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Matsu procession headed by environmental team

Throngs of Matsu worshipers fill the Jhenlan Temple in Taichung County’s Dajia Township yesterday as the nationwide Jhenlan Matsu goddess tour begins. PHOTO: CNA

The Ocean Goddess Matsu’s (媽祖) annual tour around the nation this year, which commenced yesterday, was modernized with a twist of environmental protection.

One of the most famous Matsu temples in Taiwan is the Jhenlan Temple (鎮瀾宮) in Taichung county’s Dajia Township (大甲) which has the greatest number of worshippers.

Each year around Matsu’s birthday, which falls in March on the Lunar calendar, the statue of the goddess — who looks over the safety of fishermen — tours through Matsu temples nationwide to greet her worshippers.

The tradition has historically attracted close to a million worshippers who follow the goddess’ journey by foot.

Though the followers may attain peace of mind for the rest of the year, hundreds of tons of garbage are produced, secretary-general of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Recycling Fund Management Board Lin Chien-huei (林建輝) said.

From past experience, the administration found that most of the trash that remained after the parade was food packaging such as empty drink bottles and lunch boxes, he said, adding that in view of this, “This year’s Matsu parade will be a green one — for the first time ever an environmental protection team will head the procession, and along the route we have placed 6,000 garbage and recycling bins made of 100 percent recycled paper.”

A team of environmental workers join Matsu’s nationwide tour. PHOTO: CNA

The environmental protection team consists of businesses and people who volunteered to promote the concept of resource conservation and garbage sorting to the townships they would be visiting, Lin said.

“In addition to mental purification, the tour will be a cleansing experience for our communities as well.”

Lin Chien-huei, Recycling Fund Management Board secretary-general

The cost of the reusable boxes — NT$800,000 — was donated by a collection of 16 businesses, he said, adding that the team has set a goal of returning the areas they visit back to normal within one hour of the parade leaving the premises.

The marathon walking event this year has had tens of thousands signed up to join Matsu in her 280km, eight-day stroll, set to travel from Dajia to townships including Chingshui (清水), Shalu (沙鹿), Lungjing (龍井), and Tuku (土庫) in Changhua, Yunlin and Chiayi counties, he said.

“In addition to mental purification, the tour will be a cleansing experience for our communities as well,” he said. “The Matsu tour on foot is a very local tradition, and by combining rituals like this with modern trends and needs like environmental protection efforts, we hope to instill in people more updated concepts of what is good for people and the next generation.”

Meanwhile, in related news, followers of Matsu from both sides of the Taiwan Strait are planning to seek UN approval to have the Matsu culture declared an intangible world cultural heritage.

The idea was proposed on Friday at a Taiwan Matsu cultural forum at the Jhenlan Temple. The event was part of this year’s Taichung County Matsu International Festival, which began on Feb. 21 and is scheduled to end on April 28.

During the forum, Matsu followers from Japan, South Korea, Australia and Singapore shared their views on various ways of worshipping the goddess.

For over 200 years, the Jhenlan Temple has been a religious mecca for Matsu worshipers in dozens of local villages, and has also drawn huge numbers of followers from all over the country.

The Dajia Matsu pilgrimage in spring is an internationally renowned event that draws hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year to worship and honor the goddess of the sea.

The complex and creative Matsu-worshipping ceremonies and activities have been listed by the Discovery Channel as one of three major religious festivals in the world, the 18th-century Jhenlan Temple said.
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