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Wan Chai
Wong Tai Sin was little known before Leung Yan-am arrived in 1915
Leung Yan-am arrived in Hong Kong in 1915 and set up an altar to Wong Tai Sin in his apartment in Wan Chai. By March 1916 he had opened an herbal medicine shop and moved the altar to the back, where customers could pray and seek advice for their ailments.
Fu Ji
A divination in 1921 told them where to build the shrine
In 1921 Leung said he received a message from Wong Tai Sin telling him to build a new shrine, through a divination technique called Fu Ji. His group walked 3600 paces from a pier to Chuk Yuen Village and put a piece of bamboo into the ground as a mark.
The names
The shrine received its names through divination, the last in 1925
The shrine was named Chik Chung Sin Shrine, the Red Pine Deity Shrine. The altar was named Pu Yi Tan, and the premises Sik Sik Yuen, which became the managing body. In 1925 the Taoist Immortal Lü Dongbin renamed the shrine Chik Chung Wong Sin Hall.
Refugees
In the 1950s it was a major shrine overlooking refugee settlements
Many Chinese escaped to Hong Kong during and after World War Two and settled near the site. The temple, overlooking squatter settlements in the 1950s, filled a need for a major local shrine. Sik Sik Yuen was allowed to open it completely to the public in 1956.
Kau chim
Visitors shake a bamboo cylinder until a fortune stick falls out
Most visitors come for a spiritual answer through a practice called kau chim. They light incense sticks, kneel before the main altar, make a wish, and shake a bamboo cylinder of fortune sticks until one falls out. A soothsayer then interprets the fortune on the paper.
Day 2, midday
It comes after Yuen Po Street Bird Garden. Then Chi Lin Nunnery.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Wong Tai Sin Temple (Hong Kong), and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.