A 1.30m tall Matsu statue, carved out of emerald in China, landed at Taichung Harbor yesterday after making the short crossing from Meizhou Island off the coast of southern China.
The statue, weighing 1.5 tonnes, was created by Fujian-based Chinese master sculptor She Guoping (佘國平) for a jewelry company in Shanghai.
It is to be donated to the Jenn Lann Temple (鎮瀾宮) in Greater Tai-chung’s Dajia (大甲) district, one of the country’s most popular Matsu temples.
Photo: Yu Po-lin, Taipei Times
The dedication and donation ceremony was held in Meizhou on Saturday.
Matsu (媽祖), the goddess of the sea, is one of the most popular deities in Taiwan. According to legend, Matsu was a girl from the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) who was deified posthumously in honor of the assistance she offered to seafarers. Since being brought to Taiwan by Chinese immigrants in the 1600s, Matsu traditions have attracted many local worshipers.
Greater Taichung Mayor Jason Hu (胡志強) yesterday received the valuable statue, along with Jenn Lann Temple president Yen Ching-piao (顏清標).
Photo: Yu Po-lin, Taipei Times
Hu said the religious event, which he described as an exchange of beliefs and feelings between people from the two sides of the Taiwan Strait, would pull the two sides closer together.
Asked about the statue’s value, Jenn Lann Temple vice president Cheng Ming-kun (鄭銘坤) declined to give an exact figure, but said religious belief is “priceless.”
According to Chinese-language media reports, the value of the emerald statue is at least 180 million yuan (US$28.25 million).
A four-day, three-night parade will be held in Taichung to celebrate its arrival.
The procession is scheduled to make stops at major Matsu temples around the city, before reaching the Jenn Lann Temple on Sunday, where an enshrining ceremony will take place.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS