Cebu Taoist Temple: Dragons in Beverly Hills

The temple was built in 1972 by Cebu’s Chinese community. It honours Laozi, along with other Taoist gods. Chinese traders had been coming to Cebu for centuries by then. Downtown, in Parian, one of their houses is thought to date from the late seventeenth century.

Taoism is not only the philosophy attributed to Laozi. It is also a religion, with gods and rituals, and this is a working temple, open to anyone who comes up the hill. Inside, I offered incense at the altar.

A sign on one of the pillars, asking for silence, uses the word “saint” for the images of the gods. In the Philippines, Catholic holy images have long been known as santos.

On this hill, even Taoist gods get called saints.

Dragons

Outside, there are dragons on almost everything. One winds down the slope below the octagonal pavilion. Others ride the edges of the roofs.

In Chinese art, dragons embody a cosmic energy that brings clouds and rain. The one on the slope has brought a few clouds of its own.

On one roof, two dragons face each other along the ridge. In the usual version of this picture, two dragons are chasing a flaming pearl. Between these two stands a small pagoda.

The pearl turned up in a covered hall with a stage. Its gable has the full set: clouds, two dragons, and between them, a white pearl in red flames.

Purple Bamboo Grove

On the wall above the slope dragon, three round panels read, from right to left, 紫竹林: Purple Bamboo Grove. It is the name of a place on Mount Putuo, the island long identified as the home of Guanyin.

Elsewhere in the garden, three white figures stand on lotus pedestals in a pond. The tallest, in the middle, is probably Guanyin herself, and behind her, painted on the wall, is bamboo.

A Buddhist figure in a Taoist temple is nothing unusual. In Chinese religion, the two traditions have long shared the same altars.

Vases stand in the water in front of her. Get a coin into one, it is said, and your wish will come true.

I threw one. It did not go in. Judging by the bottom of the pond, I was in good company.