Thien Hau Temple, Los Angeles, Taoist temple in Chinatown, Los Angeles, United States

Thien Hau Temple is a Taoist place of worship in the middle of Los Angeles Chinatown, housed in a red building with curved roofs, dragon carvings, and a decorated tomb on top. Inside, the space is filled with lanterns, candles, fruit, flowers, and many colorful statues arranged around several altars.

The Camau Association of America, serving Teochew Chinese-Vietnamese refugees from Cà Mau province, bought a former Italian Christian church in the 1980s and remodeled it as a temple. The Mazu, Guan Yu and Fu De images were imported from Vietnam and dedicated in 1990. A new temple hall was completed and dedicated in September 2005, followed the next month by a memorial hall for ancestors.

Devotees often bring fruit, flowers, and incense to the shrine of Mazu, the sea goddess, whom many local Vietnamese and Chinese worshippers call Mama. During festivals, lion dancers, firecrackers, and offerings of roast pig fill the space, while visitors quietly light candles near the statues of guardians like Guan Yu and Fu De.

The temple sits in the heart of Chinatown, so it is reached on foot from the surrounding streets. On weekends and on the 1st and 15th days of the lunar calendar, food is served to the public free of charge, with donations optional. A Zhong Yuan Festival ceremony is held in summer. Services were cancelled in 2020 and the temple reopened on a limited basis in early 2021.

The temple's three main images of Mazu, Guan Yu and Fu De were imported from Vietnam and dedicated in 1990, before the current hall existed. The building they stand in replaced a former Italian Christian church in what was once Little Italy, purchased and remodeled by the Camau Association in the 1980s.