Taiwan Today

“During my elementary school days, our class would be dismissed at 10 o’clock on the last day of the Mazu pilgrimage to see the statue return to Dajia,” recalls Li Ming-huai. Li, now 32, was born in Da-an Township, Taichung County, central Taiwan, which neighbors Dajia Township and the “home” of the Dajia Mazu, alternately known as the goddess of the sea or the Queen of Heaven, at Da Jia Jenn Lann Temple. “Our family and other villagers would rush to Dajia to watch the whole ceremony at Jenn Lann Temple,” he says. “The statue’s return is always a big event for our village. In fact, it’s big for all of the 53 villages surrounding Dajia.”

Devotees hold that Mazu is the deified spirit of an actual young woman, Lin Mo-niang, who was born in 960 and grew up on Meizhou Island off the coast of Fujian province, mainland China. According to one widely accepted version of the legend, she was recognized as having supernatural powers at the age of 16 and died at the age of 28, when she ascended to heaven.

Mazu worship began in Taiwan as early as the 15th century, when the first immigrants from Fujian began to arrive on the island. According to the organizers of the Taichung County Mazu International Festival, the statue that became known as the Dajia Mazu was brought from Fujian to the Dajia area in 1730. The pilgrimage began later in the 18th century, when the worshippers began carrying the Dajia Mazu from Jenn Lann Temple back to Lin Mo-niang’s original home on Meizhou Island, a trip made once every 12 years.

After Japan assumed rule over Taiwan in 1895, however, the colonial government discouraged all travel across the Taiwan Strait. To keep the tradition alive, the destination of the pilgrimage was therefore shifted to Chao-Tian Temple in Beigang Township, Yunlin County, southern Taiwan. The tour eventually grew into an annual event. In 1988, the destination was changed once again, this time from Chao-Tian Temple to Fongtian Temple in Xingang Township, Chiayi County, which lies just south of Yunlin County. Chao-Tian Temple, however, continues to be a site of major Mazu festivals and also conducts its own Mazu pilgrimage.

Today there are more than 800 Mazu temples scattered around Taiwan, according to Chen Jyh-sheng, director-general of the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Taichung County. Chen says there are an estimated 10 million followers of Mazu in Taiwan and a total of some 200 million around the world, including devotees in mainland China and other countries with sizeable ethnic Chinese populations such as Vietnam, Malaysia, the United States and Australia.

The annual tour of the goddess is held during the third month of the lunar calendar in celebration of Mazu’s birthday, which falls on the 23rd day of that month. During the Lantern Festival, which begins on the 15th day of the first lunar month, Jenn Lann Temple decides upon the dates for that year’s pilgrimage by casting wooden divination blocks, thereby acquiring Mazu’s “approval.”

This year’s pilgrimage was the third consecutive one for Li Ming-huai, who rode a bicycle this year, as he did the previous two. Lin describes following the Dajia Mazu for three straight years as a family tradition, as his grandfather and father had done so previously. “When I announced that I was going to join the tour, my family warned me that if I made a promise to Mazu, I would have to keep the promise for three years in a row. It’s an unwritten rule in our family,” he says. “Another reason I needed to do it the first year was that my wife was six or seven months pregnant, and I wanted to ask for Mazu’s blessing for my unborn daughter.”

Family matters and tradition aside, Li also wanted to participate in the pilgrimage to express his appreciation to the deity for the assistance she has given him over the course of his life. “Whenever we had to make any difficult decisions, our parents would tell us ‘ask Mazu.’ Joining the procession is a way for me to show my thankfulness for the great help she has given me for so long.”

For many years, the three major events of the pilgrimage have been the Dajia Mazu’s departure from Jenn Lann Temple, the celebration of her birthday at Fongtian Temple, usually on the third or fourth day of the tour, and her return to Jenn Lann Temple. This year, devotees departed from Jenn Lann Temple on April 16, attended the celebration of Mazu’s birthday at Fongtian Temple on April 18 and returned to Jenn Lann Temple on April 25, a total of nine days, or one day more than usual. The tour covered some 330 kilometers and passed 102 temples devoted to Mazu along the route. The number of believers and onlookers, including those who have merely accompanied the procession for one day as well as those who have completed the whole trip, has been around 1 million or more each year since 2005, according to Taichung County’s Chen Jyh-sheng, who adds that the number continues to increase annually.

Pilgrimage Experience

For Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh, an associate professor in the Department of Indigenous Culture at National Dong Hwa University in Hualien, eastern Taiwan, the pilgrimage experience started when she boarded the train in Hualien and set off for Dajia Train Station. Yeh says that although Taiwanese people rarely talk to strangers, the train bound for Dajia was different. “We all started talking with each other as soon as we saw that everyone was carrying luggage and equipment for the pilgrimage,” she says.

Of all the sights associated with the pilgrimage, the beginning is one of the most spectacular. On the day the procession started this year, group after group of travelers with heavy bags, including Yeh, filed out of Dajia Train Station. Shortly after noon, believers and onlookers began to assemble in the plaza of Jenn Lann Temple, offering applause to performing troupes from Jenn Lann and other temples around the island. By 7 p.m. on the day of the Dajia Mazu’s departure, the area around the temple was already jam-packed with tens of thousands of devotees, onlookers, dancers, drummers, stilt walkers and other performers.

“Dajia becomes a sleepless town the night of the departure,” says Kenji Sugata, a Japanese photographer who owns Taiwan-based Duck Entertainment Ltd. Sugata, who attended the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage for the first time this year, is familiar with cultural events in Taiwan, having previously documented other festivals on the island. “People here are so crazy about religious ceremonies, just like folks in Japan,” he says.

As departure time came closer, the procession’s “informer”—tasked with informing residents of area villages of the Dajia Mazu’s arrival—made his entrance, along with honor guards and flag teams consisting mostly of women. At exactly 11 p.m., a Jenn Lann Temple director announced “The pilgrimage is now setting off!” The announcement sparked a deafening round of firecrackers and fireworks that tinted the sky red.

Once in motion, the procession presents an array of spectacular sights. Members of the honor guard, for example, bear a pair of “dragon-phoenix flags,” as well as a dragon pole, phoenix pole, 12 plaques and 18 kinds of weapons. The volunteers serving in the honor guard are divided into two teams, ensuring that one team is always on hand to ensure the safety of the Dajia Mazu statue while allowing the other to rest. This year, the honor guard consisted of some 240 members, with most over the age of 40.

Many devotees carry their own flags, which consist of a triangular piece of embroidered cloth attached to a pole that is topped with a little bell and paper temple charm. The flag symbolizes Mazu’s protection of the bearer during the pilgrimage. Prior to the tour, each flag must be passed through the smoke rising from the censer in Jenn Lann Temple, an act that is said to suffuse them with Mazu’s spirit. Individuals that already have flags from past pilgrimages must burn the temple charms collected during the previous year’s procession and tie on a new one. Li Ming-huai says that since the same flag can be used year after year, fellow pilgrims show respect for team members whose flags have become blackened by incense smoke, which indicates that a devotee has a long history of participation in the pilgrimage.

The flags are passed through the smoke from censers at other temples along the route before arriving at Xingang’s Fongtian Temple. As soon as the flags are passed through the smoke of the burning incense at Fongtian Temple, however, they must be wrapped up in order to “retain” the spirit of the goddess. They are only unwrapped when a devotee returns home, explains Huang Dun-hou, a teacher at Dajia Junior High School who has made the pilgrimage for more than 20 years in a row.

Another common scene during the procession is the queues of followers crouching in the middle of the road, waiting for the palanquin to pass over them. Eight men—four on each side—carry the palanquin, which is suspended from two long poles. They hoist it high over the devotees, who pray for Mazu’s blessing and express their gratitude to her by kneeling as she passes above them, Huang explains.

During his three pilgrimages, Li Ming-huai has learned that one of the most meaningful parts is the close relationship that has developed between those in the procession and the local people in the towns and villages it passes through. Along the route from Taichung to Chiayi, enormous crowds turn out to greet the pilgrims with offerings and prayer. “It’s a major annual event for local people to prepare for the arrival of the Dajia Mazu statue every year,” Li says. “For them, it’s similar to the anticipation of the Lunar New Year holiday.”

Along the pilgrimage route, many schools make their playgrounds or classrooms available to the public, allowing devotees to snatch a little sleep at night. Some hotels even put up signs telling pilgrims that free showers are available. And while the villages’ accommodations, offerings and prayers are appreciated, one of the things nearest and dearest to the hearts—and stomachs—of devotees is the free food the villagers provide. Food preparation in the villages typically includes picking and preparing vegetables, as well as working together in groups to make dumplings, among other things. While the residents of some villages prepare all of the food by themselves, others hire chefs to cook for the pilgrims. The plentiful food leads veterans of the pilgrimage, who have learned where to stop to sample the best of local delicacies, to become connoisseurs. “I learned from them that the meatless rice balls at the end of Xiluo Bridge are a ‘must eat’ and that the corn at Huwei Township is about the sweetest you’ll find,” Li says.

There are several reasons behind the voluntary provision of food to pilgrims. One is simply that the example of Mazu’s kindness inspires locals to show the same compassion to others. Li describes the act of giving food as selfless dedication to Mazu. “When I would express my appreciation to them, some would just say ‘I’m not the one who’s important here—it’s Mazu that’s treating you.’”

This sincere devotion to the goddess is one of the most moving parts of the pilgrimage, according to professor Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh. “They present the food respectfully to us with both hands and also wish us a safe journey,” she says. Yeh, who has visited some 40 countries around the world and taken part in religious processions in Spain and France, says that the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage is the only one she knows of during which devotees can enjoy free food for the length of their journey. In fact, such is the beneficence of local communities that Yen Chin-piao, a legislator and president of Jenn Lann Temple, says that “no one needs to bring any money to participate in our activity.”

Accumulation of Blessings

Another reason that locals offer food is their belief that the more food pilgrims consume, the more blessings the provider acquires. Those offering the food believe that the accumulation of such blessings can pay off down the road in the form of the realization of personal wishes or an improved financial state, teacher Huang Dun-hou says.

In 2004, the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Taichung County Government began cooperating with Jenn Lann Temple to promote the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage as one of the world’s great religious events. By doing so, the county government has endeavored to build upon the fame of the procession to promote Taiwan’s culture in the areas of religion, drama, tourism, martial arts, local industries and arts. According to Chen Jyh-sheng, in 2009 more than 7 million visitors participated in a month-long series of events related to the Dajia Mazu procession.

Also, in 2004, the Discovery Channel boosted the Dajia Mazu pilgrimage’s international visibility by listing it as one of the world’s three major religious festivals, along with the Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca and the Hindu rite of bathing in the Ganges River. According to the channel, which produces television documentaries largely focusing on history, popular science and technology, these three religious events are the only ones that are unprompted, held annually and attract 1 million or more pilgrims each year.

In 2008, the county government backed Jenn Lann Temple’s efforts to join forces with Mazu devotees in mainland China to propose designating Mazu belief and associated customs as an example of intangible cultural heritage as recognized by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The joint proposal was submitted in early 2009 and formally approved by UNESCO in September that year, with the organization stating that “the Mazu belief and customs have been recognized by the communities concerned as a symbol of their identity and continuity and passed down for centuries from generation to generation.”

Photographer Kenji Sugata says he observes similarities between the efforts of Taiwan and Japan to preserve religious traditions, as some temples in Japan still organize processions in which palanquins carry statues of gods. Li Ming-huai, however, expresses concern that the pilgrimage has lost its feeling of religious reverence. “People don’t show as much respect to the statue as before,” he says. In the old days, when the palanquin was approaching, villagers would simply kneel down and pray until the Dajia Mazu left the area, Li recalls. “It was impossible for us to touch the palanquin, like people usually do today.”

Some long-time Mazu devotees also express concern over the ever-growing crowds the festival attracts. Dajia resident Huang Dun-hou understands how they feel, saying that he used to feel dismayed by the increasing number of tourists at the pilgrimage, particularly at Jenn Lann Temple at the start of the tour. “It seemed like the Dajia Mazu didn’t belong to us locals anymore,” Huang says. He says he gradually came to understand, however, that this was his problem, not Mazu’s. Mazu does not care about the crowds, he says, because as long as worshippers show their sincerity, the goddess bestows blessings on them.

Professor Joyce Hsiu-yen Yeh also admits to having wondered why the procession attracts so many participants. She found her answer in 2009 when she registered a team for the event and learned that most members wanted to join the procession for spiritual reasons. Some wanted to participate to fulfill a vow, while many said they looked forward to acquiring peace of mind through being in Mazu’s presence during her journey.

A woman over the age 60 who had participated in the pilgrimage for 42 consecutive years told Yeh that she eagerly awaits the start of the tour each year. “I asked her, ‘Don’t you ever feel tired after walking for so many days?’” Yeh recalls. “She replied ‘No, not at all, because I’m doing this for Mazu.’”

Write to Vicky Huang at powery18@mail.gio.gov.tw