2019 Dajia Mazu Parade

25th April 2019 0 By livinguktaiwan

一年一度的台灣大甲媽祖巡遊，上星期完滿結束。當天是星期二，又下著毛毛雨，人群明顯比去年少。儘管如此，還是很熱鬧，大家可以看看我的影片。我還加插一段去年拍，但一直沒有機會分享的片。我覺得這個環節非常特別，請大家欣賞。

Last week was the last day of the 2019 Dajia Mazu procession, one of the, if not the biggest religious event in Taiwan. Dajia is the final destination of the parade, and the home of one of the main temple for the sea goddess, Mazu. This nine day procession is to celebrate her birthday. I went to this event as well last year which was on a sunny Sunday. This year it was on a rainy Tuesday and were less crowds on the street. Having said that, they still put on a good show, including using a lot of paper colorful fireworks which sprinkled all over the street.

FREE FOOD AND DRINK

The parade goes on for the whole day until Mazu returns home to her temple. As I was wandering around town I saw a lot of people handing out free food and drinks to everyone. Yes, that right free food and drink! It was all hands on deck, even the kids were helping out. Some of the donors were firms promoting their products, others were the local business who all chipped in with drinks, buns, and even sacks of monkey nuts. And there was a community kitchen who offered a full meal! You’ll see a lot more footage in my video.

PAYING RESPECTS TO MAZU

The main part of the parade is to pay respects to Mazu at her home temple at Dajia. I arrived at the temple just before the crowd had gathered and managed to stand at the front to see the lion dance and dragon dance performances. There must have been over twenty lions in the lion dance. The guys were really energertic and were hopping on top of one another to mimic a lion prancing around. I got a really good view of this and I’m glad I can share this with you in my video.

DRAGON DANCE

The dragon dance is always my favourite as it is a very graceful dance. And I have the utmost admiration for the performers as I can imagine how difficult it is for so many people to move in synchronisation. Unfortunately my SD card ran out of memory at this point and I couldn’t take any footage of the dragon dance! Luckily my brother had taken some clips so credit for the lion dance footage goes to him. I did manage to take some photos of the moves, aren’t these guys amazing!!!

Last and not the least, last year I took a video clip of a particular part of the parade which I never got round to share. It is a very unique event with everyone, from old to young hurrying to kneel down on all fours. I have included it in this year’s video and you can find out exactly what is happening.