THE TEMPLE THAT SISTER YOKE BUILT

The Seen Hock Yeen Temple (Temple of Virtues and Education) is located on 1.2 ha of former tin mining land about 16km north of Ipoh. This temple has Taoism, Buddhism and Confucian characteristics and is taken care of by volunteers from Chemor and the surrounding villages.
The temple was initially set up in a small rented premise in Chemor in the early 1970s. In 1977, the temple was relocated to its present site and expanded through donations.  If you visit this temple on Friday, Saturday, Sunday or the Chinese New Year then you will be given a guided tour of the place.  There will be someone on hand to introduce the temple, its history and explain the deities and features of the temple.
The visit to the Seen Hock Yeen Temple ( 善学院玉皇宫殿) last Saturday was my third.  However, it was the first time that I got to listen to the founder of the temple talking about how the temple came to be. The founder is a retired teacher who introduced herself as Ah Yoke Chaer or Sister Yoke.  She is the one in the purple blouse in the above pictures.  According to Sister Yoke, she had heard Kuan Yin's voice telling her to build a temple in a wooded area and was told that the temple should face a great mass of water.  If I am not mistaken, she was at that time in the old temple and was worrying about where to get enough money to send to her son who was furthering his education abroad.  She was sitting with her back to the statue of the Goddess Kuan Yin when she heard the voice telling her to retire as a teacher and build a temple.
 At first she was sceptical as the piece of wooded land was overgrown and there was no visible sign of a lake or any water source.  However, she believed in the Goddess and got the help of her students to start clearing the land on a voluntary basis.  She also opted for early retirement and with her gratuity, she was able to send money to fund her child's education.  Know what?  They found water at the site and then started building a bridge that the Kuan Yin had told Sister Yoke to do.  According to her, the specifications and design of the bridge and temple were all channelled through her by the Goddess.  No human engineer was hired to do the job.  The funding to build the temple was from the devotees who had become successful after receiving blessings from Kuan Yin.  This is truly an act of great faith.  Amazing, isn't it?

If you would like to  visit  the temple, the address is:
Seen Hock Yeen Temple
1 1/2 km, Railway Station Road,
Kampung Cik Zainal Tambahan 1,
31200 Chemor,
Perak, Malaysia