Even though the Matsu pilgrimage has become such a high-profile event, it has not yet lost its roots in the world of popular superstition and ritual. The battles to touch the palanquins are fraught affairs in which the fact that no one is seriously hurt never ceases to amaze. And then there are various Eight Generals troupes, collections of young local toughs who express their devotion in ways not always suitable for families in the audience. This was underlined at one stop a few kilometers outside Changhua, at the Japanese Doll betel nut stand.
Five boys sat on plastic stools at the side of the main road to Hsiluo. Their faces were covered in blood. In their hands they held spiked cudgels. They sat in exaggerated poses, occasionally getting up to make a few martial movements. The youngest couldn't have been more than 15. They seemed only vaguely aware of the crowds around them. Occasionally a helper would take a big mouthful of water and spray it on their wounds.
When the sacred palanquin arrived, each boy would take his turn to perform before it, holding it up for a good quarter of an hour. As part of the show, they would hammer their foreheads with the spiked cudgels. "That's enough now," people would call, as they drew more blood. "All right, all right. We have to get moving," another called, but this had little effect on the boys and their private ritual. All this was watched by the Japanese Doll betel nut girl, who stood out in the semi-darkness of the dawn in her day-glo pink mini and halter top. It was a scene that encapsulated something about rural Taiwan; an incongruity that, anywhere else, might be thought of as surreal.
And so, day after day, the procession wound on, the palanquin changing hands, fought over, never resting as it moved from Tachia, to Changhua, to Hsiluo and finally to Hsinkang before turning back.
At Nanyao Temple, the women who had sat patiently for six hours set off just before dawn. The sacred palanquin had arrived, stood before the altar for five minutes, was fought over in the crowded entrance of the temple, then set off once again, a new group of pilgrims close behind it. Time had to be made up, and the procession proceeded at the double.
With all the waiting, walking and weariness, the Matsu pilgrimage generates an intense religious fervor that is sometimes hard to reconcile with the everyday world of urban Taiwan. That is probably part of the appeal, both for the devotees and for the tourists. And tomorrow, Matsu finally returns home, as will the weary pilgrims, now well armed with blessings for another year.
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