Temples have become a trend in the past decade. It's like almost anyone can start a temple right out of their living room. With a temple, you can receive donations, and technically tax free. Of course, the donations cannot be used for private use, but it can be used for festivals, celebrations, worship ceremonies and such, which includes lots of food.
The definition of religion is subjective to the individual, but one of which is about power control. A smart guy will place himself under "god", and above everyone else. So everyone fears the "god", therefore has to listen to him because he represents "god". This power becomes the excuse for political and criminal leaderships in many cases in Taiwan.
Like those mega churches in the US, many temples are extremely wealthy. They build temples that are more like palaces using materials that rival 5-star hotels with "donation boxes" installed at every corner while thrash cans are hardly found anywhere. Imagine being that guy under this "god". He's in power of how these cash is spent.
However, the temple culture in Taiwan also brings lots of sights and sounds. Whether they are genuine or fabricated is one thing. It does brings festive spirit to the community, the crowd, the business and therefore the money for everyone else who is feeding on it. People like food stall owners, souvenir vendors, fruit and worship item vendors, and the local tourism in general.
So here's an example. This is one of the biggest temple in southern Taiwan. They recently expended its architecture, dedicated it to worship the all supreme god of all Chinese gods. The Chinese Zeus if you will. And guess what, it's made of solid gold.
There's an interesting part of the Chinese worship culture that defers from the west. Even if you don't have real money to donate to the temple, you can contribute fake money to the gods or the deceased. "Burning" is the sentiment for "mail" between the human and heaven/under worlds. When a family member dies, the living can burn paper houses, maids and servants and cars, planes or whatever you want him/she to enjoy in hell/heaven. The same goes with money. You can burn money to please your deceased loved ones and gods. Those with gold foils are for the gods. The silver ones are for the deceased. Of course, this fuels a different kind of treasury department. I wonder why the Jews haven't picked this up yet.... perhaps the living ones are too smart to waste their own cash on paper houses.
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