City God (Cheng Huang)

The City God actually has no single fixed identity. Each locality's City God is usually someone from that place who was upright and respected in life and took up the post after death — so Taipei's City God and Tainan's City God are not the same person at all. The system itself, in which good people become officials after death, is deeply moving: live an honest life, and one day it might be your turn to guard a piece of land and its people.

What the temples share is how they're arranged. Some hang a 'So You've Come' plaque at the entrance (the one at Tainan's Prefectural City God Temple is the most famous), like a greeting that has been waiting for you a long time. Inside the hall hangs a giant abacus, reminding you that every account is being kept. On either side stand the tall and the short, the white and the black — General Xie and General Fan, known in folk belief as Black and White Impermanence — whose job is to round up those due to report to the underworld. As a child, led into a City God temple by the grown-ups, you couldn't look those two towering statues in the eye. Only when you grow up do you understand: what you feared was never the statues, but the ledger in your own heart.

What do you ask the City God for? Fairness and justice (many people come before a court case), protection from people who would do you harm, and peace for the community. The Yue Lao at many City God temples is also famously responsive — Taipei's Xia-Hai City God Temple receives thank-you wedding cakes by the thousands every year.

How to pray: bring the three sacrificial meats and wine. First offer incense at the Heaven censer, then go to the City God's main hall and state your name, your address, and what you are asking for. If you are seeking justice for a wrong, you can write down the injustice and burn it as your report. Offerings should be formal — the three meats, wine, and joss paper shouldn't be done carelessly.

The biggest taboo: never lie or swear a false oath in a City God temple. Keeping accounts is his whole job, so lying in front of him is walking straight into the net.

Festival dates differ from temple to temple. Taipei's Xia-Hai City God Temple celebrates on the 13th day of the fifth lunar month, when the City God's procession is the event of the year in Dadaocheng. The Hsinchu City God Temple holds its annual rites and procession in the seventh lunar month, and the food stalls outside the temple are famous too.