You've reached the heart of Yau Ma Tei. In front of you, beyond the banyan square that locals call Yung Shue Tau, «banyan head», stand five buildings in a row: the Tin Hau Temple in the centre and, on either side, temples to Kwun Yum and the City God, a community hall and a former school.

1The sea goddess

Tin Hau, the «Queen of Heaven», is the protector of fishermen and sailors all over southern China. According to tradition, she was a young woman from Meizhou island in Fujian who, in the 10th century, saved seafarers in storms and was worshipped as a goddess after her death.

2A temple left without a sea

The boat people built a first temple around 1865, by the shore. A typhoon destroyed it in 1874, and in 1876 work began on the present one, completed in 1890. In front of it, fishermen dried their hemp ropes and shops selling tung oil for caulking boats abounded: hence, according to the most widely accepted explanation, the name Yau Ma Tei, «land of oil and hemp». Reclamation pushed the sea away, and the complex was declared a monument in 2020.

Beside the temple, fortune-tellers read palms, faces or bamboo sticks for anyone who wants to know their luck.

3What to look for

  • The ceramic figures on the roofs.
  • The incense coils hanging inside.
  • The fortune-tellers' stalls around the square.

Documented

The first temple was built around 1865; after the 1874 typhoon the present one was built between 1876 and 1890, and the complex has been a declared monument since 2020.

Oral tradition

The life and miracles of Tin Hau belong to religious tradition; the origin of the name Yau Ma Tei is the most widely accepted explanation, not a documented fact.

Sources and credits

Tung Wah Group of Hospitals, «Yau Ma Tei Tin Hau Temple» (official website); Chinese Temples Committee, temple record; Antiquities and Monuments Office, «Tin Hau Temple and Adjoining Buildings, Yau Ma Tei».

Photos:

  • Green-tiled roofs and brick wall of the Tin Hau Temple complex in Yau Ma Tei, facing a tree-lined square: Underwaterbuffalo, CC BY-SA 4.0.

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