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When you enter traditional family homes in Taiwan, you will often see large colored images of deities. Lee Wen-huan, a professor in the Graduate Institute of Taiwan History, Culture and Languages at National Kao­hsiung Normal University, explains that such images are called shenmingcai (“deity colors”). The deity most frequently pictured is the Bodhisattva Guanyin, often accompanied by Mazu, Guan Gong, the Kitchen God, and the Earth God. “These are the deities that are most widely worshipped in Taiwanese popular religion.”

Routine worship practices

From about the age of six, Lee was assigned the task of lighting incense morning and evening in his family’s home to pay respects to the deities. First he would light three sticks of incense and face outdoors to worship Tiangong (the Jade Emperor, ruler of Heaven), then light three more to venerate the indoor deities. The idea was something like greeting the deities and paying one’s respects twice a day.

To Taiwanese, the first and fifteenth days of each month in the lunar calendar are special days, when besides worshipping with incense, they present offerings and fresh flowers. “This is known as ‘rewarding the army.’” The idea is that the deities lead divine armies to protect communities, which is an arduous task, so believers will prepare offerings each month to reward the soldiers and officers. “In fact, this is very much a notion born of the human world.”

If one’s family has a shop or other commercial business, the days of worship are the second and sixteenth of each lunar month, and the main spirits to be venerated are the Earth God and the “hungry ghosts.” Lai Longyi, fourth-generation owner of Lai Shin Chun Incense in Chiayi, explains: “Because the Earth God has jurisdiction over the land, people with businesses can pray to him for prosperity for their enterprises.” However, Lai emphasizes, “You can’t invite wandering ghosts into your home, so you must always pay your respects to them from the doorway.”

Young people often ask Lai for advice on how to worship. Besides the routine days of veneration each month, Lai lists the customary days of worship for the entire year. Counting from the lunar new year, the ninth day of the first lunar month is the birthday of Tiangong, the 15th day is Lantern Festival, and the second day of the second month is the birthday of the Earth God. Mazu’s birthday falls in the third month, while in the fourth month there is Qingming Festival (the Tomb Sweeping Festival), when reverence is paid to one’s ancestors, and in the fifth, the Dragon Boat Festival. The Ghost Festival, when the hungry spirits of the dead wander among the living and are provided with offerings, comes in the seventh month, Mid-Autumn Festival in the eighth, and Double Ninth Festival in the ninth, followed by the winter solstice and year-end workplace banquets. The cycle of important days runs throughout the year, and Taiwanese prepare offerings for all these days.
 

Polytheism

Who or what do most Taiwanese worship? To answer this question Lee Wen-huan starts from the deities worshipped through the “deity colors.” The Bodhisattva Guanyin, usually the central image among the deities pictured, came to China from India and became localized. Guanyin is especially venerated by Taiwanese, and her alternative name “Guanyin Buddha” indicates that her status in our minds is similar to that of the Buddha himself.

In contrast to deities who came to China from the lands to its west, Guan Gong and Mazu are examples of deified humans. Lee explains: “The term ‘deified humans’ refers to real, historically recorded people who were elevated to the status of deities because of their meritorious achievements.” The Earth God, meanwhile, is a case of nature worship. Starting from a rock, a heap of earth, or a tree, through human imagination this ­deity has evolved into the form of the kindly old man that we know today. The Kitchen God, on the other hand, originates in the veneration of material objects. “Simply put, Han Chinese are polytheistic and their beliefs combine a variety of elements including reverence for nature, for human characters, and for material objects.”

Communicating with deities

The incense, offerings, and spirit money used in worship are all channels of communication with deities and spirits. Lai Longyi says that foreign visitors often ask what those long stick-shaped objects are. “In olden times people used incense as a kind of ‘courier’ to carry their hopes to the deities.” The image of incense smoke wafting upwards gives the impression of the smoke carrying people’s aspirations up to heaven. Some people even explain the meaning of incense burning by comparing it to Wi-Fi, which gives foreign friends an immediate under­standing of its purpose.

“Spirit money, meanwhile, is based on the concept of a humble offering that expresses gratitude to the gods,” says Lee. Lai explains that jinzhi (“gold paper”) variety of spirit money is reserved exclusively for worshipping deities, while the money burned for hungry ghosts is yinzhi (“silver paper”). Jinzhi, the currency of the gods, is made by sticking gold-colored metal foil onto bamboo paper, and is often also printed with auspicious Chinese characters expressing the desire for wellbeing or longevity. The spirit money that is burned for ­hungry ghosts includes a type called jingyi (“threads and clothes”) that represents products needed as daily necessities by the spirits. Lai unfolds a sheet of jingyi spirit money on which are printed images of combs, clothing, shoes, hats, and other everyday items, and explains that the die-cut hole in the paper is there in simulation of ancient coinage, which had a hole in the middle.

If you want a clear answer from the gods to a question expressed in your prayers, then casting jiaobei (divination blocks) is another way to communicate with them. These are a pair of crescent-shaped red blocks that are flat on one side and rounded on the other. When you toss the two blocks on the ground and one comes up yang (lying with its rounded side facing up) and other yin (flat side up), this is called shengjiao (“sacred blocks”) and it means that the gods have agreed to your request, and the matter that you prayed about will go smoothly; ordinarily this “yes” only holds if one throws a shengjiao three times in succession. Another method of seeking answers from the gods is by drawing bamboo “fortune sticks” or printed “fortune verses” that are provided by the place of worship. In recent years a number of temples, aiming to help foreign visitors better understand Taiwan’s folk belief systems (including Hsing Tian Kong in Taipei, Donglong Temple in Donggang, Pingtung County, the Mazu Temple in Lugang, Changhua County, and the Grand Mazu Temple in Tainan) have prepared English-language fortune verses to point them in the right direction.

The use of numbers in worship is another complex topic. Traditionally, odd numbers represent yang while even numbers represent yin, and one must always use odd numbers when worshipping deities, for example by burning three sticks of incense, or presenting offerings of the meat of three animals, or five fruits. In addition, many items used as decorations and offerings at temples are chosen because their names sound the same as, or similar to, words with auspicious meanings. For example, when worshipping the Wenchang Emperor (the God of Literature, who helps students on their exams), acceptable offerings include celery (qincai, which sounds like qin, meaning “diligence”), radish (caitou, which suggests hao caitou, meaning “good fortune”), spring onion (cong, which suggests congming, meaning “intelligence”), zongzi dumplings (which suggest gaozhong, meaning “passing exams with a high score”), and garlic (suan, which suggests hui suan, meaning “skilled at calculations”). On the other hand, when praying to Yue Lao, the “Old Man Under the Moon,” who is the god of love and marriage, one should offer red jujubes (hongzao), symbolizing zao zhao­dao—“finding a partner soon,” or peaches (taozi), symbolizing taohua (peach flowers), an allusion to love and romance. Lee Wen-huan notes that this practice is a remnant of ancient sorcery. “Folk beliefs are like time capsules, preserving things from ancient times. At the same time, they incorporate new elements, such as absorbing the ideas of Buddhism and Taoism.” He concludes: “Folk religion is very inclusive.”
 

Understanding temples

When we visit the Taipei Xia-Hai City God Temple in Dadaocheng, informational materials director and foreign language guide Titan Wu leads us into the temple via the “dragon” side (the left-hand doorway). “Generally speaking, people enter via the dragon side and exit via the tiger side. The middle doorway is for the deities to pass through.” In fact, the decor of the temple hints at this: “Looking at the images on the wall, the head of the dragon faces inward, while the tiger faces outward.”

On entering a temple, naturally the first thing to learn about is the main deity that is worshipped there. At ­Hsing Tian Kong the main god is Guan Gong, at Long­shan Temple it is Guanyin, and at Dalongdong Baoan Temple it is the Baosheng Emperor. “Here at the City God Temple the main deity is Cheng­huangye, the City God, who is somewhat like the mayor,” says Wu. Foreign visitors find it especially interesting that there is a division of labor among deities. For example, Yue Lao is responsible for helping people find marriage partners, the Wenchang Emperor helps students, Zhusheng Niangniang is the goddess of childbirth, and if you want protection from a villain you should pray to Huye (the Tiger God).

In the main hall, as in most temples there are statues of many deities, so who are they all? Wu explains: “You can think of this as being like a city government. Cheng­huangye sits in the middle, while his municipal government team and core staff sit in front of him. Those who are positioned farther away, standing, such as the ox-headed and horse-faced guardians of the underworld or the Seventh Lord and the Eighth Lord, are enforcers who take care of business outside.” In the main hall alone there are at least three statues of Cheng­huangye. “This is because the central Cheng­huangye in our main hall doesn’t leave the temple,” relates Wu, “and each Cheng­huangye statue has its own duties to fulfill, with one being tasked with going out on processions and another presiding over religious assemblies.” The Cheng­huangye that sits outside the main door is responsible for listening to people’s prayers when the temple is closed. “This one has the hardest job, because like 7-Eleven he is on duty 24/7, all year round.”

The procedure for worship is to first pay one’s respects to Tiangong, then enter the main hall to greet Cheng­huangye while intoning the words: “Cheng­huangye, please preside; Yue Lao, please assist; and all the deities, please protect.” After that one should introduce oneself by name, state one’s date of birth, and finally explain what one wants to pray for. “In fact, this is all very matter-­of-­fact and not complicated in the least.”

Lee Wen-huan explains more about worship activities at the temple: “Besides the rituals in spring and autumn, we also celebrate the birthdays of the main temple deities.” In the first lunar month there are the birthdays of Tiangong and Qingshui Zushi, in the second, that of the Earth God, followed by the birthdays of Mazu and the Baosheng Emperor in the third month, of Guan Gong in the sixth month, and of Qiniangma in the seventh. When you also add in the many Wangye deities, it turns out that there are so many gods that you have to celebrate a huge number of birthdays. Of course, it’s only natural that we should want to wish happy birthday to the deities who protect us, just as we would to our friends. “Taiwan is an island where there’s always a lot going on, and it’s an interesting place to be. We have so many deities that virtually every day there is a temple somewhere holding some kind of event,” says Lee with a laugh.

Ideas about the afterlife

Why do people worship? Titan Wu offers the following answer: “The ritual of offering respect to the deities gives people a chance to think things over and settle their minds. They can take a moment to think about all the positives and negatives of a situation and consider what other possibilities there might be.”

As the saying goes, “Where there is veneration, there is protection.” Although Confucius said that one should avoid talk of gods and spirits, the worldview shaped by the gods is a force for good in society. “The image that Han Chinese have of the afterlife is in fact separated by only a fine line from our existing lives, and we have always remained very close to the unknown world, keeping the relationship very much a part of daily life,” says Lee Wen-huan. As people interact with deities and ancestors through worship rituals, folk beliefs reflect their collective knowledge and wisdom as these have evolved from daily life, and express people’s gratitude for all that exists. Many older people diligently visit temples on ordinary days, not praying for anything in particular for themselves but just asking the deities for health and tranquility. That mindset is perhaps the most touching aspect of relations between Taiwanese and their gods.

For more pictures, please click 《Religion, Taiwan Style: The Polytheistic Universe of Folk Beliefs》