Taiwan Matsu Pilgrimage
The Matsu Pilgrimage came through Yuanlin on Saturday, April 25th. I wrote a journal post about it, and here is an excellent article explaining the Matsu Pilgrimage from the Taipei Times.
We went to the temple early, at 10am, and there weren't that many people around at that time. The temple is just across the street from the Yuanlin train station. We really didn't know what to expect because we had to ask around, and the only reason we knew about the pilgrimage was because of the Taipei Times article. There were many happy people in the temple, dropping off their offerings and praying.
Outside the temple, people in front of businesses were getting ready with their little tables of offerings.
And don't forget to burn the money! This is fake money being burned as an offering to the gods.
The pilgrimage felt much like a parade would be back home in Canada, except of course for the chaos, firecrackers, random traffic coming through, etc...
There were interesting Chinese characters, groups, and dancers.
This guy gave me the 'Taiwan picture pose':
Don't forget the firecrackers! They lit one of these off by us every few minutes. As you can see from the flying bits, we'd get nailed by them from time to time.
I don't know who actually enjoys the firecrackers, they are so loud that you have to plug your ears, yet they are at every event.
In all the chaos, is it any surprise that this guy has a hearing aid?
Many more groups of people, cars, and floats came through.
Similar to parades in Canada, businesses did their thing. Here's Mastercard:
And here's one of many karaoke trucks that came through the parade, with sexy women singing on the stage at the back of the truck. We regularly see these in town for no apparent reason.
This guy has a fake monkey on his scooter (with a helmet on) because it's the year of the monkey.
I took advantage of crowds and took pictures of people.
This cute little girl is doing the 'byebye' bowing and praying ritual:
These devotees were taking a well deserved rest at the temple. The pilgrimage lasts 7 nights and covers 300km.
I took advantage of my foreignerness and stood in areas where I was not allowed to stand. Everyone around me was getting told they couldn't stand in a certain area, including one very old lady who insisted on standing where she was so she could perform her 'bye-bye's (prayer) to the devotees as they go by. The officials kepts trying to get her out of they way, but she was very insistent and I found it very cute. Here she is, doing her thing:
An excellent dragon dance came by. Surprisingly, we don't get to see these enough in Taiwan. In fact, we didn't even see one during Chinese New Year. The only time I see dragon dances is when they go inside stores and shops, as this is a temple's way of soliciting money from a business (you come in, do your dance, and the business is obliged to give money for good luck). These guys were good.
Look at the guy's face:
After two hours of parading, things got really hectic, as the special matsu shrine was approaching. This was what the whole pilgrimage is for, and people take turns carrying it (often resulting in violent fighting over who gets to carry it).
Whoever touches it will be blessed... I thought the Chinese were pushy when it comes to lining up for icecream or for the bathroom, but my thoughts were brought to a whole new level after this. People were throwing themselves in front the shrine as it was coming and everyone was just going a little crazy. First this twirly thing came by:
but no one cared about that, since soon after came the very special shrine as seen below. One funny thing I must add about this picture is that if you look at the foreground, you can see a plastic cup with an incense stick poking through. I thought this was an ingenious solution to the problem of having burning incense sticks in dense crowds like this.
After that the crowds quickly dispersed, as though it was a typical day.
Mark: Where's the food?
Any event in Taiwan always brings loads of food and there were two whole side streets blocked off for food preparation by the vatfuls. A little scary, but I didn't eat any of it.
As we were heading back to our scooters, someone handed this fat incense stick to Mark.
I suppose we should have put it to rest in the temple or in a shrine, but instead we took it with us and mounted it on the front of my scooter. As we were walking, a father of two of our students passed us with a confused look on his face saying "Mark, what are you doing?" Our Taiwanese friends are always so confused that we find things like this interesting. They think things like Matsu Pilgrimages are just typical- not even something worth bringing a camera to!