Taipei’s Xingtian Temple’s (行天宮) announcement on Sunday that it would prohibit incense and food offerings to become more eco-friendly met with mixed reactions yesterday.
The popular temple, which is dedicated to Guan Gong (關公), a legendary third-century heroic general-turned-deity, is to remove its two incense burners and 12 offering tables beginning today. The temple is asking visitors to put their hands together in prayer instead of burning incense or offering food, stressing that what matters is a sincere heart.
Chang Wei-tung (張偉東), chief executive of the Lugang Matsu Temple (鹿港天后宮) in Changhua County, yesterday said that while he supports practices that aid the environment, he objects to the idea of removing incense burners and offering tables.
Photo: CNA
As the two items are indispensable during Taoist rituals, it would be disrespectful to the deities without them, he added.
Officials of the popular Chaotien Temple (朝天宮) in Yunlin’s Beigang (北港) said that while they approved of the Xingtian Temple’s move, they also need to be considerate toward the feelings of temple-goers, and as such they would wait and see before deciding whether to follow suit — a stance echoed by several temples in Greater Tainan.
Meanwhile, Singang Incense Artistic Culture Garden manager Chen Wen-chung (陳文忠) said that banning incense may project the false image that it has detrimental health effects, which he says is a blow to Taiwanese incense manufactures who have worked to make high-quality incense.
He said that while cheap Chinese-made incense might contain harmful chemicals, most Taiwanese incense products are made from sandalwood or herbs and are harmless to people.
Chiayi County’s Sibei Liousing Temple (溪北六興宮) chief executive Chiang Hsiao-fan (江筱芃) said that although it is a trend among local temples to reduce the use of incense burners, getting rid of them is “too big a culture shock for Taoists.”
She recommended retaining them and leaving the choice of whether to burn incense to worshipers.
Meanwhile, many incense vendors near the busy entrance to the Xingtian Temple expressed concern, saying that it would destroy their livelihoods.
Xingtian Temple deacon Lee Chu-hua (李楚華) said that it is most important that a worshiper be pious, and that without the offerings, no more food will be wasted.
Lee said that, as a tradition, visitors to the temple often offer rice pudding, but since the Consumers’ Foundation found a few years ago that many rice pudding products contained high levels of preservatives, visitors have stopped taking their offerings home after the rituals.
Consequently, the temple throws away about 1,000 rice puddings each day, resulting in a tremendous waste of food, he said.
Lee said that as far back as 2003, temple administrators said that it would start adopting environmental and waste-reduction practices.
“Over the years, the temple has been reminding visitors to embrace environmentally friendly practices on a daily basis. Many vendors have anticipated this day to arrive and have been doing business elsewhere,” Lee said.
Additional Reporting by Chang Tsung-chiu and Yu Pei-ju
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
STATS: Taiwan’s average life expectancy of 80.77 years was lower than that of Japan, Singapore and South Korea, but higher than in China, Malaysia and Indonesia Taiwan’s average life expectancy last year increased to 80.77 years, but was still not back to its pre-COVID-19 pandemic peak of 81.32 years in 2020, the Ministry of the Interior said yesterday. The average life expectancy last year increased the 0.54 years from 2023, the ministry said in a statement. For men and women, the average life expectancy last year was 77.42 years and 84.30 years respectively, up 0.48 years and 0.56 years from the previous year. Taiwan’s average life expectancy peaked at 81.32 years in 2020, as the nation was relatively unaffected by the pandemic that year. The metric
TAKING STOCK: The USMC is rebuilding a once-abandoned airfield in Palau to support large-scale ground operations as China’s missile range grows, Naval News reported The US Marine Corps (USMC) is considering new sites for stockpiling equipment in the West Pacific to harden military supply chains and enhance mobility across the Indo-Pacific region, US-based Naval News reported on Saturday. The proposed sites in Palau — one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — and Australia would enable a “rapid standup of stored equipment within a year” of the program’s approval, the report said, citing documents published by the USMC last month. In Palau, the service is rebuilding a formerly abandoned World War II-era airfield and establishing ancillary structures to support large-scale ground operations “as China’s missile range and magazine
A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
RSS