Radio Taiwan International 
Date: 06 February, 2019
By: John Van Trieste

Drawing lots to predict Taiwan’s future.

What kind of fortune will the new year bring? How will Taiwan fare in the coming months? These are always the questions on people’s minds when the Lunar New Year gets underway.

The answers are of course unknowable to us mortals. So believers in Taiwan’s folk religion put these questions instead to the gods.

Fortune will smile on Taiwan in the Year of the Pig. That’s the verdict of the gods at two Taipei-area temples.

On Monday, Taipei’s Dalongdong Baoan Temple performed a ceremony to determine Taiwan’s luck for the coming year. The ceremony involves drawing lots, each associated with a poem. The poem is then interpreted for signs of what is to come.
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