Gook Doo Sam Heung Society Temple, Honolulu檀香山国都三乡会馆庙

Type

Overseas Daoist Temples

Location

United States · Hawaii State · Honolulu · North Kuakini Street, Liliha neighborhood

First built

The society has existed for about seventy years; the temple property was donated to it in 1975 by the sisters Young Hee and Wong Yuk Ching

Overview

The Gook Doo Sam Heung Society is a native-place association of overseas Chinese from the "Gook Doo Sam Heung" district of Zhongshan County, Guangdong. Its temple property was donated to the society in 1975 by two Chinese American women, and the property has since served as a place of worship in the Daoist tradition, with an ongoing congregation of about five hundred worshippers. The original Chinese name of the temple was transliterated in English-language news reports as "Huang Tin Tin Hu Temple"; neither the corresponding Chinese characters nor the principal deity enshrined there could be verified, and this entry makes no inference about them. In July 2023, following a property dispute between the Chang Foundation and a group of worshippers, the court issued a writ of possession and sheriff's deputies carried out the eviction: the temple caretaker was removed and the locks were changed, drawing the attention of Honolulu's Chinese community and the media, and lawyers criticized the state attorney general's office for failing to intervene in time. No follow-up reporting on the outcome after 2024 has been found. This case is a representative example of the problems of property ownership and trust governance affecting Chinese temples in North America.

Highlights

• A society temple of overseas Chinese from Gook Doo Sam Heung, Zhongshan County
• Temple property donated to the society by Chinese American sisters in 1975
• About five hundred regular worshippers
• Forcibly evicted in 2023 amid a property dispute