Temple Lanterns

On my recent trip to Taiwan, my guide thought I ought to see a little bit of her home country. Since I am an architect, I asked her to show me interesting buildings. We visited two: the brick home built by an English merchant and a combination Buddhist-Daoist temple.

To get to the temple, we had to take a 10 minute ferry ride and then walk a short distance up from the port. The area was very congested and teaming with activity. The main thoroughfare was edged with a mixture of shops selling clothes, food stuffs or souvenirs and seafood restaurants whose freshly caught menu stared out at us from ice-filled cases. Breathing status unclear. Motor bikes, cars and foot traffic took over the center of the street. A riot of color, sounds and smells, the sun-baked scene was thoroughly captivating. And completely overwhelming.

Angled towards the street, the temple was tucked away, off to the side, where it was slightly removed from the fracas. Every surface of the single-story building was covered with relief and tiny sculptures, each one more brightly painted than its neighbors. Next to this, the canopy of red, paper lanterns strung up in front of the temple had a remarkably calming effect. Maybe it was their uniform color. Maybe it was the way they seemed to float effortlessly, bobbing slightly in the breeze. Maybe it was the way they muted the sun's scorching rays. Maybe I just like grids.

Once my eyes adjusted to the interior's semi-darkness, the main sanctuary's golden statuary and piles of offerings (bundles of fake money ready for burning) came into view. The clattering of wood blocks falling on the floor startled me. Had I knocked something over?

No. At the very back of the temple, facing an awe-inspiring group of gods, stood the main altar. On top of the altar were several pairs of kidney-shaped, wooden blocks. We surreptitiously watched a woman pick up a pair of blocks and drop them repeatedly on the floor as if her life depended on it. And maybe it did. If both blocks landed face up or face down, she had to keep trying. But if one faced up and the other one down she could proceed to the next step and choose a stick from a basket nearby. The stick, in turn, had a marking on it and the marking corresponded to a poem which was then subject to interpretation by the temple expert. By the time we finished our tour, she was leafing through the book, looking for her poem, hoping it would have the answer she determinedly sought.