Making Happiness Festival

Making Happiness Festival

Ninth and 10th days of first lunar monthSome villages in Taiwan observe the Tso-Fu Festival, or "making happiness" festival, soon after the Lunar New Year. This observance honors the gods as well as women who have borne sons during the past year. On the ninth, village leaders round up images of gods from homes and shrines and head a procession to the temple, which includes musicians as well as people carrying banners and banging gongs. Once there, the new mothers make special offerings of "new-male cakes" called hsin-ting ping, while everyone else gives other sacrifices. The next day a special feast is held for the village leaders, the elderly, and the mothers, who now hand out new-male cakes to everyone except other new mothers. The festival concludes with the collection of the images of the gods from the temple and their return to their regular homes.
SOURCES:
FolkWrldHol-1999, p. 85