Taiwan’s Exam-Eve Temple Ritual:
Where Vegetables Become Lucky Charms

By Lin Hsien-Yun / Tainan

AUG 2025

In Taiwan, the night before a big exam isn’t just about cramming formulas or memorizing essays — it’s also about making a quiet trip to the local temple, arms full of very unusual “study tools.” Instead of notebooks and pens, students and parents arrive with offerings of steamed buns and sticky rice dumplings. In Taiwanese wordplay, buns mean you’re “guaranteed to pass”, while dumplings promise you’ll “hit the mark.”

But the most charming detail? Many swap these for a humble quartet of vegetables: white radish, scallions, celery, and garlic. Each comes with a homophonic wish. Radish (cài tóu) means a “good beginning”; scallions (cōng) mean “cleverness”; celery (qín cài) means “diligence”; and garlic (suàn tóu) plays on “suàn” — to calculate — blessing you with quick thinking and precise answers on test day.

Locals admit it’s all psychological, a ritual as much for the heart as for the gods. Still, as incense curls in the temple air and parents whisper their hopes, you can’t help but feel that these vegetables carry a little more weight than they do in the market. And if you’re traveling Taiwan in exam season, don’t be surprised to find yourself caught between camera-wielding tourists and nervous students, each clutching a bunch of scallions like their future depends on it.