June 30, 2013

It was the second day of my Changhua trip. We visited a famous temple called Lugang Longshan Temple. My father’s friend gave us a tour of the temple. Out of all five Longshan Temples in Taiwan, Lugang Longshan Temple is the most comprehensive Longshan Temple in Taiwan. Most of the buildings and ornaments had been preserved since it was built. It is considered a national first class monument. This temple actually had been through three big disasters. The first one is a big earthquake, damaging the temple severely. The repairment of the temple took many days. The second disaster is a big fire. The entire back side of the temple was burnt into ashes. People rebuild the back side with an addition of a modern pond. The third time is a flood. However, the temple was barely damaged. Is it because the temple worships a water god so the temple survived the flood? No one knows. There are many beautiful stone carvings and paintings in the temple. Each carving and painting has its own meaning. The four bats on four corners of a carving represent giving happiness. In Mandarin, “four bats” is “四蝠”. It sounds similar to “賜福”, which means to give happiness. In addition, I was surprised to know that ancient Chinese knew about Physics. The dome inside the temple is a performing platform. Performers would get on the platform and perform traditional Chinese dancing and singing. The sound will be amplified due to some phenomena of physics. I have to admit that I was captivated by the artful skill and scientific knowledge of the ancient Chinese people.