A temple square—the space we traverse before entering the temple proper—often serves as a meeting point for pilgrims. It is also where troupes put on ritualistic performances, where we watch spirit mediums go into trances, and where temple fairs take place. Here we may come across temporary stages erected for shows, or tables laden with sacrificial offerings.

As soon as we step onto a temple square, we feel the august presence of the deities inside the temple.

Traders and pilgrims used to mingle amidst the hustle and bustle of temple squares. (courtesy of Chaotian Temple, Beigang)

Even though the significance of temple squares as communal spaces has waned over the years, we can still see believers praying to Mazu with their palms pressed together whenever they pass by.

Craftsmanship

Founded in 1700, Chaotian Temple in Yunlin County’s Beigang Township has provided space for the ingenuity of numerous master craftsmen. A vibrant religious hub dedicated to the sea goddess Mazu, this traditional temple is widely known for its sumptuous art.

Pilgrims to Chaotian Temple are first greeted by two low stone walls that curve from both sides toward the entrance. On either side of the entrance sit two stone lions, one bigger than the other. Chi Yar Po, a volunteer guide who specializes in Beigang’s local culture, tells us that these curving walls, which enclose the temple square, evoke the image of Mazu welcoming everyone with open arms, while the two pairs of lions serve to protect the place and ward off evil, in addition to welcoming us.

Chi explains that the older of the two smaller lions—carved out of amphibolite in 1852—is known to scholars as Taiwan’s most beautiful stone lion. The contour of its back is gracefully smooth, with delicate fine lines representing its mane. Its ears and tail, which are closely attached to its head and body, look flatter than those of other stone lions, owing this unusual design to the sculpture having had to be imported. But these details by no means detract from its liveliness.

In accordance with the traditional concepts of yin and yang, temple entrances are flanked by male lions on the left, and lionesses on the right. A male lion that clutches a ball symbolizes the granting of wishes (the Chinese words for “ball” and “wish”—qiu—are homophonous), while a female lion playing with her cub betokens the continuance of social rank and affluence in a family.

Next to the stone lions, the four dragon kings mounted on the walls also carry Mazu’s blessings. Created in 1908, these sculptures are characterized by their fluid contours and exude remarkable vitality. According to Chinese mythology, the dragon kings, named Ao Guang, Ao Ming, Ao Shun, and Ao Ji, stand guard in the four cardinal directions. Chi tells us that their names, which together denote “brilliance” and “auspiciousness,” suggest the blessings of the sea goddess.

Entering the temple square, we step onto a wide expanse of bush-hammered paving slabs, which remind us of Beigang’s erstwhile commercial importance. Taiwanese merchants plying their trade across the Taiwan Strait used to buy granite to use as ballast for their ships on their return journeys. When they arrived in Taiwan, they would reload their ships with merchandise and donate the granite to local temples.

The transversely oriented slabs on the temple square are punctuated by two straight strips of longitudinally oriented slabs. The special meanings conveyed by these strips are embodied in their names. Chi tells us that because they are at right angles to the stone steps that lead to the first hall of the temple, they are called dingjin (jin refers to the steps in front of a building, and the Chinese character for ding is shaped like a T, representing right angles). This name is interpreted to mean that visitors will be blessed with abundant offspring: one of the meanings of ding is “son.” The strips are also called longxu—“dragon whiskers”—because Mazu is ensconced here at an auspicious location associated with dragons in geomancy.

As a national monument, Chaotian Temple—from the temple proper to the temple square—testifies both to the vicissitudes of history and to the talent of traditional craftsmen. If we look at the temples dedicated to Mazu elsewhere in Taiwan, we find that many have had their squares replaced by public roads, reduced in size, or paved under concrete for construction and other purposes. With these encroachments, the appearance of temple squares has changed over the years.

Volunteer guide Chi Yar Po offers vivid accounts of the historical memories carried by every tile and sculpture of the temple square at Beigang’s Chaotian Temple.

The dragon kings that stand guard in the four cardinal directions are regarded as water gods that bestow blessings and ward off evil.

Theater

“When I was a child, my great-grandparents would carry peacock chairs and bring me to the temple square to watch performances,” says Prince Wang, founder of a theat­ri­cal company called Yang Cheng. Local temple squares are inseparable from his memories of growing up.

For Wang, temple squares were not only meeting points for him and his friends, but also where people gathered to enjoy traditional Taiwanese operas. On major occasions such as the deities’ birthdays, temples would invite theatrical troupes to put on performances in order to express their gratitude for divine blessings. A stage would be set up on the square, facing the temple. All sorts of characters, wearing exquisite makeup and gorgeous costumes, would act out enthralling scenes that tugged at the heartstrings of the audience. These theatrical splendors left a deep impression on Wang, who used to slink away from other commitments just to watch the performances.

It was during his compulsory military service that Wang decided to choose theater over business as his career. That year, when he told his family that a friend had invited him to attend a pilgrimage, they asked him: “We have Mazu pilgrimages here at home—why would you want to go elsewhere to watch these?” This simple question made Wang think. The Eighteen Villages Mazu Patrol Festival in Taichung and the Nanyao Temple Bengang Pilgrimage in Changhua had been familiar to him since childhood. Both events had a long history, but why were they not widely known in Taiwan?

As a result, Wang decided to quit working in the city and return home to produce a traditional opera about Mazu that would draw wider attention to his hometown and its Mazu worship. After spending three years carrying out field research and collecting oral accounts from older locals, Wang’s Yang Cheng brought out its first production in 2020: Bengang Pilgrimage.

The opera took its cue from an unresolved legal case in the history of the illustrious Lin family of Wufeng, Taichung, and incorporated rituals characteristic of the Bengang Pilgrimage of Changhua’s Nanyao Temple. Rather than confining the action to a temporarily installed ­theater, the troupe turned the central courtyard of Nanyao Temple into a panoramic stage. It thus harked back to the origins of traditional Taiwanese Opera, which used to be performed on the ground in open-air communal spaces.

Wang tells us that the temple officials at first frowned upon this setup. They were of the opinion that “a theat­ri­cal performance in honor of the gods should face the gods, because it is performed for them.” Wang and his team had to explain that their proposed use of the courtyard had a special significance, and that no offence to the deities was intended. It was only after a thorough discussion that the officials gave their consent.

“According to the director’s design, the central hall of the temple [beyond the courtyard] marked a boundary that separated Mazu from the other characters. The goddess remained in the hall, while the mortals were in the courtyard,” Wang says. This spatial pattern forged a conversation between the opera, the courtyard, and the temple itself, as well as instilling a sense of wonder in the audience.

Furthermore, Wang got in touch with the Lin family to arrange for one of Nanyao Temple’s Mazu statues to visit the family before the opera premiered, thus bringing some form of closure to the unresolved case of 150 years ago. “All the thrills and chills evaporate when a performance comes to a close, but I wanted to let people know why we brought out this production. What was its connection with the Lin family? And what could we achieve apart from recovering a lost page of history?” Through the performance, Wang’s troupe defined itself as an heir to the tradition of Taiwanese Opera, while the Lins of Wufeng were able to welcome the belated arrival of Mazu. Bengang Pilgrimage healed historical wounds by reconstructing and retelling the Lin family’s story in an authentically Taiwanese way.

On the evening of the premiere, Nanyao Temple’s central courtyard was all hustle and bustle, as if it was once again witnessing the heyday of religious worship, with locals from all walks of life gathering here to fulfill their spiritual needs. The popularity of the opera seems to bear out what Lin Junming, chairman of the Wufeng Lins Company, said to Wang: “If this production can move the audience, and encourage them to join the Bengang Pilgrimage and visit the Wufeng Lin Family Mansion and Garden, then that will be the first step to success.”

Prince Wang, founder of Yang Cheng, has fond memories of the square in front of the sea goddess Mazu’s Nantian Temple in Wufeng, Taichung.

Director Li Yun used the stone steps as a boundary separating the mortals in the temple courtyard from the deities inside the temple. This made it easier for the audience to understand the relationships between the characters. (photo by Liao Wenyao, courtesy of Yang Cheng)

A scene from Bengang Pilgrimage. Mazu and her guardian spirits Qianliyan (“Thousand-Mile Eyes”) and Shunfeng’er (“Wind-Following Ears”) stand inside the temple, facing the audience, as if their statues had come to life. (photo by Xu Zhihao, courtesy of Yang Cheng)

When Yang Cheng’s opera Mazu’s Birthday premiered at Nantian Temple in Wufeng, the deities of the local Eighteen Villages, Nanyao Temple’s Mazu statue, and the statue of Lin Wencha (an ancestor of the illustrious Lin Family of Wufeng) were all invited to a feast and to watch the performance together. (photo by Liao Wenyao, courtesy of Yang Cheng)

Food culture

Nowadays, we’re just as likely to associate temple squares with crowds seeking to satisfy their gustatory longings. The row of food stalls in front of Cisheng Temple in Taipei’s Dadaocheng attracts tourists from far and wide. Many love to sit under the banyan trees on the temple square here, enjoying food at their leisure while chatting with friends.

What we see here today, however, is perhaps a far cry from what gave rise to Taiwan’s temple-square food culture. Our fast-food culture may have originated in the snacks sold in front of temples,” says Zhong Liqi, second-­generation owner of a squid stall in front of Ci­sheng Temple. He tells us that local temples used to invite troupes to put on performances for periods of several months at a time. As locals seeking entertainment began to pour in, so did traders who wished to profit from the crowds. As soon as they got wind of the performance dates, stallholders would make arrangements to show up at the same time as the troupes.

We can imagine people wanting to buy snacks quickly before a show begins so that they can pamper their tastebuds while immersing themselves in theatrical delights. Zhong thinks that this accounts for two major features of Taiwan’s temple-square food culture: the cooking methods are usually simple, and the waiting time short.

Zhong tells us that during those days when his father, Zhong Jinbiao, was selling squids from baskets on a carrying pole, he would cut his squids and put them on skewers in advance. It was only when customers came and placed their orders that he would start cooking the squids in homemade shacha sauce. Zhong remembers being able to detect the aroma of shacha, cooked on a charcoal stove, from afar.

As time went by, the Zhong family’s carrying poles were replaced by a cart. What remained unchanged was that they continued to set up their stall wherever the theat­ri­cal troupes went. Zhong describes his father pulling the cart late at night to where the food stalls were, with his mother pushing from behind and the children following on.

It was thanks to the permission of the temple manager that the Zhong family acquired a fixed space to sell squids at Cisheng Temple. No longer having to migrate, they settled down in Dadaocheng. Now enjoying a stable income, Zhong Jinbiao invited his friends and relatives to join him and set up their own stalls in front of the temple. “The owner of our neighboring stall is my cousin, and the owners of the fried rice stall and the pig blood curd stall are both my brothers. My wife’s parents owned the Afa seafood stall ahead of us.” Zhong Liqi enumerates for us the 20 stalls that line the “food street” in front of Cisheng Temple. It’s just as he says: “We’re all family here.”

The temple square, a favorite haunt of tourists now, is laden with Zhong’s childhood memories. Looking up at the banyan trees, whose dense foliage almost covers the sky, Zhong says with a smile: “I’ve climbed every tree here. My son and I have climbed onto the stone lions in front of the temple.” He remembers that when his parents were busy at their stall, he and a group of friends would enjoy themselves on the temple square, catching birds and pillaging bird nests. They would also wait at the temple entrance for sacrificial offerings that pilgrims left behind.

Time flies. Zhong and his playmates are now over 60 years old. The era has passed when as many as three theat­ri­cal performances vied with each other for audiences on the temple square. The electrifying music has been replaced by the laughter and chatter of gourmands indulging themselves under the banyan trees. But the temple square remains, quietly witnessing the flux of time.

The Zhong family have been selling their signature boiled squids in front of Dadaocheng’s Cisheng Temple for more than 60 years.

The Zhong family have been selling their signature boiled squids in front of Dadaocheng’s Cisheng Temple for more than 60 years.

Pig’s trotter soup.

Shrimp and egg soup.

Customers sit on metal chairs at metal tables to enjoy congee and savory snacks. The temple square exudes a leisurely atmosphere.

Temple squares have served as bridges between mortals and gods and witnessed the passage of time. They continue to be invested with new meanings.