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| A Woman's Directory For Travel and Life. WAVE Journey is your one stop online resource for women oriented businesses and services around the world. WAVE Journey is for every woman to enjoy. If you love to travel, cook, garden, read or revel in outdoor activities this website is for you. If you are looking to connect with other like-minded women or if you are interested in finding businesses or services that cater to women, WAVE Journey is your number one online resource. On the Trail of Chinatown’s Hidden Gods ~ continued Shopkeepers in Manhattan’s Chinatown still tend shrines to their Buddhist gods, who guard the cash and the goods, and the owner’s health and wealth. Look closely, and you’ll see them everywhere. Article & photos by Patricia Chang |
| WAVE Journey |
| Women's Adventures, Vacations & Experiences ~ Your Journey Starts Here! |
You’ll find Tu-Di Gong at fish markets, because he protects the fish, ensuring a good catch.
Without his blessing, Leung said, shopkeepers can’t even open their stores. It is his land
they are using, and his permission they require.
The Porcelain Corner Shop sells shrines and statues of the gods. In back, there’s a much
larger shrine to Guan Yin. Leung has asked for protection on long trips, and for luck in her
career.
Buying a statue doesn’t automatically guarantee you a god’s protection.
“You can’t just go to our store and buy it,” Nguyen warned. Buyers must take statues to
the temple, to receive the priest’s blessings, and usually leave them there, accumulating
blessings, for some weeks. Buddhists believe that the longer statues stay at the temple,
the more power they will bring their owners. In Chinatown, a Buddhist priest will pray to
the icons every day, and offer them wine and fruit. When shopowners feels it is time, they’ll
retrieve their statues, and place them in their rightful locations.
And that’s where discerning visitors can see them today.
Without his blessing, Leung said, shopkeepers can’t even open their stores. It is his land
they are using, and his permission they require.
The Porcelain Corner Shop sells shrines and statues of the gods. In back, there’s a much
larger shrine to Guan Yin. Leung has asked for protection on long trips, and for luck in her
career.
Buying a statue doesn’t automatically guarantee you a god’s protection.
“You can’t just go to our store and buy it,” Nguyen warned. Buyers must take statues to
the temple, to receive the priest’s blessings, and usually leave them there, accumulating
blessings, for some weeks. Buddhists believe that the longer statues stay at the temple,
the more power they will bring their owners. In Chinatown, a Buddhist priest will pray to
the icons every day, and offer them wine and fruit. When shopowners feels it is time, they’ll
retrieve their statues, and place them in their rightful locations.
And that’s where discerning visitors can see them today.
| Shop owners and workers place offerings of wine, fruit, uncooked rice and incense at the shrines, and ask for blessings. |
| Shrines at Porcelain Corner |