From midday today, the 22nd day of the 10th lunar month, Wanhwa will explode with music and firecrackers. Giant puppets will strut, lions will dance and people possessed by spirits will whip their flesh until blood flows. The celebration is to mark the King of Chingshan's (青山王) birthday and is one of Taipei's most exciting festivals.
Although not a major deity, the King of Chingshan commands great veneration locally. Followers from other temples carry statues of their deities to visit him, just as a statue of him is taken to visit them. Visitors gyrate and dance under the god's will.
In his earthly life, the king was Zhang Kun (
In 212, Sun sent Zhang to defend Huian in Fujian Province where, because he was wise, brave and honest, he was loved by the army and the people alike. After his death, he was worshipped and a cult grew around him. Officials sent to the county prayed to him for peace and prosperity.
In the 10th century, the Sung emperor sent Cui Zhijie to Huian. While Cui prayed to Zhang the tombstone suddenly collapsed and it was discovered that its back was inscribed with ancient verse predicting the emperor would send Cui to take him up Chingshan (Green Mountain). Later, a shrine was erected on the mountain to Zhang.
During the wars between the southern Sung and northern Jin empires, flags bearing Zhang's name were enough to cause the Jin army to retreat. In gratitude, emperor Gao Zong (1127-1162) made Zhang Spiritual Peace King (
In 1854, a statue of Zhang was brought by Fujian fishermen to Taiwan to impart its supposedly miraculous powers. Passing through Wanhwa, the exhausted fishermen could no longer move the statue. Upon inquiry, the god expressed the wish to remain in the present location. Followers increased as the statue seemed to protect against epidemics.
The temple dates from 1856 and every year the statue is carried by a palanquin around the neighborhood and other deities are brought to him. For three days, Wanhua becomes a riot of noise and color.
The Chingshan Temple (
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s