Holy Cow

This is a statue of Jao Mae Guan Im, known to the Chinese as Guan Yin which, according to this site, means "Who Contemplates the [Supplicating] Sound of the World".  She's apparently a bodhisattva, the female incarnation of Avalokitesvara, embodiment of compassion.

Growing up, I only knew her as "that statue of a woman in my aunts' houses."  Jao Mae Guan Im was not part of our standard issue Sunday school Buddhism.  First of all, she was a she, and for all the wonderful things Buddhism is, it is not a culture of the feminine divine.  Secondly, she was often distinctly Chinese-looking, standing among swirls of water or curling lotus petals in a sort of Venus on the half-shell tilt into the wind so her long robes and pretty beehive/Crystal Gayle hair combo were permanently aflutter.

Not everyone had shrines to her in their houses,  which made her seem that much more mystical to me.  Those who did worship her had to give up beef.  (This was the only thing I knew about her because, go figure, I only ever seem to remember details about food.) Depending on where you google, her followers believe her cruel father was reincarnated as a cow; since they don't want to eat him, they don't touch beef; the other story is that Guan Im was so compassionate that she was always a vegetarian, even in utero.

Interesting too that it's beef her believers give up, as the cow so often represents matriarchy.  Even the word cow (as opposed to bull or the neutral food term cattle) refers to the female -- how many other animals do we call primarily by the female gender's title?  Not sows, not ewes, not hens, not mares, not bitches.

Here's a fun page on cross-cultural cow lore. 

And in case you've forgotten why corned beef and pastrami got kosher clearance (except when applied in a Swiss-cheesed Reuben): it's the Leviticus-approved combo of cloven hoof + chews the cud.