Officials gathering at Wong Loo Sen See Chee Choong, KL

A gathering of over 100 temple officials of Wong Loo Sen See temples located throughout the country, including Singapore was held on Sunday 12^th February 2012 at the Wong Loo Sen See Chee Choong Temple in Jalan Lombong, 2 1/2 Miles Jalan Cheras, Kuala Lumpur in conjunction with the Chinese New Year.

They met up over a sumptuous buffet lunch prepared for them by temple volunteers and later attended a seminar talk given by an expert on Confucianism to give them a better general understanding of the beliefs and religion and its principal concepts.

“This is our annual Chinese New Year event where we bring together the temple committees of our brother and sister temples throughout Malaysia and Singapore for a “reunion” to preserve and strengthen the warm fellowship and fraternity between them as well as moral life,” said Lai Lih Tsong, deputy president of the Wong Loo Sen See Chee Choong Temple, Kuala Lumpur for committee year 2010-2013.

“The seminar talk given by a Confucian expert allowed the participants to have a better general understanding of Confucianism and provided an opportunity for them to learn and truly understand the concepts of Confucianism.”

The temple which celebrated its 50^th golden jubilee anniversary in 2010 is unique because the deity of Wong Loo Sen See is in Confucianism but it also accompany other religious beliefs and it goes well with Buddhism and Taoism.

Sitting on the main altar in the prayer hall of the temple are the statues of three deities; namely the Wong Loo Sen See, the Chai Tin Dai Sing (Monkey God) and the Tai Siong Lou Guan.

“The Wong Loo Sen See deity represents Confucianism, the Chai Tin Dai Sing (Monkey God) deity represent Buddhism and the Tai Siong Lou Guan represents Taoism,” Lai pointed out.

Temple adviser Stanley Loo Kum Hoong said the 52-year old temple was shifted from the old temple in Jalan Chan Sow Lin about 50 years ago. It is open to all devotees and currently has about 600 followers of Wong Loo Sen See.

“We are into Confucianism. We follow the ten commandments of the deity of Wong Loo Sen See which are relevant today; that is Compassion, Loyalty, Trustworthiness, Righteousness, Propriety, Ethics, Chastity, Filial Piety, Honesty and Virtue, all of which are also the principles of Confucianism.

Tracing the history of the Wong Loo Sen See Temple, Lai explained that the first Wong Loo Sen See Temple was founded in Sarawak many many years ago when the the deity of Wong Loo Sen See “appeared” in the body of a person. The people there setup a temple to honour the deity and overtime and for some reason it was soon abandoned.

Some decades later, the deity of Wong Loo Sen See  “reappeared” again by sending his message through a medium in a trance during a sandwriting divination session where the deity informed the people where to find the lost temple in the forest by writing the message in sand.

Many people were shocked when they successfully located the lost temple which had been overtaken by the forest undergrowth. They brought back the statue of the deity and rebuilt a new temple dedicated to him.

However, in peninsular Malaysia, Lau said that the deity Wong Loo Sen See made its first “appearance” in Malacca in 1950. It was founded by Liew Juin and soon spread to other parts of the peninsular. At the Wong Loo Sen See Chee Choong Temple in Kuala Lumopur, there is a small altar set up in honour of the founder.