Prayers given at Temple of Gay God Tu'er in New Taipei City for the safety of the Dallas LGBT.
I have been invited back for the Nine Emperors Festival and Full Moon Day.
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The Temple for the Gay Taoist God Tu’er
This section uses photos from the first visit of 10/14/2023.
The primary dedication of the temple is to the main God and two side Gods which I don’t know. (I will update this as I get back from them details.) They tell you a name, but you have no idea how it might be written and it doesn’t stick in your head. The names written in English letters, aren’t really the names of the Gods, since we don’t have intonations. That is we don’t speak syllables with rising, falling, up and down, down and up or flat pitch. They are just sort of names for English speakers.
Also, when discussing other religions, use a capital “G.”
This is their website. Parts can be translated with the Google Translate function built into the Chrome browser, but they use images holding text in much of their website
Rabbit God
Notice that the spelling with Google Translate is “Hu Tianbao.” There are multiple systems of spelling in English letters Chinese words. The members of the temple used the term “Rabbit God” so I didn’t have to struggle with Mandarin and they didn’t have to guess as to what I was saying.
This is their history of the Rabbit God. You can use the translate function Chrome browser and get a fairly readable translation.
https://www.weimingtang.org/history.php
Layout of Temple
The Temple is on the eight floor of a building. When you see “F” in an location, it means “Floor.” You will see on the street signs with “2F” or “3F” since businesses will be stacked on top of each other.
This is a view entering the temple
You take your shoes off and put slippers they supply on. In many East Asian households, the common practice is to take your shoes off and either go barefoot, stocking foot, or slippers supplied by the house. Make sure your socks don’t have holes.
This is the alter to the main God. Notice that on the altar a packet of paper wrapped in a bright yellow paper which will be burned later. Burning things is a way of releasing prayers and taking them to the Gods. The alter to the Rabbit God is on the left side of the room facing the main God’s alter.
Burning things in the Western world is a way of expressing contempt. We have protestors burn the American flag, burn people in effigy, and burn membership cards, and early feminists burned their bras.
However, in East Asia burning things is to send messages to the Gods.
This is the alter to the rabbit god.
This is to the left side of the temple. Notice that there are a lot of white paper wrapped packages of paper which will be burned later.
On the right hand side is a series of portraits.
Opposite the main alter was a set up for the Nine Emperors festival which I will report on separately.
In the center of the room is this deity which is part of the Nine Emperors festival. She is masked until the festival starts.
So at the table I set to do prayers for both Gods. I think that you always do prayers for both. All the instructions are in Chinese. You make a donation and they don’t give a suggested value, even asked. So I gave them NT$ 2,000 (New Taiwanese dollars, at about 32 NT to $USD). That is about $65. I didn’t want to come across as cheap.
The package of white paper on the lower left and the bright yellow on the right are what in English is called joss paper. It is a term Chinese not used in Chinese.
Rabbit God prayers use the white package of paper.
On one side you have your name, date of birth, address.
The other side you have the prayers.
There is a lot of campaigning in Dallas against Pride Festivals, drag queens and against the LGBT in general. We have a church that wants the government to execute Gays, we have a Texas State House Rep. who wants the police, Dallas City Hall, and the Dallas County District Attorney to do a criminal investigation of the Texas Latino Pride Fest. We have an ongoing campaign against drag queens. As people well know, in the United States there are massacres of Gay people at Gay bars happening about once every 2 or 3 years.
This was what I originally planned to do as prayers, but you can see that doesn’t work with these prayer papers.
You can read all about the homophobic Christian campaigns at this newsletter. Way too much for this newsletter.
The main God uses the yellow package of papers.
These are the instructions which I couldn’t read. However, they are helpful.
There are three packages of paper to be burned.
Two are this type.
I am updating this report right now. Give me 30 minutes to finish.
It is then wrapped in the yellow sheet and looks like this.
You use four burning sticks of incense, and you put one each in a pot with sand for each of the three Gods at the main altar and one in pot of sand at the Rabbit God altar. You use your left hand. I managed to briefly burn myself while doing it. My prayer at the main alter was, “Please keep the Dallas LGBT safe.”
More photos from another prayer on 10/15/2023.
I went back for the Nine Gods Festival. While there I did another prayer.
This shows all the papers used. They filled out part in Chinese for me. I think it is my birthday in Chinese or today’s date.
The Rabbit God prayer was for the safety of the people in NO HATE IN TEXAS. They are a group that protests Stedfast Baptist church, the church that calls out for the execution of Gays.
As for the prayer at the main alter, I said, “I wanted to be a more patient boyfriend.” Later on the phone when I called him at home in Dallas about the visit, he just burst out with a “Hah!” Then said, that isn’t going to happen.
When I did the prayer at the main alter, and the prayer at the Rabbit God alter, the Master of the temple was very helpful and did some of the prayers for me.
Purchased twenty bars of Rabbit God soap.
Back to 10/14/2023.
I spent nearly 12,000 NT$, which is a little under $400 USD.
They gave me the pink thing, it was a snack. I didn’t know, but when I figured it out later, I ate it.
This page has the info on the soap. There are different soaps for different spiritual purposes.
https://www.weimingtang.org/service.php
There is this link to information about the soap.
For the following Google translate says.
"Removing impurities, wealth, popularity, courage, love, the five blessing blessing soap" The prayer soap blessed by Master Lu Weiming is a cooperation with Sansanwu Township Company to care for local small farmers and Xihan children in Taiwan. One donation, two Merits, three places to go
- Color: Popularity
The text is the same for all five pictures at this page.
I am not going to use them to wash myself. I am going to give them away, except for one which I will keep for myself. I am going to give them away for those who are seriously helping out for the Gay Temple.
I am invited back for Oct. 23, 2023 for Full Moon Day.
I might do a prayer for Lil Nas X’s safety. There is a lot of hatred directed against him.
I admire Lil Nas X for speaking forcefully against those who insult him or engage in homophobic acts. I don’t know how the temple feels about him, so it may not be permitted. I will update this section when I find out.
I will do a post on the Nine Emperors Festival visit I did on 10/14/2023 in the next post.
Visit the Temple when you are in Taipei. Make a donation.
Make a good donation. Different visitors will have different budgets, but if you have money, be generous.
They have a membership of about 150 they told me.
Subscription are free.
This post is inspiring. The photos are impressive.