Southeast Asia Information Port News (www.dnyxxg.com) On February 18, 2026 (the second day of the Lunar New Year), the Songshan Tianhou Palace in Xiapu County, Ningde City, Fujian Province, together with the Xingang Fengtian Palace in Chiayi, Taiwan, and the Macau Shenzhou Mazu Cultural Exchange Association, jointly held the Bingwu Year Spring Festival Prayer Ceremony. Mazu believers from both sides of the Taiwan Strait and Macau crossed mountains and seas to send blessings and pray for the New Year through "cloud-based interaction," making the thousand-year-old Mazu culture a solid bond connecting compatriots.
At 9:30 a.m. that day, the Spring Festival Prayer Ceremony solemnly commenced according to traditional rituals. Chen Meiyue, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Songshan Tianhou Palace in Xiapu County, and Guan Jinhua, President of the Macau Shenzhou Mazu Cultural Exchange Association, jointly served as the chief officiants. Believers at the scene, dressed in uniform attire and sashes, devoutly completed a series of prayer rituals, their solemn atmosphere revealing their reverence for Mazu and their expectations for a better life. “Xiapu Songshan is the maternal home of Mazu. In recent years, exchanges between the two temples have been frequent, and through Mazu culture, we have grown closer,” said He Dahuang, Chairman of the Fengtian Temple in Xingang, Chiayi, Taiwan, during a virtual connection. He added that the Mazu belief has long been deeply integrated into the lives of compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, becoming an important bridge for maintaining emotional ties and promoting exchanges.
Guan Jinhua, who attended the ceremony at the Songshan Tianhou Palace for the first time, also remarked that Mazu culture is a spiritual bond connecting overseas Chinese with their ancestral homeland. This event has built a high-quality platform for Mazu cultural exchanges between Fujian and Macau, and she looks forward to promoting more cross-regional cultural interactions in the future, ensuring the spirit of Mazu is passed down from generation to generation.
As the venue for this event, the Xiapu Songshan Tianhou Palace boasts a rich cultural heritage. Built in the first year of the Tiansheng era of the Northern Song Dynasty (1023 AD), it has a history of nearly a thousand years and is the first Tianhou Palace after the Meizhou Mazu Ancestral Temple in Putian, earning it the reputation of “the most prestigious Mazu Palace.” In 2005, the palace was designated a Fujian Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Unit; in 2021, it was approved as a Ningde City Cross-Strait Exchange Base, becoming an important platform for cross-strait cultural exchange.
To further amplify the influence of Mazu culture, the Songshan Ecological and Cultural Scenic Area commenced construction in August 2023, aiming to create a world-class Mazu cultural exchange hub, a tourism distribution center along the southeast coast, and a land and sea gateway to the central urban area of Xiapu. "Mazu culture has become an important bond connecting compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. With the project's progress, I believe this will undoubtedly become a core hub for cross-strait Mazu cultural exchange," said Chen Jie, Secretary-General of the Xiapu County Mazu Cultural Exchange Center. (End)
