More than 2,000 people in Yilan County’s Luodong Township (羅東) took part in a walk around the township organized by the township office, with many taking statues of Tudigong (土地公, the God of Land) with them.
While it is not unusual to see people parading statues of immortals on religious holidays or township offices organizing trips for residents, it is unusual to see a combination of the two.
However, in Luodong on Saturday, people joined a walking tour around the township, with many carrying statues of Tudigong taken from their homes or workplaces.
Photo: Chu Tse-wei, Taipei Times
“Tudigong is the guardian of the people and has a close relationship with the people, which can be seen everywhere,” Luodong Township Mayor Lin Tzu-miao (林姿妙) said. “We are holding the event because Tudigong’s birthday on the second day of the second lunar month [which falls on Thursday] is approaching.”
Some people carried Tudigong statues with red bags hanging over their chests, while others used small wooden sedans.
“I threw the divine blocks to ask if Tudigong would like to go for a stroll and he agreed immediately,” a woman, surnamed Chiu (邱), said.
The “divine blocks” refers to a pair of crescent-shaped wooden objects — often colored red — that people use to ask for opinions from immortals. After throwing the blocks onto the ground, if one block settles with the flat side up and the other with the rounded side up it indicates that the immortal has answered: “yes” to the question asked.
Participants came from beyond Luodong for the event, with many coming from Suao Township (蘇澳).
“As soon as we saw information about the event, we thought about bringing our Tudigong statues,” a participant from Suao said. “I asked Tudigong: ‘Uncle, would you like to go out for a walk?’ and I was surprised that he agreed immediately.”
The terms “Uncle” or “Uncle Tudigong” are both terms that people use to address the god, showing an intimacy between the God of Land and his believers.
Statues of Tudigong are often displayed at temples, while, in addition to ancestral tablets, such statues are often seen on private altars.
Worshiping Tudigong is common in companies or factories, as people believe that Tudigong might help bring success and prosperity.
The township office also arranged for a dancing lion, drummers and life-sized statue of Nezha (哪吒, also known as the Third Prince) to join the 5km walk.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Credit departments of farmers’ and fishers’ associations blocked a total of more than NT$180 million (US$6.01 million) from being lost to scams last year, National Police Agency (NPA) data showed. The Agricultural Finance Agency (AFA) said last week that staff of farmers’ and fishers’ associations’ credit departments are required to implement fraud prevention measures when they serve clients at the counter. They would ask clients about personal financial management activities whenever they suspect there might be a fraud situation, and would immediately report the incident to local authorities, which would send police officers to the site to help, it said. NPA data showed
ENERGY RESILIENCE: Although Alaska is open for investments, Taiwan is sourcing its gas from the Middle East, and the sea routes carry risks, Ho Cheng-hui said US government officials’ high-profile reception of a Taiwanese representative at the Alaska Sustainable Energy Conference indicated the emergence of an Indo-Pacific energy resilience alliance, an academic said. Presidential Office Secretary-General Pan Men-an (潘孟安) attended the conference in Alaska on Thursday last week at the invitation of the US government. Pan visited oil and gas facilities with senior US officials, including US Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright, Alaska Governor Mike Dunleavy and US Senator Daniel Sullivan. Pan attending the conference on behalf of President William Lai (賴清德) shows a significant elevation in diplomatic representation,
The Taipei City Reserve Command yesterday initiated its first-ever 14-day recall of some of the city’s civilian service reservists, who are to undergo additional training on top of refresher courses. The command said that it rented sites in Neihu District (內湖), including the Taipei Tennis Center, for the duration of the camp to optimize tactical positioning and accommodate the size of the battalion of reservists. A battalion is made up of four companies of more than 200 reservists each, it said. Aside from shooting drills at a range in New Taipei City’s Linkou District (林口), the remainder of the training would be at
RSS