The Environment and Animal Society of Taiwan (EAST) yesterday slammed the Master Chingshui Temple in New Taipei City’s Sansia District (三峽) for holding a “divine pigs” contest and ritual sacrifice, saying that it is the only temple of its kind that still employs the “inhumane” practice to celebrate the birthday of the Taoist monk, which falls on the sixth day of the Lunar New Year.
The organization said this year’s top prize-winner is a boar of up to 715kg — six to seven times larger than an average swine.
Due to excessive force-feeding by their owners, such pigs’ legs become deformed, crippling the animal, the group said.
Photo: Chang An-chiao, Taipei Times
EAST director Chen Yu-min (陳玉敏) said the temple yesterday morning tied the legs of five “divine pigs” selected during the contest, before butchers plunged long blades into their throats as the animals squealed and died.
She said that followers of the faith remain adamant about using these pigs as sacrifices, saying that the ritual is to be carried out by strictly adhering to the routine of choosing the fattest pigs and slaughtering them in accordance with local customs, in hopes of obtaining good fortune.
“I do not believe that any Taoist deity, be it Master Chingshui, celestial warriors or the Mountain God of Yuanshan (鳶山) would be willing to accept an overweight, paralyzed, knocked-out pig that died painfully after its throat was slit,” she said.
Photo: Chang An-chiao, Taipei Times
Even though the temple has distanced itself from the event, saying followers of Master Chingshui organized it on their own initiative, Chen said temple administrators handed out prize money, certificates and lanterns to the owners of the winning pigs.
Exacerbating the matter, representatives from local farmers’ associations and politicians also conferred award certificates to the participants, she said.
Government officials who took part in distributing awards included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄), KMT New Taipei City Councilor Hung Chia-chun (洪佳君), independent New Taipei City Councilor Chen Shih-jung (陳世榮) and Sansia District Office Director Yang Chih-hung (楊志宏), she said.
She urged politicians to concern themselves more with social issues and people’s livelihood and to stop giving out award certificates that encourage animal cruelty.
She said that her organization has advocated against “divine pig” contests for more than a decade and that many Taoist believers have opted to use fruit, flowers, rice vermicelli and rice balls as sacrifices while worshiping Taoist deities.
“[Taoist] deities are benevolent by nature. We believe that the right way to show respect for them begins with showing respect for lives,” Chen Yu-min said.
A strong continental cold air mass and abundant moisture bringing snow to mountains 3,000m and higher over the past few days are a reminder that more than 60 years ago Taiwan had an outdoor ski resort that gradually disappeared in part due to climate change. On Oct. 24, 2021, the National Development Council posted a series of photographs on Facebook recounting the days when Taiwan had a ski resort on Hehuanshan (合歡山) in Nantou County. More than 60 years ago, when developing a branch of the Central Cross-Island Highway, the government discovered that Hehuanshan, with an elevation of more than 3,100m,
Death row inmate Huang Lin-kai (黃麟凱), who was convicted for the double murder of his former girlfriend and her mother, is to be executed at the Taipei Detention Center tonight, the Ministry of Justice announced. Huang, who was a military conscript at the time, was convicted for the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend, surnamed Wang (王), and the murder of her mother, after breaking into their home on Oct. 1, 2013. Prosecutors cited anger over the breakup and a dispute about money as the motives behind the double homicide. This is the first time that Minister of Justice Cheng Ming-chien (鄭銘謙) has
SECURITY: To protect the nation’s Internet cables, the navy should use buoys marking waters within 50m of them as a restricted zone, a former navy squadron commander said A Chinese cargo ship repeatedly intruded into Taiwan’s contiguous and sovereign waters for three months before allegedly damaging an undersea Internet cable off Kaohsiung, a Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times) investigation revealed. Using publicly available information, the Liberty Times was able to reconstruct the Shunxing-39’s movements near Taiwan since Double Ten National Day last year. Taiwanese officials did not respond to the freighter’s intrusions until Friday last week, when the ship, registered in Cameroon and Tanzania, turned off its automatic identification system shortly before damage was inflicted to a key cable linking Taiwan to the rest of
TRANSPORT CONVENIENCE: The new ticket gates would accept a variety of mobile payment methods, and buses would be installed with QR code readers for ease of use New ticketing gates for the Taipei metro system are expected to begin service in October, allowing users to swipe with cellphones and select credit cards partnered with Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (TRTC), the company said on Tuesday. TRTC said its gates in use are experiencing difficulty due to their age, as they were first installed in 2007. Maintenance is increasingly expensive and challenging as the manufacturing of components is halted or becoming harder to find, the company said. Currently, the gates only accept EasyCard, iPass and electronic icash tickets, or one-time-use tickets purchased at kiosks, the company said. Since 2023, the company said it
RSS