Penghu: Temples across Penghu County have crafted "rice bag turtles" in preparation for the traditional "Ciguei" ceremony held on the islands for the Lantern Festival, which falls on February 12 this year. Ciguei, meaning "praying for turtle," is a ceremony to pray for luck, prosperity, and safety for Penghu believers during the Lantern Festival festivities.
According to Focus Taiwan, over two dozen rice bag turtles made by Sun Yi-chung's team since the Lunar New Year holiday began can be seen in more than 20 temples across the county, with the smallest weighing 60 kg and the largest 28,200 kg. The largest turtle, located in Huxi Township's Longmen Guanyin Temple, also carries a small turtle on its back and is trailed by three even smaller ones, symbolizing generational inheritance, according to temple director-general Yang Chao-wu. The project used up more than 11,100 bags of rice and took Sun's team about a day to complete.
Yang noted that the temple's turtle has grown nearly 30-fold in size since it started 14 years ago, initially weighing 960 kg. The growth in scale is partly due to the Ciguei ceremony tradition. Believers who are granted prizes-such as turtle-shaped pastries, bags of rice, and other gifts-must return more to the temple than they received on the eve of the Lantern Festival the following year.
More than 200 temples in Penghu will host Ciguei and other events during the festival, which is considered even more important than New Year's Day on the outlying islands.