FGS Dong Zen Temple, Jenjarom

The dates of the 2013 Chinese New Year Lantern & Flora Festival are from 8th -24th February 2013. Timings are from 10.30am – 10pm.

Below is the post I wrote last year.

With the Year of The Dragon almost upon us I thought it would be a good occasion to revisit the Fo Guang Shan Dong Zen Temple at Jenjarom, Selangor in time to see their Chinese New Year Lantern & Flora Festival.

I first visited the temple last June and was quite impressed with it. I found it by accident having noticed a sign as I was passing through the unremarkable little town of Jenjarom.

Jenjarom was one of the 400 ‘New Villages’ created under the Briggs Plan during the Malayan Emergency to resettle Chinese squatters from scattered and isolated areas into a protected settlement where their comings and goings could be tightly monitored. The object of the plan, which was very successful, was to deprive the Communist bandits from obtaining food and other supplies from the villagers who were either sympathetic to the bandits or, more often, intimidated by them.

The village has since grown but there is nothing much there to attract the visitor apart from the temple.

The Fo Guang Shan Buddhist organization was founded by Master Hsing Yun who was born in Jiangsu Province, China in 1927. He established the Fo Guang Shan Monastery in Taiwan in 1967 and his activities have since spread worldwide to promote Buddhism through educational, cultural and charitable works.

From this poster on display at Jenjarom it seems that their temple complex in Taiwan is huge.

When I visited FGS Dong Zen Temple again yesterday, volunteers were busy putting together the final touches for the Lantern & Flora Festival which had its opening ceremony at 8pm yesterday and continues until 7th February. It is open from 10.30am to 10pm and admission and parking is free. This is an annual event which attracts vast numbers of visitors. I didn’t wait until the lights came on as that would have involved hanging around in Jenjarom for about 4 hours but here are a few daytime photos so that you can get an idea of what to expect.

Although it calls itself a Flora Festival, do not think ‘Chelsea Flower Show’ or even ‘Floria Putrajaya’. The flower displays are fairly limited but they do have a nice selection of orchids.