Dalongdong: The Incense of Baoan Temple, the Bell of the Confucius Temple, and Yuanshan's Blue Sky with a White Sun: Three Eras of Taipei Faith

30-second overview: Walk out of MRT Yuanshan Station and, within 1.5 kilometers, three spaces of faith appear: Baoan Temple, first built in rudimentary form by Tong'an immigrants in 1742; the Taipei Confucius Temple, rebuilt through local gentry fundraising in 1925; and the Grand Hotel, designed by Yang Cho-cheng in 1973. Along one axis, three different eras of "orthodoxy" stand side by side. The history underfoot is not merely 300 years old: Neolithic people were already living here 5,300 years ago at the Yuanshan shell midden. In the seventh year of the Jiaqing reign of the Qing dynasty, six Tong'an households including Wang Yuanji opened 44 tiled-roof shops; the "long tong" in "prospering Tong'an" became today's Datong District. In the ninth year of the Xianfeng reign, Chen Weiying passed the provincial examination, and because villagers "regarded scholars as dragons," Dalongtong was renamed Dalongdong. In 1853, after losing the Ding-Xia conflict, the defeated Tong'an people first hid in Baoan Temple for defense, then moved to Dadaocheng. In 1907, the Japanese demolished the original Taipei Prefectural Confucian Temple to build the National Language School; the Chen Yueji family and Koo Hsien-jung donated more than 3,000 ping of land so Confucius would have a home again. In 1944, a Japanese passenger aircraft crashed while landing at Songshan Airport and destroyed Taiwan Shrine; after the war, the shrine was removed, and Soong Mei-ling's Taiwan Hospitality Foundation took over the original site in 1952. In 1995, Liao Wuzhi refused government subsidies and spent NT$260 million of private funds to restore Baoan Temple; in 2003 it received Taiwan's first UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award. What this article wants to say is this: the uncles and aunties practicing tai chi on Dalong Street are standing on Taipei's most compressed slice of time.

Front view of Dalongdong Baoan Temple. Photo: Tianmu peter via panoramio, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia.

Seven in the Morning, Tai Chi in the Plaza Before Baoan Temple

From Exit 2 of MRT Yuanshan Station, cross Kulun Street and turn left. In five minutes you arrive at the plaza in front of Baoan Temple.

At seven in the morning, this plaza belongs to the uncles and aunties. A dozen people form a circle and practice tai chi; beside them, pupils from Dalong Elementary School pass by with backpacks. The children do not look at the temple. Their eyes stop on the wall by the school gate, a wall built in 1933 with arcades and washed-gravel stairs¹. But their school began in 1896. That year, the Japanese established the "Third Affiliated School of the National Language School" inside Baoan Temple. The school and temple shared one courtyard until the school moved to the neighboring campus in 1933¹.

In other words, the pupils passing the temple with backpacks today walk the same road as pupils 130 years ago who studied the Japanese syllabary behind Baoan Temple's halls.

Four people are worshiping at the incense burner on the eastern side of the temple forecourt. One elderly woman holds three incense sticks in one hand and steadies herself with a cane in the other, waiting for her turn. She is worshiping Baosheng Dadi. This god was a Tong'an native of the Northern Song, whose birth name was Wu Ben (pronounced "Tao"); born in 979 and deceased in 1036, he was renowned in life for medical skill and healing people². When Tong'an people crossed the sea to Taiwan, they brought this faith with them. In 1742, the seventh year of the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty, Quanzhou Tong'an immigrants invited a divided spirit of Baosheng Dadi from Baijiao Ciji Temple in Longhai, Zhangzhou, Fujian, and built a simple wooden temple in Dalangbeng³. It was the embryo of a "temple," and Baosheng Dadi had arrived.

The main hall would take another 88 years to take shape. Only in 1830, the tenth year of the Daoguang reign, was the temple formally completed³.

On the wall beside the temple are more than two centuries of jianzhan, cut-and-paste ceramic ornamentation: brick-red and emerald-green glass pieces form the Eight Immortals, dragons and phoenixes, and flowers; below them, the bracket sets are painted. Before 1995, these jianzhan pieces were peeling, the paintings had faded, and termites had entered the beams and columns⁴. In 1985, the government listed Baoan Temple as a Grade II historic monument, but after the listing, no one repaired it.

📝 Curator's note: The historical axis of Dalongdong is unusually clear because three spaces of faith stand within 1.5 kilometers: Baoan Temple to the south (1742-1830), worshiping Baosheng Dadi, the medical god of Tong'an immigrants; Taipei Confucius Temple 300 meters farther north (1925-1939), worshiping Confucius, the shared sage of Han literati; and the Grand Hotel another kilometer north across the Keelung River (1952-1973), where the red tiles and yellow eaves of the Nationalist state received foreign guests. One axis, three eras, three "orthodoxies." Other historic districts in Taipei, such as Bangka, Dadaocheng, and Ximending, also have layers, but rarely do all three remain on their original ground like this. Bangka Longshan Temple in 1738 is a single Qing-era focal point; Dadaocheng in 1885 was a Japanese-period commercial hub; Ximending in 1908 was a Japanese-period entertainment district. Only on the Dalongdong-Yuanshan axis do the Qing era, what the Japanese period demolished, and what the postwar party-state built all stand before your eyes.

Not Just 300 Years: Dig Down Five Millennia

Walk north out of Baoan Temple, pass Jiuquan Street and Kulun Street, and you will see Taipei Expo Park. On the eastern half of the park is an inconspicuous stretch of grass. Underground is the Yuanshan Site.

This site was discovered on March 7, 1897, by Japanese scholars Ino Kanori and Miyamura Eiichi⁵. From 1953 to 1954, National Taiwan University archaeology professor Shih Chang-ju led faculty and students in systematic excavations on the northwestern foothills of Yuanshan⁵. The excavated materials were broadly divided into two layers: the lower layer was Cord-Marked Pottery culture, dating to 6,500-4,500 years before present, and the upper layer was Yuanshan culture, dating to 4,500-2,500 years before present⁵⁶.

The most prominent feature of Yuanshan culture is its shell middens. The soil layers contain large quantities of eaten shellfish, animal bones, fish bones, pottery, stone tools, and bone-and-antler artifacts⁶. The main shellfish species are large clams, river snails, Semisulcospira snails, oysters, top shells, and Nassarius snails; the first three are freshwater shellfish, and the latter three are saltwater shellfish⁶.

What does this mean? It means Neolithic Yuanshan people could gather both freshwater and saltwater shellfish. At the time, the Taipei Basin was still a brackish lake, ancient Lake Taipei, and Yuanshan was a small island in the lake. They cultivated rice, raised livestock, hunted, fished, and lived in a settlement with a "rigorous social organization and symbolic belief system of agricultural ritual"⁶.

On April 25, 1988, the Ministry of the Interior announced the Yuanshan Site as a national Grade I historic monument⁶. It was Taiwan's earliest designated prehistoric site, and also "the beginning of archaeology in Taiwan"⁷. On May 1, 2006, it was redesignated as a national archaeological site⁶.

💡 Did you know: The "shells" of the Yuanshan shell midden were not merely food waste. After Neolithic Taipei residents ate the shellfish meat, they used the shells as building material for paving floors, piling walls, and burial implements; some bone-and-antler tools, such as fishhooks, needles, and spearheads, were ground from animal bones. In other words, they did not waste materials. Today, when we walk dogs on the grass at Taipei Expo Park, 50 centimeters below are the kitchen waste and tools left by these people: a human settlement from 5,000 years ago.

Continue north from the Yuanshan Site and you will see Jiantan Mountain. In legends from the 1660s, Koxinga's army passed through this place and encountered supernatural beings that stirred up wind and waves; Koxinga threw a treasured sword into the water to subdue them⁸. The 1732 Taiwan Zhilue, compiled in the tenth year of the Yongzheng reign of the Qing dynasty, records another version: on the shore of Jiantan stood a towering bishopwood tree, and "it is said that the Dutch thrust a sword into the tree; new bark closed over it, leaving the sword inside, and this became the name"⁹. The difference between the two versions is this: Koxinga's sword was in the water; the Dutch sword was in the tree. Neither version has been confirmed by scholars, but the name "Jiantan," Sword Pond, has accompanied Taipei's mountains and waters ever since, all the way to 2026.

From Dalangbeng to Dalongdong: Four Layers in One Place Name

Before the three characters "Dalongdong," this place had other names.

The earliest records appear in documents from the Dutch period, between 1645 and 1655. At the time, the Ketagalan people, a Basay-speaking group, had a settlement called "Daronpon," also written Paronpon or Parongpom¹⁰. After Han settlers arrived, they transliterated the sound in Hokkien as "Dalangbeng," also written "Balangbeng"¹⁰¹¹.

In 1709, the forty-eighth year of the Kangxi reign of the Qing dynasty, five Quanzhou shareholders, Chen Fengchun, Lai Yonghe, Chen Tianzhang, Chen Xianbo, and Dai Tianshu, jointly applied to Zhuluo County to reclaim Dajiala¹². The Chen-Lai-Zhang reclamation partnership obtained an official land-opening permit¹². The permit covered an area from southern Wanhua to Dalongdong, and from Guandu to Xinzhuang: most of the Taipei Basin¹². Han settlers gradually entered Dalangbeng¹¹.

In 1742, the seventh year of the Qianlong reign, Tong'an people built Baoan Temple in rudimentary form in Dalangbeng³.

In 1802, the seventh year of the Jiaqing reign, six households of Quanzhou Tong'an people, including Wang Yuanji, Wang Zhiji, Chen Lanji, Chen Shengji, Gao Mingde, and Zheng Xiyuan, opened 44 tiled-roof shops here¹¹. Each shop was 1.8 zhang wide and 19 zhang deep, arranged into a street in a "single-dragon with passageway" layout¹³, commonly called the "Forty-Four Kan" (kan, in Taiwanese, means "shopfront"). These six households decided to rename the place "Dalongtong," taking it as a homophone of "prospering Tong'an"¹¹¹⁴.

"Dalongtong" remained in use for more than 50 years. By the Daoguang and Tongzhi reigns of the Qing dynasty, from 1820 to 1870, the area had produced increasing numbers of civil examination candidates. Local people "regarded scholars as dragons"; moreover, nearby Yuanshan rose abruptly from the plain "like a dragon," forming a "dragon lair." Thus "Dalongtong" became "Dalongdong"¹¹¹⁵.

Four layers of place names: Daronpon (Basay) → Dalangbeng (Hokkien transliteration) → Dalongtong (after Tong'an immigrants arrived) → Dalongdong (after literati multiplied).

The last name is still used today. In 1990, Taipei City redrew its administrative districts; this area became part of Datong District, while the area across the Keelung River belongs to Zhongshan District. The district name "Datong" comes directly from "prospering Tong'an."

Baoan Temple mountain gate. Photo: Outlookxp, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia.

1853: For the Defeated Tong'an People, the First Stop Was Not Dadaocheng

In 1853, the third year of the Xianfeng reign, the Ding-Xia conflict broke out in Bangka. The Dingjiao, dominated by people from Quanzhou's three counties of Jinjiang, Nan'an, and Hui'an, fought a large-scale armed feud with the Xiajiao, also called Xiajiao, dominated by Quanzhou Tong'an people¹⁶. The three-county side passed through Qingshui Zushi Temple and set fire to Bajiazhuang, where the Tong'an people lived. The Tong'an people were defeated and retreated.

The usual historical narrative is: "The defeated Tong'an people, led by Lin Youzao, fled to Dadaocheng and opened a new commercial port"¹⁶.

But one stop is missing.

The Wikipedia entry on "Dalongdong" records: "The defeated Xiajiao Tong'an people retreated to Dalongdong, used Baoan Temple as their defensive center, and later moved to Dadaocheng"¹¹. In other words, in the 1853 retreat, the first stop for Tong'an people leaving Bangka was Dalongdong; Dadaocheng came later. They first hid in Baoan Temple, a temple first built in 1742 by Tong'an people who had arrived in Taiwan earlier, used it as a defensive center, then moved south from Dalongdong across Datong District to Dadaocheng's Zhong Street¹¹¹⁶.

Geographically, this route makes complete sense: walk north from Bangka, pass the upper reaches of the Tamsui River, circle around the Taipei prefectural city, and you reach Dalongdong. Their fellow townsmen were there, Baosheng Dadi of Baoan Temple was the god of Tong'an people, and the temple had already existed for 111 years before the Ding-Xia conflict. For Tong'an people in retreat in 1853, Baoan Temple played a role beyond that of an ordinary temple: it was a concrete refuge for fellow natives.

Afterward, the Tong'an people carried the statue of Xiahai City God and continued moving south, finally settling on Zhong Street in Dadaocheng¹⁶. On March 18, 1859, the ninth year of the Xianfeng reign, Xiahai City God Temple was completed in Dadaocheng¹⁶. From Bangka's Bajiazhuang to Dalongdong Baoan Temple, and then to Dihua Street in Dadaocheng, this route traces six years in the movement of Tong'an people after 1853.

📝 Curator's note: The same ethnic-origin group left traces in three Taipei settlements: Bangka's Bajiazhuang, their base before 1853; Dalongdong Baoan Temple, their first stop in retreat; and Dadaocheng, their final foothold. The three places meant different things to Tong'an people: Bangka was the "lost home," Dalongdong was the "refuge of fellow natives," and Dadaocheng was the "commercial hub of a new beginning." Walk these three places today, and you can see the different bodily postures the same group left at different stages: Bangka Qingshan Temple says "we were here from the beginning"; Baoan Temple says "we have always been here"; Xiahai City God Temple says "we fled from there to here."

A Xiucai Every Five Steps, a Juren Every Ten: Chen Weiying and His Teacher's Mansion

Walk 500 meters east from Baoan Temple, pass Hami Street, and reach Section 4 of Yanping North Road. There you will see a gray-white Hokkien-style old house: the Chen Yueji ancestral residence, commonly called the "Teacher's Mansion"¹⁷.

This old house was founded in 1807, the twelfth year of the Jiaqing reign¹⁷¹⁸, and rebuilt in the early Xianfeng period. It consists of two side-by-side compounds: the ancestral hall and the reception hall, one a four-courtyard great house and the other a three-courtyard great house¹⁷. It is the largest surviving Hokkien-style old residence in Taipei City today¹⁸. The family that built the house came from Zhangzhou, Fujian, later moved to Tong'an, and in the thirty-fifth year of the Qianlong reign, 1770, Chen Xunyan settled in Dalongdong¹⁷.

The Chen family had a son named Chen Weiying (1811-1869)¹⁹.

In 1859, the ninth year of the Xianfeng reign, Chen Weiying passed the provincial civil service examination and became a juren¹⁹. He was Dalongdong's most famous juren, but the other thing that truly made the locality proud was that he turned a juren's home into an academy. Chen Weiying had served as education instructor of Min County and as head of Bangka's Xuehai Academy and Yilan's Yangshan Academy¹⁹. Local people honored him as "Teacher," and called his home the "Teacher's Mansion"¹⁷. Later generations praised him as the "literary patriarch of northern Taiwan"²⁰.

The Chen family produced three juren in succession¹⁸. Chen Weiying erected three pairs of stone flagpoles in the front courtyard, with coiling dragons above and climbing lions below. This "coiling dragon above, climbing lion below" form symbolized "going further from the top of a hundred-foot pole"¹⁸. By 2026, only one pair of the three pairs of stone flagpoles remained intact; it is the only surviving stone pole of the "coiling dragon above, climbing lion below" type in Taiwan¹⁸.

Dalongdong became "the most bookish place in all of Taipei" because of Chen Weiying. In 1853, the third year of the Xianfeng reign, he founded Shuren Academy inside Baoan Temple and taught there himself²¹. Many academy students passed examinations, and the locality's literary culture flourished. It earned the reputation of "a xiucai every five steps, a juren every ten"¹¹¹⁵, meaning that one encountered a xiucai degree-holder after walking five steps and a juren degree-holder after ten.

In 1862, the first year of the Tongzhi reign, the Dai Chaochun Incident broke out. Chen Weiying spent his own money to organize local militia and help the government, for which he was awarded the right to wear a peacock feather¹⁹. After the incident was pacified, he built a villa on the left bank of Jiantan, today's Yuanshan, and named it "Taigu Nest." This villa stood near the hilltop where the Grand Hotel would later be located²²²³. At Taigu Nest, Chen Weiying wrote poetry and couplets; later generations compiled them as Records of Stolen Leisure and Collected Couplets from Taigu Nest¹⁹²⁰.

On October 9, 1869, the eighth year of the Tongzhi reign, Chen Weiying died of illness¹⁹. But the name "Teacher's Mansion" did not end on Dalongdong's streets.

Shuren Academy later moved out of Baoan Temple in 1928; "the villagers deemed it inappropriate for an academy to be attached to a temple, and therefore moved it"²¹. It was independently rebuilt as Wenchang Shrine, completed in 1932²⁴, and still stands today in an alley off Hami Street.

Twenty-seven years after Chen Weiying died, in 1896, the Japanese established the Third Affiliated School of the National Language School, predecessor of Dalong Elementary School, inside Baoan Temple¹. One temple consecutively housed two schools: Shuren Academy after 1853, followed by the National Language School in 1896. In the same courtyard, earlier students wore long gowns and worshiped Wenchang; later students wore caps and studied the Japanese syllabary.

Baoan Temple coiling dragon stone columns. Photo: panoramio contributor, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia.

The 1917 Duichangzuo: Two Carpenters Competing, Even Their Mockery Carved into Wood

In 1917, the sixth year of the Taisho era, Baoan Temple was restored.

The temple invited two of the most famous carpenters of the time: Chen Yingbin, master of the Zhangzhou school, and Guo Ta, a woodcarver from Banqiao's Guoxing Street. The two agreed to each take half of the central axis. The temple front was divided into the dragon side and tiger side: Chen Yingbin took the dragon side, Guo Ta the tiger side. They also agreed on a shared theme: "The Eight Immortals Stir Up the Eastern Sea"²⁵.

This practice of two master craftsmen working at the same time and secretly competing with each other is called duichangzuo, "paired-field work," in Taiwan's traditional architecture²⁵²⁶. After completion, the details left by the craftsmen became clues for later generations to identify "who made which side."

Chen Yingbin won through delicate carving, and the temple judged him the winner. Guo Ta was dissatisfied. On the woodcarvings of the tiger side, he carved several mocking phrases:

"A fake lion breaks a true lion" (carved on the bracket set)
"Made by Guo Ta, carpenter of Guoxing Street" (signed on the tiger-side yuan guang panel)
"True craftsmanship needs no alteration" (signed inscription)
"Good workmanship needs no patching or joining" (on the yuan guang panel)²⁵²⁶

The meaning was roughly: real skill needs no post-production, and a good craftsman needs no splicing. These were the words he left after being judged the loser. Visit Baoan Temple today and these inscriptions are still there, physical evidence for identifying the outcome of the duichangzuo²⁵.

The murals in the outer corridor of the main hall were added later. In 1973, the temple hired Tainan painting master Pan Lishui (1914-1995) to paint seven large murals²⁷. Their subjects include "Han Xin Endures Humiliation by Crawling Between Another's Legs," "The Eight Hammers Battle Lu Wenlong at Zhuxian Town," "Zhong Kui Welcomes His Sister Back to Her Natal Home," "The Eight Immortals Stir Up the Eastern Sea," "Hua Mulan Joins the Army in Her Father's Place," "Three Heroes Battle Lü Bu at Hulao Pass," and "The Worthy Mother Xu"²⁷. The 1917 woodcarving contest plus the 1973 painted stories: one temple, Baoan Temple, layers two eras of craftsmanship.

The octagonal coiling dragon stone columns before the hall were made during the Jiaqing reign, 1796-1820, and are the temple's earliest surviving stone carvings³. The bodies of the columns coil upward from below; eight sides carry relief carvings of cloud patterns, dragon claws, and dragon whiskers. Viewed from the capital downward, one can read the design by which the stoneworkers arranged motifs according to the Eight Trigrams.

The 36 palace-general statues on the two sides of the temple were commissioned in 1829, the ninth year of the Daoguang reign. The temple invited the Quanzhou master Xu Yan to Taiwan, and the carvings took five years to complete²⁸. In other words, in 1829, Tong'an people spent five years and invited a Quanzhou master across the sea so divine generals could guard the temple.

1907: When the Japanese Demolished the Confucius Temple, Confucius Had Nowhere to Live

In 1879, the fifth year of the Guangxu reign, Taipei Prefecture's first prefect, Chen Xingju, used "remaining materials and leftover funds" to build a civil-and-military temple inside the south gate of Taipei Prefecture City, near today's Taipei First Girls High School and National Taipei University of Education²⁹. The civil temple stood on the left, the military temple on the right. In 1884, the tenth year of the Guangxu reign, the original Taipei Prefectural Confucian Temple was completed²⁹.

But this Confucius Temple lived only 23 years.

In 1907, the Japanese colonial authorities demolished the original Confucius Temple and established the "Taiwan Governor-General's National Language School" on the site, later Taipei Normal School and today's National Taipei University of Education³⁰³¹. In 1925, they built "Taipei Prefectural First Girls' High School," today's Taipei First Girls High School, across from that site³⁰.

Confucius had lost his home.

In 1925, local Taipei gentry gathered in Dadaocheng's Yongle-cho to discuss: what should be done about Confucius? Should the temple be rebuilt? Where should it be built?³⁰³¹

Chen Peigen, a poet from the Chen Yueji family and a descendant of Chen Weiying, stepped forward and said: "If it is rebuilt in Dalongdong, I am willing to donate private land"³¹. Chen Peigen donated more than 2,000 ping³⁰.

Besides Chen Peigen, there was another important land donor: Koo Hsien-jung, of the Lukang Koo family and father of Koo Chen-fu. Koo Hsien-jung purchased additional land and donated more than 1,000 ping³⁰³¹. Chen Peigen plus Koo Hsien-jung together donated more than 3,000 ping; this became the site of today's Taipei Confucius Temple.

Construction began in 1927³¹. The construction of Dacheng Hall, the core building of the Confucius Temple, was handled by Wang Jinmu of the Xidi school³¹. The Xidi school was a timberwork lineage from Hui'an, Quanzhou, and one of Taiwan's most important temple carpentry traditions at the time. Dacheng Hall was completed in 1929³¹. But other parts of the Confucius Temple, including Lingxing Gate, the Gate of Rites, the Path of Righteousness, and the Wanren Palace Wall, were built slowly. Only in 1939, the fourteenth year of the Showa era, was the entire complex completed³¹.

In other words: 1907, the original Confucius Temple was demolished → 1925, rebuilding was discussed → 1927, construction began → 1929, Dacheng Hall was completed → 1939, the whole complex was finished. After 32 years, Confucius finally had a home again in Dalongdong.

After the war, in 1971, the Taipei City Government established the Taipei Confucius Temple Management Committee³¹. The September 1970 "Improvements to the Rites and Music for Confucius Worship" plan stipulated: "The spring sacrifice shall be a popular rite; the autumn sacrifice, the Shidian ceremony for Confucius's birthday, shall be government-sponsored"³¹.

Today, every year on September 28, Teachers' Day and also Confucius's birthday, the Taipei Confucius Temple holds the Shidian ceremony at the mao hour before dawn³². The Eight-Row Dance is performed by sixth-grade students from Dalong Elementary School as dancers[^33]: 8 rows by 8 columns, 64 people in total, of all genders, wearing yellow robes with dark-green belts and black boots³³. The entire ceremony follows ancient practice: no firecrackers, no theatrical performance, and no burning of paper money³².

From Chen Xingju building Taipei's first Confucius Temple in 1879, to its demolition by the Japanese in 1907, to Chen Peigen and Koo Hsien-jung donating land for its reconstruction in 1925, to the full completion in 1939, the city government's takeover in 1971, and sixth-graders from Dalong Elementary performing the Eight-Row Dance in 2026: one temple took 147 years to complete its axis from empire, to Japanese rule, to the postwar era, to the present.

_Taipei Confucius Temple. Photo: panoramio contributor, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia.*

The Afternoon an Airplane Hit the Shrine

Walk 700 meters north from Taipei Confucius Temple, cross the Keelung River, and you reach Yuanshan.

In 1900, the thirty-third year of the Meiji era, the Japanese began constructing Taiwan Shrine on this small hill³⁴. It was completed in October 1901, the thirty-fourth year of Meiji³⁴. The shrine primarily enshrined Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa, who died in Taiwan³⁴. When the Japanese army took over Taiwan in 1895, Prince Yoshihisa, commanding the Imperial Guards Division, led troops and died of illness in Tainan³⁴. To commemorate him, the Japanese built Taiwan Shrine as a kanpei taisha, an imperial shrine of the highest rank³⁴. Among Japanese shrines in Taiwan, there was only this one kanpei taisha³⁴.

Sections 1, 2, and 3 of Zhongshan North Road before the shrine were built by the Japanese from 1898 onward as Chokushi Kaido, the imperial envoy road used for shrine visits³⁵. In 1929, it was completed as a boulevard lined with trees³⁵.

In 1943-1944, Taiwan Shrine was expanded, Amaterasu Omikami was additionally enshrined, and the shrine was elevated to "jingu," or imperial shrine³⁴.

On the afternoon of October 25, 1944, the nineteenth year of the Showa era, a Japanese passenger aircraft crashed while landing at Songshan Airport and struck Taiwan Jingu³⁴. It was the final stage of World War II, and the Japanese government no longer had the capacity to repair it. The shrine burned down just like that³⁴³⁶.

After the war, in 1945, the Nationalist government received Taiwan. Lacking a luxurious state guesthouse, it removed the shrine remains and converted the site into the "Taiwan Grand Hotel"³⁷. On May 10, 1952, the Taiwan Hospitality Foundation, headed by Soong Mei-ling, took over operations and renamed it the Grand Hotel³⁷. The first general manager was Miss Kung Erh, Kung Ling-wei, Soong Mei-ling's niece³⁷.

The first foreign head of state it received was King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, with Queen Sirikit³⁸.

On October 10, 1973, Double Ten National Day, the 14-story Chinese palace-style building designed by architect Yang Cho-cheng was completed³⁷. It had 14 floors, golden glazed tiles, red corridor columns, and covered the entire western hilltop of Jiantan Mountain. Seen from Zhongshan North Road, the whole building resembles a miniature version of the Hall of Supreme Harmony in the Forbidden City³⁸.

Besides the Grand Hotel, Yang Cho-cheng's (1914-2006) representative works include Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the National Concert Hall, the National Theater, and the Cihu Mausoleum³⁹. Together with the Grand Hotel, these four works form the five-piece set of Chinese palace-style architecture that Yang Cho-cheng left in Taipei. All were completed in the 1970s and 1980s under the favor of Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling³⁹.

⚠️ Contested view: The Grand Hotel stands on the original site of Taiwan Jingu, which was destroyed by an airplane crash in 1944. On the same hilltop, there was first the kanpei taisha that the Japanese built to commemorate a prince who died during the conquest of Taiwan; after the war, it became the red-tiled, yellow-eaved "Chinese palace-style" venue where the Nationalist government received foreign guests. Two architectural languages and two eras of power ritual are layered on the same ground. On the morning of June 27, 1995, a fire broke out on the roof of the Grand Hotel's twelfth floor, when careless welding during glazed-tile work ignited the blaze⁴⁰. It burned for four hours; fortunately, there were no casualties, and the building structure was not damaged⁴⁰. A shrine had been destroyed by an aircraft in 1944; a new building was completed in 1973; and in 1995 it burned again. The same ground, two fires, 1944 and 1995, each connected to a regime's rituals.

Grand Hotel Taipei. Photo: shennongtw, Public domain via Wikimedia.

1995: Liao Wuzhi Refused Government Subsidies to Restore a Temple, and Won Taiwan's First UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award

From the Grand Hotel, turn back south. Descend the hill, cross the Keelung River, pass Jiuquan Street, and you return to Baoan Temple.

In 1994, Liao Wuzhi became vice chairman of Baoan Temple⁴¹. He had worshiped at Baoan Temple for decades, but this time he was about to do something an "unconventional temple keeper" would do[^4]: in 1995, he presided over the comprehensive restoration of Baoan Temple⁴¹.

Liao Wuzhi decided to give up government historic-monument subsidies.

"To avoid being restricted by the government's outdated system and to achieve the best results, Baoan Temple decided to forgo government subsidies, raise funds on its own, and conduct and supervise the restoration itself"⁴¹. This became Taiwan's first privately funded, privately led case of historic monument restoration⁴¹.

The "government's outdated system" referred to the bidding regulations for historic-monument projects at the time: they had to follow public-works standards, choose the lowest bidder, and use a standard construction schedule⁴. But traditional temple restoration is not ordinary construction. Jianzhan requires masters who understand cut-and-paste ornamentation; painting requires masters who understand temple painting; major timberwork requires descendants of the Xidi or Zhangzhou schools⁴. If public-works standards were followed, the contractors might not understand temple craft, and the repaired temple might become a "wrongly repaired" temple⁴.

Liao Wuzhi's choice was this: he would rather take seven years and spend NT$260 million of private funds⁴¹ than fail to repair every piece of jianzhan, every bracket set, and every painting correctly.

Seven years. NT$260 million. In early 2002, the Sanchuan Hall, east wing, west wing, rear hall, and main hall were completed one after another³. On June 30, 2003, the temple held the "settling the dragon and thanking the earth" ritual³, a traditional ceremony celebrating the completion of restoration.

That same year, 2003, UNESCO awarded Baoan Temple an Award of Merit in the Asia-Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation⁴⁴¹. This was Taiwan's first UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award⁴. The jury statement described it as "a model for community-based restoration"⁴.

Liao Wuzhi later became chairman of Baoan Temple⁴¹. Today the temple holds the Baosheng Cultural Festival every year on Baosheng Dadi's birthday, the fifteenth day of the third lunar month⁴². In 2021, the "Baoan Temple Baosheng Dadi Birthday Celebration" was registered as a cultural asset in the category of folk customs³. Baosheng Dadi's procession is "one of Taipei's three major temple festivals"³, and during the cultural festival there are processions, fire-walking, and the burning of fire lions in the temple forecourt⁴².

📝 Curator's note: Liao Wuzhi's choice has two meanings. One is insistence on craft quality: he would rather refuse government subsidies than fail to find the right masters to repair the right places. The other is the possibility of civic autonomy: Baoan Temple's NT$260 million restoration budget came entirely from devotees' donations, proving that Taiwan's civil society has the capacity to support historic preservation independently. UNESCO's 2003 jury phrase, "a model for community-based restoration," was the first time an international organization recognized that Taiwan's temple culture, devotee networks, and craft transmission formed an entire ecosystem capable of sustaining a two-hundred-year-old temple. This model was later consulted by other historic sites in Taiwan, but few temples could replicate it. What made Liao Wuzhi special was that his determination found in Dalongdong the community depth needed to sustain it.

The 1972 Wanda Plan: The Forty-Four Kan Were Cut in Half

On June 10, 1972, year 61 of the Republic of China calendar, Taipei City was reorganized as a special municipality⁴³. The city government began implementing the Wanda Plan, a two-year, NT$300 million project aimed at improving old districts from Bangka to Dalongdong⁴³.

In 1973-1974, the city government widened Hami Street and Jiuquan Street, extended Chengde Road, and widened and straightened Lanzhou Street into today's Dalong Street⁴³.

The Forty-Four Kan were on Hami Street⁴³. Old aerial photographs from 1973 show that when the Wanda Plan widened Hami Street, the first front section of the shop houses on the south side of the Forty-Four Kan was partially demolished⁴³. In other words, the 44 tiled-roof shops opened in 1802 by six households including Wang Yuanji, Dalongdong's earliest street, were cut in half by the city government.

Which half was cut? The first front section of the southern shop houses. The tiled shops' single-dragon layout consisted of "shopfront → passageway → rear section." The southern shopfronts were demolished, leaving the back halves and parts of the passageways⁴³.

A 170-year-old street was left with less than half of itself.

Today, what one can see on Hami Street as the "old street appearance of the Forty-Four Kan" is actually mixed: some parts are old tiled-shop walls left from 1802, some are shopfronts rebuilt after the 1973 widening, and some are renovations from the 1980s and 1990s. Academia Sinica's Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Center for GIS, launched the 2025 "Spatial Reconstruction of Dalongdong's Forty-Four Kan Market Street" project precisely to reconstruct the historical layers of this street using GIS⁴⁴.

Walk from Baoan Temple toward Hami Street, and you pass Dalong Night Market⁴⁵. A night market is an evening street-market food and shopping district; here its core lies around the intersection of Dalong Street and Hami Street. The stalls mainly serve snacks: Guo Ji thick pork-rib soup, A-Ren fried rice, Black Tea House, which opened in 1981 and still sells a small black tea for NT$15 and a largest 1000 c.c. cup for only NT$25, Dingwang soup dumplings, and truffle fried rice at Yu no Zhan⁴⁵. These shops average 30 to 40 years in age. They are the stomach of an old community.

After the night market, walk toward the Confucius Temple and you pass the alley of Shuren Academy Wenchang Shrine, moved out of Baoan Temple in 1928 and completed in 1932²¹²⁴. Pass Dalong Elementary School, founded in 1896 with its school building completed in 1933¹, and you arrive at Taipei Confucius Temple.

This 1.5-kilometer axis, Baoan Temple → Shuren Academy Wenchang Shrine → Dalong Elementary School → Taipei Confucius Temple → Yuanshan Site → Yuanshan Park → Grand Hotel, is Taipei's most compressed slice of time:

• 5,300-year-old Neolithic Yuanshan shell midden
• 17th-century Ketagalan Dalangbeng settlement
• 1742 Tong'an immigrants build Baoan Temple in rudimentary form
• 1802 Forty-Four Kan tiled-roof shops
• 1807 Teacher's Mansion
• 1830 Baoan Temple formally completed
• 1859 Chen Weiying passes the provincial examination
• 1879 first Taipei Confucius Temple, inside the city
• 1897 Yuanshan Park and Yuanshan Site discovered
• 1907 Japanese demolish the original Confucius Temple
• 1925-1939 new Dalongdong Confucius Temple
• 1944 shrine destroyed by airplane crash
• 1952 Grand Hotel renamed
• 1972 Wanda Plan cuts the Forty-Four Kan
• 1973 Yang Cho-cheng's 14-story palace-style building completed
• 1988 Yuanshan Site listed as a Grade I historic monument
• 1995-2003 Liao Wuzhi privately funds temple restoration and receives UNESCO award

Walking this axis takes 30 minutes.

Baoan Temple main hall. Photo: Bgabel, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia.

The Tai Chi at Seven in the Morning Is Still Going

Return to the opening plaza.

At seven in the morning, the tai chi group before Baoan Temple is still practicing. A dozen uncles and aunties move so slowly they look like they are in slow motion. The place where they stand is above the temple foundation first built by Tong'an people in 1742. Five meters farther down lies the reclamation area of the Chen-Lai-Zhang partnership from 1709. Twenty meters farther down is the 5,300-year-old shell-midden layer of Yuanshan people.

They do not think about these things. They simply come here at seven every morning to practice tai chi. Afterward, they go beside the temple to eat a bowl of thick pork soup or drink a cup of black tea from Black Tea House, the shop opened in 1981 that still sells a small cup for NT$15⁴⁵. It is the same as yesterday, the same as the day before, the same as before Liao Wuzhi decided in 1995 to restore the temple with private funds, the same as before Shuren Academy moved out of Baoan Temple in 1928, the same as before Chen Weiying passed the provincial examination in 1859.

To the north, 1.5 kilometers away, the Grand Hotel's red tiles reflect the morning light. Farther north, across the Keelung River, the ridgeline of Jiantan Mountain descends southward. In between is Taipei Expo Park, with the still-unexcavated Yuanshan shell midden buried below.

Seven hundred meters to the south, the yellow tiles of Taipei Confucius Temple's Dacheng Hall sit quietly in the shade. A few months later, in the mao hour before dawn on September 28, 64 sixth-graders from Dalong Elementary School will stand in that courtyard and perform the Eight-Row Dance, their movements as slow as the movements of Yuanshan people gathering shellfish 5,300 years ago.

At the incense burner on the eastern side of the temple forecourt, three incense sticks are burning. The smoke does not rise straight; the morning wind bends it askew, drifting north. Northward is Jiantan Mountain: the hilltop where the shrine burned in 1944, where Yang Cho-cheng built a palace-style hotel in 1973, where Chen Weiying built Taigu Nest in 1862 to write poetry, and where Yuanshan people lived 5,300 years ago.

The smoke drifts there and disperses over the hill.

Three eras of Taipei faith stand side by side along a 1.5-kilometer axis. There is no before and after, no covering over, only juxtaposition. What lies underfoot is Taipei's most compressed slice of time.

Further reading:

• Taipei City — The full urban context of Dalongdong, from the 1709 Chen-Lai-Zhang reclamation partnership to a panoramic 2026 narrative
• Bangka — The earliest Qing-era district in Taipei, formed around Longshan Temple in 1738, and the other end of the 1853 Ding-Xia conflict
• Dadaocheng — The final foothold of Tong'an people after 1853 and a major tea-trade hub after 1860; a sister street to Dalongdong with the same origin and a different path
• Ximending — A Japanese-period entertainment district from 1908, contemporary with Dalongdong but a completely different urban experiment
• Taiwanese Religion and Temple Culture — The full context of Baoan Temple, Liao Wuzhi's restoration, and the UNESCO award
• Shilin — The 1859 Zhangzhou-Quanzhou armed feud and Dalongdong Tong'an people's reception of refugees after the 1853 Ding-Xia conflict are two landscapes of ethnic armed conflict in Qing-era northern Taiwan

Image Sources

This article uses six CC-licensed and public-domain images, all cached under public/article-images/geography/ to avoid hotlinking from source servers:

• Dalongdong Baoan Temple panoramio — Photo: Tianmu peter via panoramio, 2010s, CC BY 3.0
• Gate of the Dalongdong Bao-an Temple 01 — Photo: Outlookxp, 2020s, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Baoan Temple dragon pillars panoramio — Photo: panoramio contributor, 2012, CC BY 3.0
• Taipeh Dalongdong Baoan Temple Haupthalle 1 — Photo: Bgabel, 2018, CC BY-SA 4.0
• Taipei Confucius Temple panoramio — Photo: panoramio contributor, 2014, CC BY 3.0
• R38577389977 Grand Hotel, Taipei — Photo: shennongtw, circa 2017, Public domain

References

1. Dalong Elementary School History — Dalong Elementary School was founded in 1896, 16 years before the Republic of China era, then called the "Third Affiliated School of the National Language School" and located inside Baoan Temple; it was later renamed Dalongdong Public School. The current school building was completed in 1933 and registered as a Taipei City historic building in 2006.↩
2. Baosheng Dadi (Wikipedia) — Baosheng Dadi, Wu Ben (pronounced "Tao"), was born in 979 and died in 1036. He was from Baijiao Village, Tong'an County, Quanzhou, Fujian, and was skilled in medicine. Legends say he "dotted a dragon's eye and healed a tiger's throat"; he remained vegetarian and unmarried throughout life.↩
3. Dalongdong Baoan Temple (Wikipedia) — Founded in rudimentary form in Dalangbeng in 1742, the seventh year of the Qianlong reign; its incense lineage came from Quanzhou Tong'an people inviting a divided spirit of Baosheng Dadi from their hometown's Baijiao Ciji Temple to Taiwan. It was completed in 1830, the tenth year of the Daoguang reign. On June 30, 2003, it held the "settling the dragon and thanking the earth" ritual. In 2021, the Baosheng Cultural Festival was registered as a cultural asset in the folk-customs category.↩
4. Taiwan Panorama: Letting the United Nations See Baoan Temple: The Unconventional Temple Keeper Liao Wuzhi — A detailed record of the Baoan Temple restoration led by Liao Wuzhi from 1995 to 2002, including the specific considerations behind giving up government subsidies and the contents of the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Heritage Award jury statement.↩
5. Yuanshan Site (Wikipedia) — The Yuanshan Site was discovered on March 7, 1897, by Ino Kanori and Miyamura Eiichi; in 1953-1954, National Taiwan University archaeology professor Shih Chang-ju led faculty and students in systematic excavation.↩
6. Academia Sinica Archaeological Data Digital Archive: Roaming the Yuanshan Archaeological Site — The Yuanshan Site dates to 5,300-4,500 years before present. On April 25, 1988, the Ministry of the Interior announced it as a national Grade I historic monument; on May 1, 2006, it was redesignated as a national archaeological site. The shell midden preserves large quantities of eaten shellfish, animal bones, fish bones, and pottery, stone, bone, and antler artifacts.↩
7. Bureau of Cultural Heritage, Ministry of Culture: Yuanshan Site — The Yuanshan cultural site contains remains and deposits from six prehistoric cultural layers, from the "pre-pottery period" to the "metal-tool period." It is one of Taiwan's earliest discovered prehistoric sites and the beginning of archaeology in Taiwan.↩
8. Jiantan (Wikipedia) — In the 1660s, Koxinga's army passed this river section, encountered supernatural beings that created strong winds and waves, and subdued them only after he threw a treasured sword from his side into the water. Later generations named this river section Jiantan, Sword Pond, though this is folklore and not certain.↩
9. Taiwan Zhilue record of Jiantan — In 1732, the tenth year of the Yongzheng reign, Taiwan-Xiamen circuit intendant Yin Shiliang's Taiwan Zhilue recorded: "Jiantan has a tree named bishopwood, towering high enough to block the sky and so thick it takes several arms to encircle, standing on the pond bank. It is said that the Dutch thrust a sword into the tree; new bark closed over it, leaving the sword inside, and thus it was named."↩
10. Dalongdong (Wikipedia) § Early History — The earliest written records of the place name of this old settlement date to the Dutch period in Taiwan, between 1645 and 1655, when the Basay term "Daronpon" was transcribed in Dutch; other spellings include Paronpon and Parongpom.↩
11. Dalongdong (Wikipedia) § Tong'an Migration and After the 1853 Ding-Xia Conflict — In 1802, the seventh year of the Jiaqing reign, six households of Quanzhou Tong'an people including Wang Yuanji, Wang Zhiji, Chen Lanji, Chen Shengji, Gao Mingde, and Zheng Xiyuan opened 44 tiled-roof shops. In the 1853 Ding-Xia conflict, the defeated Xiajiao Tong'an people retreated to Dalongdong, used Baoan Temple as their defensive center, and later moved to Dadaocheng.↩
12. Chen-Lai-Zhang Reclamation Partnership (Wikipedia) — In 1709, the forty-eighth year of the Kangxi reign, five Quanzhou shareholders, Chen Fengchun, Lai Yonghe, Chen Tianzhang, Chen Xianbo, and Dai Tianshu, jointly applied to Zhuluo County to reclaim Dajiala, and the "Chen-Lai-Zhang" reclamation partnership obtained an official land-opening permit.↩
13. Academia Sinica Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Center for GIS: Spatial Reconstruction of Dalongdong's Forty-Four Kan Market Street — The Forty-Four Kan had a unified structure. Each kan was 1.8 zhang wide, about 6 meters, and 19 zhang deep, about 63 meters, built in a "single-dragon with passageway" layout.↩
14. PeoPo Citizen Journalism: Recovering Lost Memory: Dalongdong's Forty-Four Kan — In 1802, the seventh year of the Jiaqing reign, Tong'an people moved to Dalangbeng, and six households led the opening of 44 tiled-roof shops, commonly called the "Forty-Four Kan." The place names "Dalangbeng" and "Dalongtong" both carry the meaning of "prospering Tong'an."↩
15. City: The Birthplace of Taipei's Top Scholars? From Armed Feuds to a World of Books, Dalongdong Maxes Out Education — Because of Chen Weiying's educational contributions, Dalongdong's literary culture flourished, and it was said to have the reputation of "a xiucai every five steps, a juren every ten." The nearby Yuanshan hill rose from the plain like a dragon, forming a "dragon lair," and "Dalongtong" was renamed "Dalongdong."↩
16. Ding-Xia Conflict (Wikipedia) — In 1853, the third year of the Xianfeng reign, the Ding-Xia conflict broke out in Bangka. The people from the three counties formed the Dingjiao, while Tong'an people formed the Xiajiao. The defeated Tong'an people were led by Lin Youzao in flight and ultimately fled to Dadaocheng to open a new commercial port.↩
17. Chen Yueji Ancestral Residence (Wikipedia) — The Chen Yueji ancestral residence was the home of Taipei scholar Chen Weiying. Founded in 1807, the twelfth year of the Jiaqing reign, and rebuilt in the early Xianfeng period, it consists of the ancestral hall and reception hall, one four-courtyard great house and one three-courtyard great house side by side. The Chen family first lived in Zhangzhou, Fujian, later moved to Tong'an, and in 1770, the thirty-fifth year of the Qianlong reign, Chen Xunyan settled in Dalongdong.↩
18. egoldenyears: Dalongdong Chen Yueji Ancestral Residence: Taiwan's Last Surviving "Coiling Dragon Above, Climbing Lion Below" Stone Poles — The Chen family produced three juren in succession and built three pairs of stone flagpoles in the front courtyard, with coiling dragons above and climbing lions below. One pair remains intact today and is a rare surviving representative historic monument in Taiwan.↩
19. Chen Weiying (Taiwan, Wikipedia) — Chen Weiying (1811-1869), courtesy name Yugu, was from Dalongdong, Taipei. He became a juren in 1859, the ninth year of the Xianfeng reign. During the 1862 Dai Chaochun Incident, he spent his own funds to organize local militia and help the government; after the incident was pacified, he built a residence called "Taigu Nest" on the left bank of Jiantan.↩
20. City: The Only Great Figure Enshrined in Taipei Confucius Temple: "Literary Patriarch of Northern Taiwan" Chen Weiying — Chen Weiying was praised by later generations as the "literary patriarch of northern Taiwan" and authored Records of Stolen Leisure, Collected Couplets from Taigu Nest, and Questions on the Village Party.↩
21. Shuren Academy Wenchang Shrine (Wikipedia) — Shuren Academy was founded inside Baoan Temple in 1853, the third year of the Xianfeng reign, by Qing-era Dalongdong juren Chen Weiying. In 1928, the third year of the Showa era, it moved out of Baoan Temple and selected its present site; it was completed in 1932.↩
22. The Past and Present of Children's Amusement Park (2): The Taigu Nest Period — Taigu Nest was located on the left bank of Jiantan in the Yuanshan area. It was the villa Chen Weiying built after the 1862 Dai Chaochun Incident and later became part of the Children's Amusement Park area.↩
23. Collected Works of Chen Weiying: Taiwan Classical Selections 9 — National Museum of Taiwan Literature — Chen Weiying excelled in poetry and couplets, wrote Records of Stolen Leisure, and later generations compiled Collected Couplets from Taigu Nest.↩
24. Taipei Confucius Temple Management Committee: Wenchang Shrine (Shuren Academy) — Shuren Academy was founded by Chen Weiying inside Baoan Temple in 1853, moved out of Baoan Temple in 1928, and was completed at its present site in 1932. It is a Taipei City municipal historic monument.↩
25. Guo Ta (Wikipedia) — In the 1917 paired-field work at Baoan Temple, Chen Yingbin and Guo Ta agreed on the shared theme "The Eight Immortals Stir Up the Eastern Sea." After the temple judged Chen Yingbin the winner, Guo Ta left mocking inscriptions on the tiger-side woodcarvings, including "A fake lion breaks a true lion," "True craftsmanship needs no alteration," "Good workmanship needs no patching or joining," and "Made by Guo Ta, carpenter of Guoxing Street."↩
26. Ramble Taipei: Baoan Temple's Paired-Field Work: What Happened After the Masters Competed? — Specific locations and woodcarving details of the 1917 paired-field work at Baoan Temple, including the precise positions of Guo Ta's signatures on yuan guang panels and bracket sets.↩
27. Pan Lishui (Wikipedia) — Pan Lishui (1914-1995) painted seven large murals for the corridor of Dalongdong Baoan Temple's main hall in 1973. Their subjects include "Han Xin Endures Humiliation by Crawling Between Another's Legs," "The Eight Hammers Battle Lu Wenlong at Zhuxian Town," "Zhong Kui Welcomes His Sister Back to Her Natal Home," "The Eight Immortals Stir Up the Eastern Sea," "Hua Mulan Joins the Army in Her Father's Place," "Three Heroes Battle Lü Bu at Hulao Pass," and "The Worthy Mother Xu."↩
28. Baosheng Cultural Festival: Traveling with the God to Protect Taipei — The 36 palace-general statues enshrined on the two sides of Baoan Temple were commissioned in 1829, the ninth year of the Daoguang reign, when the Quanzhou master Xu Yan was invited to Taiwan; the carvings took five years to complete.↩
29. Taipei Confucius Temple Management Committee: Historical Background — The Taipei Prefectural Confucian Temple was built in 1879, the fifth year of the Guangxu reign, by Taipei prefect Chen Xingju using remaining materials and leftover funds inside the south gate of Taipei Prefecture City, near today's Taipei First Girls High School and National Taipei University of Education. It was completed in 1884, the tenth year of the Guangxu reign.↩
30. eTaiwan: The Construction History of Taipei Confucius Temple During the Japanese Period — In 1907, the Japanese demolished the original Confucius Temple and converted the site into the National Language School, later National Taipei University of Education; in 1925, they built Taipei Prefectural First Girls' High School, today's Taipei First Girls High School, across from that site. In 1925, local gentry gathered in Yongle-cho to discuss reconstruction. Chen Peigen donated more than 2,000 ping of land, and Koo Hsien-jung purchased and donated more than 1,000 ping.↩
31. Taipei Confucius Temple (Wikipedia) — Construction began in 1927. Dacheng Hall was built by Xidi-school craftsman Wang Jinmu and completed in 1929. In 1939, after Lingxing Gate, the Gate of Rites, the Path of Righteousness, the Wanren Palace Wall, and other components were finished, the entire architectural complex was completed. The Taipei Confucius Temple Management Committee was established in 1971. The September 1970 "Improvements to the Rites and Music for Confucius Worship" plan stipulated that the spring sacrifice would be popular and the autumn sacrifice government-sponsored.↩
32. Taipei Confucius Temple Management Committee: Procedures and Meaning of the Confucius Ceremony — The Shidian ceremony commemorates Confucius's birthday and Teachers' Day, and is held every year on September 28 at the mao hour. Following ancient practice, it uses no firecrackers, no theatrical performance, and no burning of paper money.↩
33. Shidian Yi Dance (Wikipedia) — The Eight-Row Dance in the Taipei Confucius Temple Shidian ceremony is performed by Dalong Elementary School students as dancers, 8 by 8 for 64 people in total; all genders participate, wearing yellow robes with dark-green belts and black boots.↩
34. Taiwan Jingu (Wikipedia) — Taiwan Shrine began construction in 1900 and was completed in October 1901. It was Taiwan's only kanpei taisha, primarily enshrining Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa. In 1943-1944 it was relocated and expanded, elevated to jingu status, and on October 25, 1944, a Japanese passenger aircraft crashed while landing at Songshan Airport and destroyed it.↩
35. Taipei City Zhongshan District Office: History — From 1898 onward, the Japanese built Chokushi Kaido, the imperial envoy road leading to Taiwan Shrine at Yuanshan for worship visits; in 1929 it was completed as a boulevard.↩
36. Taiwan Shrine (Kanpei Taisha) — Open Museum — On the afternoon of October 25, 1944, a Japanese passenger aircraft crashed while landing at Songshan Airport and struck Taiwan Jingu. It was the late stage of World War II, the Japanese government no longer had the capacity to repair it, and the shrine was burned down.↩
37. Grand Hotel Taipei (Wikipedia) — After the Republic of China received Taiwan in 1945, the shrine remains were removed and the site was converted into the "Taiwan Grand Hotel." On May 10, 1952, the Taiwan Hospitality Foundation headed by Soong Mei-ling took over operations and renamed it the Grand Hotel. On October 10, 1973, the 14-story Chinese palace-style building was completed.↩
38. VERSE: The Unfading Red Legend: The History and Innovation of the Grand Hotel — The Grand Hotel has received 111 heads of state; the first were King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand and Queen Sirikit. The building has 14 floors, with golden glazed tiles and red columns reflecting each other.↩
39. Yang Cho-cheng (Wikipedia) — Yang Cho-cheng (1914-2006) was an architect in Taiwan whose representative works include the Grand Hotel, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the National Concert Hall, the National Theater, and the Cihu Mausoleum. He excelled at using reinforced concrete to express the architectural features of northern Chinese palaces.↩
40. 1995 Grand Hotel Fire — On the morning of June 27, 1995, a fire broke out at the northwest corner of the roof on the Grand Hotel's twelfth floor during glazed-tile replacement work, when workers' careless welding ignited the blaze.↩
41. Liao Wuzhi (Wikipedia) — Liao Wuzhi became vice chairman of Baoan Temple in 1994. In 1995, he presided over the comprehensive restoration of Baoan Temple and decided to give up government subsidies, raising funds independently; it became Taiwan's first privately funded, privately led historic monument restoration case. The restoration lasted seven years and cost NT$260 million. In 2003, it received UNESCO's Asia-Pacific Award of Merit for Cultural Heritage Conservation, Taiwan's first such award.↩
42. Dalongdong Baoan Temple: Official Baosheng Cultural Festival Page — Baosheng Dadi's birthday falls on the fifteenth day of the third lunar month. Dalongdong Baoan Temple holds a grand ceremony and deity procession on the fourteenth, and a fire-walking ritual at 1 p.m. on the fifteenth. It is now "one of Taipei's three major temple festivals."↩
43. Times: 1972 Old City Transformation! The Wanda Plan Improves the Aging Appearance of Wanhua and Dalongdong — After Taipei City became a special municipality on June 10, 1972, the city government implemented the Wanda Plan, with a NT$300 million budget completed over two years. Old aerial photographs from 1973 show the Wanda Plan widening Hami Street and partially demolishing the first front section of the southern shop houses of the Forty-Four Kan.↩
44. Academia Sinica Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences: Spatial Reconstruction of Dalongdong's Forty-Four Kan Market Street — A 2025 project by Academia Sinica's Research Center for Humanities and Social Sciences, Center for GIS, titled "Spatial Reconstruction of Dalongdong's Forty-Four Kan Market Street," uses GIS technology to reconstruct the historical spatial fabric of the Forty-Four Kan.↩
45. Taipei Pictorial: A Dalongdong Neighborhood Walk in Search of Brilliant Times in Old Streets and Alleys — Dalongdong Night Market centers on Dalong Street and Hami Street; representative shops include Guo Ji thick pork-rib soup, A-Ren fried rice, Black Tea House, which has operated since 1981, Dingwang soup dumplings, and Yu no Zhan truffle fried rice.↩