This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Mazu, broadcast on CCTV-8 across thirty eight episodes over the 2012 to 2013 New Year, tells the origin story a living religious tradition still tells about itself. Liu Tao plays Lin Moniang, born on Meizhou Island with the ability to read coming weather and heal the sick, who grows into conflict with Ya Zi, the Dragon King's son responsible for the storms that wreck fishing boats along the coast. The series follows her toward the act her worshippers still commemorate: giving her own mortal life to protect coastal people from the sea, after which the heavenly court deifies her as Mazu, protector of seafarers.
The show did not stay confined to its broadcast. Its production record states that Liu Tao's portrayal became the visual standard for the goddess in coastal communities, meaning temples and worshippers across the region she is venerated in now picture her, at least in part, the way this television series pictured her first. That is an unusually direct case of a dramatized work reaching back into the practice of the religion it depicts, rather than simply representing a tradition from outside it.
The show's success was not confined to religious communities either. It repeatedly topped national viewership ratings during its run and won the Full length Television Series Second Prize at the 29th Flying Apsaras Award, one of Chinese television's major honors, evidence that a story rooted in living folk religion carried mainstream popular appeal well beyond the coastal temple communities that already knew it.