Day 22 - Longshan Temple

On Wednesday my aunt and I visited Longshan Temple, which is the largest temple in Taipei. It is a Buddhist temple, although it is difficult for me to tell. Depending on which word for temple is used, my aunt told me which temple was which religion. Taoist temples may also have more deities associated with fighting because my aunt says the religion started as a martial art.

Longshan Temple was first built sometime in the 1700s and was rebuilt several times when it was bombed or damaged somehow. It is most famous for the statue of Guanyin (who I learned is the Goddess of Mercy) which survived an attack in 1945 during WWII while everything around the statue and a lot of the temple crumbled. Like the other old temples I have seen, everything was beautifully ornate. Below is the main altar.

The following picture is of the courtyard directly in front of the main altar. The big gold pot-looking thing is for sticking burning incense (which explains why it is smoking), and the long table with all of the stuff in it is for offering when you pray. Before you pray you put your offering on the table, and after you are done you can take it home.

There were many different altars at the temple with different gods in charge of causes. The picture below is of the offering table in front of the god for students. Can you tell that there are vegetables on the table? The three vegetables that are offered to the god are turnip, celery, and Chinese chives because their names in Chinese sound like qualities needed in a good student. Closer to the altar there is a box where you can put in some sort of student registration form so the god will help you.

I asked the god to help me in medical school, but I did it really quickly and when I was finished my aunt said I needed to say it really clearly, so I had to go back and do it better. I didn't want to say it out loud though or mumble it, so said it in my head. I hope that still counts. My aunt also had me pray at the one asking for love. Other deities included one for people who sell things and one for people who want to have a baby.

Before visiting two other temples which were Taoist we ate lunch, which I just have to mention because we sat on the second floor and they had a dumbwaiter to lower our ordering form to the first floor as well as to bring our food up. Someone on a loudspeaker spoke to us and told people to be careful of the hot food or whose food was whose. My aunt and I couldn't figure out how they knew what we were doing, because each time someone would go up to the dumbwaiter the voice from above would give person-specific instructions. Finally I spotted the camera on the wall behind me. Here is a picture of the dumbwaiter as well as the food we ate, which was rice noodles, tempura, noodle soup, and hollow vegetable (clockwise starting from top).

In the next temple we went to I was given a fright because I looked up and suddenly saw this:

Here is his short counterpart who faces him directly across the room:

I don't remember what their called (maybe one is called something with a 7 and one with an 8?). My aunt said they are not as big as deities and are more like guards. Deities and demi-gods often go around the country traveling, and my aunt said these two are the ones she used to see most often when she didn't live in Taipei. A person would stand inside and she said they would sway hugely as they walked by. I guess they must be heavy.

We walked to a third temple, which was equally beautiful and had different gods as well. This picture is from the altar on the third floor, which I liked because you can see the Monkey King on the right of the picture. In case you are not familiar with the story, the Monkey King is an extremely old adventure story that every Chinese person knows where the Monkey King leads three people (one is actually a pig) to somewhere which I don't remember.

Lastly, in the subway on the way home I took this picture:

These women are all getting the hair on their faces taken off with a string. The beautician pulls the string taught so it acts like a razor. People also do this on the side of the street all over Taipei (and probably all over Taiwan) for really cheap. I think they should have this in the US! My face is definitely hairy enough for it!