SHARE SOME INFORMATION According to history, in 17th century, in China, Ming dynasty was deposed and replaced by Qing dynasty. Some of the Ming commanders held the uprising against Qing dynasty but they failed. Many among them and their families left their homeland for the southeast asia, particularly for Hoi An. They insisted Nguyen Lords to accept their migration and finally, they could settle down here in their own villages. They all are Chinese from 5 main ethnic groups: Chaozhou, Kwangdong, FuJian, Hainan and haka. Equivalent to the Vietnamese, the Chinese prefer to live in a closed community to be ready to help each other and especially for their business, which, they are very good at. Therefore, a communal house is always necessary first. This Fu Jian communal house is well-known for its holy beauty, solemnity and numerous decorations all belong to Chinese tradition. They worship the Goddess of the sea and several others whom they believe would be with them on the aspect of money, health and descendants. The house is also a place for someone who needs the help from public. The Fu Jian people were the first and the most crowded among who came here. The construction started in 1697 and the building was renew several times mainly from Fu Jian community. The original was built all from wood but in 1757, they added some bricks on the wall and tiles on the roof. Compare to other communal houses that belong to other ethnic groups, this house is the largest and longest with a numerous number of carvings of trees and plants and animals. Furthermore, this was declared the 1st class historic site in 1985. Now let’s get in to have a look Ladies and gentlemen, we are standing at the trilogy gate that is vitally for a pagoda or a temple. This main gate was restored in 1975 with porcelain-laying, yin-yang tile and curving roof edge. Look at the roof edge. It looks like the dragon that symbolizes for power. On the top of the roof, there are 2 dragons fighting on a bottle. In this bottle, they believe contains the elite of the sun and the earth to strengthen the human being. This communal house is also called Golden Mount Temple. 2 circles on both sides mean the sun and the moon – the harmony of the universe. Three entrances mean sun, earth and human being or also left for men and right for women. The middle entrance only opens whenever for important ceremonies because they think the bad luck may go straight in the house if it’s opened all the time. This is the copy of the great wall and those are the sculptures of the four holy fantasy animals. They are dragon, unicorn, turtle and phoenix. In the oriental culture, the dragon is the ancient creative work of art. It has rooster head, snake neck, deer thorn, rabbit eyes, buffalo ears, tiger paws, eagle claws and fish scale. The dragon symbolizes for power. The unicorn body looks like the deer body but it’s a little bit larger, scale-on-body, bull tail, horse legs, wide mouth and large nose. Despite of the weird looking, it’s harmless so it has another name, the animal of kindness. It symbolizes for luck. The turtle symbolizes for the stability and the endlessness. Finally, the phoenix symbolizes for the upper class in society and it has parrot beak and short legs. These are extremely holy animals and when one out of four comes, the peace would follow or an oracle would be born. These two stone unicorns are the guards. We are standing in the front chamber. Can you see the hanging incenses up there? Many many people come here and they leave these incenses here to pray for their family, friends and themselves. These incenses are sold inside and they are not allowed to be taken out. Each of them can burn in that way in a month. There is a piece of paper attached with the incense. On this paper, they write down their names, addresses and if the incense finishes its job, the paper should be burnt out thus the pray might come true, they believe. Now we are standing before the Buddha and the goddess of the sea who helps the Chinese survive the disasters in the sea. Because in the past time, the Chinese emigrated mainly by boats so she is the especial character they memorize, not only at this temple but also everywhere in the world the Chinese live. The Chinese usually bring her some gifts if they come here to have a prayer and they leave here very large incense and they dedicate the petroleum to the temple to use. These incenses are really large, they can burn themselves for a year. The temple staff replace them one by one. They also worship the god of the eye, who can see thousands of miles away and the god of the ear, who can hear from thousands of miles away. They are the assistants of the goddess and they help her rescue people in trouble. This is the replica of the boat which was used in 1875. You can see the boat has eyes. The Chinese believe things have eyes for themselves like human ourselves. Therefore, they painted the eyes on the boat and gave her the ability to see. Now we are standing at the behind chamber. These are the altar of six great commanders who lead the uprising against Thanh dynasty but they failed so they fled to this Hoi An with their people. This is the altar of the goddess of the birth who creates the baby inside the womb along with her 2 assistants below, the goddess of the birth-giving and the goddess of the death. Next below are 12 madams. Each of them takes care of the baby for a month after birth-giving. That’s the reason why we have a big ceremony in the chance of the first birthday to thank them. Also, couples come here for their first child. These are the gods of wealth. The one on the left is called the white god. He gives you wealth. The one on the right is called the black god. He punishes you if you use yomur wealth on black purposes.
Posted on: Thu, 09 Oct 2014 13:11:44 +0000
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