Animal rights advocates yesterday rallied outside the Chingshui Zushi Temple (清水祖師廟) in Sansia District (三峽), New Taipei City (新北市), urging an end to “divine pig” contests.
Chanting “overweight pigs do not bring fortune” while parading a model of a cartoon pig on the bridge leading to the temple, the advocates urged passers-by to join their campaign to halt the practice, the last such contest in the Taipei metropolitan area.
“I would like to make it clear that we are not against the tradition of having pigs as offering to deities and immortals, but if you choose to do this, please buy pigs that are raised in a healthy way and slaughtered humanely,” Environmental and Animal Society Taiwan (EAST) director Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏) told the crowd.
Photo: Chen Chih-chu, Taipei Times
“Pigs normally grow to over 100 jin [60kg], but the divine pigs are force-fed and grow to about 1,000 jin or more, then have their throats cut while they are conscious. This is unhealthy, cruel and inhumane,” Chen said.
She said that all deities are merciful and would not appreciate offerings that cause suffering in living creatures.
“Don’t forget that Chingshui Zushi was a learned and much respected Buddhist master and a vegetarian,” Chen said.
According to tradition, the heavier the pig that a devotee presents as an offering, the more sincere the devotee, though both Buddhist and Taoist teachings urge vegetarian offerings at religious rituals.
While contests on the weight of divine pigs were once popular across the country, only a few temples still hold such events.
In Sansia, seven family clans take turns each year to be in charge of raising such pigs, receiving certificates and medals according to the weight of the animals.
According to EAST, there are 126 Chingshui Zushi temples across the country, but the Sansia temple is the only one still holding annual divine pig contests.
Most people at the event reacted positively to the call.
“Killing is discouraged in Taoism, so why kill pigs for deities? Pigs are also living creatures,” a local resident surnamed Wu (吳) said.
A man surnamed Chang (張), who traveled to Sansia with his family to attend the festivities, said that he did not see the point in having overweight pigs as offerings.
Another man, surnamed Huang (黃), from Fusing Township (復興), Taoyuan County, said that there are alternatives to offering pigs.
“A few years ago, when I had to prepare an offering for deities at a temple in my hometown, I made a ‘divine pig’ with bags of rice, with each bag weighing 20kg,” Huang said. “After the ritual, I gave the rice to poor families. I think this is a better idea.”
Responding to the activists, the temple’s executive director Liu Chin-ta (劉金達) said that it may consider ending the divine pig contest in 2017.
“Seven clans take turns to raise divine pigs, so each cycle lasts seven years. The current cycle started in 2010, and since we cannot just stop it, we have to wait until at least 2017 to put an end to the practice,” Liu said. “Of course, it’s up to the temple’s board of directors to make the final decision on the matter.”
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
RSS