Last week I met up with my uncle and auntie when they were here in Taiwan for a few days.. they came over to visit Tamsui Old Town.. other than the usual knick knack, souvenir and tit-bit shops, we also went to one of the temples in the area.. Fuyou Temple.. (福佑宫)
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| exterior of the temple.. view from the road |
As it was a working day, there wasn't that many people in the temple..
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| interior of the temple |
At closer look, there are quite a number of deities being worshiped in this temple.. a total of 10 actually.. and in order to guide devotees through the proper sequences of praying, there are several plaques that show the correct order of offering joss sticks to these deities..
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| sorry 4 e reflection.. e sun was setting at tat time.. |
Also, the joss sticks are free.. so devotees can just take and pray..and instead of the usual 3 joss sticks per deity in Msia, here is 1 each.. thus the temple is not as "smokey" as it would have been..
The main deity in this temple is
Mazu (媽祖), whom is referred to as 天上聖母 (
Tianshang Shengmu) here. The temple has a hall on each of its sides.. among the more well-known deities worshiped here include
Goddess of Mercy (观音菩萨),
God of Culture and Literature (文昌帝君),
Tai Sui (太歲星君),
Guan Di (關聖帝君),
God of Wealth and Merit (福德正神) and
God of Marriage and Love (月下老人).
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| God of Culture and Literature |
Notice the red box in the middle of the photo?
Students or those sitting for exams, academic or professional, will put photocopies of their exam registrations or exam IDs into the box, praying for good results.. and the box was pretty full..
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| God of Marriage and Love |
Another one of the more "popular" deities.. :p
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| God of Wealth and Merit |
The big golden
yuanbao (元宝) in front of the urn made sure that people know what this God is in-charged of...
For those who reads Chinese and wishes to know more about this temple, you can visit
this and
this websites.
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