Lee: Make multi-lingual info available for visitors
MIRI: The Miri Chinese Charitable Trust Board should provide multi-lingual information to enable the non-Chinese, especially visitors, understand the history of the city’s century-old Tua Pek Kong Temple.
In making this call, Assistant Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture Datuk Lee Kim Shin points out that although the temple has its own webpage, it is in Mandarin.
“Once every two years, the Tua Pek Kong Temple management will run a procession, where the participants comprise representatives of big and small temples from around Malaysia and overseas.
“This indirectly promotes its reputation as one of the oldest temples in the country.
“Following the success of the promotional campaigns done prior and during previous processions, we are happy that more and more people, near and far, are willing to travel to Miri just to have a glimpse of our temple.
“My suggestion would be to provide similar web content in other languages such as English, enabling potential visitors to learn more about the temple via the website,” Lee said during Tua Pek Kong Temple Miri’s 106th anniversary celebration on Friday.
Meanwhile, the temple trust board’s chairman Temenggong Datuk Sri Lee Sie Tong called on the newly-elected working committee to put in more effort in beautifying and promoting the temple as part of local tourism.
“At the moment, the committee is in the midst of carrying out beautifying project for the temple in the hope of making the environment here ‘greener’ and more appealing to visitors.
“At the same time, we hope to gain more support from the government and also the public as the trust board relies solely on donations and grant funds to run the temple.
“We look forward to the completion of the project that is set to attract more visitors here in future,” said Temenggong Lee.
The event on Friday marked the birthday of ‘Fude Zheng Shen’ (The God of Virtue, Righteousness and Blessings) – one of the most popular Chinese deities associated with prosperity.
The celebration usually falls on the 29th day of the third month of the Chinese lunar calendar.
My suggestion would be to provide similar web content in other languages such as English, enabling potential visitors to learn more about the temple via the website. — Datuk Lee Kim Shin, Assistant Minister of Tourism, Arts and Culture