King Wenchang

The rear hall houses a statue of King Wenchang, patron god of students. Whenever a test is coming up at school you are sure to find a lot of offerings set out for him at Lungshan Temple. They say it makes a difference, too. I had to stop and put in some earnest prayers!  

When you’ve got a test coming up, what do you offer to King Wenchang? The usual offerings are radishes, celery, pouchong tea, steamed rice dumplings, and a pineapple. In each case, the name of the offering is a pun of some sort on an auspicious word or phrase. It’s also common to show King Wenchang a photocopy of the ID that admits you in to take the test. But whatever you do, you absolutely can’t offer him peanuts! That’s because we have a phrase in Chinese involving peanuts that doesn’t sound very auspicious from a test taker’s point of view. As we note in the section on architecture, our ancestors were very sensitive about plays on words.But in the end you’ve still got to rely on your own hard work to do well on tests because “God helps those who help themselves.” If all you do is blather on and on at the Buddha’s feet and then go back home and goof off, the Buddha isn’t going to pay any attention to you. In fact, the Buddha might just get mad and make you pay for it!  

Kuixing

There's an interesting statue to the left of King Wenchang. It has red hair and a blue face, and sits atop the head of a dragon-carp. This is , one of the seven lords of the Big Dipper. In centuries past it was thought that Kuixing controled the fortunes of those sitting the imperial examinations. The teacher showing us around Lungshan Temple explained to us that before you worship King Wenchang you’re actually supposed to first pay homage to Kuixing because Kuixing is the one who determines your final ranking among the test takers while King Wenchang is the one who helps you test into the university department that you’re hoping for.