It was dark apart from a few car headlights. Shortly after having left the town of Hsiluo (西螺), Yunlin County, in the wee hours of yesterday morning, a procession of several thousand people on foot, bicycle, scooter, car or truck came to a halt.
At this point, on a featureless road among rice paddies, the sacred palanquin of Matsu passed from one "district" into another. It was time to change bearers -- and violence threatened as rival gangs wrangled over the right to carry the goddess over "their" territory.
"They intend it to be a welcoming gesture," said Chuo Chong-ming (卓忠明), an official bearer. "But in the end, it is not really very friendly at all."
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
A "hearth master," or minor religious leader, Chuo is a regular participant in the annual Matsu pilgrimage in which a palanquin bearing a statue of the goddess is carried from Tachia (大甲), in Taichung County, to Hsinkang (新港), Chiayi County and back again over eight days. Chuo joins the pilgrimage every year although his official connections are to Fifth Heaven's Delegate on Earth temple (大甲代天府五府千歲) and not to the Tachia Matsu temple from which the palanquin originates.
"I participate just to be neighborly," he said.
The Wangyeh (王爺) cult in which Chuo serves is second only to Matsu in importance among Taiwan's religious traditions, and his participation in the Tachia Matsu pilgrimage highlights the intricate web of relationships, both in the human and divine realm, that characterizes Taiwanese religious practice.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
Chuo, dressed in a traditional costume which resembles a kind of brown pajama outfit with a heavy scalloped black border and a white disk in the center of his chest proclaiming him to be a member of the team escorting the Tachia image, was taking a cigarette break in the park behind Fuhsing Temple (福興宮), the temple in Hsiluo where Matsu would "spend the night."
"We arrived in Changhua (彰化市) late [because of the fighting]," he said. "Each time we moved from one district to another, there would be an argument over who's turn it was to carry the palanquin. At each point there is argument, and it takes much time to resolve."
Complex relationships
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
After about 10 minutes of discussion and posturing outside Hsiluo, a new group took over, and the procession carried on.
"During the day I walk with the palanquin, but at night when I am not so strong, I try and get ahead so I can catch some sleep at the next temple," said one participant. The pilgrimage, she said, was an act of penitence in fulfillment of a vow made "many years ago." She has walked all eight days of the pilgrimage every year for over a decade. Unlike official bearers, who take shifts resting in trucks and bearing the palanquin, she takes no break other than the time she can gain with her mid-night quick marches.
Chou, a geomancer by profession with a lifelong involvement in popular religious practice, said the shifts should be better organized. "Usually, bearers change shifts at each major temple," he said, "but this is unfair, because the distance can vary a lot. I have suggested to the organizers that shifts change after a specific period of time." No changes have yet been made.
PHOTO: CHEN CHENG-CHANG, TAIPEI TIMES
The regular followers are a veritable army and are remarkably well disciplined considering the rigors of the journey. Even as heavy rain began to fall last night, few accepted offers for a ride from bus and truck drivers.
"[As a penitent], you don't have a choice how you travel the road. At Tachia, in the days before the pilgrimage, you must make a divination. It tells you whether you must walk, or can go by bicycle or scooter. It is no up to you at all," Chou said.
Some carried considerable loads, packed in tin or plastic boxes strapped to bicycles, while a core of believers had nothing more than simple bedding and some necessities. Some even walked barefoot. The most precious item in most followers' baggage was a small pennant, stamped with chops from each temple visited, and with a tassel of paper talismans tied at the top.
Paying respects
The six-hour 18km night journey along county highway 145 from Hsiluo to Tuku (
Hsiluo, a middle-size town on the southern bank of the Chuoshui River (
Faithful from all over Taiwan had come to join the pilgrimage, some just for one day, some for three and others for the full eight days. While motorized transport is omnipresent, the most faithful disciples go the whole way on foot.
"Ten, 20 years ago, there used to be tens of thousands making the journey on foot," said one follower, sitting in the back of a van, a thick stick of incense in his hand. He was from Hsiluo, and makes the trip with friends to Hsinkang and back each year.
"She [Matsu] passes through our town, so it is only right we give her a send-off," he said.
Local temples in and around Hsiluo kicked off proceedings in the early evening, presenting their credentials at the Fuhsing Temple in advance of Matsu's arrival. How the delegations, each putting on a special performance, managed to work their way through the market that had established itself along the street outside the temple without a riot braking out is another mystery associated with the pilgrimage. People cried out in pain as security guards brandishing flagstaffs as batons pushed back the rubbernecking crowd to allow the procession to pass.
Members from temples dedicated to gods as diverse as Kuanyin (觀音), the goddess of mercy and nominally a Buddhist deity, and Kuankung (關公), the god of war and chivalry, all came to "pay their respects."
Then a succession of Maitreya Buddhas (彌勒佛) -- people dressed in oversized costumes as Buddha -- reeled in, all pretending to be merrily drunk, adding to the raucousness of the scene. As Matsu's palanquin approached, the intensity of the performances increased. At times the performers appeared barely in control of their movements, careering dangerously close to spectators.
The arrival of Matsu at about 10pm was announced with the blaring of horns, as would precede an imperial advent. Matsu is, after all, the Empress of Heaven, according to local belief. Flares were lit above the courtyard, sending a shower of sparks over crowds below and triggering mild panic as people tried to prevent hats -- or hair -- from bursting aflame. Matsu had arrived.
It would now require a divination procedure to find the correct time for the goddess' departure.
Life goes on
Chinese culture rarely allows religion to interfere with daily life, but on this occasion at Fuhsing Temple, this cultural trait was turned this on its head. People slept in tiny side chapels and even in the narrow spaces beside the temple's main altar, oblivious to the crowds that continued to worship.
Along large sections of road, the faithful would prostrate themselves on the road for the palanquin of Matsu to pass over. Finely dressed middle-aged women threw themselves on the wet tarmac road.
"Get your ass down," shouted a security guard to those who tried to minimize contact with the ground. People on the ground needed to get up the moment the palanquin had passed over them if they weren't to be trampled by crowds following closely behind.
Although refreshed by temples offering food along the way, the weariness of a night tramping through the rain from Hsiluo began to show on some stragglers arriving in Tuku. To make up for delays caused by the weather, Matsu had only stopped at Shuntien Temple (順天宮) in Tuku for about 20 minutes, forcing followers to quickly eat breakfast and change shifts. Many gratefully packed into trucks for a few hours' rest.
Last night, Matsu arrived at Fengtien Temple (奉天宮) in Hsinkang (新港), Chiayi County, where she will stay until tonight, before beginning her return journey to Tachia.
In the course of the pilgrimage, even families with children seemed to be more at peace despite the difficulties of the journey . Chuo said nobody felt genuinely tired. "Because they have the heart to do this," he said, "it is easy."
Note: Matsu will depart Fengtien Temple in Hsinkang tonight to return to Hsiluo. From Hsiluo, the procession will stop at Paitou (
Many people noticed the flood of pro-China propaganda across a number of venues in recent weeks that looks like a coordinated assault on US Taiwan policy. It does look like an effort intended to influence the US before the meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese dictator Xi Jinping (習近平) over the weekend. Jennifer Kavanagh’s piece in the New York Times in September appears to be the opening strike of the current campaign. She followed up last week in the Lowy Interpreter, blaming the US for causing the PRC to escalate in the Philippines and Taiwan, saying that as
US President Donald Trump may have hoped for an impromptu talk with his old friend Kim Jong-un during a recent trip to Asia, but analysts say the increasingly emboldened North Korean despot had few good reasons to join the photo-op. Trump sent repeated overtures to Kim during his barnstorming tour of Asia, saying he was “100 percent” open to a meeting and even bucking decades of US policy by conceding that North Korea was “sort of a nuclear power.” But Pyongyang kept mum on the invitation, instead firing off missiles and sending its foreign minister to Russia and Belarus, with whom it
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a dystopian, radical and dangerous conception of itself. Few are aware of this very fundamental difference between how they view power and how the rest of the world does. Even those of us who have lived in China sometimes fall back into the trap of viewing it through the lens of the power relationships common throughout the rest of the world, instead of understanding the CCP as it conceives of itself. Broadly speaking, the concepts of the people, race, culture, civilization, nation, government and religion are separate, though often overlapping and intertwined. A government
Nov. 3 to Nov. 9 In 1925, 18-year-old Huang Chin-chuan (黃金川) penned the following words: “When will the day of women’s equal rights arrive, so that my talents won’t drift away in the eastern stream?” These were the closing lines to her poem “Female Student” (女學生), which expressed her unwillingness to be confined to traditional female roles and her desire to study and explore the world. Born to a wealthy family on Nov. 5, 1907, Huang was able to study in Japan — a rare privilege for women in her time — and even made a name for herself in the
RSS