Who is Matsu?
Matsu is the goddess of sea in Chinese folk religion. She was a real person dated back to early Song Dynasty (960 - 1279 AD). Her name is Lin Moniang（林墨娘）born in a fisherman family in 960 AD. She died at the age of 28 in 987 AD. According to the legend, she climbed to the top of the cliff and flew to heaven. When she was born, there were strange things happened in the village, and people believed that this baby was special. She was smart, and very naturally she knew about medicine and supernatural power. Therefore, she constantly prayed for her father and brother's safety as well as all other fishermen while they were out in the sea. Every time she prayed, the bad weather would change and the rough sea would turn smooth. In addition to this, because of her ability to help people in the village, she was believed to be having divinity. So when she flew to heaven, people knew that she had become a goddess.
Her ability to help people and her supernatural power had been widely discussed. Slowly, people started to believe that she is the goddess of sea who had the power to save and help every individual who suffers from pain and misfortune. She started to gain popularity after Song Dynasty that made her one of the most famous goddess in Chinese folk religion. Not just people who work at sea worship her, almost every Chinese knows her and worships her. Even the emperors (such as in Ming and Qing Dynasties) believed in her divinity and named her the Heavenly Empress（天后）.
Matsu is a very important icon in Taiwan. Her temples are almost everywhere, and everyone here knows Matsu and believes in her power. In Taichung（台中）, there is a would famous Matsu festival held by Chenlan Temple （鎮瀾宮）every march. This religious festival not only represents our strong belief in Matsu, but also represents the recognition of Taiwan. It holds all Taiwanese together as a group power to thank Matsu for her protection and compassion. Through this activity, we share the same belief and ideas that in fact reinforce our recognition of Taiwan and our identification of this land. Therefore, when this festival starts, we always see politicians joining the activity, and Indeed, the reason for them to join is to hope that Matsu could protect them and help them win the election. Moreover, they naturally would use this opportunity to deliver their political views and gain the trust from all participants. Honestly speaking, these politicians are truly manipulating this religious icon for their own interest only, which contradicts to Matsu's image of compassion. I wonder how Matsu would feel when she realizes this!
However, as my title goes, can Matsu helps us win a seat in the UN? I guess the answer is no, and this is only another trick played by those tricky politicians.
Why do we really need to join UN when we have been on our own for so long? We still survive! Besides, UN is such a huge organization that doesn't really produce anything efficiently but full of all corrupt situations within its structure. Why do we want to join this organization when we will not be benefited from it?
For those who insists in joining UN, their main concern is on Taiwan's independence. But this is such a ridiculous logic. We are in fact independent now. Joining UN will not make us more independent. It in fact will cause more international troubles that would truly damage our current independent status. The second ridiculous logic they hold is that we must change our name so as to show our independence. They argue that our current name only causes confusion, so we must let all other countries know that we are "Taiwan". True that we do have a name that is not recognized by other countries, but everyone knows Taiwan, and we are already using it as an unofficial name for this country. Why do we want to change the current status and go to the direction that leads Taiwan to destruction? It is never about the name; it is always about the cross-strait situation. China is way stronger than us now, both politically and economically. They are fine with us using Taiwan unofficially. If we start to change this situation, no one knows what kind of damage would bring us. Then why do these politicians want to put their people and the country's future in such a dangerous state?
I could never understand what these people think in their head! By the way, though I believe in Matsu, and I truly think that she knows all languages, I don't think she is able to get us a seat in the UN, not even you bring her statue to the headquarters of the UN in New York, which is what they planned to do and will do couple months later. My reason is easy to understand. She certainly has the power to help us, but for those foreign countries, they don't believe in Matsu! When they are not believing in this god, how could you expect them to receive the message from this god and do what she wants them to do! Taking the whole issue with a superstitious consideration, we could easily know that this effort will surely be a vain attempt. The bottom line is that this is only another politicians' manipulation of Matsu image for their personal interest.
No comments:
Post a Comment