Taiwan 2002

		Religion
		Folk Religion Despite having no official number of registered followers, Chinese folk religion has some of the most energetic believers and is one of the most celebrated religions in Taiwan. Chinese folk religion is a faith whose theology, rituals, and officiants are widely diffused into other secular and social institutions. Taiwan's difficult pioneer environment of the 17th and 18th centuries created a strong need for religion, and folk religion was the choice of many Chinese immigrants to the island. They brought from the mainland images of gods and traditional religious beliefs. While transplanting their religion, they adapted it functionally to their new society, sometimes even creating new gods and rituals to meet their needs for security and survival. The resulting mixture of beliefs is called folk religion for the sake of convenience. Like Taoism, folk religion has a broad pantheon of gods and goddesses. Relations between gods and people, and between gods and gods, are of paramount importance. Like Buddhism, folk religion offers salvation, or at least temporary aid, for true believers. Although folk religion has been influenced significantly by Buddhism and Taoism, it is neither Buddhist nor Taoist. People associated with Taoism often place folk religion in the same category as Taoism; however, they concede that folk religion includes a number of gods that Taoism does not recognize. In folk religion, the supreme deity is the God of Heaven 天公, who is recognized as a personification of justice. Below this supreme deity are hundreds of lesser gods. Almost every neighborhood in Taiwan has a temple for the Earth God 土地公, and many families make offerings to the House God 地基主 when they move into a house. One of the most popular deities is Matsu, the patron goddess of the sea and fishermen. Meizhou in Fujian Province is where worship for the Meizhou Matsu originated. In 1987, worshipers celebrated the 1,000th anniversary of Matsu's ascent to heaven with a round-the-island parade of her image. Her birthday on the 23rd day of the third lunar month is regularly celebrated with great pomp as worshipers carry her image in a procession through cities around Taiwan. On April 7, 2001, ten Yuan Hsiang Matsu Temples in Tainan, one of the oldest Han Chinese settlements in southern Taiwan, jointly held a festival, instead of holding their own events individually. Statues from the temples were paraded through the streets of Tainan together to show the characteristics of each temple. To promote the event as a tourist attraction in addition to a religious ceremony, the Tainan City Government provided free bus rides to visitors during the festivities. Some deities in Taiwan folk religion were originally people who, through their actions or accomplishments in life, later became gods. The brave warrior Kuan Yu 關羽 from the Period of the Three Kingdoms; General Koxinga 鄭成功, who drove the Dutch colonists off Taiwan in the 17th century; and the renowned healer Hua Tuo 華陀, who lived sometime between the first and third century a.d., all have faithful followings in Taiwan. Their birthdays are celebrated following the traditional rituals similar to those of Confucius' birthday. For example, on August 13, 2001, the Hsingtien Temple 行天宮 in Taipei City and the Hsiehtien Temple 協天廟 in Chiaohsi, Ilan County held grand, yet frugal, celebrations for Kuan Yu. Taiwan's Wang Yeh 王爺 deities are believed to be celestial emissaries sent by the heavens to ensure the safety of mankind by driving away evil spirits and eradicating epidemics. There are said to be 360 Wang Yeh in Taiwan, but the religious practices surrounding each of these celestial lords are different, depending on the locality and the time of year. Wang Yeh are often worshiped together in groups of three or five. While the Wang Yeh are worshiped mainly by those originally from Fujian Province, the San Shan Kuo-wang 三山國王, literally, the Three Kings of the Mountains, are revered by Chinese of Hakka descent (an ethnic and linguistic subset of Han Chinese culture). Legendary stories surrounding the two groups of deities are similar, the only difference being that the San Shan Kuo-wang originated from the worship of mountains. With the outward spread of Hakka Chinese from the Hsinchu and Miaoli areas throughout Taiwan, the three gods have been separated and are often worshiped individually instead of as a group. Meanwhile, traditional magical calculations such as geomancy 風水 and physiognomy 看相, are not only still in fashion, they are also changing with the times. For example, some stock market speculators consult fortune-tellers to make decisions, and pregnant women and their families occasionally demand Cesarean sections at auspicious times. Copyright (C) July 2002, Government Information Office.   All rights reserved.   Site design by L.F. Lee Best viewed with Netscape 4.x or IE 5.x (medium font) at 800 x 600 True Color (32 bit) resolution