It is time to thank god, according to our Chinese Calendar, and I went to Man Mo Temple to thank Tai Sui, one of the Taoist Gods, for my family, and NOT with clients today.
In fact, there are altogether sixty “General”, the one in-charge of the destiny for a particular year. Every sixty year is a cycle. Some might say that it is the Jupiter, but some other say that it was the opposite movement of the Jupiter, and not running exactly the same path. There were so many thoughts and sayings to align the belief in the western astrology. According to our belief, one might be born on the year whose “General”, the Tai Sui, might not be working well with the “General” in charge of the current year, so we might be facing a lot of frustrations and conflicts in business and working place. I was one of them last year, so near the end of the year, we have to thank for the “General” who have protected us, at least, lessening the extent of ups and downs, for the whole year round.
The staff in the temple, as usual, would not touch on any donations. We were asked to put the money inside the donation box without change. Three big candles, three medium sized joss sticks, two bundles of smaller joss sticks and piles of paper effigies were given. We put the stuff on the altar one by one, and then burnt all the papers with the last year blessing note together. That’s the procedure. As it was not a holiday, and there was no crowd at all, everything ran so easy.
Thanks to the whole ritual, at least, it offered a peace of mind. Before I took this guiding job, I might not bother this kind of traditional practice. Yet, the more that I have touched on, the more I could share the culture and essence of our Chinese people in pacifying ourselves. And it is of course something good that I could tell my clients.
