Today we went to the Wunchang Temple in Taipei. Apparently, this is where you go to give thanks to the gods for success in exams. Jiayu just passed the written phase of an entrance exam. The temple itself is quite modest. It’s in a very old part of the city. There’s the main shrine with […]
文昌宮
交阯陶
Koji pottery is a type of folk art commonly seen on traditional architecture, combining modeling, firing and painting, that originally developed in China’s Fujian province. Popular themes include auspicious wishes, legends and fables, folk tales and stories from history. The pottery is often used on temples or as decorative elements on traditional residences. Koji pottery […]
praying at the feet of the Buddha
Taipei Times bilingual article
hands
A woman prepares incense sticks, binding them together with elastic bands. A priest performs a ceremony, painting in the pupils of the eyes of a god statue, cradling the leg of a statue with his hand. Both are taking part in a temple festival in the important Matsu temple of Chaotian Gong in […]
kahn
crowds
We had no idea what was going to happen. We’d only entered the temple at this late hour to use the facilities. There was a great crush of people trying to get in, deferring only slightly to the greater crush of people who were trying to get out. Bottle-necked in the arched entrance, there was, […]
waiting for the noise to stop
In November 2010 I turned 40. It seemed a significant age, and for some months prior I had been thinking about how best to mark it. An image had formed in my mind: sitting on the top of the Bayon in the Angkor Wat complex near Siem Reap in Cambodia, in the cooling evening under […]
baishatun matsu 白沙屯媽祖
Baishatun’s Gong Tian Temple was already packed with pilgrims late afternoon when we arrived. The pilgrimage was due to start at half past midnight. We were waiting in the space between the main altar and the stationary palanquin in which Matsu would soon set off for Beigang.
the coat
Longshan Temple, Taipei, 2015. It’s not hot here now, but not cold, either. Not fur coat cold. This coat was unlikely real fur. But many people in Taiwan seem to feel the cold; especially when they come from the south. Longshan is in the north, but this girl’s manner, wardrobe, the shine of her […]
temple door
I’m finding these temple festivals increasingly difficult to find the enthusiasm to go to. The interest nowadays is purely photographic, and I don’t even lift the camera to my eye anymore unless the idea is new or, if it is similar to something I have already captured, an improvement on what I already have, or […]