(26th day of the first lunar month)
Recorded history on loaning from Koon Yam in Hong Kong can date back to 1956 where there was coverage on pilgrimage to three major local Koon Yam temples,
Yesterday was the date for what vernacular believes 'the Goddess Koon Yam opens her vault'. The Koon Yam Temple on Tai Ping Shan Street in Sheung Wan, the Water Moon Temple [dedicated to Koon Yam] on Po Leung Kuk San Street, and the Koon Yam Old Temple in Tze Wan Shan beside Wong Tai Sin on the Kowloon side were flooded with male and female pilgrims. The women who paid their respect to Koon Yam and made loans on this date usually set wealth and sons as their objects of request. Leaving the temple to return home, they carried with them lettuce, ginger, mushroom and, held in their hands paper wind-mills, which symbolized a good 'turn' of their fortune…At the bottom of Tze Wan Shan there are [two] huge rocks called 'Lover's Rock' and 'Treasure Reflection Rock' which attracted many women to climb, lie on and clutch them. (Sing Tao Daily, March 9, 1956)
The article put down the following events happening in the festival in 1956: firstly, the pilgrims demanded loan from Koon Yam; secondly, when they returned, they brought home lettuce and some other auspicious objects; and thirdly, female pilgrims climbed and clutched the huge rocks besides the temples.
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In recent years, as a consequence of mass media coverage, the birthday celebration of Koon Yam has aroused considerable public attention, making itself a major popular religious event in Hong Kong. During the festival every year, Koon Yam Temple in Hung Hom becomes crowded with worshippers, male and female, young and old, who come for getting loan from the Goddess.
To understand how the loan is asked, on February 16, 2004, equivalent to the 26th of the first month of Chinese calendar, I patiently followed a long and slow-moving queue in front of the temple's entrance, with the hope of participating in the festival with the flock of worshippers. |
A long queue to the temple (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)
Koon Yam Temple at Hung Hom (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)
Shops selling 'sacrifice' (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)
Imperial paper robe for the goddess (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)
Worshippers made their offers once they enter the temple. I saw that they carried out the ritual of offer by lighting the joss-sticks and candles and then inserting them into the incense burners on the altar. They made wishes, and passed the birthday gifts as well as the charms to the temple helpers for burning [sending the offers] to the Goddess on behalf of them. These actions are part of people's celebration of the Goddess's birthday.
After the offering was the moment for the worshippers to request a loan. The worshippers lined up in front of the donation box, waiting for their turn to put into it at least 45 dollars into a donation box, as rule says. Then, each of them would receive a piece of folded red paper on which was written arbitrarily a sum of money. They believed that the bigger written amount they received, the bigger wealth they could make in the following year. These happenings were part of the getting a loan from the Goddess.
The amount of 120 million, which I borrowed from the goddess in 2004.(by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)
Worshippers received charms for good luck and a red bag of lettuce when they left the temple. (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)
Lettuce and other luck-bringing objects inside the bag. (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2004)
The writer of the newspapers article in 1956 has noted that the pilgrims returned home with lettuce (san-choi) and I made identical observation in 2004. To modern people, the significance of this gesture is easy to understand: the Cantonese pronunciation of 'san-choi' is homophonic to the one of the phrase meaning 'making (san) a wealth (choi) '. This loan of pronunciation and meaning symbolizes the idea of 'getting loan from the Goddess'.
Poon Shuk-wah, however, argues that the equivalence of san-choi to 'making a wealth' is only a very recent adoption. She investigated all the cases of Koon Yam Festival in Guangdong Province during the Republican era (1912-49), and discovered that people's celebration of Koon Yam's birthday was originally considered an opportunity for married women to request the heaven to bless them with sons. Indeed, the Goddess of Mercy has long been a Chinese mythological figure believed to have the power of bestowing boys to the human world. The material-lean development of our society, ironically, has altered the substance of heavenly 'mercy' from bestowing boys to bestowing wealth. Once the role of the goddess is changed, not only married women, but also young girls and men who seek wealth join the pilgrimage; people think that the goddess opens her vault on her birthday. (Poon, 2004) Poon's study also shows that in the past, the pilgrims stressed the character 'san' (homophonic to 'giving birth [to sons]') but in modern days people instead look for 'choi,' (homophonic to 'wealth').
This shift in yearning is a gradual process, started probably in the Republican era. But the original motivation had never disappeared. One evidence is that, although the pilgrims of the Koon Yam Festival in 1956 already include both men and women whose goal was asking for wealth, there were many women making the "exclusive and classical" request of being blessed with sons. A more concrete evidence was the continuing practice of women clutching the huge rocks, still standing beside the temple today, whose shape was commonly described as resembling a man's genital.
¡¥Lover¡¦s Rock¡¦ and other huge rocks beside the Koon Yam Temple in Tze Wan Shan. (by Sui-wai Cheung, 2000)
Date: June, 2005
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