This video does a remarkable job illuminating one of the most important community (island-wide, and so national) celebrations in Taiwan. You follow a group of first-time participants on the pilgrimage and learn about the festival’s history, the lore and mythology of Mazu (older generations spell it Matsu), and her spiritual, communal, and political significance.

It’s from one of my favorite YouTube channels @TaiwanExplained, produced by TaiwanPlus, an English-language news and entertainment platform educating the international community on all things Taiwan.

The video covers a nine-day pilgrimage, though some devotees do a seven-day pilgrimage. It starts with three statues featuring the triple aspects of the goddess Matsu 三媽, carried in a traditional sedan chair, from the Matsu Temple in Taichung, to go on a 60-mile pilgrimage by foot toward the Fongtian Temple in Chiayi. Devotees stop at many temples along the way, and join in various types of local festivities at each stop.

For the mystic-oriented, it’s a week of sleep deprivation, overload to your physical senses, just walking through a constant haze of incense smoke, firecrackers, a lot of dancing and celebration, drinking, and socializing with complete strangers that, within a very short period of time become like family. It also, in effect, becomes one of the largest outdoor gatherings of spirit-mediums, diviners, psychics, and channelers you’ll experience.

But it is certainly not just for the spiritualists. It’s truly one of the most beautiful community events to witness, and I wish upon every society to have a similar type of festivity. More so than ever, modern society needs something like this to bring people from all different walks of life together.

At around timestamp 9:36, an anthropologist from the Academia Sinica explains how the pilgrimage unites the Taiwanese community because it does away with divider lines. City folk walk side by side with country folk, rich and poor share their meals together, and even those from opposite political parties will set their differences aside for Matsu and get along.

At all hours, volunteers from every locale along the route will set up stalls to give free food and drink, free showers, open their homes and places of business to give free shelter. Temples pass out free Fu talismans, do free ritual blessings and purification rituals.

有海水的地方就有華人，有華人的地方就有媽祖

Where there is sea, there are the Han; where there are the Han, there is Matsu.

Matsu, the Goddess

Around 960 AD, a remarkable girl is born in a small fishing village of Meizhou, in the Fujian province of southern China. She becomes a shamaness and healer, vows not to marry, and according to lore, is trained under the tutelage of the bodhisattva Kuan Yin. While trying to save shipwrecked sailors during a storm, she is killed (or, per an alternate telling of the story, was saved after the last shipwrecked sailor was saved and taken up to heaven). It was around her First Saturn Return, at the age of 28. Locals built a temple to commemorate her sacrifice. Word of her great abilities and kind heart spread, and she was immortalized as Matsu, Queen Mother.

When Hokkien migrants left the southern mainland in search of new homes across Asia, they would bring with them statues and icons of Matsu to protect their travels and to guide them on their journey across the seas. Where there is a presence of a Hokkien diaspora, there will be Matsu. She is particularly venerated by Hokkien Taiwanese islanders and Singaporeans.

Since Matsu was a shamaness and sorceress, in present times she is often the goddess invoked by the tâng-ki (the Taiwanese/Hokkien term for the Mandarin jitong), who are spirit mediums that channel Matsu. You can also communicate with Matsu through red jiaobei divination moon blocks.

She seems to show special favor to people of the waters, and particularly, the South China Sea. Not visible on the above map are lots of tiny islands spread across the South China Sea, and the coastal cities along the Southern China mainland that are primarily fishing communities.

Outside this region, Matsu is simply a goddess of the South China Seas.

Within this region, she is everything. She is mother goddess, Queen of Heaven, great protector, great healer, and venerated by psychics, fortune-tellers, and spirit mediums. She tells you the future as channeled through fortune-tellers. When you smell the sea and feel the wind, that’s Matsu. During a typhoon storm, you can sense how active she is, rushing around to save as many as she can. Every other person you meet has had — and they swear it — an encounter with the goddess Matsu.

For those of us who are sensitive and mystical-leaning, I’d say that the more inland you go, you often don’t feel her presence quite as much. But along the coastal regions and islands, her presence is palpable.

Matsu has also become a patron goddess to social activists. At political rallies and demonstrations in Taiwan, you’ll find a Matsu altar. In modern times, she’s associated with social justice. She sacrificed herself for her community, and throughout her short life, was known for many noble acts of service to that community, and so she is associated with the public interest.

Matsu veneration has evolved alongside her community, her people. She was once a village protector; now she is invoked by environmental activists, and a patron saint to the LGBTQIA+ (Matsu is almost always present at pride marches across the island). For Taiwan, she’s not just a religious figure, she’s a cultural icon. She stands for resilience, solidarity, unity, and compassion.

The Matsu Pilgrimage is a time when strangers become family, when you embody the Matsu and Kuan Yin spirit of giving generously and unconditionally. On this Pilgrimage, you feel what it truly means to be a part of something bigger than yourself. Your faith in humanity is restored, because everywhere you turn, there is somebody with arms outstretched to show you love.

I mean. The Matsu Pilgrimage isn’t too unlike a week-long rave. It gives PLUR vibes for sure (Peace, Love, Unity, Respect). By a number of different means, half the people are in a trance state. Physical exhaustion leads to group cohesion. It’s euphoric and immersive. The atmosphere becomes otherworldly.

It’s spiritual transcendence through social togetherness.