Chua Quang Minh

Chua Quang Minh is a Mahayana Buddhist temple for the Vietnamese diaspora, located in Grant Park, right off Boulevard on the way to the prison. It’s one of my favorite places in Atlanta because of the people I’ve met there. The sculpture garden to the left tells the life story of Siddhartha Gautama, birth to enlightenment to death – and these scenes are guarded by statues of arhats, some of which are hilarious. My favorite is the guy using a twig as a Q-​tip in his ear.
Sunday service takes place around noon. The monk lectures for about 20 – 30 minutes (memorably about the linguistic bankruptcy of the English apology, «sorry» in comparison to the meaning-​rich «xin loi» in Vietnamese), then we chant some mantras, at slow speed, then mind-​numbingly fast, we kowtow, we kneel, we think of the departed and pray for them, we continue to recite mantras, we end, we clean up, we have yummy vegetarian lunch. Veg phở, bun bo hue, chao (rice congee), com chien, canh chua. Runs the gamut. Non-​Viets are welcome to come by. It’s a beautiful place and absolutely worth checking out. Definitely unexpected. Standby.

What a cool, tucked-​away, Buddhist temple!
We spent this past Lunar New Year and my boyfriend was itching to hit the temple to get his New Year fortune told, a childhood tradition from California that he’s continued in our years in New Orleans. We asked people various people on Buford and couldn’t get any straight responses, so we turned to the Internet and started cold-​calling. They told us they were indeed doing fortunes so we punched in the address on the trusty old iPhone Google Maps and headed out. The location itself is so easy to miss – it’s tucked in on a dead end street in a residential neighborhood. Thank God for technology!
The space is large, with a spacious courtyard decorated with concrete lions and a platform, and two buildings: the temple itself and a kitchen/​area for congregating post-​service. Vietnamese tweenagers were lounging aroundt with their cool-​faces on as we walked into the hall to ask where the fortunes were being told. They guided us into the temple back room, where we lit incense, took the bowl of numbered sticks, shook them until a single number fell to the floor, and chose the corresponding– numbered colored slip from a box on the wall.
At this point, our group of 5 thought we were all alone in the temple, and since only one of us could read Vietnamese, we had no idea how to interpret our fortunes. When we walked back into the main room of the temple, however, a smiling toothless monk in mustard robes and fuzzy knit cap was waiting for us, handing us red envelopes and tangerines! He then read our fortunes and, with Daniel translating, proceeded to tell us what to expect in the coming year and to encourage us.
After he finished, some of the nuns and laywomen invited us to come into the hall and buy some food. There was an array of homemade vegetarian goodies: vegan spring rolls, tofu, noodles, and desserts, but since we were on our way to a Chinese New Year dinner, we only ended up buying one pack of spring rolls. In the past, I had heard you were supposed to donate to the temple for your fortune, but they refused to take our money and this was the only way we could give back.
Overall, a really cool cultural experience and one I’m glad I took part in this year (not in the least because my fortune was really, really, good: D)