Many regions all over the world have the tradition of worshiping gods as people believe the mighty benevolent gods will guide and save them. Traditional Chinese culture also has a long history of worshiping gods. Numerous people believe in different gods sincerely as they believe the gods have generative powers of nature and can help their dreams come true if they worship them wholeheartedly. In Hong Kong, many traditional practices and rituals related to the worshiping culture under multiple traditional Chinese religions such as Buddhism and Taoism.
In the mid-semester project, we focused on young children and discussed the function and interesting parts of various playgrounds, including traditional outdoor playgrounds and modern indoor playgrounds such as the Jumping Gym. This time, we would like to change our focus to older people and see what places they usually go to or what attracts them a lot. Hence, we came up with the idea of temples as it is an important place for many senior worshippers.
We chose the Wong Tai Sin Temple because it is one of the most well-known temples and tourist attractions in Hong Kong. It is named after the deity Wong Tai Sin from Taoism. It is famous for its efficaciousness, “What you request is what you get (有求必應) “ through a traditional practice called kau chim (draw fortune sticks). Flocks of local people and tourists visit there to wish for good fortunes and hope to receive guidance, especially on the 23rd of the eighth Lunar month – Wong Tai Sin’s birthday and the Lunar New Year’s Day. It is also a unique temple because it is near the residential areas and creates a combination of modern housing with traditional culture.
We want to make a sound map and record the sounds in different temple locations. As Taoism advocates simplicity and harmony with nature, the 18,000 m2 area of the temple also includes a large garden that can provide a serene place to relax, it will be more suitable for creating an interesting sound map with different kinds of sounds. We used WIX to make a website for the sound map together with a hand-drawn map. At various spots on the map, we recorded 12 soundtracks including sounds of tourists, kau chim, birds and streams in the garden, explanation sounds in the cultural center and more. We tried to record at more spots to give a more comprehensive idea and also added photos and descriptions for better reference at each recording.
During the recording, we found out that not only the elderly visit the temples, but also many young adults pray for fortunes. However, we believe many people may not have the chance or not be interested in visiting temples, so we want to provide a leisurely way for people to “walk through” the temple by simply clicking various soundtracks on the sound map. Since traditional practices and rituals like the Wong Tai Sin Temple represent traditional Hong Kong culture, we hope the sound map can help raise awareness of cultural heritage in Hong Kong.
References: Davis, H. (2019, June 1). City of gods: Hong Kong’s varied cast of ancient deities explained. SCMP. https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3012506/city-gods-hong-kongs-varied -cast-ancient-deities-explained Wong Tai Sin Temple (Hong Kong). (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 26, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wong_Tai_Sin_Temple_(Hong_Kong)