Taipei’s Xia Hai City God Temple (霞海城隍廟) in Dadaocheng (大稻埕) area is to send an icon representing its Moon Elder to Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture, where the matchmaking deity is expected to stay for a month reputedly to help local residents find a marriage partner and further cultural understanding between the two nations.
While the icon has been sent to Japan twice in the past, this year the Okinawa Convention & Visitors Bureau Taipei Office arranged the transfer to promote Taipei’s Universiade Games next year, the Taipei City Government said.
Bureau head Yoshinaga Ryota on Wednesday went to the temple to formally escort the icon from its shrine in preparation for its journey to Okinawa, which is scheduled for Sunday.
Photo: Lo Chien-yi, Taipei Times
Temple manager Chen Wen-wen (陳文文) said Dadaocheng residents have venerated the deity for many generations, adding that the temple god’s track record in answering prayers was proven by an abundance of business families that hailed from the district.
The Gao (高) family of I-Mei Foods Co, the Huang family of Typhone Food Co and the Lee family of Liang Hwa Foods Co are among those who have roots in the neighborhood, Chen said.
About a decade ago, the Moon Elder shrine was established in an annex of the temple, and the patron of marriages soon became a popular attraction for visitors from Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, as well as tourists from Western nations, Chen said.
“The Moon Elder brought a lot of ‘oil and incense money’ [voluntary donations] to the temple, and many patrons for the hotels and shops in this neighborhood,” she said.
Chen said the Moon Elder has a strong following in Japan.
Last year, Chen attended a cultural exchange event in Japan’s Shizuoka Prefecture, and an elderly Japanese mother came up to hold her hand, Chen said.
“I visited Taiwan half-a-year ago to pray for a match for my daughter at the Xia Hai Temple and she is now wed,” Chen quoted the Japanese woman as saying.
Although the Moon Elder icon is blessing the people of Okinawa, the faithful in Taiwan need not fear any diminution in the potency of the god’s blessings, Chen said, adding that she is certain its divine presence is capable of attending the needs of two places at the same time.
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the