Welcoming Mazu
in the Rain

Mazu is Taiwan's goddess of the sea, and for the people of Huatan — an inland farming township — she is a goddess of safe travel, good harvests, and the small mercies that hold a community together. Each year in spring, her statue leaves the great Jenn Lann Temple in Dajia and travels south for nine days, then returns. Over a million pilgrims walk part of the route on foot.

UNESCO has called this one of "the world's three great religious events." For the children of Huatan, it is something simpler: it is the moment Mazu walks past their school. Their parents walked past the same school behind her statue. Their grandparents did too.

April 24 was supposed to be a bright day for greeting the goddess. Instead, the sky opened. Heavy rain swept across Huatan as the pilgrimage approached from neighboring Baishakeng. At many places along the route, smaller crowds thinned out and went home.

Not at Huatan Elementary. Teachers stayed under the eaves with their classes. The principal stayed at the front of the line. Parents brought umbrellas and steamed buns from Sheng-hui Temple. When the palanquin arrived, students bowed under the rain — and the temple committee gifted the school a tray of sacred buns to share.

Public schools in Taiwan are secular — we do not endorse any religion. But folk traditions like the Mazu pilgrimage are also Taiwan's living culture, walked through the streets where our students live every day. To pretend it is not happening would be to teach our students that their hometown is not part of school.

So we step out and we welcome her, the way the village always has. The children learn what their grandparents already know: that a community is what shows up — rain or shine — for the things it cares about together.