[yuanzhumin]

Hi
My level of chinese is not good enough to translate this prayer and my wife, that is Taiwanese, is not at home now to help me in the translation. Anyway, this kind of prayer/charm is usually difficult to translate for the persons that are not initiated.

In fact, these are magic prayers, from the taoist religion, also called the chinese popular religion. Living here in Taiwan, where this religion has not been affected by a communist regim, it is very easy to see its pious manifestations everywhere...even on my doorway.

My mother in law being very superstititous like most of the people here, we have some taoist charms in every corner of our home with one stuck on the top of our entrance door. You'll immediately see on the pics the similarity between the one on my entrance door, written on a paper, and the ones on the swords.

Basically, the purpose is always the same : get rid of the evil and protect the bearer. If I had not my mother in law to think about these things, I guess that i would have been damned already.

Best,
yuanzhumin