Mixed Emotions of Matsu Across the Strait

Ilan county's Nanfangao was a peaceful fishing village until it shot into the media when, three years ago, the Nan Tien Temple sailed directly to Fukien's Meichou island to do obeisance.

Pilgrimage to an audience with ancestors: Worshipping at the temple was original ly significant as a tracing back of origins. Branch temples with a comparatively shallow history can also increase their attraction and position by fixing their history according to an ancestral temple or by going to pay their respects at a place with a great historical name.

The pilgrimage route can actually be traced back to the opening up of land and roads by Taiwan's early pioneers. Most of the temples that receive pilgrims are located on the west coast at the ports where early settlers came ashore, such as Peikang's Chao Tien Temple and Lukang's Tien Hou Temple. After people were allowed to visit their relatives across the Strait, however, the movement to visit one's kith and kin suddenly became a new object. As everybody rushed to the mainland to worship and have an audience with their ancestors, a new twist was added to the long-running competition among Taiwan's native temples over which one brought the first Matsu statue from the mainland. The various disturbances and quarrels between Matsu temples have been the most obvious manifestation of this.

Among Suao's Matsu temples, there has been some competition between the Nan Tien and Chin An temples. Chin An, with a comparatively longer history, beat Nan Tien in being the first to welcome a statue--measuring more than six feet in height--from the mainland. At the side of where the statue is positioned there is engraved the bold label, "Taiwan's first great Matsu statue from Meichou."

Faced with such pressure, Nan Tien boldly set out to sail directly to the mainland on a pilgrimage and brought back two "great" Matsu statues measuring nearly seven feet in height.

Not going home but returning to mother: Another battle of succession is developing in south-central Taiwan. In the past, the famous Chen Lan Temple ceremony to return the Tachia Matsu would go to Peikang's Chao Tien Temple to hold audience with the ancestors. They were not willing to leave her for a long period in the Chen Lan Temple. After welcoming a new Matsu from Meichou, Chen Lan announced that it would no longer pilgrimage to hold audience with the ancestors at the Chao Tien Temple, and the relationship between the two temples was broken. But pilgrimages can also bring about new relationships between devotees and temples, as can be seen by Tachia's Chen Lan Temple changing its route to go to Hsinkang's Feng Tien Temple to hold a roving pilgrimage in which the gods are of equal status.

The main difference between visiting the ancestral temple and the roving pilgrimage is the different status conferred on masters and followers. When the first people started to arrive on the shores of Taiwan, the Matsu they carried over the Taiwan Strait protected them as they opened up the interior stage by stage. Such auxiliary Matsus had to be returned to their homes every year for a spiritual recharge. Now that the ancestral temples are even further removed in time and space than were those first bridgeheads, how do they compare to going directly to bring back a statue and make offerings?

The change in route made by Tachia's Chen Lan Temple revived the old rivalry between Peikang's Chao Tien Temple and Hsinkang's Feng Tien Temple, which had long been considered dead.

You donate statues--we'll donate a jewel tower: Because of geographical changes and the mists of history, these two old separated rival Matsu temples have for many years competed to present themselves as the true representatives of Taiwan's original Matsu. It is just the same with the perennial conflict between the Shen Mu and Tien Hou temples in Tainan's Luerhmen, who quarrel over who brought Matsu ashore in the year that the Ming loyalist, Koxinga, arrived in Taiwan.

The style of argument ranges from historical evidence to comparisons of which temple is flourishing most and has the most fresh activities, to which one has the best relationship with the ancestral temple in Meichou. The Chao Tien Temple has thus established a "kinship alliance" with the Meichou temple and paid for two granite statues of Matsu, measuring over 16 meters high. Another statue has already been completed and taken to Peikang where it will be raised onto the newly built tower of the Chao Tien Temple during its tricentennial festivities next year. Not wanting to fall behind, Feng Tien Temple has made contact many times, entered into a kinship relationship with Meichou, and generously donated a jewel tower to the ancestral monastery.

Which is the orthodox Matsu? Just how many Matsus are there? General manager of Chao Tien Temple Wu Hsiang says, "There is only one Matsu with thousands of incarnations, so what does it matter whether her devotees can tell which one is real and which one false, or which is major and which is minor?" The Meichou pilgrimage symbolizes a return to roots and a linking with the centuries of worship that have taken place at the original temple; the pilgrimage of Taiwan's pioneering Matsu draws its vitality from the crossing of the sea and the development of Taiwan's interior by early settlers. Both have their historical significance.

Although the reasoning behind there being a single Matsu is easy to comprehend, the disputes over orthodoxy between temples continue to follow the times and different forms of competition over the years. The opening up of visits to relatives across the Strait is just one more wave in this process.

[Picture Caption]

To cement a kinship relationship with Meichou's Matsu Temple, Peikang's Chao Tien Temple paid for a sixteen-meter high statue of the goddess to be placed in Meichou. Another statue is to be erected in Peikang next year. (photo by Yeh Ching-fang)

After returning back from an audience with the mainland ancestors, the Tachia Matsu has a higher status when receiving the Hsinkang roving pilgrimage. (photo by Cheng Yuan-ching)

There is only one Matsu and people incessantly dispute which is the orthodox one that opened up Taiwan.(photo By Cheng Yuan-ching)

After returning back from an audience with the mainland ancestors, the Tachia Matsu has a higher status when receiving the Hsinkang roving pilgrimage. （photo by Cheng Yuan-ching）

There is only one Matsu and people incessantly dispute which is the orthodox one that opened up Taiwan.（photo By Cheng Yuan-ching）