Yesterday’s picture focused on the biggest Macanese Catholic
site; I thought it fair to look at its Chinese counterpart today.
This is a section of the A
Ma temple. Not sure who she is? I refer you to yesterday’s entry – she’s
the mysterious girl who occurred to the men sailing on the sea of the beautiful
day, who caused the storm to cease, but just disappeared, remember? Jolly good.It was similar to the Man Mo temple Claire and I visited last week – icons, incense, drums, bells. The main differences were three-fold:
Size – this was tens of times bigger. Every nook and cranny of the rocky hill the temple is on seemed to have a shrine wedged into it.
Scale – everything was larger. The drum you can see here is absolutely
huge, while the large rods stacked up beside it are the biggest incense sticks I’ve ever seen. They have
a welding-style blow-torch to light them.
The tourists – Man Mo’s non-worshipping tourists were white,
and falling over themselves to be quiet and respectful. Here, throngs of mainland
Chinese charged up and down the hill looking for the best vantage points for
photos in packs, talking very loudly, and woe betide you if you got in their
way. Hong Kongers whinge loudly and often about mainlanders in HK. This was the
first time I saw their point.
As we left, the temple really did ‘strike back’, causing Claire
and I to yelp and jump in the air in fright. In Catholic churches, incense,
icons and bells there may be; but random fire crackers there are none.
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