a metaphor for someone who led a just/good life) a popular Taoist deity hailing from Quanzhou (泉州) in today's Fujian Province.

The Qingshan King is a popular local deity who in life was a well-known general during Three Kingdoms warring states period in Chinese history (220-280 AD.) His real name was Zhang Gun (張滾) and served in the Kingdom of Wu (東吳) under emperor Sun Quan (孫權) who sent Zhang to Quanzhou where his success and skills of running the city led to his deification as a protector god who has the ability to protect his followers from sickness and disease and also to punish evildoers like his contemporary Cheng Huang Ye (城隍爺) better known as the City God.

Today the Qingshan King is popularly worshipped due to the belief that he has the power to dispel disease. Interestingly, between 2002 and 2004, when the SARS epidemic was ravaging Asia, the temple became an extremely popular place among Taipei residents looking for a bit of supernatural protection from the epidemic.

According to legend, centuries ago fisherman from Fujian brought with them a statue of the Qingshan King and when they arrived in Bangka they found that while walking from the waterfront that they were stuck in one spot and couldn't budge. This was taken as an omen and Taoist priests were called to perform some ceremonies to which they found out that the god determined that this was the spot where his temple should be built.

The statue had arrived at the right time as Bangka was an economic powerhouse and because a plague was affecting the people of the area. The Qingshan King’s reputation for having the power to dispel disease gave the people of Bangka the incentive to donate more than enough funds for the temple to be built and soon the amount of followers of the temple swelled as people looked for divine protection from the plague.

The popularity of the temple and of the Qingshan King has lasted over 260 years in Taiwan and that popularity is put on display during the annual Qingshan King festival, one of the liveliest temple festivals in Taipei which lasts for three days between October 20th and 22nd on the Lunar Calendar. The temple puts on a spectacular show of ancient culture and Taoist religious displays that aren't as common today as they used to be.

As with most other Taoist temples in Taiwan, the temple has a main deity and then several others as well making it a convenient place to visit. The main shrine of the temple is of course dedicated to Qingshan Wang, but there are shrines dedicated to other Taoist gods including Matzu, the Ba Jia Jiang (八家將) and several other gods of the underworld who are entrusted with dishing out punishment and supernatural justice. In all there are over fourteen shrines in the temple with the second floor having five shrines and the third floor having seven.

The temple is nestled in between two buildings and was constructed using the Fujian-style three courtyard design. It was built with exceptional quality wood and stone and the stone-work on the pillars as well as throughout the temple are quite significant. Each shrine room has a really cool octagonal shaped plafond ceiling which they say was constructed without the use of nails. These octagonal style ceilings never cease to amaze me and to think that people had the ability to build these things in the 18th century is pretty fantastic.

The temple is open all year long and while it isn't really a tourist destination like Longshan temple, it is a pretty cool place to visit. If you have the opportunity to be in Taipei during the Qingshan King festival it is something that you won't want to miss as it puts Taiwanese culture on display in a big way. If not I still recommend a visit to the temple at any other time of the year as you won't encounter as many tourists!