Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Seeing the face of Matsu in Kaohsiung County (China Post)

In 1994, a lady in Florida made herself a grilled cheese sandwich. She took a few bites, but before finishing it she noticed what appeared to be the face of the Virgin Mary imbedded in the toast. Wondering if this would bring her good luck, she decided to keep the rest in a plastic box. A decade later she went public with her story, and amid worldwide news coverage sold the half-eaten sandwich on eBay for US$28,000.

Something similar happened recently
during the construction of a new temple in Kaohsiung County. Workers poured concrete for one part of the roof of what is now called the Shunsian Temple. Later, when checking to see if it had set properly, they found something that many people think interesting, and more than a few consider miraculous – among the stains and discolorations in the concrete, it's just about possible to discern the face of Mazu, Taiwan's Goddess of the Sea.

The temple, which was formally inaugurated on October 18, 2008, took more than a decade to plan and build. A photo of the site taken in August 1996 shows a dilapidated wattle-and-daub shack surrounded by long grass. Now, in addition to the temple and car parking lots, there's a sizable body of water called the Holy Mother Lake, and an annex where the pious can stay overnight, take meals or relax over a coffee...

The rest of the article is here.

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