The annual Dajia Matsu pilgrimage (大甲媽祖遶境) headed off on its nine-day and about 340km journey on foot at 11pm on Friday, with more than 100,000 people attending the departure event at the Jenn Lann Temple (鎮瀾宮) in Greater Taichung’s Dajia (大甲).
Amid the deafening sounds of drums, gongs, trumpets and firecrackers, and surrounded by a huge crowd of followers who poured into the small town as early as Tuesday, the Dajia Matsu pilgrimage — one of the nation’s biggest annual religious rites — took more than half an hour to depart from the temple’s courtyard.
A number of political figures — including President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), vice president-elect Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng (王金平) — attended the departure event on Friday as Jenn Lann Temple president Yen Chin-piao (顏清標) announced the start of the pilgrimage.
Photo: Chan Chao-yang, Taipei Times
The temple’s administration estimated that more than a million people would participate in the pilgrimage this year.
The procession is set to travel on a fixed route from Dajia, traveling through Changhua and Yunlin counties, making brief stops at 111 temples in 21 townships before reaching its final destination — Fengtien Temple (奉天宮) in Chiayi County’s Singang Township (新港) — on Tuesday next week.
After attending a birthday celebration event for Matsu at Fengtien Temple, which will last about a day, the Matsu palanquin will once again take to the road at midnight, with a series of religious performance troupes taking the lead on its trip back to Dajia.
Photo: Chan Chao-yang, Taipei Times
In recent years, the pilgrimage has become a famous cultural tourism event, attracting visitors from across the country and from overseas, and has also been offering many business opportunities from selling Matsu cultural merchandise.
A special feature this year is that Jenn Lann Temple has provided an Internet service (mazu.gis.tw) teamed with a geographic information system, enabling people to get instant information on where the Matsu palanquin is, as well as providing access to photographs taken along the way.
The pilgrimage procession reached Changhua County at 2pm yesterday, about two hours later than scheduled, because there were too many followers lying on the road along the Matsu palanquin’s route, waiting for the palanquin to be lifted over their body — believing that it would bring good luck and fortune.
Changhua County has mobilized up to 800 police officers to control traffic and ensure the safety of followers along the procession route.
Taiwan is to commence mass production of the Tien Kung (天弓, “Sky Bow”) III, IV and V missiles by the second quarter of this year if the legislature approves the government’s NT$1.25 trillion (US$39.78 billion) special defense budget, an official said yesterday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said that the advanced systems are expected to provide crucial capabilities against ballistic and cruise missiles for the proposed “T-Dome,” an advanced, multi-layered air defense network. The Tien Kung III is an air defense missile with a maximum interception altitude of 35km. The Tien Kung IV and V
The disruption of 941 flights in and out of Taiwan due to China’s large-scale military exercises was no accident, but rather the result of a “quasi-blockade” used to simulate creating the air and sea routes needed for an amphibious landing, a military expert said. The disruptions occurred on Tuesday and lasted about 10 hours as China conducted live-fire drills in the Taiwan Strait. The Civil Aviation Administration (CAA) said the exercises affected 857 international flights and 84 domestic flights, affecting more than 100,000 travelers. Su Tzu-yun (蘇紫雲), a research fellow at the government-sponsored Institute for National Defense and Security Research, said the air
Taiwan lacks effective and cost-efficient armaments to intercept rockets, making the planned “T-Dome” interception system necessary, two experts said on Tuesday. The concerns were raised after China’s military fired two waves of rockets during live-fire drills around Taiwan on Tuesday, part of two-day exercises code-named “Justice Mission 2025.” The first wave involved 17 rockets launched at 9am from Pingtan in China’s Fujian Province, according to Lieutenant General Hsieh Jih-sheng (謝日升) of the Office of the Deputy Chief of the General Staff for Intelligence at the Ministry of National Defense. Those rockets landed 70 nautical miles (129.6km) northeast of Keelung without flying over Taiwan,
A strong continental cold air mass is to bring pollutants to Taiwan from tomorrow, the Ministry of Environment said today, as it issued an “orange” air quality alert for most of the country. All of Taiwan except for Hualien and Taitung counties is to be under an “orange” air quality alert tomorrow, indicating air quality that is unhealthy for sensitive groups. In China, areas from Shandong to Shanghai have been enveloped in haze since Saturday, the ministry said in a news release. Yesterday, hourly concentrations of PM2.5 in these areas ranged from 65 to 160 micrograms per cubic meter (mg/m³), and pollutants were
RSS