Lao ye, the gods of a place
The general word people here use for a local guardian deity — gods, buddhas, Daoist deities and men who did the place a service all included. Their hall is a lao ye gong; carrying them round the parish is ying lao ye; going to worship is bai lao ye.
Pronunciation lǎo yé｜Belief and processions｜One entry in the Chaoshan glossary
What it means
“Lao ye” is not the name of any one deity but a whole layer of address. Titled gods — the city god, Lord Guan, Mazu — are lao ye; local gods such as the Three Mountain Kings, the Holy King of Anji and the Two Loyal Dukes are lao ye as well. Which ones a village keeps is answered by the images in its hall.
Buddhas, Daoist deities and local gods are commonly worshipped under one roof, each offered to on its own day, and nobody here sorts them into schools at the door. So when you ask “which lao ye does your village have”, the answer is usually the name of the hall, not the name of a god.
When you see it
Day to day it is incense at home on the first and the fifteenth. The gods’ birthdays follow the hall’s own calendar. In the first month they come out and go round the parish, and the whole procession — banners, gongs, drum pavilions — is built around them; which lane is walked on which day is fixed by each village.
In speech, older people say “lao ye” for everything, honouring and ordinary talk mixed together; one word covers the god, the hall and the day.
Words easily confused
The lao ye gong is the hall, ying lao ye is carrying them out, bai lao ye is going to worship, lao ye sheng is their birthday — four things beginning with the same two words and not one of them the same. Buddhist buildings are called si or an, never gong, and that distinction is carefully kept here.
Custom in Chaoshan villages; this page describes only, and neither endorses superstition nor prescribes behaviour.
Read next: Local religion and processions.
Same group: ying lao ye, bai lao ye, lao ye gong.
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Last revised: 3 November 2026