Taiwan’s only carp temple

The Earth God is familiar to everyone, and meters from most homes in Taiwan, you’ll usually find an Earth God temple. Though the Earth God is generally seen riding tigers, Taichung’s Dongshi Earth God rides a carp.

In the early days, the flooding of Dajia River used to cause great hardship to locals, and so they began building a stone embankment to try and contain the river. Through the years, over 500 meters of the stone embankment was washed away, leaving just over 30 meters. Amazingly, the remaining part of the embankment resembles a giant carp, which locals were convinced was a sign of divine power and so decided to erect an Earth God temple.

以下為中文對照

土地公是家喻戶曉的廟宇，一般民眾走出家門，不到幾公尺的距離，就可以看見一間土地公廟，而土地公的座騎大多是老虎，不過特別的是，在台中東勢的土地公座騎是鯉魚。

早期因為大甲溪氾濫，讓當地居民不堪其擾，於是協議將石頭堆砌成圍籬，防止河水沖刷，就這樣年復一年，長達五百多公尺的圍籬被沖刷掉，只剩下三十多公尺，身型像鯉魚的石頭身，始終還存在，當地居民認為這是神蹟展現，於是將土地公擺放於此。

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