New Taipei City’s Yi Tian Temple (義天宮), built in 1965 in honor of the sea goddess Matsu, has over the years become not just a place of worship for the residents of Sanchong District (三重), but also a shelter for neighborhood cats.
Unlike most temples, where it is unacceptable for animals to be wandering around, Yi Tian Temple provides a cozy refuge for cats.
“It is not like we are picking up cats around the clock, it is just that it is impossible to sit and watch them die,” said Wang Hsiu-ying (王秀英), leader of the temple’s Buddhist chanting group.
Wang said she first started rescuing stray cats about 10 years ago, when she found a female cat and five newborn kittens near the temple.
Over time, she learned how to take care of cats and began buying large quantities of food for them with her own money, she said.
After a while, volunteers and staff at the temple joined the effort, Wang said.
Now there are usually eight or nine cats at the temple, lying on the altars, curled up inside the statues, or drinking water from the cups offered as tributes to the deities.
“Cats, like humans, are living beings,” Wang said. “The deities won’t be bothered by them.”
The temple’s officer of general affairs, surnamed Tu, said it is interesting that the number of cats at the temple seem to remain about the same.
“As you can see, cats come and go, they die, and it is like their lives are being extended this way,” said Tu, who has taken on the task of dealing with the litter boxes.
Whatever the reason for their constant numbers at the temple, the cats have become an attraction for visitors from home and abroad.
Inside the temple are pictures of “Yuan Yuan” the tabby, “Bao Bao” the tuxedo, “Tai Tai” the gray cat and many others taken by visitors, temple staff and volunteers.
Among them is the famous “New New,” a black-and-white cat that died in 2009 and was renamed “Holy Cat” on a section of the temple’s Web site dedicated to the cats.
No one at the temple can recall what exactly was special about New New, except that she was clever and one of the older strays at the temple.
If worshipers did not put banknotes into the donation boxes properly, New New would push in the money with her paw, former temple management committee chairman Chao Ching-fu (趙慶福) said.
There is also a story on the temple’s Web site about how New New survived a car accident while she was wearing a Matsu amulet.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai