Mazu (媽祖)

People in Sibu do not know much about Mazu, but Mazu is a big thing in many places, ranging from Fujian Province in China to Taiwan and all over Southeast Asia. I last heard about Mazu when people wanted to build the biggest Mazu statue in Kudat.

Our lack of knowledge about Mazu in Sibu is due to the fact that we were introduced Christianity. The priests stopped us from knowing some of the cultural practices. Many of the Chinese cultural practices have been banned by the priests. Burning hell money is one of the simple examples. However, talking to 100 Chinese in Sibu, 99.9 of us still carry some kind of Taoism mentality. In fact, Christianity in Sibu has also been very much Chinesenised (if there is such a word). I still believe that Christianity did not ban the Chinese from some of the cultural practices, but the priests (interpreters of Christianity) did.

I always got scared when I saw Taoism temples worshiping God and ghosts or deaths with the food and fruits, or they leave these along the path on my way home. I afraid that the ghosts would follow me home. However, as I grew older, I started to understand some of these Chinese traditions and cultures. I learned to understand it. I knew that our church have bad-mouth the Taoism as a belief in ghosts and evils. In a society where Christians constantly fought for survival from abuse by UMXO, I also started to learn that I have to respect the Taoism believers (although I still could not accept some of the practices, such as burning hell money and feeding deaths with fruits and food).

In our multi-religion society, we should learn how to respect the religion of others as if we wanted to be respected (back to Confucius teaching: Don't do it to others if we do not want others to do it to us). Christianity have been blamed for causing permanent loss to the cultures and practices of many native people around the world, and even the Pope once expressed apology to it.

Taoism definitely have been abused these days. Chinese, a race who love gambling, approached the temples for 4D number. I have seen many, and enough. A law should be set up to ban such malpractice and prosecute the representative of the temple.

I am surprised that we do not hear much about Mazu although we have a Henghua community in Sibu. Mazu originated from Henghua village in China. This was a true surprise to me. Henghua people must be very proud of their culture. Mazu is listed as one of the UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

I saw descriptions of Mazu in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mazu_%28goddess%29

媽祖是以中國東南沿海為中心的道教海神信仰，又稱天上聖母、天后、天后娘娘、天妃、天妃娘娘、湄洲娘媽等[1]。為媽祖察、聽世情的兩大駕前護衛神，分別為左手持方天畫戟，右手舉至額前做遠視狀的千里眼（又稱金精將軍），以及左手持月眉斧頭，右手舉至側耳作聽音狀的順風耳（又稱水精將軍）。

相傳媽祖俗名默娘姓林，出生於宋朝（或曰五代末年[2]）福建省興化府莆田縣湄洲島，一出生則不哭不鬧，因而取名為默，小名默娘，因此又稱林默娘。自北宋開始神格化，被稱為媽祖並受人建廟膜拜，復經宋高宗封為靈惠夫人，成為官府承認的神祇。媽祖信仰自福建傳播到浙江、廣東等沿海省份，並向臺灣、琉球、日本、東南亞（如泰國、馬來西亞、新加坡、越南）等地傳布，天津、上海、南京以及山東、遼寧沿海均有天后宮或媽祖廟分布。

媽祖離世時鄉人感其治病救人的恩惠，在湄洲島上建廟祀之，這就是名聞遐邇的湄洲媽祖廟。祖廟於天聖年間（公元1023-1032年）擴建，日臻雄偉。明永樂年間（1403年-1424年），航海家鄭和曾兩次奉旨來湄嶼主持御祭儀式並擴建廟宇。

在明朝永樂年間鄭和下西洋時期，是媽祖信仰向海外傳播的一個高峰。此外，隨著大量而不間斷的華人海外移民活動，媽祖信仰的傳播範圍更廣、更深，各地華埠（尤其是沿海地區）多可見媽祖廟的蹤影，譬如日本長崎、橫濱的媽祖廟、澳門媽閣廟、馬來西亞吉隆玻天后宮、菲律賓隆天宮、香港銅鑼灣天后廟。乃至於歐洲和美洲也開始有了媽祖廟。

媽祖的影響力由福建湄洲傳播開來，歷經千百年，對於東亞海洋文化及中國沿海文化產生重大的影響，被學者們稱為媽祖文化。

2009年10月，媽祖信俗入選聯合國教科文組織人類非物質文化遺產代表作名錄。