Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple - The Goddess of Mercy

Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple – The Goddess of Mercy

Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple is a traditional Chinese temple situated along Waterloo Street in Bugis. The temple was established in 1884 and it is an iconic Chinese temple architecture and traditional craftsmanship. Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple remains as one of the major temples in the area, with thousands of devotees visiting the temple to pray for blessings from Kwan Im. Devotees believe that they will be blessed after worshiping at the temple, thus making it one of the most visited temples in Singapore.

Devotees are known to visit the temple on the first or fifteenth day of Chinese New Year to seek blessings from the Goddess of Mercy. There are stalls set up at the entrance of the temple selling incense and flowers which are the perfect offerings to Kwan Im.

Chinese Fortune Sticks is a form of fortune-telling practice in Buddhist culture. In the temple, you will find a bunch of wooden sticks in a cylindrical bamboo container. Each stick has an assigned number that corresponds to numbered pieces of paper posted on a nearby board. Each piece of the paper relates a fortune for the future.

To use the Chinese Fortune Sticks, devotees first kneel and pray to the Kwan Im. They then shake a cylinder holding the fortune sticks, until one stick emerges. If more than one ejects, the person will set it aside and shake the sticks again until only one comes out of the container. Whilst shaking the container, devotees should be praying and focusing for an answer to a specific question or dilemma. The numbered stick is then matched to the numbered piece of paper on the board. If the information on the piece of paper is too vague, you can approach a fortune-teller for an interpretation.