Jade Emperor Pagoda is the most famous pagoda in Ho Chi Minh City. The Jade Emperor in Taoism is the lord of heaven, the supreme god Ngoc Hoanggu. In his honour, the pagoda was built in 1909 with funds from the Chinese community.
The tiled roof is made according to the technology of Chinese pagodas: it has special holes for natural light. In addition to rays of sunlight, the pagoda is always lit with candles and hundreds of aromatic sticks and incense spirals smouldering. At the very centre is a gilded sculpture of the Jade Emperor. It is surrounded by statues of four guards. According to ancient tales, these guards defeated terrible monsters - a white tiger and a green dragon.
It is believed that the Jade Emperor stands on the threshold to heaven and decides who deserves to cross this threshold and who will go to hell. There are two symbolic halls in the pagoda - for the heavenly inhabitants and for those who did not get there. The hall symbolising the underworld is rather gloomy, with a statue of the devil surrounded by images of the ten circles of hell on the walls.
The pagoda also has a hall dedicated to Kim Hoa, the patron saint of motherhood. Childless families who dream of having children come here. Next to it is a huge sculpture of a red horse. There is a belief that a woman needs to pet the horse and whisper to it that she wants to have a child. Along the walls of the hall itself are ceramic figures of mothers with children.
Externally, the pagoda looks attractive with a brightly coloured facade decorated with carvings and a tiered roof with figures of numerous gods, dragons and other oriental symbols. It is surrounded by a park of evergreens and flowers. A pond with turtles, symbols of good luck, is located in the courtyard. There are so many of them in the pond that the pagoda is sometimes called the turtle pagoda.
