Kaohsiung’s 320-year-old Fonglin Temple (鳳林) is to hold its last Taoist communal offering ritual before it relocates with the rest of Dalinpu Village (大林蒲), temple managers said on Monday.
The communal offering ritual known as Jiao (醮) — a 10-day event — is scheduled to begin on Dec. 9 and is expected to be the biggest in the temple’s history, temple chairman Hsu Mu-cheng (許木成) said.
On Dec. 6, the villagers are to begin adhering to a strictly vegetarian diet for eight days, while the communal offering ritual is to be performed from Dec. 9 to Dec. 14, followed by a procession on Dec. 16, Hsu said.
Photo: Hung Chen-hung, Taipei Times
A troupe of more than 200 performers from all over the nation are to join the festivities and the temple plans to lay offerings on more than 3,000 tables for the ghosts of the land, he said.
Last year, the Executive Yuan decided to subsidize the relocation of Dalinpu Village after two polls showed that about three quarters of the 20,000 residents wanted to move from the heavily polluted area.
The ancient temple’s relocation with its village has drawn significant attention from the nation’s religious community, as well as the fact that Fonglin Temple last performed the communal offering ritual in 1906, he said.
The temple’s caretakers received a vision from its three martial guardian deities — Chu Wang-ye (朱王爺), Wen Wang-yeh (溫王爺) and Chih Fu Wang-yeh (池府王爺) — in which the gods made a special order, saying the temple needs to bring relief to the gods of nearby Hongmaogang Village (紅毛港), a community that has recently relocated, he said.
The relocation of the village and its gods left the region vacant of divine succor for its wandering ghosts, whom Fonglin Temple must take care of, he said.
The Chu Wang-ye icon in April ceremonially toured the former sites of Hongmaogang’s five temples to complete the relief, he added.
Fonglin Temple was founded by Dalinpu’s gentry in 1697 and it houses several valuable historical relics from that period, including an old incense burner, the seal of the temple and a bronze bell manufactured by the Dutch East India Co.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
HEAVY WEATHER: Typhoon Jangmi is due to crash straight into the Ryukyus as airlines look to shift flights to larger aircraft or cancel flights to Okinawa entirely Taiwan’s international air carriers announced flight adjustments over the weekend as Typhoon Jangmi is forecast to hit the Ryukyu Islands today and tomorrow. The Central Weather Administration (CWA) upgraded Jangmi from a tropical storm to a typhoon at 8am yesterday, with the eye located 580km south of Naha city. It was moving north at 19kph. Today, China Airlines’ CI-120, CI-121, CI-122 and CI-123 flights between Taoyuan and Naha, Okinawa, have been canceled as well as CI-132 and CI-133 between Kaohsiung and Naha. EVA Air’s BR-112, BR-113, BR-186 and BR-185 flights between Taoyuan and Naha are also canceled. Low-cost carrier Tigerair Taiwan canceled IT-230,
MULTIPRONGED APPROACH: China has sought to pressure Palau across a number of fronts, but the island nation has staunchly resisted overtures to ditch Taiwan Palau has been firm in backing Taiwan despite Chinese pressure that uses tourism economics, cyberattacks and criminal infiltration as tools to threaten the Pacific ally into renouncing its recognition of Taiwan as a sovereign state. The Presidential Office yesterday announced that Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) would visit Palau from Saturday to Wednesday next week at the invitation of Palauan President Surangel Whipps Jr. Whipps in April said in an interview that China had outspokenly asked Palau to “denounce Taiwan.” “And we have said: ‘We have no enemies, but nobody tells us who our friends are,’” he said. Whipps has told reporters multiple times
RSS