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father who had owned the land on which the temple stood had consulted the deities and found that his daughter had been deified. He had an image of her carved and placed on the altar. This was transferred some time during the mid 1960s to another small shrine within the same temple and again her image stood alone but this time she had under her shrine a cardboard box which contained, according to the temple keeper, an embalmed parrot. The elderly nun claimed that it was Miss Liu's pet. The image and parrot remained until 1983 when the temple was refurbished and the image disappeared for a while. In 1986 it reappeared on the family altar in the rear of the large Buddhist temple next door, dedicated to the Liu family. Her image was now draped in red silken robes and somewhat strangely was labelled Miss Lin. She still held the miniature handbags but the parrot was nowhere to be seen, and the temple staff denied ever having seen or heard of a stuffed parrot. They confirmed that her name was Lin and not Liu but were unable to say why she was now on the Liu family altar in the Buddhist temple. And there she remains, last noted in 1989 still on the Liu family altar.
A cult, that of 'the Prince descended from the Dragon', Lung-shih T'ai-tzu, was established in the mid-1960s in the northern suburbs of Kowloon before being transferred to Lo Wai above Tsuen Wan in the New Territories. It is a piggy-back cult dependent upon the local Cantonese major cult of the Dragon Mother, Lung Mu. The story begins with a boy, Huang Hsin-tsai, born in Shamshuipo, Kowloon, in 1949, the son of refugees from Canton. His parents died soon after they arrived in the Colony leaving him in the hands of the lady who now runs the new cult temple. In 1960 the youth, now 11 and still living with the lady in Shamshuipo, fell ill with swollen legs and abdomen. She nursed him carefully back to health but in 1962 he was thought to have eaten something which did not agree with him and, despite a visit to the Wong Tai Sin Temple, he died. Accused by her neighbours of neglecting the youth she was exonerated by him when he appeared to her in a dream to explain that he was now the stepson of the major deity, Lung Mu, and had the power to cure on her behalf. Once a year thereafter he provided the lady with a large basin of very tiny pills for her to distribute to cure people's ills; he also appeared to her in dreams to help solve difficult problems put to her by devotees. The lady, now the temple keeper, has a number of elderly ladies to help run the corrugated iron and brick temple which she has had built near his grave.
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father who had owned the land on which the temple stood had consulted the deities and found that his daughter had been deified. He had an image of her carved and placed on the altar. This was transfered some time during the mid 1960s to another small shrine within the same temple and again her image stood alone but this time she had under her shrine a cardboard box which contained, according to the temple keeper, an embalmed parrot. The elderly nun claimed that it was Miss Liu's pet. The image and parrot remained until 1983 when the temple was refurbished and the image disappeared for a while. In 1986 it reappeared on the family altar in the rear of the large Buddhist temple nest door, dedicated to the Liu family. Her image was now draped in red silken robes and somewhat strangely was labelled Miss Lin. She still held the miniature handbags but the parrot was nowhere to be seen, and the temple staff denied ever having seen or heard of a stuffed parrot. They confirmed that her name was Lin and not Liu but were unable to say why she was now on the Liu family altar in the Buddhist temple. And there she remains, last noted in 1989 still on the Liu family altar.
A cult, that of 'the Prince descended from the Dragon', Lung-shih T'ai-tzu, was established in the mid-1960s in the northern suburbs of Kowloon before being transfered to Lo Wai above Tsuen Wan in the New Territories. It is a piggy-back cult dependent upon the local Cantonese major cult of the Dragon Mother, Lung Mu. The story begins with a boy. Huang Hsin-tsai, born in Shamshuipo, Kowloon, in 1949, the son of refugees from Canton. His parents died soon after they arrived in the Colony leaving him in the hands of the lady who now runs the new cult temple. In 1960 the youth, now 21 and still living with the lady in Shamshuipo, fell ill with swollen legs and abdomen. She nursed him carefully back to health but in 1962 he was thought to have eaten something which did not agree with him and, despite a visit to the Wong Tai Sin Temple, he died. Accused by her neighbours of neglecting the youth she was exonerated by him when he appeared to her in a dream to explain that he was now the stepson of the major deity, Lung Mu, and had the power to cure on her behalf. Once a year thereafter he provided the lady with a large basin of very tiny pills for her to distribute to cure people's ills; he also appeared to her in dreams to help solve difficult problems put to her by devotees. The lady, now the temple keeper, has a number of elderly ladies to help run the corrugated iron and brick temple which she has had built near his grave.
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