photo by Jimmy Lin
Qinbi Village on Beigan Island faces out to sea, with its back to the hills. The granite houses form Matsu’s best-preserved Mindong-style settlement. (photo by Jimmy Lin)
During the Horse Feed Cultural Festival, “tranquility wind lanterns” are hung up at Banli Dazhai, an old house in Banli Village, to pray for the wellbeing of local people.
If you come at Lantern Festival to Beigan, an island in the Matsu chain, you will be there at just the right time for the “Baiming Carnival.” In Fuzhou dialect, baiming refers to the ritual whereby, in the period around Lantern Festival, each village sets a specific night on which to worship the deities, laying out all kinds of foods as offerings. This is one of Matsu’s most important folk culture events, and many Matsu people living in Taiwan proper return home at this time for the festivities.
During the Horse Feed Cultural Festival, which marks the opening of the Baiming Carnival on the 13th day of the first lunar month, deities borne on palanquins converge on Banli as a prologue to their procession around the area. (photo by Jimmy Lin)
During the procession, each household burns “horse feed” as an offering to the horse ridden by the White Horse King.
Simple scaffolding erected on the beach serves as a platform for repainting fishing boats.
Mindong (Eastern Fujianese) architecture is a distinctive feature of Matsu. Qinbi Village on Beigan is the best-preserved and most representative Mindong settlement. Facing the sea, their backs to the hills, the village’s stone buildings are arranged in a charmingly haphazard way, following the local terrain. Since being renovated the old houses have regained their vitality, and as homestays and restaurants have moved in, tourists have come here too. Staring dreamily out to sea and letting one’s mind go empty for a while brings a kind of simple happiness.
