A Taiwanese Sitcom Star Is the Suspect in Nara's Very Strange Buddha Stone Case
Japanese police arrested a 39-year-old Taiwanese woman suspected of pouring glycerin on an 8th-century Buddha Foot Stone at Yakushi-ji temple — and weibo users are transfixed by her reported explanation: she was 'pouring oil as a prayer.'
By Tuesday, what should have been a quiet week for Taiwanese television had turned into a cross-border cultural-property puzzle. Japanese police arrested a 39-year-old Taiwanese woman at Kansai airport on Aug. 22, accusing her of pouring colorless glycerin onto the Buddha Foot Stone, a national treasure at Yakushi-ji temple in Nara, back in April and then flying home the next day. Taiwanese media quickly noted that the suspect's name, age, occupation and travel details appear to match Tsai Yi-chen — better known to viewers as Wu Xiong, a supporting actress in the teen fantasy series "The Ultimate Family" and "The Ultimate Three Kingdoms." Her management has not confirmed or denied the reports.
The story became a Weibo trend not because of the arrest itself but because of the explanation attributed to the suspect. According to the reports, she admitted to the act but said she has a habit of "pouring oil as a prayer" (泼油祈祷) when something moves her. The Buddha Foot Stone she allegedly anointed is not a random rock: it is a Nara-period carving of the Buddha's footprints, roughly 1,300 years old, and one of Yakushi-ji's registered national treasures. Whether glycerin counts as reverence or as damage, under Japan's cultural property law, is the essential question now before prosecutors.
Social media in both Taiwan and mainland China keyed into the absurdity almost immediately. The actress had posted photos from Nara back in April, the same window as the alleged incident, and fans compared the timelines like amateur detectives. Others simply marveled at the concept of prayer by oil, a ritual not found on either side of the Strait. That cross-strait overlap is part of why the item jumped from Taiwanese tabloids onto mainland Weibo: these turn-of-the-2010s fantasy dramas still re-run on both sides, and a face from that shared youth-culture era being told to appear at a Japanese police station reads as both familiar and jarring.
The case has been handed to the public prosecutor,and the actress's agency has stayed silent. Whatever the legal outcome, the story's grip comes from the collision at its center: a minor celebrity, a thousand-year-old stone, and a spiritual habit nobody can quite verify.