Temple honors the Goddess of Heaven

The Goddess of Heaven.

The small Goddess of Heaven Temple on Magnolia Lane in Bailey’s Crossroads, approved by the Fairfax Board of Zoning Appeals last month, has a very long history.

Unlike many Buddhist places of worship, this temple has no statues of Buddha. Instead, it’s dedicated to Matsu, the Chinese patron goddess who is said to protect fishermen and sailors.

David Quang in the house next to the temple.

People come to the Goddess of Heaven Temple, located in a converted garage, to pray, meditate, burn incense, leave offerings, and receive a message about the future.

There’s no set time for group gatherings in the temple, which is located in a converted garage, although there are small potlucks a couple of times a month in a house on the property, says David Quang, the head of the local Indochinese Benevolent Association. The group serves people from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, many of them with family roots in China.

The most famous Matsu temple in Vietnam was built 200 years ago in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon) and drew thousands of worshipers before they fled to the seas as the communists invaded the city.

Refugees from the war purchased the nearly one-acre property on Magnolia Lane in 1999 and after nearly two decades, raised enough money to add another story to the existing single-family house on the property and enlarge the garage, Quang says.

While the association did obtain building permits, a Fairfax County inspector showed up during a New Years celebration in 2017 in response to complaints from neighbors about an excessive number of people and cars. The property was then found to be in violation of the zoning ordinance.

After several hearings, the zoning board approved use of the property for religious purposes in January with restrictions on capacity and parking, among other conditions. A property caretaker now  lives in the house full time.

The temple is in a converted garage.

Quang grew up in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he learned English and got a job as an interpreter for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). When Cambodia evicted the Americans in 1963, Quang relocated to the USAID office in Saigon.

Ten years later, as the communists were taking over Vietnam and the U.S. military evacuated, Quang decided to stay.

He started a business in Saigon’s Chinatown – exporting shrimp, cow hide, plywood, and fish sauce to Hong Kong – and served as president of Chinatown’s Junior Chamber of Commerce. Even though the country was at war, he was reluctant to leave.

“In Saigon at that time, you don’t see war. It was prosperous; there were a lot of opportunities,” Quang recalls. “I had good life there, with a wife and two kids and a chauffeur.” He learned from American movies that “in the U.S., everyone has to wash their own car.”

Policy experts at USAID thought it would take several years for the communists to reach Saigon, but they invaded the city in less than a year. Everyone was subject to surveillance by security officers assigned to every street, and Quang’s bank account was frozen. He realized staying in the city was “a big mistake” and worried about being sent to a re-education camp.

People come to pray, meditate, and bring offerings to the Goddess.

He scrambled to get out of the country, and because he had a passport from Taiwan, he was able to get a visa to France, where one of his brothers had relocated. A former USAID supervisor then helped him obtain entry to the U.S. as a Cambodian refugee.

Quang settled with his family in Arlington. His first job was bricklaying for $4.50 an hour, then worked for several years as a room service waiter at the Watergate Hotel in D.C.

Meanwhile he earned a college degree and when the Northern Virginia Community College’s employment office sent him on a job interview with the federal government, he was surprised to discover the supervisor was his old boss’s boss at USAID in Saigon. After working at that job for several years, he became a government contractor, and retired from the TSA as a grants manager a few years ago.

During his early years in the U.S., other immigrants from Vietnam persuaded him to establish the Indochinese Benevolent Association, which helped newcomers find housing and jobs – and eventually began raising money for a temple to honor the Goddess Matsu.

Now, while the temple is limited to brief visits by individuals and periodic gatherings of up to 20 people, its huge festival to celebrate the Goddess’s birthday is held offsite.

This year’s event, April 27 at Thomas Jefferson Middle School in Arlington, is expected to draw a thousand people, for music, dancing, kung fu demonstrations, and food, including 50 roast pigs.