Journal12: Church

I have never been to an actual church before; I have only gone to Chinese and Japanese temples. In the Chinese temples, there will always be a distinct smell. The smells come from a big metal pot in front of the temple, when people go to the temple; they take sticks covered with powders and light it up with fire, and they stick the incense stick into the pot. The powder on the stick is made of wood grounded into fine dust. Also, in almost every Chinese temple, there will be a little ceremony that people do to ask the god’s permission to do something that want to do. It’s called “Bua Buiy”, it is two pieces of banana shaped wood painted red. Both of the pieces has one side that is flat and the other side that is round, they determine whether the god approves what they are going to do by seeing which side of the two pieces is facing up when it falls on the ground. Japanese temples have similar looks as the Chinese temples, but the Japanese temples usually have black roofs instead of red roofs as Chinese temples do. Japanese temples don’t usually have incense pots, and they don’t have “Bua Buiy”. Japanese temples always have boxes in which you draw a piece of paper of bamboo stick with words indicating your luck for the day.