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Kuala Lumpur
is the capital city of Malaysia. The country practices multi-racial living habits
as well as individual race spiritually is blended with respective beliefs in Islam,
Hinduism, Buddhism as well as other religion. At the heart of the old town areas
where a walking distance from the China Town, you will find some of the very early
establishment of Hindu temples, mosques and Chinese temples. Tracing back to 18th
centuries where the city has started, immigrants flocked in from India and China
for the commodity, tin rush. Each brought their distinctive cultures and religious
practices and that was establishments to fulfill individual spiritual desire. Here,
I feature a unique Chinese temple which has a long history, popularly known as the
SHI-YE Temple. The name, in the old days can be interpreted as the "personal
advisor" to someone active in political scene. The history of this temple can
be traced back to early beginning period of the great city of Kuala Lumpur and it
can be regarded as the oldest temple in Kuala Lumpur. The record can track the establishment
of this temple may go back to year 1864 which is approx. 165 years now.
Please don't get it wrong, although inside you still may find some traditional Buddhist
figures for worshipping, but the XIANSI SHIYE temple is not a Buddhist temple. The
installed statues figures being worshiped by devotees are actually true personalities
during the early conflicting days of Kuala Lumpur back in 1860. As officially, the
trustee stated "The SIN SZE SI YA*Temple was founded
in 1864 by Capitan yap Ah Loy 1868~1885 who popularly referred
as the founder of Kuala Lumpur; it is dedicated to patron deities of SIN SZE YA &
SI SZE YA. The deities has guided Kapitan Yap Ah Loy to defeat the enemies and defended
Kuala Lumpur during the civl war during 1870~1873...". . Other than the temple
locates here, there were actually another 12 temples which were built with same theme
and objective in many other towns and cities around the region, each of them easily
can also date back with more than 100 years old. The temple signifies a lot of sentimental
reasons for the local Chinese as it is reflects the hard work for early batches of
Chinese who came here and seeing the birth and growth of the city of Kuala Lumpur,
hence indirectly formed as core starting point for the current Chinese community
who eventually resided here in the country as their home.
However, strangely enough visitors today are not entirely coming for normal course
of worship for change of luck and fortune, but to some, they come and seek blessing
from the 'SHIYE' & TAISUI for good fortune as well as favorable academic results
for examination ... NOTE: each year, the temple offers a great deal sum of money
as scholarship for local Chinese schools.
* The official pronunciation
seemingly is more towards Cantonese rather than Mandarin. |
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