A God for Every Occasion
If it were only architecture, temple-hopping would be of limited interest. In Japan many people visited the old temples, even dressed up in kimonos for the occasion, but it had more the air of a holiday, tourism, a festive occasion and the exception to the rule. Not that some of the temples in Japan weren't impressive, such as this huge hall in Nara, which housed a gigantic and ancient Buddha statue. The big man's head had rolled off during an earthquake around 1150, but it was promptly stuck back on and endures to this day.
Here in Taiwan however, it was immediately clear that religion is a much more intrinsic and genuine part of people's everyday life. People sitting on park benches or in the underground chant religious mantras out loud and in promptu religious processions parade the streets.
There are temples around every corner, snuggling up coyly to the surrounding buildings.
And through open doorways, I've caught glimpses of impressive home alters, even some garages, which have been turned to shrines.
Locals frequent temples to pray for good luck and success, and to throw moon blocks to predict the future. I haven't actually run into this moon block business before. What you do is kneel on the cushion before the alter, press two crescent shaped wooden moon blocks between your palms as you mumble appropriate chants, throw the blocks on the floor and whether they land curvy side up or down tells you basically everything you could ever possibly want to know about life, the universe and everything. The sound of these wooden blocks hitting stone floor reminds one of the sound of chips being placed in a casino.
There are certainly lots of deitys and temples to choose between. Ancient war generals morph into gods of war and finance. Five concubines who hung themselves in the 17th Century because their lord was overthrown have their own temple. As does Lady Linshui, who for centuries has protected children and guaranteed successful childbirth. Rather unfair that she got left holding the baby, since in images she appears to be quite an amazon, fighting off rather nasty looking bad guys.
There are also grumpy looking door gods painted on temple doors, who are there to serve and protect the "main" deity.
And every temple front is also protected and guarded by ferocious lions
Yessirree, a god for every occasion! On top of this, Taiwanese religion is a spicy mix of Buddhism, Confucianism ad Taoism with a little bit of ancestor worship and folk religion thrown in for good measure.
When visiting the temple you have to have mandatory incense sticks that you present to the deitities. However, for good measure, you should also bring the gods some goodies. And people do, oh boy do they!
Piled up plates of fruit, flower arrangements, plastic bottles of water (even gods get thirsty), shot glasses of booze (I mean really thirsty), even choice cuts of raw meat.
Then they are presented with stacks of money. Well, not real money, but yellow paper printed with appropriate symbols, which are burned by the stackfull in the furnaces every temple has.
And outside the temples people are making a living selling this fake money. What goes around comes around.
But by far the most common presents seem to be biscuits and sweets. Now one wonders what happens to all these goodies? Do they just go to waste? What an utter waste that would be! Or do the monks eat all the offerings? If so, do the monks have a good dental care plan and is diabetes a big problem among them?
Though maybe they don't have to eat all the goodies themselves. I did see one squirrel scutter out of a temple holding something in its mouth that looked a whole lot like a biscuit.
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