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Perpetually Modern Matsu |
| Section: CULTURE / FOLK WISDOM |
| Author: Richard R. Vuylsteke |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/2007 |
| Size: 2,376 Words, 13,842 Characters |
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Taiwan's most popular folk deity is Matsu, a deified tenth-century maiden who has been worshipped for centuries as the goddess of the sea and the protector of seafarers. She also links local supplicants with their historical and cultural roots on the Chinese mainland.
Fear. Genuine fear. That's the dominant, and legitimate, emotion to feel on a small boat in the Taiwan Strait when the weather starts shifting toward the tempestuous. The sky becomes an eerie grey-green dome, pressing down toward the increasingly agitated waves slapping loudly against the wooden hull. Low, white-and-wispy clouds race across the sky at different angles and speeds, warnings of the swirling winds building in the hundred-mile-wide channel that separates Taiwan from the southern coast of mainland China....
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...su may be the quintessential goddess for Taiwan residents, but she is also a link with the larger pantheon of ethereal spirits of gods, goddesses, ghosts, and ancestor s that are distinctly Chinese. Her worship is therefore a reaffirmation of Taiwan's unique history and its continuity with Chinese culture.
Copyright © 2006 Government Information Office, Republic of China (Taiwan)
(806 of 13,842 characters)
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