Wong Tai Sin Temple

The cult of Wong Tai Sin came to Hong Kong in 1915, when Leung Yan-am brought a portrait of the deity from Guangdong and set up an altar in Wan Chai. In 1921, after a divination, he established a shrine at Chuk Yuen Village in Kowloon, and the Taoist organisation Sik Sik Yuen was founded the same year to manage it.

For decades the temple was mainly private, opening to the public during the first lunar month from 1934. It opened fully to the public in 1956, after the organisation successfully argued to keep the site when the government planned public housing nearby. The surrounding district, and the MTR station, later took the temple's name. Today Sik Sik Yuen still administers the temple and runs schools and social services funded in part by worshippers' donations.

For many Hong Kong families the temple is a living part of the year. People come to pray for health, exams, marriage and business, and on Chinese New Year's Eve tens of thousands queue late into the night to place the first incense of the year. Interpreting fortune sticks is a long-standing trade here, and the temple's charitable work makes it an important community institution as well as a place of worship.