By Tex (David) Allen
Columbia, PA – November 3, 2013
A statue image 10 feet tall of QUAN AM, the most important female image in the Buddhist religion was unveiled at the Chua Phap Hoa Buddhist Temple in Columbia PA USA Sunday morning, November 3, 2013.
A gold colored shroud which covered the statue since its installation last month was removed as Chua Phap Hoa Buddhist Temple congregation members and visiting Buddhist monks looked on.
A table well supplied with traditional fruits including oranges and pomegranates was set in front of the new QUAN AM statue, and large sticks of incense perfumed the air in front of the Chua Phap Hoa Temple, located at 203 Cherry Street, corner of South 2nd St. in Columbia PA.
The statue unveiling was an important event in the life of the Buddhist Temple congregation, and was the climax of a 12 year fund raising effort to finance expenses connected with the statue which was made in central Vietnam and weighs 3 tons.
Other Buddhist temples located relatively nearby in the greater Philadelphia PA area and also in Reading PA have large decorative statues on display, but the Columbia PA statue of the female Buddhist personage called “QUAN AM” in Vietnam is the latest to arrive in Pennsylvania USA.
“Guan Am” is the Vietnamese name given the female Buddhist personage also known in other countries as “Guanyin.”
Guan Am is the bodhisattva associated with compassion as venerated by East Asian Buddhists, usually as a female.
The name Guanyin is short for Guanshiyin, which means “Observing the Sounds (or Cries) of the World“.
Some Buddhists believe that when one of their adherents departs from this world, they are placed by Guanyin in the heart of a lotus, and then sent to the western pure land of Sukhāvatī.
Guan Am is also known in English as the Mercy Goddess or Goddess of Mercy.
One of the most popular tourist attractions in modern day Vietnam is a pagoda located in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly named “Saigon”) dedicated to Quan Am.
Chùa Quan m is a Chinese style Buddhist pagoda located on Lao Tu Street in Cho Lon (long known and famous as the traditional “Chinese Quarter” in old Saigon), District 5, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
Founded in the 19th century, it is dedicated to the bodhisattva Quan m.
The pagoda is very popular among both Vietnamese and Chinese Buddhists.
Most of the inscriptions are in Chinese characters, but some labels have been added in Vietnamese.
The spirituality of the pagoda is a mixture of Pure Land Buddhism centered on the figure of Amitabha Buddha, special veneration of the female bodhisattva Quan Am, Taoism, and traditional Chinese religion.
Additional information about QUAN AM and Buddhism generally is available by visiting internet writing by Kuan Ming, an author who wrote “Popular Deities in Chinese Buddhism,” available at www.buddhanet.net.
Columbia news, views & reviews 
Nov. 4, 2013
Thank you to Brian Long and the staff of COLUMBIA NEWS, VIEWS, AND REVIEWS on-line news publication centering on news about Columbia PA USA (Lancaster County PA) USA 17512.
The news article about the QUAN AM statue I wrote, and which appeared yesterday (Nov. 3, 2013) is the fifth written about the Columbia PA Chua Phap Hoa Buddhist Temple since August of this year.
I was a Vietnam War Era soldier in the US Army, and was trained as a combat medic in 1966 at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas, which was also the Brooke Army Center Medical Hospital specializing in amputations, amputation prostheses, and severe burn cases, all of which afflicted USA soldiers during the “hot” part of the Vietnam War for the USA…..from roughly 1965 through 1971.
i got a closeup look on my days off at Brooke Army Medical Center seeing USA soldiers and visiting family members and loved ones all trying to recover from some of the worst injuries than any war delivers….loss of limbs and severe, disfiguring, permanent burns.
I saw drop-dead handsome young men with hideous facial burns visited by pretty young girls they got engaged to, and in some cases married, before they entered the Army, went to Vietnam, and became was casualties and were cared for at Ft. Sam Houston Texas by medics like me.
I saw worst case scenario amputation cases where three limbs had been severed and replaced by prosthetic arms and legs with wooden limb sections painted with flesh colored paint.
It wasn’t pretty, and I will never forget it. Nobody who saw the amputee and burn case soldiers treated at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas during the War In Vietnam era could ever forget what he or she saw, and to a certain extent, forgive it.
I wanted to stated this personal history in connection with my news coverage about the Chua Phap Hoa Buddhist Temple in Columbia PA USA, and the fact that in five news articles I wrote, all published by the COLUMBIA NEWS, VIEWS, AND REVIEWS, I am obviously sympathetic and supportive of the largely Vietnamese immigrant population who make up the Buddhist Temple congregation in Columbia PA USA.
I have not forgotten the War In Vietnam era which brought so many Vietnamese born people to the shores of the USA, and will certainly never forget the non-Vietnamese soldiers I saw and met and supported at Ft. Sam Houston, Texas in 1966 who made such incredible, permanent sacrifices so that Vietnamese people everywhere could be free from the oppression of brutal dictatorship government….which threatened Vietnam in 1966, and conquered the Republic Of South Vietnam (1955 – 1975) which the USA rightly supported with blood and treasure given by the American people, including me.
I was 22 years old in 1966. I was Honorably discharged from the USA Army and decorated for bravery because of my willing service during the War In Vietnam Era.
The news article today placed next to the Buddhist Temple article I wrote about the USA soldiers who died in Vietnam and are commemorated on the famous “Wall,” makes no mention of the much larger number of USA soldiers who were wounded and crippled permanently during that war, and as a result of willing and noble service they offered.
A Memorial War naming all the soldiers who served during the Vietnam War Era and were permanently crippled due to their service would be much bigger than the famous 58,000 persons named on the Vietnam War Memorial in Washington, DC designed by Chinese American architect Maya Linn.
Thank you for reading these emotional words.
I am grateful to the COLUMBIA NEWS, VIEWS, AND REVIEWS on-line publication for making it possible for me to publicize my feelings and history connected with all this.
Respectfully,
Tex (David) Allen,
Columbia (Lancaster County), PA USA 17512
Nov. 6, 2013…Wednesday
There are several minor and one major typo in the COMMENTS writing I did about the Buddhist Temple in Columbia PA USA and also about my War In Vietnam Era US Army military combat medic service.
The big typo is three paragraphs from the end of the COMMENTS where the phrase “Memorial War” appears, but actually is mis-spelled and should be “Memorial WALL.”
I appreciate the fact that automatic “spell-check” services cannot detect typo problems when the “wrong spelling” is actually a correectly spelled but unintended word, such as “war,” rather than the intended “wall.”
I earned a Master’s Degree at the U. of Maryland which included study of “human-computer communications” and considered problems humans have inputting accurate and intended data into computers, and also detecting mistakes which appear in computer generated writing and texts.
It’s a big subject…..simple typos are not so simple.
A lower case “i” appears also in my COMMENTS writing which was intended to be an uppercase “I” connoting first person designation. The “spell-check service” couldn’t detact that, either.
Finally, the word “stated” appears mid-way through my writing when what I intended was the present tense version of the word, “state.” “Stated” is a properly spelled word, so the spell check service missed it.
Computers aren’t perfect, and neither are “spell check” services.
Thanks for reading this and making corrections when and if possible of mis-spelled and unintended words which appears in my COMMENTS writing.
Respectfully,
Tex (David) Allen,
Columbia PA USA