When is the best time to visit the Tin Hau Ancestral Temple in Hin Leung Kong?

The best time to visit Xianlianggang Tianhou Ancestral Temple: The southern part of Putian faces the East China Sea, and the terrain is mostly plains; the northern part has a higher altitude, and the terrain is mainly mountains and hills. Putian has a warm and rainy climate, a typical subtropical oceanic monsoon climate, and relatively abundant sunshine is a major feature of Putian. Sufficient light, heat and abundant rainfall provide good conditions for the growth of crops in Putian. As a result, Putian is known as the land of fish and rice, and the land of flowers and fruits.

Putian’s annual average temperature is between 18℃ and 21℃, and its average annual precipitation is between 1000mm and 1800mm. It has a mild climate and is suitable for travel all year round. Tourists need to pay attention to the fact that July to September every year is the season when typhoons occur frequently. The strong winds and heavy rainfall brought by typhoons will cause inconvenience to travelers.

Putian Zhongmen Gangli Village, known in ancient times as Xianliang Port, also known as Huangluogang, is the birthplace of Mazu, the goddess of the strait. After Mazu became immortal, the villagers built a temple to commemorate it. The ancestral temple was first built in the Song Dynasty, and a wooden chamber statue of Mazu was enshrined. According to the "Zhi Fengtian Hou Zhi", it is said that the statues in the chambers of the ancestral hall are made by strangers, and the verses worshiped everywhere are beyond comparison. Because the front hall of the temple is used to enshrine the statue of Mazu. The forehead is called Tianhou Temple, and the back hall is dedicated to the tablets of the Holy Parents and their ancestors. The forehead is called Lin's Ancestral Temple, so it is revered as Tianhou Ancestral Temple. In the 19th year of Yongle's reign in the Ming Dynasty (1421), the temple was damaged. The imperial court was ordered to go to Hong Kong to renovate and commemorate the temple, and called it the Tianfei Ancestral Temple. In the 18th year of Shunzhi of the Qing Dynasty (1661), in order to fight against the Ming Zheng palace affairs, the coastal areas were cut off and wild lands were cleared, and the villagers and Mazu statues were moved inward to Hanjiang River. In the 20th year of Emperor Kangxi's reign (1681), the temple had been completely destroyed. Lin Huochang, his grand-nephew, initiated the reconstruction and welcomed back the statue of Mazu to the Hanjiang people. However, the Han people refused. The two sides asked the king to provide divination and obtained ninety-nine. After the Holy King paid him a visit, the people of Hanjiang returned the statues to the port one by one with their gifts on boats. In the twenty-third year of Kangxi's reign, he was granted the title of Queen of Heaven.

At that time, the ancestral temple was eroded by ants and the tiles leaked and the walls collapsed. Lin Pei, a teacher in Fengshan County, Taiwan, initiated a fundraiser and rebuilt it on the hill behind the ancestral site. By the 51st year of Qianlong's reign (1786) Year) was completed in September. In the fifty-third year of Qianlong's reign (1788), the Spring and Autumn Festival was enshrined and included in the ceremony. During the large-scale steel smelting movement in 1958, the temple was razed to the ground and the statue was saved by the villagers. In 1984, the villagers raised funds to rebuild it according to the original style. The closing ceremony was held on the same day. This temple preserves the Song Dynasty Mazu chamber statue, the Qianlong stone inscriptions of the Qing Dynasty, as well as the nearby Mazu's former residence, Shoufu Well, Bafeng Well, Lianzu noodle pillars and other Song Dynasty cultural relics. In 1989, it was established as the Xianlianggang Tianhou Ancestral Temple Tour Area in Putian County. In 1991, it was announced as a provincial cultural relic protection unit by the Fujian Provincial People's Government. In recent years, Mazu believers from Taiwan and other places have come to Luogang to search for their origins and make pilgrimages to their ancestors. There has been an endless stream of incense and inspection groups. They have donated funds to build three stele squares, bell and drum towers, and Tongbin Pavilion, making the ancestral temple increasingly perfect and spectacular. .