Young voices carry Mazu’s legacy

Top and middle: Young international participants try the traditional Meizhou women's hairstyle, a sail-shaped bun symbolizing wishes for safe voyages. Bottom: Tanveer Ahmed (left), from Pakistan, tries his hand at traditional clay sculpting on Meizhou Island in Putian, Fujian province.[Photo provided to China Daily]

Standing beneath the towering statue of Mazu overlooking the sea on Meizhou Island in Putian, Fujian province, Lam Phuoc Thanh prayed for his family's safety, health and happiness, just as he had often done at a Tianhou Temple near his home in Vietnam.

For the 20-year-old Vietnamese student of Chinese descent, whose ancestral home is in Quanzhou, Fujian, the visit fulfilled a childhood wish to return to the island, where his family first introduced him to Mazu a decade ago. Mazu is the Chinese sea goddess traditionally believed to protect fishermen and sailors.

"Standing beneath the statue and looking up at Mazu's compassionate smile as she faces the sea, I felt a deep sense of peace," he said.

Lam was among more than 200 Gen Z representatives from over 20 countries and regions across five continents, including Myanmar, Brazil, Togo, the United States and Slovakia, who gathered in Putian from Oct 27 to Nov 1 for the Mazu Culture Youth Exchange Forum: Global Gen Z in Dialogue with Mazu Culture.

The four-day event, themed "Empowering Youth to Build a Shared Future", was jointly organized by the Secretariat of the All-China Youth Federation and the Fujian Provincial Youth Federation.

Participants visited cultural landmarks, historic neighborhoods and local businesses in Putian, exploring the region's cultural heritage, traditional craftsmanship and economic development.

Addressing the delegates, Zhou Liya, vice-president of the All-China Youth Federation, encouraged young people to preserve and creatively develop traditional Chinese culture and put Mazu's spirit of service into practice through marine conservation and volunteer work.

Bridging cultures

For Lam, Mazu culture connects his family's traditions in Vietnam with their ancestral roots in Fujian.

"Mazu is like a cultural ambassador, bringing people together," he said. "Although different countries have their own customs and traditions to worship Mazu, the core values remain the same, encouraging people to practice kindness and show compassion for others. For overseas Chinese, it also provides a way to reconnect with their roots and better understand their cultural heritage."

While Lam was reconnecting with a tradition he had known since childhood, many other participants were discovering Mazu culture for the first time.

Tanveer Ahmed, a 28-year-old Pakistani graduate student at the University of Science and Technology of China, welcomed the opportunity to explore China's cultural heritage beyond university life.

At the Mazu Ancestral Temple, Ahmed encountered a tradition dating back more than 1,000 years. First built in 987 to honor Lin Mo, the woman later revered as Mazu, the temple commemorates her legendary efforts to rescue people in distress at sea.

Visits to the Mazu Culture Origins Museum and Tianfei Hometown Heritage Park helped him further understand how the tradition developed and remained closely connected to the communities that have preserved it.

"I was especially moved by the generations of people who have devoted themselves to preserving this culture," Ahmed said.

Beyond connecting overseas Chinese with their ancestral roots, Mazu culture also offers people from different cultural backgrounds an opportunity to discover shared values.

For Amirlin Niijima, a 23-year-old Japanese finance student at Zhejiang University who grew up in Okinawa, the spread of Mazu worship beyond Fujian recalled her home region's centuries of maritime exchanges with China.

She learned how traders and migrants carried their beliefs and customs across the sea, spreading Mazu worship to Taiwan, Southeast Asia and other coastal communities.

The history prompted her to reflect on similarities between Mazu worship and traditional Okinawan beliefs, despite differences in their religious practices.

"In Okinawa, sacred places known as utaki are associated with rituals honoring nature and ancestors," she said. "Unlike Mazu worship, which centers on a particular goddess, Okinawan beliefs encompass diverse sacred places and ancestral traditions."

Yet both traditions reflect respect for nature and people's hopes for the safety of their communities. Niijima also found parallels between Mazu's compassion and omoiyari, a Japanese concept emphasizing consideration for others.

"This visit helped me realize that cultural similarities are not always coincidental," she said. "Sometimes, they reflect centuries of contact and exchange between communities."

Growing up in Okinawa also made Niijima particularly aware of the environmental challenges facing the ocean that once connected these coastal communities. She hopes young people from China and Japan can work together on beach cleanups, coral reef protection and environmental research.

Inspiring action

Mazu's traditional association with protecting lives also resonated with Ahmed, whose research interests include artificial intelligence and machine learning.

He was particularly interested in MAZU, China's AI-powered meteorological early warning solution named after the sea goddess. The system is designed to help countries prepare for extreme weather events, including floods and storms.

Pakistan was the first country to implement a customized version of the initiative. According to Ahmed, China and Pakistan began collaborating in 2023 on a cloud-based early warning system with tools to address risks such as monsoon rainfall, floods and glacial lake outburst floods.

By October 2026, the solution had been deployed in eight countries, including Pakistan, Ethiopia and the Solomon Islands.

"Mazu has traditionally represented people's hopes for safety and protection, while today's MAZU initiative uses modern technology to help protect people from natural disasters," Ahmed said.

The initiative holds particular significance for Ahmed, given the devastating floods that have struck Pakistan.

"Many families have lost their homes, farmers have lost crops and livestock, and people in affected areas have had to rebuild their lives," he said. "For many families, the consequences continue long after the floodwaters recede."

He believes more effective early warnings can help communities prepare for disasters and hopes Chinese and Pakistani researchers can combine technological expertise with local knowledge to develop better solutions.

The forum also encouraged young people to share Mazu culture and its values with wider international audiences.

The event also saw the launch of the "Silk Road Youth, Building a Shared Future — Global Gen Z Meizhou Initiative", which calls on young people to promote Mazu culture, protect marine ecosystems, spread compassion and foster exchanges between civilizations.

Overseas youth ambassadors for Mazu culture were also appointed to share its stories through digital platforms.

For Ya Meng Wan, a 21-year-old Guyanese student majoring in international economics and trade at Shanghai University, digital media had already provided her first introduction to Mazu culture.

She first encountered the tradition through social media videos of temple processions and jiaobei, a divination practice involving crescent-shaped wooden blocks. The Chinese television drama Mazu, starring actress Liu Tao, further sparked her curiosity.

At the Mazu Ancestral Temple, Wan watched visitors paying their respects and a procession in which participants escorted a statue of the goddess through the streets.

"The atmosphere was both lively and solemn," she said. "I realized that Mazu culture is not just a historical story or something that exists on television. It is still closely connected with people's lives today."

A Malaysian participant told her about Mazu worship among Chinese communities in Malaysia, helping her appreciate how far the tradition had spread.

Wan now plans to share photographs, videos and her experiences on social media, introducing Mazu culture to young people in Guyana through stories of compassion and helping others.

"Films, television and social media can introduce people to cultures they may not know about," she said. "But visiting these places, interacting with people and taking part in activities help us understand how these traditions are carried on today."