Wong Tai Sin

Wong Tai Sin (Huang Daxian)
Huang Chuping, after Liang Kai, by Sesshū
Born	328 Lanxi, Zhejiang, China
Died	386
Venerated in	Hong Kong and Jinhua
Major shrine	Wong Tai Sin Temple

Wong Tai Sin or Huang Daxian is a Chinese Taoist deity popular in Jinhua, Zhejiang and Hong Kong with the power of healing. The name, meaning the "Great Immortal Wong (Huang)", is the divine form of Huang Chuping or Wong Cho Ping (Chinese: 黃初平; c. 328 – c. 386), a Taoist hermit from Zhejiang.

According to the text Self-Description of Chisongzi (赤松子自述; "Master Red Pine") kept at the Wong Tai Sin Temple in Hong Kong, Wong Tai Sin was born Huang Chuping (Wong Cho Ping in Cantonese) in 328 in Lanxi, Jinhua, Zhejiang province. Western sources have him listed at c. 284 to 364 CE.

Wong Cho Ping is said to have experienced poverty and hunger, becoming a shepherd when he was eight years old. He began practising Taoism at the age of fifteen after meeting an immortal or saintly person on Red Pine Mountain in his hometown. Legend has it that he was able to transform stones into sheep forty years later. Wong Tai Sin later became known as the Red Pine Immortal (赤松仙子), after the mountain where he had his hermitage, and his birthday is celebrated on the 23rd of the eighth lunar month.

In the early 20th century, Leung Renyan (梁仁菴) spread the devotion to Wong Tai Sin from Xiqiao Mountain (西樵山) in Nanhai County, Guangdong to Wan Chai in Colonial Hong Kong. Leung arrived in Hong Kong in 1915 and upon renting an apartment in Wan Chai, set up an altar to Wong Tai Sin in his apartment. He later opened an herbal medicine shop nearby and moved the altar to the back of the shop, where customers could pray to Wong Tai Sin and seek advice for their ailments. Leung would then fill their prescriptions, and the popularity of Wong Tai Sin grew probably due to several successful cures. Leung's shop was destroyed by fire in 1918.