Ancestral Tiao

Excellent Temple and Wolverine

Zoo Joo Ji Temple in Tokyo features in the latest Wolverine movie along with Hugh Jackman in varying degrees of undress and varying types of action scenes.

Some of you especially if you've been to Tokyo or Sydney may have noticed the blending of Zoojoo Ji with the Chinese Gardens as Hugh fights his way through Yakuza trying to rescue Mariko from her kidnappers.

But what does ZOOjoo  actually mean.

Its one of those frightfully archaic SinoJapanese words that don't appear in standard dictionaries online or offline so I hazared a guess which I run past a Japanese Facebook Friend.

My guess was something like advancement since the two kanji in this name separately read as increase and upwards.

Konii suggested excellence or excellent.

Zoojoo Ji is a Pure Land temple by the way NOT ZEN and certainly does not have a Chinese style garden with a zigzag bridge but we did get to see one of its famous Buddha images and an excellent view of the gate.

The bullet train rooftop fight is superbly choreographed  too.

and now we have the excellence that is Hugh Jackman!

So go and enjoy the movie !

Another Temple word

SI TEMPLE

The most common word for temple is

Copyright Julie Vaux  2013 

TIEN TEMPLE

Copyright Julie Vaux 2013 

Just as Houses were sometimes donated to religious orders in Europe or part of them made over into a chapel  as early castles were rebuilt into more comfortable mansions and palaces or chateau in Asia parts of palaces or buildings therein within a compound might become shrines or meditation halls or small temples.

Another European parallel might well be the basilica originally a building for holding court sessions which became the model for the first large Christian churches and cathedrals.

Buddhist Temple SHA CHA Hanzi

SHA / cha is a less common term for  a Buddhist Temple

Copyright Julie Vaux 2013 

Buddhist temples that do not have pagodas or gate towers will probably still have a small stupa or a bell tower / pavilion.

MIAO TEMPLE

Copyright Julie Vaux 2013 

As far as  I can make out from conflicting definitions in the references I have access to Miao is a word originally used to describe audience halls for officials and royalty and  now used for shrines tutelary temples and and Confucian temples. However Confucian "Temples" are usually compounds including study halls and shrines for deified scholars and ancestors of  local clans and sometimes shrines for local deities. I suspect it depends given the on and off hostility between some Taoists and Confucianists on how strict an interpretation of Confucianism is followed and taught at the particular shrine.

Possibly the best place to see Confucian shrines is now Taiwan or South Korea?

I've read but not seen of Indonesian  and Malaysian Shrines being called LI TANG which means something like Ritual Halls.