《TAIPEI TIMES》Hsinchu City temple offers fortunes in four languages

By Hung Mei-hsiu and Jake Chung / Staff reporter, with staff writer

Putien Temple （普天宮） in Hsinchu City this year began offering multilingual fortunes, which the temple on Thursday said would help foreigners understand their fortune and promote Taiwanese culture abroad.

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The temple, which is primarily devoted to the Holy Emperor Lord Guan （關聖帝君）, said it provides fortune slips in English, Japanese and Vietnamese, and is looking to include Thai translations.

The temple also features a deity for relationships, which draws tourists, as well as employees from the nearby Hsinchu Science Park, the temple said.

Templegoers report that they find it easier to enter and maintain relationships after worshiping there, the temple said.

Temple chairman Cheng Yi-chen （鄭逸榛） said that the temple should take lessons from the science park and become more modernized.

During religious events, such as lighting fortune lamps （guangmingdeng, 光明燈） to attract good fortune and keep ill fortune at bay, the temple accepts credit cards or third-party mobile payment platforms, she said.

The temple is in talks to include EasyCard as a possible payment option, she said.

Cheng said that an American tourist who recently visited the temple was happy with the translation for the fortune slip he obtained.

“The gentleman said the fortune was spot on and it was remarkable,” she said.

The temple hopes that more visitors will experience Taiwan’s traditional temple culture, she added.

新聞來源：TAIPEI TIMES