Open Collections

Temple Drum and Kau cim fortunes on right side of Ancient Guanyin Temple (Guanyin gumiao 觀音古廟) (ศาลเจ้ากวนอิม San Tchaw Kuan Im)

From the Ground Up: Buddhism & East Asian Religions (FROGBEAR Project)

The Ancient Guanyin Temple (觀音古廟) (ศาลเจ้ากวนอิม San Tchaw Kuan Im) is a Buddhist temple in Bangkok, Thailand. This one room neighborhood temple was constructed during the reign of King Rama V, roughly from 1853-1910, as specified by the temple caretaker. The caretaker said that the temple was bombed during the Japanese invasion of Thailand in 1941, but was later rebuilt. The temple regularly hosts chanting groups, the majority of whom were specified to be Teochew Chinese (唐人). The caretaker stated that the temple has no state support, but does regularly pay money to a Chinese foundation. It is not known to what extent the temple has been renovated, nor how often, but the most recent set of renovations occured in 2021. The following images show right-middle side of the temple, featuring the temple drum and a Kau cim (求籤) pink fortune paper stand in the back. This type of divination is also known as lottery poetry and is connected to kau cim (求籤) divination sticks, called qiu qian (求籤), or seam si (ซียมซี) in Thai. The qiu qian divination sticks were placed on the altar table in the center of the temple (not pictured). Image 01 shows an overview of these items. Image 02 shows a close-up of the beams above this section, reading 大吉大利 "Good luck and great prosperity" vertically on the left black-colored beam, and 出入平安 "go and come in peace" vertically on the middle red beam and from left to right 一本萬利 "put in a little and get a lot out; small capital, huge profit" on the middle rounded beams. Image 03 shows the Chinese New Year's (春節) banner hung on the beam left of the drum, reading from top to bottom 迎春接福千秋盛. The other side of the temple has a companion banner, but with a different inscription shown in the entry on the left side of the temple. Image 04 shows a close-up of the kau cim (求籤) pink fortune paper stand. Each of the sticks on the altar table (not pictured) have a number on them, which correlates to the numbers on the pink sheets on the board. To find your fortune, you must rattle the qiu qian sticks until one falls to the ground (methods vary geographically). In some Chinese Buddhist temples, you must confirm the fortune by throwing the cresent-shaped wooden moons called Moon Blocks, or jiaobei (筊杯) a maximum of three times to receive confirmation. A confirmation divination signal is when one moon block lands face up and the other lands face down. If both moons are face down, this is a non-confirmation. In some groups, both moons facing up means the god in question is laughing at you. Metadata created and compiled by: Kira Johansen.

Bangkok (Thailand); 13.739641; 100.509704

chi; tha

Cluster 3.4: Typologies of Text-Image Relations

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0440917

Non UBC

Faculty; Graduate; Undergraduate

DSpace