Yimin Ye (Righteous People Lord)

In 1786 (the 51st year of the Qianlong reign), Lin Shuangwen rose in revolt in Changhua. His forces swelled and chaos spread far and wide. The Hakka settlements around Hsinchu and Taoyuan did not sit and wait: they raised their own volunteer armies to defend their homes and fought through dozens of battles, large and small.

When the fighting was over, the fallen volunteers were buried together at Fangliao (today's Xinpu Township, Hsinchu County), and the villagers built a temple beside the tomb. Emperor Qianlong, praising their loyalty, bestowed two characters — "Baozhong," honoring loyalty — which is why the Fangliao temple's full name is Baozhong Yimin Temple. Volunteers who died in the Dai Chaochun Incident during the Tongzhi era were later buried in an annex grave beside the Yimin Tomb, and the temple became the sacred symbol of the Taiwanese Hakka spirit.

What sets the Yimin temple apart is that the heart of the faith is not a statue but a tomb. The Yimin Tomb behind the temple holds the fallen of successive conflicts, and it remains the center of the whole faith today — devotees are honoring a real grave, with real people resting inside.

Among Taiwan's temples, nothing else is like it. And precisely because of that, the Yimin faith carries not myth but history, written by the Hakka with their own lives: defend the homeland, and put righteousness first.

Worshipping Yimin Ye is unlike worship at an ordinary temple. First of all, there is no deity statue — the heart of the faith is the Yimin Tomb behind the temple. Offer incense first before the Yimin Ye's tablet in the main hall, then go around back to pay your respects at the tomb.

Offerings center on the Three Sacrifices and Five Offerings, with pork the most important of all — the Hakka's most generous tribute to their forebears. The best-known tradition is the "Divine Pig Competition": devotees raise huge pigs to offer, villages show them off at each year's Yimin Festival, and the heaviest pig brings its village enormous honor.

There is also a special custom called "feng fan," offering meals: in the month or two before the festival, the villages of the rotating host district bring cooked food to local worship sites and set it before the Yimin Ye's command flag, the way you would serve your own elders. Because to the Hakka, the Yimin Ye were never distant gods in heaven — they are their own ancestors.

The Yimin Festival on the 20th day of the 7th lunar month is the grandest annual celebration of Taiwan's Hakka people. It is hosted in rotation by fifteen great villages (village alliances) in the Hsinchu and Taoyuan region, each taking one year, for a full cycle of fifteen years. The festivities run for several days, and the core rites include the "Divine Pig Competition" (each village displaying its giant offering pigs), the release of water lanterns (floated down the river to light the way for wandering spirits, the "good brothers"), and a nighttime procession carrying offerings on shoulder poles. The Yimin Festival was registered as a National Important Folk Custom in 2015 and is one of the best ways into Taiwan's Hakka culture.