Today has been a good leisure day kind with good exposure to Taiwanese history, food, lifestyle and religion. The day started by our visit to the Ciou Ling fort, very close to the keelund harbour on a hill. Historically this fort was always busy / in focus, due to the vulnerability the Keelung County carries. Keelung County was a prime attraction for many colonials, being close to main land china, japan and also for the coal, gold and other precious minerals it stores. The fort area is still maintained well and the environment around it simply awesome !
From the fort we went for a visit to the Cemetry. Initially it was little awful to acknowledge that we will be going to a cementary / burial ground , but later I realized even the cementary is a place which show cases a strong sense of culture and traditions of the local community. There were different types of them and each of them has a story and reason. One interesting is the body buried will be kept as it is for six years and later all the bones of the body would be organized in a sitting posture. implying .,.,., . However this custom will not be followed in cases of chinese immigrants and as they always wanted to go back to china.
After visit to these the places, we went to a restaurant ____________ near Keelung city center for lunch. This was a very cool place and famous for its delicious mock non vegetarian.
Post lunch, we all went to a __________ temple. This place has a white budha and also mercy budha. This mercy budha is well known as protector for the Keelung fishermen community. This place showcased several interesting thing. The most impressing part for me is the young mothers who came along with a 1-2 years old and started teaching them how to fish. Being a fisher community its very important for them how to know fishing, and this practice continues even for today.
The concluding event of the day was a prayer ceremony, where several spiritual leaders came in and recited few prayers in the memory of the ghosts. The significance of this ceremony is that the family groups bring their offerings of good and tasty food / sacrifices to the temple ceremony place. And now they pray that their family's ghosts must come and taste this food which is supposed to be their favorite when they were alive. According to their beliefs, its not possible for the ghosts to eat food that is present in mortal world, so during this day of ghost festival, the ghosts have powers that helps them manage things in the mortal world as well. So the community ensures they make good offers to the ghosts.
There are two special / most interesting things in this ceremony. One a huge sized pig, fed from its birth and taken all care including costly food, accommodation and other facilities and sacrificed today to the ghosts. Two, different kinds of food made in shapes of insects and animals made from rice cakes. Three, the throwing of fruits by the religious chief and every one else should catch them !
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