A red threadSweet wineFlowersIncenseA name written and offeredCandy for the matchmaker
Invocation Approach
Tone
Kind mischievous old
Address
Yue LaoOld Man under the MoonMatchmaker of Destinies
Relationship
A young person asking an old man to read a page of a book
Warning
The book is written before you arrive and reading it aloud does not change it
Resonance
The unmarried the wedding those who have waited a long time
Symbols
The red threadThe book of marriagesThe moonThe staffThe sack of threads
Mythology Summary
Yue Lao is the old man under the moon who ties the feet of the couple destined for each other with a red silk cord and reads their names in his book; he enters literature in the Tang tale Dinghun dian (The Inn of the Fixed Match) in Li Fuyan's Xu Xuanguai Lu (c. 850), where a young man is told that his future wife is a three-year-old child, tries to have her killed, and marries her years later with the scar of his blow to identify her. He is a literary figure rather than a classical god — there is no ancient temple in the canonical record — but he is now one of the most popular objects of devotion for the young and unmarried, with shrines in Hangzhou and at Longshan Temple in Taipei among many others.
Modern Practice
The practice is the red thread: at his shrine a person states the kind of partner wanted, writes a name or a wish, leaves a red thread, and returns with thanks when the match is made. Offerings are sweet wine, flowers, incense and candy, and the request is for the right person rather than for any person.