You’ll come across a small temple every three steps, a large one every five—so says the old Taiwanese proverb, and anyone traveling around the island has no trouble believing it. There are Buddhist temples, Taoist temples, tiny shrines surrounded by rice paddies and dedicated to folk gods, large, multistory temples in urban areas that attract thousands of worshippers every day, and everything in between. According to official figures, more than 12,000 temples serve the spiritual needs of Taiwan’s population, and that seems like a conservative estimate.
These wooden blocks, known as wei, are used to consult the gods about personal problems. Most people would rather go to a temple than see a psychiatrist.
Mention temples, and most people will summon up a mental picture of an annual festival: streets crowded with worshippers and hordes of spectators who have come to admire giant, swaying effigies of gods parading through the streets to the accompaniment of drums and firecrackers. The lunar calendar contains many festivals. Chief among them are the Lantern Festival; the birthday of Matsu, Goddess of the Sea; and the Ghost Festival, when traditionally the gates of Hell open and its denizens are free to take a vacation in the land of the living. At these times temples come into their own, with an islandwide proliferation of ceremonies, feasts for wandering ghosts—and people, too—and numerous other social and religious activities.
But there is much more to temples than that. They have always been number one venues for community meetings, and their environs are handy locations for recreational and social gatherings of every kind. It is common to see a group of people gather near a temple to share neighborhood news and catch up on the gossip, play chess, drink tea, or just sit and take a nap in the shade. On special occasions, stages are erected in the temple square for opera performances and puppet shows. Some temples, officially classified as historical sites, are magnets for tourists throughout the year. All of them attract numerous businesses to their vicinity.
One of a temple’s most important functions is to provide solace to those in distress—frightened children, the aged, the bereaved.
Many people in Taiwan stop by a temple to pray at some time, and that includes those who neither subscribe to a formal religious belief nor worship regularly at a particular temple. Some people simply pause for a moment in the doorway to press their palms together and bow in reverence toward the gods lined up on the altar. Others enter, offer incense, and slowly move from alcove to alcove to consult different gods about personal or family problems. The following scenes are typical: A middle-aged man holds offerings high above his head, his lips moving in silent prayer, perhaps for the prosperity of his business. A young woman stands before an incense burner, eyes closed and palms pressed together—it is easy to imagine that she is praying for Mr. Right to come along. An old lady presses her grandson’s palms together around a bundle of joss sticks and bows several times before the image of Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy.
“Temples play an important role in Taiwan society,’’ says Liu Jui-e (劉瑞蛾), director of the Department of Social Service at Taipei’s Hsingtien Temple. “Most Chinese, when they have problems, would rather go to a temple than to a psychiatrist. Just about everyone, regardless of age, sex, or occupation, goes to temples, not just the old or the superstitious. Many templegoers are young, well-educated, and rich. It’s human nature to want fame, prosperity, and good health, just as it’s human to feel lonely and helpless some times. People go to temples for spiritual strength.”
An old lady buys incense before saying her prayers. But temples are social centers, too, and afterwards she can stay to meet her friends.
Chen Hsu-hua (陳敘華), 23, illustrates the point. She works for a wedding dress company in Taipei, and never went to a temple until her brother was involved in a car accident. “At that time, I felt terribly helpless,” she says. “A taxi-driver friend soothed me by murmuring a Buddhist chant. It helped make my heart peaceful again. Now I often stop by a temple to pray for help with my job. More important, I feel peaceful and comfortable in a temple.”
Chen’s view is echoed by Lin Shih-kai (林世楷), 25, a salesman for Mitsubishi Motors. “I often go to Hsingtien Temple during my lunch hour, to pray for my family and my job. Although I’m not a Buddhist or a Taoist, I can find some peace there, and I come away feeling that things are going to be all right.’’ Nor is it unusual to see students going to a temple together. Chang Hsin-lan(張馨蘭) and Chiang Chia-chi (姜嘉琦) are both nineteen years old and studying at a cram school for the two-year junior college entrance examination. They are frequent worshippers at Taipei’s Hsingtien Temple. “My parents are pious believers,” Chang says. “Once they took me to a temple to get a shou ching [a charm that soothes the spirit of a child that has been frightened]. Since then, I often go with my friends when I feel in need of spiritual strength.”
Matsu, Goddess of the Sea, is the favorite deity of Taiwan's fishermen and probably the island's most popular goddess.
Certain occasions cry out for a visit to the neighborhood temple. For example, whenever a son or daughter is due to take high-school or university entrance exams, their families and sometimes their teachers will go to the temple to present petitions and solicit divine assistance. The worshippers place a copy of the student’s examination admission certificate on a basket in front of the altar and tell the gods the student’s name and admission number. Then they pray for success. Such scenes are commonplace during the summer, when most of the important entrance examinations are held.
To some extent, religion is success-oriented. People who go to temples are looking for security and a degree of efficacy. A god who answers prayers earns much incense, but a god who cannot provide the help desired will be left alone. Generally speaking, temples house more than one god. Taipei’s Lungshan Temple is home to over sixty deities. These include Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, and Matsu, Goddess of the Sea. But numerous minor figures are also represented here: the god of farsightedness, the god with ears that can hear sounds miles away, god of the sun, goddess of the moon, goddess of destiny, goddess of delivery, goddess of fertility, mountain god, and many others. People choose a deity to worship according to their needs.
A few temples are not only places for worship or religious solace, they also provide charms and incantations as a means of solving worshippers’ problems. For example, the Taoist Wu Tang Shan Temple in Shulin, Taipei Count, was built by Chen Kuei-cheng(陳奎呈) and his wife twenty years ago. The couple believe that they possess certain special abilities, such as a talent for geomancy, and the ability to quiet the souls of those in spiritual distress. They also claim to know how to help prevent calamities and to change someone’s destiny, and they provide sacred memorial tablets inscribed with the names of deceased persons.
Festival processions lure crowds of spectators. In Taiwan, most people go to the temple at sometime, irrespective of age, sex, job, or even religious creed.
Located above Chen’s four-story apartment, this temple presents a pretty strange appearance, with several zoological specimens and numerous photos of the couple reciting incantations for their believers. A “Do not enter” sign hangs outside the temple, which, unlike most others, is closed to the general public. According to Chen, he has 150,000 followers islandwide, among them several legislators and high-ranking officials.
In general, large temples are built and maintained with private donations. Taipei’s Lungshan Temple is a case in point. Every believer who gives money to the temple is assigned a kuang ming teng, literally, a bright light. This is a small candle or electric lamp, encased behind a lens shaped glass set in a pillar beside an altar. This light is supposed to confer peace upon the giver. But not all large temples accept donations, or at least not all of the time. “Believers are only permitted to make donations at Hsingtien during the temple’s annual meeting,’’ Liu Jui-e of Hsingtien Temple says. “That’s because of our six principles: no donation boxes, no paper money, no livestock offerings, no folk art performances, no gifts of gold as a means of thanking the gods, and no donations from the general public.” These principles date back to the founding of the temple half a century ago, when most people were comparatively poor. The temple’s founders believed that everyone should be blessed by the gods, regardless of wealth or social status.
Smaller temples are built and maintained with donations from neighborhood residents. One such community temple is Yuchu Temple, in Lukang, central Taiwan. This enshrines Tien Tu Yuan Shuai, a god much favored by actors anxious to guarantee a successful performance. Most temples, irrespective of scale, are managed by a committee or a board of directors elected from the congregation, and Shih Chao-chuan(施肇川) is a member of Yuchu’s administrative committee. “In the past, we discouraged tourists from visiting,’’ he says, “ because we thought they might damage the temple environment and be a bad influence on community residents, who tend to be rather unsophisticated. Now, we’re more open-minded. Almost all our worshippers are local residents. We support the temple by ourselves, and it is the spiritual symbol of our community.”
Lukang’s Lungshan Temple—a historical site popular with tourists and photographers, especially those fond of temple architecture. For locals, it is now more of a social center than a principal place of worship.
In recent years the interests needs of templegoers have undergone a change. Some of the larger temples, responding to the demand for a focus that goes beyond a social center and place of worship, have expanded their activities to include charitable programs, social education, and the promotion of grassroots cultural development.
One of the island’s most active Buddhist centers is Lungshan Temple, in Taipei. Established in 1740, it ranks among Taiwan’s oldest and largest temples, tracing its roots back across the Taiwan Strait to the mainland’s Fujian province. Every year the Lantern Festival draws throngs of people to this glorious edifice for one of the most graceful celebrations in the venerable Chinese tradition. But recently the temple committee has started to participate in many other, social welfare activities. “Beside being a temple in the traditional sense, Lungshan now serves as a tourist center, charitable foundation, and focus for social education,” says Chang Chun-hung (張俊宏), Lungshan’s executive secretary. "This is the trend for most of Taiwan’s larger temples.” Lungshan now offers facilities that include classes in calligraphy, flower arrangement, and Japanese, all of which are free to members of the public.
The temple has also donated a considerable amount of money to high schools and colleges in the form of scholarships and other financial assistance. Each year it also distributes about US$2.2 million among various charity programs designed to aid the poor or the sick. This generosity is attracting more and more volunteers to the temple’s service programs. Numerous housewives in their fifties and sixties, drawn from nearby communities, regularly go to the temple to do chores there. Several junior and senior high-school teachers are on call to offer counseling on personal and family problems. The temple’s administrative committee is planning to build a center in Panchiao, a Taipei suburb, with the aim of promoting cultural education there. The committee also has plans, still in the early stages, for a geriatric center and an ossuary.
God effigies enter through the main gate of Tienhou Temple in Lukang. Annual festivals like this one are magnets for tourists.
Taipei’s Hsingtien is another temple that is reaching out to provide more services to the community. This Taoist temple, dedicated to the legendary hero Kuan Kung, draws innumerable worshippers every day, most of them praying for increased business prosperity. A visit to Hsingtien is de rigueur for legislative and presidential hopefuls when it comes to election time. It was the first temple to build a community library, nineteen years ago, and it now has two branch libraries and one reading room in Taipei as well as the main library, which houses 150,000 volumes. It offers a wide range of newly published books and even a variety of comic books, endeavoring to meet the needs of as many readers as possible. The library has also set aside a special area for senior citizens, where they can take advantage of magnifying glasses and high-powered reading spectacles provided by the temple.
The temple library has recently launched a program called “Library Outreach” with the aim of distributing books paid for by the Government Information Office to people living in rural areas. At the same time, it broadcasts two radio programs, where listeners can call in to discuss books they have read recently. All this is in addition to various ad hoc social education programs that target a variety of age groups and interests.
Hsingtien has a long record of focusing on medical and other charitable programs. It currently earmarks US$111,000 a year for the social-work departments of ten private and public hospitals. The temple has also begun work on a seventeen story, 300-bed hospital in Sanhsia, Taipei county, due to be completed in 1997. It gives substantial financial support to poor families, and the victims of natural disasters such as typhoons and floods. Most recently, it donated large quantities of insecticide to help combat a dangerous outbreak of mosquito-borne dengue fever in Nantou, central Taiwan.
The richer temples fund hospitals, geriatric centers, and other social programs. With the graying of Taiwan society, such activities assume an increasingly vital role.
Fokuangshan Temple is the island’s largest Buddhist temple. It is presided over by the Venerable Hsing Yun (星雲大師) and is renowned for its outstanding contributions to promoting the dharma, or teachings of Buddhism. It also pays increasing attention to education and charitable activities generally. Buddhist higher education was given a major boost when the temple established the Chung-hua Institute of Buddhist Studies in 1967. Graduates from the institute either go on to further studies abroad, or find work in various Buddhist cultural, publishing, and educational businesses.
Fokuangshan Temple runs the Fokuang Publishing House, which has put out about five hundred titles, cassettes, and videotapes since it was established in 1959. Besides focusing on serious work, such as collections of sutras and scholarly papers on Buddhism, it also has on its list more popular books, including prose, poetry, and fiction with Buddhist themes.
But not every large temple gives priority to charitable and educational programs when trying to meet the needs of contemporary Taiwan society. Tienhou Temple in Lukang is the island’s principal temple dedicated to Matsu, the Goddess of the Sea, a particular favorite with Taiwan’s fishermen. Every year, it attracts countless worshippers from all around the island. Lukang is well known for its cultural atmosphere and activities, and the temple has made great efforts in promoting grass roots cultural development.
“Tienhou is the religious center of Lukang, which also boasts a number of important historical sites,” says Cheng Cheng-che (鄭正哲), a member of the temple’s administrative committee. “We think it’s more important for this temple to promote cultural development at the grass roots level than to build libraries and hospitals, especially since Lukang already has several good ones.”
There are more than 12,000 temples scattered around Taiwan, ranging from the famous and well endowed to the simplest wayside shrines dedicated to folk gods.
Despite achievements chalked up by innumerable temples, a few criticisms centering on a small number of them are occasionally heard. Examples? “Well, at some temples the caretakers, or even committee members, attract donations from worshippers and then appropriate them as their personal property,’’ says Chang Chun-hung of Taipei’s Lungshan Temple. “Some temples classify worshippers according to the amount of money they donate. And there have even been stories of temple caretakers seducing women by pretending to stand in for a god and solve their problems that way.”
Another emerging questionable feature is the growing closeness between certain temples and politically-oriented interest groups. “Lungshan Temple doesn’t allow political campaigns," Chang Chun-hung says. “We think religion is a long-term thing, while politics is temporary. So we insist on keeping the two separate.” His view is echoed by Liu Jui-e of Taipei’s Hsingtien Temple. “We’ve said no to a lot of politicians who’ve come to us hoping for donations,” she says. “Even if it means offending people in power, we’re adamant that Hsingtien shouldn’t get involved with any political party.”
Worshippers recite scriptures at an annual meeting. Most temples are well managed, although there have been some scandals.
She also highlights another problem. “At present, Hsingtien has three separate organizations—temple affairs, cultural and educational foundations, and hospitals—and they all need professional staffers. But they’re hard to get, because we can’t pay enough." Liu herself trained as a social worker and garnered extensive work experience outside of the temple environment before coming to Hsingtien. For her, however, there are consolations. “Although I earn less than before,” she says, “I get a sense of peace and happiness, working here.”
Temples may be embracing a wider role in modern Taiwan society than ever before, but their basic goals remain the same. “They exist to promote traditional Chinese virtues, purify people’s hearts, and work toward the creation of a peaceful society,” Liu says. “A temple’s resources may be limited, yes. But there’s no limit to what it can achieve with them.”