Samkong Shrine in Phuket

Phuket Town Attractions - Chinese Shrines

Nobody knows exactly when this shrine was built. All that is known is that a well-to-do family donated a plot of land together with images of some Taoist deities to start it off. Since then the shrine has been a major part of Samkong villagers’ lives especially when someone fell ill or needed some advice to improve their health.

The only way for folks to communicate with the deity was through a spirit medium but the medium too was having a hard time and could not understand anything at first. According to locals, this very particular deity once was a human who worked in the Chinese Imperial Palace therefore he used the regal terms that were used in the palace. But then things worked out for the good once the deity switched to Hokkian, a dialect that was better known.