A Small Town Close To Taipei: Shiding

I visited the “Guniang Miao (temple of the girls)” two weeks ago. In traditional Chinese thoughts an unmarried woman can’t be worshipped with other ancestors of the lineage after their deaths, and their tablets can’t be placed in the household, and hence the temple of the girls provides the family with a space to commemorate her. This temple originally worshipped the Lady Wei Bian, who died early but has been acting as a virtuous girl of the family. The introduction of the temple warns people that Ms. Wei is kind and affectionate to worshippers, but at the same time very serious. So visitors shouldn’t make jokes in the temple in order to avoid offending her. The statue of Lady Wei Bian wears a gown and jewleries, and the shop of the temple sells paper money which has images of girls' dresses and jewleries on it.

After visiting the temple, I took a walk in the small town Shiding. It used to be prosperous because the coal mines, but it’s so quiet now that only some households can be seen in the mountains and the bus only comes every 30 min..

The temple of the girls

Lady Wei Bian

The town Shiding