What are the names of these two gods?

[Ah-bin]

I've attached two pictures I took back in 1997 in the temple of the City God 城隍廟 Sêng Ông Biō in Tâi-tiong. Now I do know their names in Mandarin, 黑無常 Hei Wu-ch'ang and 白無常 Pai Wu-ch'ang and a little about their history (their original names were General Hoan 范將軍 and General Sia 謝將軍. What I was wondering though, is how to say their names in Hokkien? I had some feeling that they might be called 大伯公 in Penang, but are they the same?

Jean de Bernardi calls them Tōa-peh Kong and Jī-peh Kong, but notes another name Bô-tiāⁿ Peh for the tall deity, which she writes in characters as 無常伯. Is that the correct way to say it, or just her guessing that the 常would be tiāⁿ because she had heard tiāⁿ-tiāⁿ and assumed it was the reading for 常常? I've heard Bante Dhammavudho pronounce 無常 as "bô-siông", (strictly speaking the thák-chhe•h-im should be "bû-siông" or "bû-siâng") so I am not sure whether it was her mistake, or whether the name is actually "Bô-tiāⁿ Peh"

She also has a different story for the origin of both deities. My friend in Taiwan told me that the tall god strangled himself out of loyalty to his friend (I get mixed up as to who is General Hoan and who is General Sia) because the short god drowned in a flash flood while waiting on a bridge as the tall god had asked him to. That is why his tongue is sticking out, and why the shorter deity is dark-coloured. King Yama Giâm Lô ông 閻羅王 was so touched by their story he made them his messengers. I shan't go into the other version of the story just yet, as I am just interested in the names at the moment.

There were two other deities in the temple known as 牛頭 and 馬面 who are said to do similar work for King Yama. I suppose these would be pronounced as Gû-thâu and Bé-bīn?

[xng]

This is such a no brainer and you have to ask this. If you weren't an asshole, I would have answered you. But I don't reply to assholes !

[Ah-bin]

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Re: Pronounciation of 還 - Return

Postby xng » Thu Apr 01, 2010 6:54 am
Ah bin, please keep to a civilised discussion or do you want this forum to be a name-calling game just because you disagree with me.

[niuc]

Hi Ah-bin

From my experience with Singaporean Hokkien, similar to Jean de Bernardi, they call them Tōa-peh and Jī-peh, but without "kong". In my variant we usually refer to them as Lio3_e0 "tall one" and Ue2_e0 "short one".

You are right about Gû-thâu and Bé-bīn.

Tōa-peh-kong is totally a different figure, i.e. an elderly man seated with staff and 元寶 guânpó.
statue: http://bryanverygoodluck.blogspot.com/2 ... en-by.html
painting: http://wsx16.spaces.live.com/?_c11_Blog ... c=BlogPart

Most houses in Bagansiapiapi have house altar similar to the second link, including the painted 大伯公, however with place for ancestral "name list" & 觀音 (or other dieties) the other way round. The cupboard next to the picture is 鹹櫥 (meat safe).

[Ah-bin]

Many thanks for this detailed reply, Niuc. I have often thought of looking into these pair a bit more closely. It's interesting too how some of the gods like Ma-chO have "pairs" of retainers such as Chhian-li-gan and Sun-gong-ji (Thousand-league eyes and Wind-following-ears).

Sorry I'm on a computer at the moment with no characters or POJ capability. I feel like I'm in Amsterdam as all the characters are coming out as little code boxes! Back to normal in the next few days luckily.

[SimL]

Hi Ah-bin and niuc,

Yes, Tua Peh Kong is very different from 黑無常 and 白無常. [I wasn't even very aware of who the latter were until Ah-bin told me a bit more about them, though in my sub-conscious, I realised - on hearing his explanation - that I would have seen them in the "hell section" of some temples in Penang].

As niuc's first link shows, Tua Peh Kong is portrayed as an old man with a beard, with no "ghoulish" aspects to him. The link explains: "... is a deity which has been mistaken by many for wealth...", and indeed, this is what I've always thought of him to be: "The God of Wealth". The way I feel it, he's almost a sort of "patron god" of Penang (Penangites being such 'kutu' people, making the having of wealth a very important aspect of their lives ). There are Tua Peh Kong shrines all over the island, and many households have him as the household god.

When I was young, every year, on Tua Peh Kong's birthday, there would be a huge celebration at one of his most important temples, the one in Tanjong Tokong (I write it as "tanjong" because I left Malaysia before the spelling reform). My father took me one year, at night, and I really enjoyed it very much. The inside of the temple was one huge cloud of incense smoke, and the place was *packed*, both inside, and in the courtyard outside with - for a change - a huge proportion of men of all ages***. This was precisely because he's considered to be the "God of Wealth", and many of these men were businessmen, merchants and traders (so my father explained), coming to offer their prayers in the hope of doing (even) better in business. At a certain very special moment, a hush fell over the whole crowd as incense or paper money or a candle or something was lit (at his altar(?) - my memory is now very dim on this). My father explained that at the moment, there was a possibility that Tua Peh Kong would manifest himself, and that everyone was looking in a very concentrated way at the altar, in the hope of seeing him. This would be a sign of special favour, and would indicate a very prosperous immediate future, for whoever saw him. I looked and looked intently, but sadly, I didn't see him...

***: In my experience, the number of women usually far outnumber the number of men, when one looks around in any Chinese temple. The reason for the difference on Tua Peh Kong's birthday is explained above.

[SimL]

Most houses in Bagansiapiapi have house altar similar to the second link

... many households [in Penang] have him as the household god

This suggests that it's not a local Penang thing, but perhaps widely worshipped by Hokkiens as the household god. On the other hand, Ah-bin seems not to have come across him in Taiwan, so apparently it's not uniformly common for "Hokkiens" (in the widest sense of the word). Amhoanna, could you comment on this...?

The cupboard next to the picture is 鹹櫥 (meat safe).

Indeed, I was very happy to see a photo with this object we've spoken about here on the Forum .

BTW, "福德正神" were among the very few Chinese characters I could read as a child. Well, to be totally accurate, 3 of the 4: 福 because it's my middle name, 德 because 福德 is the name of my eldest cousin (1 year older than me), and 神 because I'd always been interested in Chinese gods and folk religion. I found it odd that so many pictures of him on altars "labelled" him as such, whereas I never heard anyone actually *call* him that, only ever as "Tua Peh Kong"/ 大伯公. niuc: is/was "福德正神" ever used to refer to him in Bagan?

[niuc]

This suggests that it's not a local Penang thing, but perhaps widely worshipped by Hokkiens as the household god. On the other hand, Ah-bin seems not to have come across him in Taiwan, so apparently it's not uniformly common for "Hokkiens" (in the widest sense of the word).

Hmmm, indeed I have yet to see it in Taiwanese tv programs or temples (I only visited a few during my holiday trip there). In Bagansiapiapi, from my impression, 大伯公 seems to be very central (may be second only to 天公 which has no statue/image), at home altar and in the main city temple (永福宮, often called 大伯公宮), while Buddha or Kūan-im or other deities are at the side or other altars.

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tua_Pek_Kong), he was a man of 18th century. I have never heard of this in Bagan, where there is story about his wife 大伯公婆 being mean and thus not worshipped. According to the story, during 秦朝 Cin5-tiau5 (Qin Dynasty, 3rd century BC, far from 18th c.) when 孟姜女 Bing7-khiu*1-ly2 哭倒萬里長城 khau3-to2-ban7-li2-tng5-sia*5 (cause the Great Wall to collapse due to her miserable crying) and therefore found her husband's skeleton, 大伯公婆 purposely advised her to bring the skeleton back home in a bag on her back and keep shaking (chik8) it up and down. When 孟姜女 arrived at her hometown, she was told (I don't remember by whom) that should she had not shaked her husband's skeleton and caused it to disarray (散去 sua*3_khy0), he could have been resurrected again. And because this, people never worship 大伯公婆, but only 大伯公. However, most probably this story is a later invention.

niuc: is/was "福德正神" ever used to refer to him in Bagan?

Yes, Sim. 福德正神 is his official title, though most would just say 大伯公.

[SimL]

Hi niuc,

Thanks for finding the Wikipedia article, and also for the very interesting Bagan version of Tua Peh Kong's background. Indeed, very different stories. The Wikipedia article's version would explain why he's known in Indonesia and Malaysia/Singapore, but not in Taiwan.

Another personage sometimes "worshipped" in Penang - but this time more historically known - is "Sam Po Kong". There used to be a shrine on one of the more distant beaches of Penang, next to a rock which was suppose to have his footprint (it was a depression in the rock, about the size of a footprint***). This was of course the famous Admiral Zheng He, of the Ming Dynasty. Interesting detail (which I didn't know for most of my life, and probably lots of people in Penang don't know to this day) is that he was a Muslim.

***: Even as the very gullible child that I was, I thought to myself when I first saw the "footprint": "Hmmm, that's just a depression in the rock - it doesn't even look like a footprint". [In contrast, I remember being probably in my late teens before it struck me as being "scientifically unlikely" that the snakes at the famous Penang Snake Temple would all crawl out of the jungle and gather at the temple on the day of the god's birthday. I was listening to a conversation between my parents and uncles and aunts, and they were talking about this annual phenomenon. One of them said: "Of course, the temple authorities place the snakes there overnight, the night before his birthday". It was only when I heard the statement that I thought "Hey, that's probably true". Up to that moment, I had cheerfully accepted the story as being true - part of my inner wish to have "magical things" exist in the universe, I guess.]

[SimL]

The cupboard next to the picture is 鹹櫥 (meat safe).

Indeed, I was very happy to see a photo with this object we've spoken about here on the Forum .

The habits of a lifetime are hard to break! Because I've been unable to read Chinese for my whole life up to about even a year ago (and still can't really do it), my "psychological reaction" to seeing Chinese text is for my mind to just clamp shut: "Oh, Chinese; don't even try". It's a very deeply ingrained reflex, for understandable reasons.

But that's changed in the last 1-2 years. About a year ago, I started realizing that I could read the names of Chinese restaurants. Suddenly, when wandering around any city and passing a Chinese restaurant I could see that it was "Happy Garden", or "Blue Lotus", or whatever! Nowadays, I can even actually puzzle my way - slowly and tediously, and with limited degrees of success - through shorter pieces Chinese text. Nevertheless - as I said - the habits of a lifetime are hard to break. It was only after two days of looking at the second Tua Peh Kong link that niuc posted (the one with the photo of the "meat safe" as well), that I suddenly realised that there was some Chinese text associated with it, and that I could actually puzzle my way through roughly working out what it said (even with perhaps 5-10% of the characters unknown to me). So, I just read it! And was pleased to see that the writer points out both the "wire mesh" and the "saucers under the legs with water in them" - i.e. the two "special" aspects of the meat safe. One interesting thing is that the writer calls it "just" an 碗橱 also. I find niuc's family's terminology of 鹹櫥 better, as its name properly describes its function (provided you know what the 鹹 means, of course ). Our family's usage (and that of the writer in the link) is more general - it could be any cupboard for storing crockery.

Similarly, I went to Chinese Wikipedia to look up niuc's 孟姜女. Again, initially with my 'old' attitude: find the Chinese Wikipedia page, immediately click on the English equivalent, and get the information I need from there. This time however, there was a page for it in the Chinese Wikipedia, but (perhaps unsurprisingly) no equivalent in the English Wikipedia. So, again, breaking my force of habit, I puzzled my way through the first paragraph, and was astonished to see that I could actually get the rough outline of what was said (quite a bit less than the 大伯公-and-碗橱 link, as the language is a bit more sophisticated, but still, quite a nice surprise for me).