Wong Tai Sin Temple History

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The purpose of this paper is to explain history of Wong Tai Sin Temple and its ways of worship. In order to provide factual evidence, I attended a Taoist service near my local area and talked with the fortune teller in the temple. She acknowledged me of the process of Kau cim or fortune sticks and showing respects to the famous Taoist deity Wong Tai Sin. My family, as if most Chinese family, practices ancestral veneration. Chinese ancestral worship is based on the belief that ancestors still exist and interfere with the affairs of the present world. Even though I have not perform the worship myself, my family believe that ancestors has the abilities to determine our fortunes and help us in our affairs. Nonetheless, worshiping ancestors …show more content…

First of all, the querent has to light up three incense sticks, then bow down three times facing the sky. Meanwhile, the querent silently recites his wishes. This is a way to ask the deity to grant his wishes since Wong Tai Sin’s motto is “What you request is what you get.” There is a fortune teller in the Wong Tai Sin temple. The first step to find out about the future is to donate money. The second step requires the querent to kneel down with a wooden cylinder that contains 100 numbered fortune sticks inside. The querent will recite his name and age as well as the problem or the future of the subject that he wants to know silently while shaking the wooden cylinder. Once a fortune stick falls out, the querent has to throw a pair of Jiaobei blocks on the floor. If the blocks ended up to be both convex or flat, the querent needs to shake the wooden cylinder again until the blocks are convex and flat. Then, the querent would pick up the fortune stick that falls out and exchange for the corresponding piece of paper. The paper would contain a poem from the Tang Dynasty. The fortune teller in the temple would reveal the meaning of the poem and interpret it according to the

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