Yuanbao Temple Audio Guide

Yuanbao Temple: what does the audio guide cover?

1. 01

   Welcome to Yuanbao Temple

   Welcome to Yuanbao Temple, known in Chinese as Yuanbao Gong, in the North District of Taichung City. This guide sticks to what is well established about the temple: its deity, its roots, its festival and its place in the neighborhood. Some of the finer points of its long history are not firmly recorded, so we will leave those aside and keep to the stories that stand on solid ground. The temple is dedicated to the Taoist deity Baosheng Dadi, a figure widely honored as a god of healing and medicine. It has a history of more than 200 years, and it is regarded as a religious center for Central Taiwan, with a very large community of believers. Alongside worship, it carries responsibilities for cultural inheritance, education and social services, so it is as much a neighborhood institution as a place of prayer. Over the next few minutes we will look at the old place name that still echoes around the temple, a pilgrimage across the Taiwan Strait that went in an unexpected direction, and a festival in which the god himself travels through the villages. Let's begin with the ground you are standing on.

2. 02

   Laicuobu: The Old Name of the Neighborhood

   Before this district was a part of a modern city, the area around the temple went by a different name: Laicuobu. The name points to the Lai family, who came from Pinghe County in Fujian Province, across the Taiwan Strait. In Taiwanese place names, a family name followed by a word for settlement often tells you who put down roots there first, so even the name is a little piece of migration history. That is part of what makes a temple like this so interesting. For settlers arriving from the mainland, a temple was far more than a building. It tied a new community to the deities and the home villages they had left behind. Yuanbao Temple honors Baosheng Dadi, and over the generations it has grown into the spiritual center of the surrounding community. The temple's reach was once much wider than a single street. The festival tradition we will come to shortly speaks of an original 17 villages, and the names of some of them, such as Houlongzi, Mayuantou, Qiucuozi, Sanshizhangli, Erfenpu and Laicuopu, are still remembered in the temple's rituals. Think of the temple as the hub of a wheel, with the old villages as its spokes.

3. 03

   A Pilgrimage Back to the Roots

   Here is one of the best stories attached to this temple, and it begins after the end of martial law in Taiwan. In 1988, worshippers from Yuanbao Temple traveled to Baijiao Ciji Temple in Longhai District, Fujian Province. Their purpose was to refill the spiritual energy of the deity, a ritual way of reconnecting a temple with the source of its divine power. The pilgrims went with a belief: that Baijiao Ciji Temple was the successor to Xintian Temple, the ancestral temple of their tradition. But when they arrived, they found no evidence for that claim. Rather than going home empty-handed, they went on to the nearby Qingjiao Ciji Temple. There they found documents belonging to Xintian Temple. That discovery settled the matter for them. Yuanbao Temple recognizes Qingjiao Ciji Temple as its predecessor. It is a lovely reminder that a temple's family tree is not just a matter of legend. Sometimes it takes a journey, and a search through old papers, to find where a tradition truly comes from.

4. 04

   The God Goes Visiting: The Birthday Festival

   The biggest event in the temple's calendar is the birthday of Baosheng Dadi, celebrated between the tenth and fifteenth day of the third month in the Chinese lunar calendar. This is when the temple spills out into the streets. A parade of worshippers carries the deity on a tour of the six largest villages among the original 17, spending one day in each. The order is fixed: Houlongzi, Mayuantou, Qiucuozi, Sanshizhangli, Erfenpu, and finally Laicuopu. So over the course of the festival, the god visits each of the old communities in turn, a procession that lets the whole former territory of the temple feel its presence. The statue used in this festival is the black-faced Baosheng Dadi, and it has a legend of its own. The story goes that this statue went missing in Nantou County and was found by worshippers a decade later. Then, according to the legend, Baosheng Dadi appeared to them and asked to return to Yuanbao Temple. Whether you take it as devotion, folklore or both, it explains why this particular statue is treated with such affection.

5. 05

   Before You Head Off

   As you look around the temple itself, notice how compact it is. Just outside, an old tree stands beside the main gate, and the top of the gate carries an intricate design worth a slow look. In the small courtyard you will find a wrought iron furnace for burning joss paper, still part of the everyday rituals. The temple is known for its colorful appearance, its finely carved architectural components, and a number of carefully preserved relics. It is easy to walk past a neighborhood temple like this one and see only a small building. But behind the gate lies a world of old village names, a god who tours his territory once a year, and a journey to Fujian that ended with a surprise discovery in old documents. So take a moment before you leave. Look at the carvings, watch how people light incense and ask for guidance, and imagine the festival route winding through villages whose names are still spoken here. What other traces of Laicuobu can you find in the streets around you?