Mid-July PuDu ¡ü Lantern Festival ¡ü Enhance wealth and luck ¡ü Military award

  name¡G Mid-July PuDu
  time¡G July 15th in lunar calendar
  description¡G

On July 15th temples hold 'PuDu' to provide offerings for some 'wandering ghosts' , or so called as 'Good Brothers'.  According to traditional customs, July 1st is the day of opening 'heaven gate', and July 30th as the day of close gate.  As folklore, those wandering ghosts stay in the world and enjoy offerings from people for the full month since the gate opening at midnight of June 30th, and temples have to 'JianJiao' for praying and for releasing their souls.  For economy, people choose one day for worship instead of 30-day continuous offerings.  Temples in WangAn Country hold 'PuDu' festival on July 15th, and temples in JiangJyun Villages are on July 18th, the kind of collective 'PuDu' called as 'Miao (Temple) Pu' or 'Gong (Public) Pu'.

  ceremony¡G

There are several kinds of 'PuDu' festivals in temples in WangAn Country.  Take the example of ShueiAn Village, on July 15th, statues of GyuanYin and Guard WeiTuo, WuYing plate, and 36 generals are politely moved to the dedication table outdoors, then military awards are held in the afternoon, and offerings from households are set on tables at the plaza in the evening.  Temple mangers and household heads incense to pray to gods and ¡¥Good Brothers¡¦, witch and fate seers have ceremonies to invite for feasts, paper money and paper dress have to be burned for offerings when incenses are burned out, and finally pork is distributed to all households.

  transportation¡G

Take public-operated ferry 'HanAn 1' or 'ChiMei', and private-operated ferry 'KongJhong 6' between MaGong and WangAn, and take small boats to off-seashore islands of WangAn

¡@
¡@

WINDOW ON TAIWAN COPYRIGHT 2004