Liberty-Times (a daily Newspaper in Taiwan) on Feb 9, 2009 ran a headline " 景氣差 神明銀行人氣旺". It translates: In time of economic recession, citizens are borrowing money from 'god's bank' for good luck.
This headline caught my attention. What is exactly 神明銀行, or 'god's bank' anyway? I therefore got into some research to find out what is 'god's bank' about.
The story went back to 1988 when there was a Taiwanese called A-Wen 阿文 who went to Taipei from Nan-Tou for business. For good luck, he borrowed NT $2,000 from the "puple-south-temple"紫南宮 of Nan-Tou. Of course, the god in the "purple-south-temple" is Tu-Ti-Kon 土地公, Taiwanese favor god which I have run a story about it few days ago. A-Wen 阿文 made a fortune out of that good-luck money of NT $2,000. Tu-Ti-Kon 土地公 of the "purple-and-south temple" was really a blessing god. The news went out fast. Other Nan-Tou citizens began to borrow the so-called 'good luck' money from the temple every year. Other temples also followed the practice. Thus, we have the so-called the god's bank, or 神明銀行.
Today, the good luck money is NT $600 (~ US $20) for a person for one year. There is no formal contract; only a written note. The temple has no enforcing power to make sure the borrower will return money after one year. Would the money run away because the borrower 'forgot' to return? Maybe. However, every year the temple receives more money at the end of the lending year. For example, in 2008, NT $250 million was lent out, NT $300 million was returned; obviously with NT $5 million was paid as interest. So, Taiwanese may cheat on each other; they will not cheat on their gods.
So exactly how many citizens are borrowing the 'good luck' money this year? An initial estimate is 450,000 people, an increase of 70,000 people from last year. Photo was taken from the Liberty Times showing good crowd of citizens borrowing the 'good luck' money from the temple.
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