"Auspicious" Road

A long-time family friend of the co-director of the program responsible for this wonderful scholarship took us to a road dedicated entirely to the coming of the Chinese New Year. By "Us" I mean Cheryl Choy, the administrator of the program, Domenico Napoletani, her husband and a research professional in Applied Mathematics, and myself. The road was PACKED with individuals looking to collect auspicious items to bring them luck in the new year.

 Within the market we found many specialty meats that you would never think of eating (specially me as a vegetarian!) but were apparently quite delicious, as well as assorted candies, grains, nuts, fungus, teas, and many many other sorts of snacks and specialty food & drink items. The marketing techniques of these small stalls were quite interesting. A couple of the stalls had hired young men to sit and direct traffic into the store with orange vests, and we watched in amazement as 90% of the crowd complied with their requests.

From Left to Right: Domenico, family friend of the director, and myself. The man that brought us to the market was one of the most amazing human beings I have ever met. I had never felt such a strong sense of distress in the language barrier as I did being unable to communicate him, as just being in his presence was very calming. His overwhelming sincerity, kindness, and genuine concern created a projection that left all of us feeling very uplifted just in his presence.

 An old temple on the road known for the presence of the matchmaker deities within. I was told that people come from all over the area to pray to these deities although they are present in other temples, this temple is widely known for their activity. I was glad to have already done my informational research on the deities present at Longshan Temple as it gave me a basis of background information while I was at this temple.

 This is one of the braziers that are often present at the temple. Often Jade Emperor is present at the temples as the "god of the gods" one usually offers a prayer to him before continuing on to pray to another god. One can also pray to Jade Emperor to make another deity answer your prayers if they seem to be ignoring you, as he has power supreme in that realm. I was upset that I was unable to determine if this was his brazier or not. Patrons will purchase incense sticks from the temple, then pray and spike them stick-down into the brazier to create a never ending stream of incense smoke.

An assortment of highly esteemed FUNGI!

A particular fruit that is not allowed in
Longshan Temple because it looks like one of the
Deity's Head and insulting to him.