Dajia Mazu Pilgrimage

The Dajia Mazu Pilgrimage is always held in the third lunar month each year, but the exact departure date is not something you can look up at the start of the year. Jenn Lann Temple has its abbot cast divination blocks to ask Mazu's will that year, and only after receiving a sacred answer does it publicly announce the time and date of departure.

So the third lunar month is only the rough direction; to actually walk it, you have to keep an eye on Jenn Lann Temple's announcement. My own approach is simple: before setting out, always reconfirm the departure date published for that year — let the official announcement be the final word. The lunar calendar shifts, and its conversion to the solar calendar differs every year; last year's date will not map onto this year, so never go by memory.

The starting point is Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia, Taichung. The palanquin sets out from here, heading south through Taichung, Changhua and Yunlin, all the way to Fengtian Temple in Xingang, Chiayi, then retraces the same route back to Dajia.

This round trip runs nine days and eight nights, about three hundred and forty kilometres in total, passing more than a hundred temples and over twenty towns along the way. The first time I stood in front of Jenn Lann Temple watching the procession set out, firecrackers burst at my feet, the smoke had not yet cleared, and the palanquin was already pressing up close — only in that moment did I truly grasp how long this road is, and how many people had come for it.

Yes, and there is no need to sign up, nor to declare beforehand whether or not you believe. On this road, no one asks where you are from, and no one asks what you believe; you are simply one more person walking behind Mazu.

The group I walked with had never met before; we only fell in together on the road: someone repaying a vow, someone praying for peace for a sick mother, someone who could not quite say why, who simply comes to walk every year. One old man up front carried on his back a pilgrimage flag gone white with age; he said he had walked for over thirty years, replaced the flag many times, yet his pace grew slower each year. This road welcomes any reason at all.

Absolutely, and most people only follow one stretch to begin with. Walking the full nine days and eight nights on foot is genuinely demanding; the soles of your feet will be covered in blisters, the asphalt's heat seeping up inch by inch through your shoes, and only a few can last the entire way.

I did not finish the whole route myself; I dropped out at some town whose name I cannot recall. But even following just one stretch, that rhythm of being pushed along by the crowd was still in my body when I lay down at night. Pace yourself, pick a stretch you can handle, and this pilgrimage will belong to you just as completely.

Because the route runs from Dajia through Changhua and Yunlin to Xingang in Chiayi and back, you can first decide which stretch to follow, then arrange your way in and out from the towns near that stretch. The starting point, Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia, is where most people choose to join.

The supplies along the way are actually more plentiful than you would imagine: households carry tables to their doors, handing out lunchboxes, bottled water and pain-relief patches, and under the eaves pots of free misua noodles simmer. When I had walked my legs to jelly, an old woman pressed a bowl into my hands — the bowl scalding, the broth boiling — telling me to restore my strength before walking on. This roadside hospitality is the part of the journey you need to worry about least — but lodging and round-trip transport you still have to arrange in advance yourself, especially since the route is crowded during the pilgrimage, so the earlier you plan, the more at ease you will be.

This is a long walk on foot, and shoes are the single most important thing. The asphalt road is long and hot, blisters on the soles are all but inevitable, and choosing a well-worn, well-fitting pair of shoes is more useful than anything else.

As for supplies, temples and households along the way set altars to welcome the goddess and provide food and water, and pain-relief patches are often handed out too. Even so, you still need to know your limits, rest when tired, and not push through by sheer force. Leave a margin in both your stamina and your supplies — the full nine-day walk is genuinely demanding, so keep the pace within what you can control, and you will last the longest.

Crouching under the palanquin is the most treasured blessing on this road: devotees lie flat on the ground and let Mazu's palanquin be borne over them. The first time I crouched under the palanquin, I knelt down with the old man beside me before I had time to think, forehead pressed to the scalding asphalt, letting the palanquin be borne slowly over my head.

In that single moment, the roar of hundreds of thousands seemed suddenly to recede far off, leaving only the asphalt's burn, the firecrackers' lingering smoke, and overhead a swaying sheet of gold. To crouch under the palanquin, remember to watch how experienced devotees beside you do it and to follow the guidance of the staff on site; keep to their lead on where and when to lie flat, and you naturally will not panic.

This is among the largest religious events on earth, with hundreds of thousands of people packed into the procession; firecrackers bursting at your feet are the norm, and you must be all the more careful of your footing when the palanquin draws near. After dark the procession walks on, gongs and drums near and far, incense smoke drawn into threads under the streetlamps, footsteps, chanting and a child's crying all kneaded together.

In crowded places, the most important thing is to look after your own rhythm and position: do not force your way through where it is packed, keep close to the procession, and watch the movements of the firecrackers and the palanquin. When you grow tired, stop at one of the rest points along the way; stay safe and pace yourself, and only then will this road be walked with peace of mind.

It is among the largest religious events on earth, yet walking inside it, what you feel is never "the largest," but one concrete person after another beside you. That bowl of noodles handed over by a stranger, that palanquin borne over the head, that old man with his faded flag — they stayed with me a long while after.

I think you too will find, as we did, slowly discovering: you cannot take Mazu away with you, but you take away how the people on this road treat someone they have never met — and that, perhaps, is more like a miracle than any miracle.