Yimin Ye (Righteous People Lord)

In 1786, Lin Shuangwen rose in revolt in Changhua, his forces swelling and the whole region falling into chaos. The Hakka settlements around Hsinchu and Taoyuan did not sit and wait: they raised their own volunteer armies to defend their homes, fighting through dozens of bloody battles.

When the fighting was finally quelled, the more than 200 volunteers who had fallen were buried together at Fangliao (modern Xinpu, Hsinchu County), and the villagers built a temple beside the tomb. Emperor Qianlong, honoring their loyalty, bestowed the two characters "Bao Zhong" — "Honor Loyalty" — which is why the Fangliao temple bears the full name Baozhong Ting Yimin Temple. Volunteers who later fell in other incidents, such as those of Zhu Yigui and Dai Chaochun, were enshrined here as well, making the temple a sacred symbol of the Taiwanese Hakka spirit.

What makes the Yimin temple most unusual is that the heart of the faith is not a deity statue but a tomb. The Yimin Tomb behind the temple holds the fallen of successive incidents and remains the center of the entire faith to this day — what devotees venerate is a real grave, with real people lying within.

In the temple culture of Taiwan, this is unique. And precisely because of it, the Yimin faith carries not myth but history the Hakka wrote with their own lives: defend the homeland, and put righteousness first.

Worshipping Yimin Ye is very different from worship at an ordinary temple. First: Yimin Ye have no deity statue, and the heart of the faith is the "Yimin Tomb" behind the temple — so you offer incense first before the Yimin Ye tablet in the main hall, then pay your respects at the tomb beyond.

Offerings center on the Three Sacrifices and Five Offerings, with pork foremost, expressing the Hakka's most lavish reverence for their ancestral heroes. The most famous tradition is the "Divine Pig Competition": devotees raise enormous pigs to offer, and at each Yimin Festival the villages vie to display them — the heaviest divine pig, some reaching over a thousand catties, is a village's supreme honor.

Another rite found almost nowhere else in Taiwan is "Feng Fan," the offering of meals: the households of the rotating host districts take turns each day bringing food to the temple for the Yimin Ye, as if waiting on their own family elders — because to the Hakka, the Yimin Ye were never distant gods in heaven but their own forebears.

The "Yimin Festival" on the 20th of the 7th lunar month is the grandest annual Hakka celebration in Taiwan. The 15 village alliances in the Taoyuan-Hsinchu region take turns hosting, with each alliance serving once in a 15-year cycle. The multi-day celebration includes: the "Feng Fan Procession" (villagers carrying meals from all directions to the temple on foot), the "Divine Pig Competition" (showcasing prize pigs that can weigh over half a ton), "Water Lantern Release" (floating lanterns on rivers to guide wandering spirits), and nighttime "Pole-carrying Processions." Designated a National Important Folk Custom in 2008, the Yimin Festival offers the most authentic window into Taiwanese Hakka culture and values.