22
KEITH G. STEVENS
columns, boards, boards bearing auspicious phrases, balustrades, roofs and lattice windows exactly like full-size temples (Illustration 16). Several wooden miniature shrines seen on lower decks of large sea-going junks were heavily ornamented and the carving exquisitely detailed. At the other end of the scale, soap boxes, painted red and upended, serve as the simple shrine of the less affluent household.
Actual images of gods in homes are few, and their worship is very limited. Usually, there is just a framed print, and routine offerings consist of a daily incense stick burnt before the print with, in addition, a small offering of tea or rice on the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month. The majority of Chinese who have a household shrine display on their main altar the bodhisattva Guan Yin, who is, without a doubt, the most popular deity of Chinese everywhere. Most homes also have a second “altar”, the Kitchen or Stove God, whose title on a red board is hung up, or when written on a red paper is pasted up near the family cooking range.
Shop or factory shrines usually stand or hang on walls at shoulder height, constructed of wood and painted vermilion. The majority of shop shrines contain plaques or prints of Guan Di as patron deity of merchants and Tu Di Gong, the Earth God. Those in fire stations and police stations bear prints of Guan Di in his role as the patron deity of loyalty.
On days marked Chu (除)22 in the Almanac (i), old lady devotees offer prayers in the street before unpainted wooden boxes used as shrines. They are propitiating the demons who cause disasters, and are also attempting to change their luck for the better. They use one of their shoes to strike the "small men” (1-A) banging small figures of humans cut out of black paper and at the same time calling out in high-pitched voices for the demons to flee. The voice is pitched particularly high when calling back the roaming soul of a sick child (the absence of the soul being the cause of the sickness).
Apart from modern concrete decorative structures in places like the Tiger Balm Gardens and on the foreshore of Repulse Bay, there is only one pagoda in Hong Kong or Macau. This is at Ping Shan, in the New Territories, and was built of stone blocks some three hundred years ago. Like other Chinese pagodas, it has little use other than to enshrine some sacred object, in this case, several images
22
KEITH G. STEVENS
columns, boards, boards bearing auspicious phrases, balustrades, roofs and lattice windows exactly like full size temples (Illustration 16). Several wooden miniature shrines seen on lower decks of large sea-going junks were heavily ornamented and the carving exquisi- tively detailed. At the other end of the scale, soap boxes, painted red and upended, serve as the simple shrine of the less affluent household.
Actual images of gods in homes are few, and their worship is very limited. Uusally there is just a framed print, and routine offer- ings consist of a daily incense stick burnt before the print with, in addition, a small offering of tea or rice on the first and fifteenth day of each lunar month. The majority of Chinese who have a household shrine display on their main altar the bodhisattva Guan Yin who is, without a doubt, the most popular deity of Chinese everywhere. Most homes also have a second “altar”, the Kitchen or Stove God whose title on a red board is hung up, or when written on a red paper is pasted up near the family cooking range.
Shop or factory shrines usually stand or hang on walls at shoulder height, constructed of wood and painted vermilion. The majority of shop shrines contain plaques or prints of Guan Di as patron deity of merchants and Tu Di Gong, the Earth God. Those in fire stations and police stations bear prints of Guan Di in his role as the patron deity of loyalty.
On days marked Chu ()22 in the Almanac (i), old lady devotees offer prayers in the street before unpainted wooden boxes used as shrines. They are propitiating the demons who cause disas- ters, and are also attempting to change their luck for the better. They use one of their shoes to strike the "small men” (1-A) bang- ing small figures of humans cut out of black paper and at the same time calling out in high pitched voices for the demons to flee. The voice is pitched particularly high when calling back the roaming soul of a sick child (the absence of the soul being the cause of the sickness).
Apart from modern concrete decorative structures in places like the Tiger Balm Gardens and on the foreshore of Repulse Bay, there is only one pagoda in Hong Kong or Macau. This is at Ping Shan, in the New Territories, and was built of stone blocks some three hundred years ago. Like other Chinese pagodas it has little use other than to enshrine some sacred object, in this case several images
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