Mazu

A statue of Mazu on the island of Meizhou, her alleged birthplace

Mazu, meaning "mother" in the Fujian dialect, is a Chinese marine goddess. Mazu was believed to be born on the Meizhou Island in Putian County, Fujian on the 23rd day of the third lunar month in 960 AD. She died at the age of twenty-eight on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month in 987 AD. The deity may have originated from a real person whose altruism had won universal respect among the Chinese throughout the world.

The worship of Mazu is not just a religious matter. Mazu appeals to the Chinese because of her courage and willingness to keep them from harm's way. For this reason, people from generations after generations have been looking up to her as a mother figure of mercy, humanity, and universal love – a goddess that protects them from dangers posed by men, nature and the supernatural.

Mazu has been a cohesive force to rally the Chinese all over the world despite many of their differences.

Li Mo was trying to save her father and brother in her trance on the loom.

Mazu’s father Lin Weique and mother Wang lived on the Meizhou Island in Putian County, Fujian Province. They were popular among their fellow villagers for their charity and generosity. By the time Lin Weiyue was in his mid forties, the couple had had six children, but the fact that only one of them was a boy worried them very much. Therefore, they prayed for another son. Eventually Guanyin answered their prayers by giving the wife a pill in her dream. A few days after Wang took the pill, she became pregnant and on the 23rd day of the third lunar month, she gave birth to Mazu. As she never cried, they later changed her nickname into Mo Miang or Girl of Silence. Hence her name was Li Mo.

During a visit to the Putuo Mountains, a Buddhist santuary, the sight of an image of Guanyin in a temple gave the four-year old girl spiritual enlightenment and thereby the power to foresee the future. She took a serious interest in Buddha at the age of ten. At thirteen, an elderly Taoist priest came to visit her and imparted her with a secret doctrine, which enabled her to tell fortunes and visit places mentally. When sixteen, Lin Mo gained more occult powers. One day in the fall of that year, she was weaving at the family's loom when suddenly she went into a trance. Seeing this, her mother woke her up and would feel sorry for what she did. It turned out that in her dream she had been trying to rescue her father and brother caught in a tempest on the sea. As she was waken too soon, she lost the chance to save her brother.

On the ninth day of the ninth month in the year of 987, a day before the Chongyang Festival, Lin Mo abruptly said good-bye to her family and became the immortal Mazu, who appeared again and again to help those either in danger or in need.