Today is the 9th day of the Chinese New Year. It has been busy at the workplace for me. Thank goodness that there seems no more irritating and unnecessary pop-up for me now.
In the afternoon, my colleagues and I went for lunch. When we went to the food centre (we locals call it "hawker centre") for lunch, most of the Chinese food stalls were closed. In the end, we realised that many of the stall vendors are celebrating the birthday of the Jade Emperor, commonly known by Chinese as "Tian Gong" (The God of Heaven). He must have been a very important god to have so many stall vendors take the day off to celebrate his birthday, I thought to myself.
It is not difficult for anyone to deduce that I do not quite know the importance of the Jade Emperor even though I am a Chinese. In order to enlighten myself, I did a little bit of research using the internet.
I found out that The Jade Emperor is one of the most important Chinese deities. He is important to both the Taoist and Buddhist traditions. Perhaps that explains why I do not know much about him, I am not a believer of either Taoism or Buddhism.
One of my sources, http://www.stafford-lau-gar.co.uk/news/20040121.html
revealed to me that on the eighth day of the Chinese New Year, families of believers would have dinner together. Then at midnight they will pray to Tian Gong. On the Jade Emperor's birthday, the ninth day of the New Year, special sacrifices of food such as pork, chicken and duck are placed before his image.
So, I have learnt a little more about Tian Gong today. I used to only know that he was considered one of the most important Chinese deities and that was about all I had knew about him in the past. Anyway, I have my sources to thank for the slight improvement in my knowledge about the Jade Emperor.
Some sources are:
1 comment:
i just learned about this yesterday myself.
my brother in law's family still practice this.
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