It’s past 2am. You live in a private residence in the small fishing town in Sinpu (新埔), Miaoli County. A goddess in a palanquin arrives at your doorstep, unannounced, with hundreds of pilgrims crowded in your front garden. Would you turn her away?
Not if it’s the sea goddess Matsu, who devotees believe bring blessings as she makes her annual pilgrimage to Beigang’s (北港) Chaotian Temple (朝天宮).
The Baishatun Matsu pilgrimage left Baishatun’s (白沙屯) Gong Tian Temple (拱天宮) at 12:30am on March 16. Unlike other Matsu pilgrimages in Taiwan, Baishatun has no fixed route. Matsu herself decides the direction she will take at intersections, whom she will visit and where she will stay.
Photo: Paul Cooper
Despite the hour, the inhabitants of the private residence in Sinpu were honored to have such an illustrious guest.
11 DAYS OF BLISS
The pilgrimage covered 200km in 11 days, arriving back at the temple on March 26. In Beigang, Tu Chen-ming (涂振明), a businessman following the entire route for the third consecutive year, told me 11 days was not too bad, as it could be done at a relaxed pace. “Last year the whole journey was squeezed into 36 hours.” Still, it is quite an undertaking, even for devotees. So why do they do it?
Photo: Paul Cooper
Liu Jiong-yu (留瓊玉), a Yunlin nurse, wanted Matsu to help her son pass his high school examinations. She’s also walking for a 24-year-old electrician paralysed in a work accident being treated in her clinic. Lin Yi-ching (林宜靜), who has walked twice before, feels she has a special connection with the goddess.
“Baishatun Matsu feels more like the lady next door. She sets me at ease,” Lin says.
Liu Pao-lian (劉寶連), 50, has participated 20 times, part of a tradition begun in 1960 when Matsu entered her family home.
Photo: Paul Cooper
Pilgrims had help from technology and social media this year, including the official Baishatun Matsu GPS. Tu says that people were also posting on FaceBook, Line, Google and their own blogs.
“We all know that [the palanquin bearers] have stopped, how long they’re going to rest for, what time they plan to get up the next morning, when we need to leave the hotel… the last two years, it wasn’t quite this advanced,” Tu says.
WANTING FOR NOTHING
Neither were the pilgrims the only believers involved. Gong Tian Temple director Chen Chun-fa (陳春發) had promised us we wouldn’t want for food, drink, rest or restrooms. Along the route, friendly faces handed out water, sports drinks, oily rice cakes, heat pads for aching muscles, waterproofs and flashing LED lights to warn the traffic of our presence.
The lights were a good idea, as the route was often along main roads with heavy traffic. And ambulances were there along the route to keep an eye on things and provide plasters for the inevitable blisters.
Chu Chu (朱朱), 30, a painter from Taitung who this year completed her 8th Baishatun pilgrimage, said this time was particularly arduous because of the persistent rain and the cold. She was thankful for the people along the route who opened up their houses for the use of passing pilgrims needing to take a quick bathroom stop or to rest their legs.
“This is something you wouldn’t get in the big cities,” Chu Chu says.
The Baishatun Matsu pilgrimage started over 200 years ago, with perhaps 20 pilgrims. This year there were 15,000, says Chaotian Temple director Chi Jen-chih (紀仁智).
Chi says there are no historical documents that explain why the Baishatun Matsu made the pilgrimage to Chaotian Temple of all the other Matsu temples in Taiwan, or whether Baishatun was a “branch temple” of Chaotian Gong.
On his office wall, however, was an official Japanese colonial period Bureau of Transport and Communication map of Taiwan from 1929. It showed only major cities, but also the small town of Beigang, with the Matsu temple marked. It was called “the island’s most important (or perhaps first) Matsu temple” (本島第一的媽祖廟).
There are also photos of early Japanese colonial period inscribed biane plaques. Chi had heard that during the Japanese Kominka Movement (皇民化運動) to assimilate Taiwanese to Japanese ways, local deity statues — alien to Japanese religious beliefs — were burned. Chaotian Temple had a biane presented by the Japanese governor of the time, indicating that it was officially recognized as an important temple, and largely untouched by the Kominka policy. At this time, apparently, the Baishatun Matsu statue was temporarily housed in Chaotian Temple.
Not all pilgrims had the time or the stamina to follow the entire 200km, 11-day route. I would like to report that we did, but at 5am, after just over four hours, we jumped ship at Tongsiao (通霄). We felt ever so slightly guilty, although we needn’t have. Tongsiao Station was packed with like-minded pilgrims when we got there.
— additional reporting by louis jia-yu wei
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