Then Ho Temple

If you haven’t figured it out by now, a lot of the spelling here is phoenetic (or best guess).

Our second stop was at the Then Ho temple.  This is one of the oldest temples in Saigon, and was built here by Chinese immigrants after they arrived.  This temple is to honor a goddess (?) who flies on clouds to protect boats and people associated with the sea.  The temple was built as a form of thanksgiving for a safe immigration.

Oh, and it also served as a communal house with common rooms on the right side and a public school on the left.  In the center is the actual temple part, which again uses lots of incense and burning things. There’s a big metal fire box in the center of the open-topped temple.

As you approach the temple through the front gates, you notice that there are two statues, one on each side.  They are Male (on the right as you face the front door) and Female (on the Left) and are the yin and yang to protect the temple.  The female has a baby under her paw, while the male has a construction tool under his.

They are accompanied by two very large paper lanterns, again one immediately on each side of the door but this time protected by a front porch.  They are apparently pretty expensive items, being purchased by the local congregation with the proceeds going to support the works of the church.

Oh, and they, along with the statues, are supposed to keep out bad spirits.

Out front of the temple are vendors selling live birds (like little sparrows).  You can purchase a bird and set it free for luck.

At least one bird gets lucky when you do that.

The doors into the temple, and into the rooms between them, all have high threshholds – about 6 to 8 inches.  These are to keep out scorpions, bugs, rats, etc.  It also causes you to automatically bow when entering the room, since you have to kind of lean forward when stepping over it.

Like most churches, they have a perpetual building project going on and are always looking for donors to help fund the construction.  Those who got in early – when the building was initially constructed in the 1860’s, their names carved on nice marble plaques mounted into the wall.

Those more recent donors get their name written in gold on a slip of red paper that is taped to the wall for a month.

The Bat is called by the same word in Chinese as Happiness, and as such it is a good symbol.  Many of the wooden plaques hanging in the temple have a bat carving at the bottom and another at the top.

The temple had more of the curly incense we saw at the one in Hong Kong earlier this week, although we got to see it lit and hung this time.

We found out that each of the big spiral ones burns for a week. You write the name and age of the deceased person you are honoring (again, in gold on a red ribbon) to allow your petition to be taken up on the incense smoke.  I have to admit – I’m still unclear as to who is supposed to be getting that message – the ancestor who then tells the Deity, or the ancestor who’s supposed to just take care of the matter themselves.