Once upon a time, there was a little town called Pun-Kung (笨港), literally, it means a dumb port town. This town sat at the entrance of a river in central Taiwan. This port town was divided by this river: The North and the South. The river flooded often especially during the Typhoon seasons. When the river flooded, households lost properties, and people lost lives. It was very miserable.
Then there was one very fierce Typhoon day. The wind blew like a ghost while the water was pouring in from everywhere.
The Typhoon finally subsided. Miraculously, this time, everyone was safe. No one lost properties or lives.
Then someone spotted a goddess sitting on top of a rock in the river.
It was Ma-tso (媽祖), the most revered goddess in Taiwan. People living in Pun-Kang (笨港）said, “Let’s build a temple for this goddess for her protection “
The people on the north side of the river said that, “ She sits closer to the north. Let’s the Northside build a temple for her.”
“No, she sits closer to the south. Let the people of the south take care of the temple business. “
Two sides quarreled and neither side would consider to concede. Then a small child quietly said to the elder,
“Why don’t allow two sides to compete?”
That was an excellent idea. The next question was how did they compete?
“ Let either side take a bucket of water from their own wells and weigh them “ The child said.
Another brilliant idea, because either side has a well. So, this should be a very fair competition.
Yes. It is very fair. Then how do you beat the other side in this competition ? Water is water. A bucket of the water from either side would have the same weight.
Then there was a villager in the North rushered to the elder of the North.
“I got it. I got the idea”.
The elder settled him down with a cup of tea. “What is the idea?”
“The salt”.
“The salt,”. “That is very brilliant as when the salt is dissolved into the water, the bucket of salt water would weigh more then the bucket of the pure water”.
The captain of the North then asked every family of the North donated their salt, then put all the salt into the bucket.
On the day of the competition, surely, the bucket of the salt water certainly weighed heavier then a bucket of pure water. The North won the right to build the temple of the goddess.
The people of the North said to themselves. “We are not dumb. It is unfair to call this town, Pun-Kang or the port of the dumb.” Thus, from that moment, they call their town, the North Port (北港）. Their southern neighbor is called The South Port(南港）
The temple was then built. The North believe that they got blessing and the protection from the goddess.
How about the South ? Surely, if the river does not flood, the North is protected, but so is the South.
But certainly, the North get more offering money and tourist money. The North becaomes so rich that they are able to hire an engineer firm to redesign the river flow, build a dam and so on.
The river flooding frequency was drastically decreased. The temple becomes one of the religious site in the world.
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