Temple of many things
The local temple is a few houses down the street. You can spot it to the far left of the Shan Ding Lu banner at the top of the page. It is within earshot of the karaoke machine, baton dancing music , snake-oil sellers, fire-crackers and monthly gonging. To name the more noisy activities that take place there.
Our temple is fairly small by Taiwan standards. It services a few hundred households in the immediate area. But there is always some activity, day and night.
Each Friday evening a baton dancing troupe of women practice their synchronised routines. They use the same music every week.
There is a group of older men that simply while the time talking, playing chess, sleeping and singing old Taiwanese songs on the KTV.
Occasionally a herbal medicine group set up a huge tub of herbs and leave it boiling for a week or more. Each evening they round up a motley crowd and have a well dressed presenter extolling the virtues of said concoction. The brew get thicker as the week progresses until it is a tar mixture of herb extracts.
It tastes ghastly.
The area in front of the temple is covered by a large roof. This keeps the rain and sun off and makes for a large cool area used by everyone. The mobile fresh vegetable seller parks under the roof while the women come and check the goods.
On religious occasions every few months a large truck arrives and opens up like a transformer from a Japanese cartoon to perform traditional puppet shows.
At night it transforms into a karaoke stage for all to come and sing.
Oh yes, the temple also provides for the spiritual needs of people too.
If you click on any picture you should see a slide show of all the pictures in full resolution.
[...] you like temples, then this article at Shan Ding Lu is for you. Check out how the local temple serves many purposes in the community. Well written, with lots of photographs I’m sure you’ll enjoy. I wish [...]