Shilin: Ketagalan Land, Temple of Zhang-Quan Clan Wars, Now Taipei's Most Crowded Night Market Every Evening

30-second overview: Shilin was formerly known as "Bazhilan" (Pattsiran), a phonetic transcription of the Ketagalan word for "hot spring." Before Han Chinese settlers arrived, this was the territory of the Masawu (麻少翁) Ketagalan community. In 1796, the first year of the Jiaqing reign, Zhangzhou settlers built a Tianhou Temple (Heavenly Empress Temple) on Zhilan Street. In 1859, the ninth year of the Xianfeng reign, Quanzhou settlers attacked and burned down the entire street along with the temple. Gentry leader Pan Yongqing (1820–1873) led the village's relocation to Xiashulin in 1860, the Gengshen year, centering the rebuilt temple and laying out four orderly streets—Da Dong Road, Da Nan Road, Da Xi Road, and Da Bei Road—with small defensive gates at the street corners to guard against future Quanzhou attacks¹. In 1864, the third year of the Tongzhi reign, the temple was rebuilt at its present site; in 1880, the sixth year of the Guangxu reign, it was renamed "Cixian Temple" after a phrase from the Book of Documents: "xian yu xiao min" (harmonious with the common people)². In 1909, the Japanese built a market across from the temple; in 1915, the brick market building was completed, and vendors gradually encroached on the temple plaza until the temple erected a wall to preserve a narrow strip of land³. In 1955, Yangming Theater opened on Wenlin Road; in 1992, Hot-Star Large Chicken Cutlet was invented in Taichung; in 1999, it moved into Shilin Night Market. In 2022, the Taipei City Government demolished post-war makeshift additions; in 2011, the new market opened; on December 24, 2011, the underground food court began trial operations³. A 2024 tourism survey showed Shilin Night Market overtaken by Raohe Street, dropping to second place in Taipei⁴, but Cixian Temple has stood at No. 84 Da Nan Road for 162 years since it was relocated to its current site in 1864. What this article wants to say is this: at 7:30 p.m., the moment you stand at the Shilin Night Market intersection and bite into a chicken cutlet, beneath your feet simultaneously lie the asphalt of Wenlin Road, the territory where the Masawu Ketagalan community lived 400 years ago, the spot Cixian Temple chose 230 years ago, and the grid laid down by the 1909 Japanese-era market. Three layers of time compressed into 400 meters—no one points them out to you, but they are all there.

Shilin Cixian Temple Sanchuan Hall. Photo: 龍本, 2010-02-13. License via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

At 7:30 p.m., the Bell of Cixian Temple Rings

Walking from MRT Jiantan Station Exit 1 toward Shilin Night Market, past the traffic light on Jihe Road, you enter "night market Taipei" at around 6:30 p.m. The area enclosed by Wenlin Road, Da Dong Road, and Da Nan Road fills with vendor carts lined up one after another—charcoal fires for grilled sausages rise, griddles for oyster omelets preheat. Around 7:30 p.m., the crowd hits its first peak: Korean tourists with phones, Japanese tour groups following guide flags, Southeast Asian families pouring out of Jiantan Station, local Taipei university students walking in from the peripheral transit hub. The air carries a mix of fried food, sugar, chili, and sewage (watch out for the drain covers at your feet).

If you turn a corner at this hour and walk to No. 84 Da Nan Road, you hear a different sound.

Cixian Temple's Sanchuan Hall is lit up⁵. The main hall enshrines Mazu; it is not a festival night, but there still come a handful of worshippers. Looking out from the temple plaza, to the east across Wenlin Road, north across Da Bei Road, south across Da Nan Road, and west across Da Xi Road—the four streets form a perfect square with the temple at its center. A person burning incense in the main hall can look up and see KTV signs diagonally across, oil smoke from the chicken cutlet stand next to them, and stall owners shouting "Korean OK" to tourists.

But the people standing in the center of the temple plaza are mostly elderly locals, young families, and office workers getting off late shifts. For them, the night market is "outside," and the temple is "inside."

How long has the temple been here? In 1796, the first year of the Jiaqing reign, Zhangzhou settlers built the Tianhou Temple (the predecessor of Cixian Temple) on old Zhilan Street—230 years ago as of 2026¹. That is 79 years before the Qing court established Taipei Prefecture in 1875⁶, 99 years before the Japanese arrived in Taiwan in 1895, and 153 years before the ROC government relocated to Taiwan in 1949.

📝 Curator's note: Tourism brochures describe Shilin Night Market as "the largest in Taiwan" and "a must-visit for international tourists"—and stop there. But this narrative leaves something out: the night market is a byproduct of a 230-year-old temple. When Cixian Temple was rebuilt at its current site in 1864, Pan Yongqing designed the plaza in front of the temple as a "fishery and agricultural trading space"⁷—meaning the temple and the market were originally part of the same spatial formula. When the Japanese established a market across from the temple in 1909, when the night market spilled out from around the market after the war, and when it became a tourist destination starting in the 1990s, all of these were physical consequences of the 1860 grid plan. The night market is the temple's child—it's just that the child has now grown much taller than the mother.

Masawu Hot Springs, Bazhilan, Shilin

"Shilin" is a later name.

Before Han Chinese settlers arrived, this land belonged to the Masawu (麻少翁) Ketagalan community. The Wikipedia entry is concise: "Shilin District was originally the settlement of the Pingpu indigenous group 'Masawu She'"⁸. Masawu (a Chinese-character transliteration; Ketagalan romanizations commonly appear as Kimassauw, Kimasaon, and other variants) was an important Ketagalan settlement in the northern Taipei Basin⁸. The area from Jiantan Station to Zhishan Rock was their fishing, hunting, and millet-farming range.

After Han Chinese settlers moved in, they called the place "Bazhilan." "Shilin District was formerly known as 'Bazhilan' (Pattsiran), meaning 'hot spring' in the Ketagalan language"⁸, as Wikipedia quotes verbatim. After Pattsiran was transliterated into Chinese characters, it overlapped with Han Chinese descriptions of "lush forests," producing variants such as "Bazhilianlin," "Bazhilanlin," then simplified to "Bazhilin," "Bazhilan," or simply "Zhilan"⁸. A single Ketagalan word, transliterated by Han Chinese into four variants, each one adding a bit of Han Chinese imagination.

"Shilin" is a name that only appeared in the late 19th century.

After the Zhang-Quan clan war of 1859 (detailed in the next section), Zhangzhou settlers fled and rebuilt in the area called "Xiashulin" (Lower Forest)⁹. "Xiashulin" was originally just a descriptive name: the downstream south bank of the Keelung River, the area with more trees. But in Hokkien, "shulin" (forest) and "Shilin" (scholars) are homophones, and under Pan Yongqing's (1820–1873) leadership, the community valued education, academies, and imperial examinations. The gentry thus renamed the new street "Shilin," taking the meaning "scholars as numerous as trees"¹⁰.

The names of this land have been overwritten again and again. Ketagalan "hot spring" (Pattsiran) → Han Chinese "Bazhilan" / "Zhilan" (transliteration + forest imagery) → post-war refugee new street "Xiashulin" / "Shilin" (topography + scholars) → Japanese-era Taipei Prefecture Qixing County Shilin Street (1933) → post-war Taipei County Shilin Township (1946) → 1968, transferred to Taipei City and renamed "Shilin District"¹¹.

Seven names, four hundred years, the same piece of land.

1859: Quanzhou Settlers Burned Down Old Zhilan Street

The standard narrative of Taipei's categorized clan wars treats the 1853 "Ding-Xia Jiao Pin" (Top-Bottom Suburb Clash) in Monga as the main event¹². Sanyi settlers (Jinjiang, Nan'an, Hui'an) fought Tong'an settlers (same Quanzhou prefecture, different counties); the defeated Tong'an settlers fled to Dadaocheng to open a new trading port—this story is well known.

Shilin's clan war came six years later, in 1859, and the opponents were different. The ninth year of the Xianfeng reign, 1859, was Zhangzhou vs. Quanzhou (cross-prefecture, not just county-level conflict within Quanzhou), with battles spread across multiple Zhangzhou settlements in the greater Taipei Basin: "In the ninth year of Xianfeng (1859), Quanzhou settlers attacked Zhilan Street (in the area of Shennong Temple, also known as Old Street), burning and looting extensively; the entire street district along with the Tianhou Temple was destroyed by fire"⁹.

Where was the street that was burned?

Not at today's Shilin Night Market location. The pre-1859 Old Zhilan Street was in the area around today's Shennong Temple (Shilin Shennong Temple, formerly known as Zhilan Temple), near the intersection of Da Nan Road and Xiao Dong Street¹³. Shennong Temple itself has an even longer history than Cixian Temple: a Tudigong shrine existed when Han Chinese settlers first arrived in 1709, and it was relocated to the Zhilan Street site in 1741 due to flooding¹³. In other words, the street destroyed in the 1859 clan war was an old street that had existed at least since 1741.

How large was the clan war? According to the "Bing Xian Zhi" (Record of Military Disasters) in the Tamsui Gazetteer: "Fangliao Street (Zhonghe) burned; Zhang-Quan clan war; Zhang settlers burned Gangzui (Banqiaopuqian), Waya (the border of present-day Zhonghe and Yonghe), Jianaizai (present-day Taipei Xiyuan and Dongyuan)... then Baicuopo (Banqiao), Zhilan First and Second Bao (present-day Shilin), all houses were completely destroyed"¹⁴. Zhang and Quanzhou forces burned simultaneously at multiple sites across the greater Taipei Basin, retaliating against each other; Zhangzhou strongholds (including Shilin) were overrun and burned by Quanzhou forces.

Afterward, village elders began discussing what to do.

Gentry leader Pan Yongqing stood at Yuantanzi Top (today's Zhishan Rock) and looked out over the Shilin Plain⁷. He saw that the old street was low-lying and flood-prone (Shennong Temple had already been relocated once due to flooding) and sat on the front line of the Zhang-Quan clan war. He proposed relocating the entire Zhangzhou settlement to the Xiashulin area on the south bank of the old Keelung River—higher ground, less flood-prone, separated from the Quanzhou settlement across the river, and easier to defend.

The tenth year of the Xianfeng reign, 1860, was the Gengshen year (Year of the Monkey). There was a local saying that "a monkey resting in a tree is an auspicious omen"¹⁵, and that year the Zhang and Quanzhou sides happened not to erupt into large-scale clan war. Pan Yongqing judged the time was right. He first approached the major landowner of Xiashulin, Cao Qihe, to negotiate a land donation; after the Cao family agreed, the Lin, Yang, and Wei families followed suit, donating land and building houses. The first act of the new street was to build a temple—rebuilding the Tianhou Temple that had been burned in 1859 at the new location. The rebuilt temple is the Cixian Temple completed in the third year of the Tongzhi reign, 1864¹.

📝 Curator's note: Standard histories treat the 1853 and 1859 clan wars as separate events, but from Shilin's perspective, these are two links in the same structural chain. In 1853, Tong'an settlers were driven from Monga to Dadaocheng; after they left, Quanzhou forces in Monga became more consolidated. Six years later in 1859, the consolidated Quanzhou forces began fighting Zhangzhou settlers at the prefecture level, and Shilin's street was burned in this war. 1853 was directly followed by 1859. The Hokkien ethnic map of northern Taiwan completed two rounds of reorganization in those six years, ultimately leaving three separate "Zhangzhou City," "Tong'an City," and "Sanyi City": Shilin (Zhangzhou), Dadaocheng (Tong'an), and Monga (Sanyi). This triangular pattern can still be read in Taipei's street texture today.

Pan Yongqing's Grid: Temple + Market + Four Avenues Laid Out in the Gengshen Year, 1860

Pan Yongqing is usually reduced in Shilin history to "the gentry who decided to relocate the village"—he was closer to a person with planning vision.

The Taipei City Tourism Bureau's official page on Pan Yongqing's biography states: "Pan Yongqing, who had a background in design and construction, wanted the entire market street to be orderly and even. He centered the plan on Cixian Temple, designing the plaza in front of the temple as a fishery and agricultural trading space; then he established routes, drainage ditches, and demarcated shop lots, setting up orderly Da Nan Street, Da Xi Street, Da Bei Street, and Da Dong Street"⁷.

Breaking this down, the 1860 plan accomplished four things:

First, placing the temple at the absolute center. Cixian Temple sits at No. 84 Da Nan Road, with Wenlin Road to the east (widened after the war), Da Xi Road to the west, Da Nan Road to the south, and Da Bei Road to the north; these four roads were called "Da Dong Street, Da Nan Street, Da Xi Street, and Da Bei Street" in the 1860 plan⁷. Walking from the temple in any direction covers the same distance. This is a common "four-point symmetrical" layout in Zhangzhou cities.

Second, the plaza in front of the temple was a "fishery and agricultural trading space." In 1860, the residents of Xiashulin were still farmers and fishermen. The Keelung River was nearby; tributaries of the old Keelung River (Jiantan Harbor) and downstream to Tamsui were navigable, so fish, rice, and vegetables could be traded at the temple plaza from various places. Thus the temple and the market occupied the same physical space; this design directly determined where the Japanese would build their market when they arrived 50 years later in 1909.

Third, drainage ditches and shop routes were laid out uniformly. Taipei Walker, citing local cultural and historical workers, observes: "The four cardinal directions are the four major roads and four small streets around present-day Cixian Temple. Centered on the temple, a square defensive pattern radiates outward, shaping today's street contours"¹⁶. Today, when you walk through the alleys of Da Dong Road, Xiao Dong Street, and Wenlin Road Lane 101, you notice the spacing between alleys is very regular—completely different from the river-bending streets of Dadaocheng's Dihua Street. This is the grid left behind by the 1860 plan.

Fourth, small defensive gates were placed at street corners. The same Taipei Walker article notes: "In the past, there were also small defensive gates at street intersections to prevent Quanzhou settlers from attacking"¹⁶. These gates have long been demolished, but the location of Shilin Street Fude Temple at the intersection of Da Bei Road and Wenlin Road is believed to be the site of one such gate, later rebuilt as a temple¹⁷.

In other words, Pan Yongqing in 1860 was designing a new town that combined "defense + commerce + faith"—not just rebuilding a street.

The temple was completed in the third year of the Tongzhi reign, 1864¹, and was renamed "Cixian Temple" in the sixth year of the Guangxu reign, 1880, after the Book of Documents phrase "xian yu xiao min"¹. Counting from the founding on old Zhilan Street in the first year of Jiaqing, 1796, to 2026, Cixian Temple spans 230 years; counting from its reconstruction at the current site in 1864 to 2026, the temple has occupied this location for 162 years. During the Showa period of 1927–1937, it underwent a decade-long major renovation: "Initiated by reconstruction committee chairman Pan Guangkai, director-general He Bingkui, and others, this massive project took ten years to complete, and the temple's present appearance is the result of this renovation"¹. The main body of the temple you see today was finalized in the late Japanese colonial period, but the temple site and the location of the temple plaza were determined by Pan Yongqing's 1860 plan.

Cixian Temple roof decoration. Photo: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, 2019-05-17. License via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The 1909 Red Brick Market, the 1955 Yangming Theater, the 1992 Giant Chicken Cutlet

After the 1860 grid plan, the next people to transform this land were the Japanese.

In 1895, Japan took control of Taiwan. In 1909, the Japanese colonial government planned and established "Shilin Market" in Shilin Street (then administratively part of Taipei Prefecture Shilin Sub-office)³. Where? Directly across from Cixian Temple to the west (the location of today's old Shilin Market building). Why this location? Because the temple plaza already had 49 years of tradition as a vegetable market trading space. The Japanese had no intention of changing this structure—they simply formalized the temporary open-air market by building a hygienic, permanent structure.

Construction began in 1913; the market opened in the fourth year of the Taisho reign, 1915. "The Shilin Market that opened in 1915 was a brick-and-timber-frame building, with a main structure of red bricks, a roof supported by wooden trusses, and raised sections serving as ventilation windows"³. Portions of this 1915 red brick market building are preserved within the post-2011 rebuilt Shilin Market complex and are designated as a municipal historic site.

But as soon as the market was built, Cixian Temple's plaza began to be squeezed. "Trading was originally concentrated in the plaza in front of Shilin Cixian Temple, but market vendors gradually encroached on temple land, so Cixian Temple erected a wall to preserve the only remaining narrow strip of temple ground, while the wall itself was used by vendors"³. Vendors squeezed from the temple plaza to the market, the market couldn't hold them all and they spilled back around the temple, and the temple had to build a wall—this physical squeezing process continued throughout the entire 20th century.

The second post-war landmark was Yangming Theater.

At 1:30 p.m. on May 15, 1955, "funded by Shilin business magnates Zhao Huomu, Su Fuzhong, and Chen Chengyan, who raised over NT$1 million, it was built beside Wenlin Road and officially opened"¹⁸. At that time, Wenlin Road had not yet been widened; "Wenlin Road was called 'Da Ma Lu' (Big Road), but it was still just a small gravel path"¹⁸. After Yangming Theater opened, it drew crowds, and vendors began gathering around the theater; "the commercial district centered on Yangming Theater gradually grew, forming the character of today's Shilin Night Market"¹⁸.

In other words: the 1909 Japanese market plus the 1955 post-war theater are the true physical skeleton of Shilin Night Market. Without these two anchors, vendors would not have clustered at this location.

After the 1980s, as domestic Taiwanese films declined, Shilin theaters switched to second-run films. Yangming Theater held on until September 15, 2019, when it closed and was immediately demolished; the site was redeveloped into a commercial building with two underground and seven above-ground floors¹⁸. A 64-year-old theater, living from a gravel path on Da Ma Lu to the era of global chain brands.

The third object is the chicken cutlet.

In 1992, Wang Qinglong set up a street stall called "Xiao Wang Da Ji Pai" (Little King's Large Chicken Cutlet) near Taichung First Senior High School and the Water Resources Building, using a "three-slice technique to flatten chicken breast" to create Taiwan's first oversized chicken cutlet¹⁹. This stall moved into Shilin Night Market in 1999 and was renamed "Hot-Star Large Chicken Cutlet" (later abbreviated as Hot-Star), "quickly becoming famous as one of Shilin Night Market's signature snacks"¹⁹. From 1999 onward, the chicken cutlet became inseparable from Shilin Night Market. The first "check-in food" for Korean tourists, Japanese tour groups, and Southeast Asian families visiting Shilin Night Market is almost always this face-sized fried chicken cutlet.

Da Dong Road, Shilin Night Market, June 2024. Photo: Ganmatthew, 2024-06-04. License via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

The Old Stalls Demolished in 2002, the New Building Completed in 2011, Two Cities in the Underground Food Court

By the end of the 20th century, the 1915 Japanese-era red brick market could no longer bear the accumulated stall additions of 50 post-war years. "Ventilation, sanitation, environment, and public safety issues" had all reached a critical point³.

On October 14, 2002, the Taipei City Government began demolishing the post-war additions to Shilin Market, preserving and renovating only the Japanese-era red brick structure³. Vendors were relocated to the "Shilin Temporary Market" at the intersection of Wenlin Road and Jihe Road, across from MRT Jiantan Station. This temporary market stood for nine years until the new market was completed in December 2011.

What does the new market look like?

"The rebuilt Shilin Market has one above-ground floor and three basement levels; the ground floor resembles the exterior of Huaxi Street Tourist Night Market, with a fixed steel canopy in the center, plus the two original market buildings designated as historic sites on either side, accommodating 288 stalls. The morning serves as a fresh supermarket; afternoon to evening is allocated to general merchandise and clothing vendors, with stalls rotating use. The first basement level has 94 stalls for snack vendors"³.

Two key design features:

First, the ground floor runs "two shifts"—day and night. Mornings serve fresh produce to local residents; afternoons and evenings switch to general merchandise and tourist stalls: the same space, two kinds of people, rotating use. This double-shift system is a unique arrangement not found in any other Taipei night market.

Second, the first basement level is dedicated to food. On the afternoon of December 24, 2011, the underground food court began trial operations, "covering over 300 ping (approximately 990 square meters), with 53 planned vendor spaces"³. This is what tourists later commonly call the "Shilin Underground Food Court." Chicken cutlets, oyster omelets, spicy cold noodles, herbal spare rib soup, pan-fried buns—all crammed into one underground level, leaving the ground floor for other vendors.

But the 2011 renovation did not restore Shilin Night Market's tourism standing.

The 2024 "Tourist Consumption and Trends Survey" published by the Tourism Administration showed that "Raohe Street Night Market ranked first with 35.6%, while Shilin Night Market came in second with 31.09%. Compared to the 2023 survey, Shilin had still held the championship with 37.86%, while Raohe was second with 28.61%"⁴. A decade ago, Shilin Night Market was the number one tourist night market in Taipei; in 2024, it was overtaken by Raohe. The reasons are more than one: the rise of the Xinyi District drew away young locals; inconvenient transit redirected international tour groups to Raohe; the "food court-ization" of the underground level lost the raw, alley-based energy of the original night market; vendors complained about high rents and pressure on storefronts⁴.

On April 17, 2025, the Taipei City Government invested over NT$100 million to renovate the underground food court, which reopened to the public, "with 35 vendor spaces planned after renovation"³. From 53 vendors in 2024 to 35 in 2025—a reduction of one-third. Reports say that in 2025, "foreign-language tourists account for about 50% of visitors," a comeback but "not comparable to the peak period of a decade ago"⁴.

📝 Curator's note: The tourism decline of Shilin Night Market is a mirror reflecting more the shifting plates of Taipei's tourism economy than simply a problem with the night market itself. After the Chinese tour group era of the 2010s ended, today's international tourists spread across more options—Raohe, Ningxia, Linjiang Street, even Wanhua's Huaxi Street; meanwhile, the Instagram/TikTok era's "influencer check-in spot" logic no longer depends on whether a night market can attract "large tour buses." Young people now prefer scattered points like "alleys only locals know" or "Michelin Bib Gourmand recommendations." Shilin Night Market has shifted from being "one brand" back to being "one district"—and for 230-year-old Cixian Temple, this rhythm is actually more familiar. The temple never depended on tourist volume; it is sustained by the incense sticks lit by nearby elderly residents every day. Tourism rises and falls; the temple remains.

Night market alongside Cixian Temple, November 2012. Photo: Maya-Anaïs Y., 2012-11-19. License via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

What Locals Will Show You: Shennong Temple, Zhishan Rock, Shilin Official Residence

If you come to Shilin and only visit the night market and Cixian Temple, you are seeing the Shilin recommended by the tourism bureau.

Locals will take you to see three more places.

The first is Shennong Temple (Shilin Shennong Temple, Old Street). The address is across from Cixian Temple at No. 84 Da Nan Road, a few steps further east along Da Nan Road (at the intersection of Xiao Dong Street and Da Nan Road)¹³. Shennong Temple enshrines Shennong (the Divine Farmer); its predecessor was a Tudigong shrine that existed when Han Chinese settlers first arrived in 1709, and it was relocated to this site in 1741 due to flooding. It is the central temple of Shilin's "Old Street"¹³. When Quanzhou settlers attacked in 1859, this temple along with surrounding street houses was burned; it was later rebuilt on the same site and was designated a Taipei City municipal historic site in 2005. Walking between Shennong Temple and Cixian Temple, you see two timelines—"Old Street vs. New Street": one from 1741, the other from 1864. The two streets are about 400 meters apart, but 99% of night market tourists never walk to Shennong Temple.

The second is Zhishan Rock. Accessible by bus or a 20-minute walk from Jiantan Station, the address is off the second section of Zhicheng Road²⁰. Zhishan Rock is a small hill with an elevation of approximately 53 meters, with three layers of history stacked on top of it:

• Prehistoric: In 1896, Japanese teacher Deno Tōnojirō discovered a stone axe at the foot of the hill—this was Taiwan's earliest discovered prehistoric site²¹. Subsequent archaeology confirmed the presence of 4,000–5,000-year-old "Zhishan Rock Culture" and "Yuanshan Culture" remains on the hill.
• Japanese colonial period: In June 1895, the Taiwan Governor-General's Educational Affairs Department moved from Dadaocheng to Huiji Temple on Zhishan Rock, opening the Zhishan Rock School in the rear hall—this is the "birthplace of education" in Japanese-era Taiwan²².
• January 1, 1896: Six Japanese teachers (Kikuchi Tōmyō, 38; Sekiguchi Chōtarō, 37; Nakashima Chōkichi, 25; Katsura Kinjirō, 27; Ihara Junnosuke, 23; Hirai Kazuma, 17) were on their way to the Governor-General's office to celebrate New Year's Day when they were intercepted and beheaded by anti-Japanese fighters—an event known as the "Six Teachers Incident"²². In 1930 (Showa 5), the Japanese built the Zhishan Rock Shrine near the original gravesite, "designating February 1 as the annual memorial day," and "establishing the 'Six Teachers' as the spiritual center of all Japanese educators in Taiwan—the so-called Zhishan Rock Spirit"²².

After the war, the Zhishan Rock Shrine was demolished, but the Six Teachers' graves were largely preserved; the Cultural Affairs Bureau later added a monument. Today at Zhishan Rock, you can see Huiji Temple (built in the 17th year of the Qianlong reign, 1752), prehistoric site information plaques, and the Six Teachers Monument: three layers of history standing side by side on this 53-meter hill. Shilin Elementary School was founded in the year of the Six Teachers Incident (1896); it was renamed "Bazhilan Public School" in 1898, "Shilin Public School" in 1921, and "Shilin National School" in 1941²³, with a history of 130 years to date, making it the earliest established elementary school in Taiwan.

Shilin Official Residence main hall. Photo: Kuailong. License via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

The third is Shilin Official Residence. The address is No. 60 Fulin Road, about a 10-minute walk from Jiantan Station²⁴. During the Japanese colonial period, this was the "Shilin Horticultural Experiment Substation." After the war, in 1950, Chiang Kai-shek and Soong Mei-ling moved from Grass Mountain Guest House to Shilin Official Residence, living there until Chiang's death in 1975—a total of 26 years²⁴. In 1996, the park portion of the residence, closed for 46 years under martial law, opened to the public for the first time, becoming "Taipei City's first ecological park"²⁴; after Soong Mei-ling passed away in 2003, the main hall sat idle, and after renovation, it opened for reservation visits starting in 2011.

The entrance hall of the main residence preserves the furniture and décor from the 1950s, where you can see the guest reception living room, Soong Mei-ling's art studio, and Chiang's study. But the political significance of this building far exceeds its furnishings—the 26 years from 1950 to 1975 represent the entire period during which the President's wife lived on this street in ROC history. At the time, to protect the Chiang family, Fulin Road, Section 5 of Zhongshan North Road, and the Shilin Night Market area were all under layered security controls. The moment the residence opened in 1996, this street truly transformed from a "political restricted zone" back into a "citizen's street."

📝 Curator's note: Viewed side by side, the three sites—Shennong Temple (1741), Zhishan Rock School (1895), and Shilin Official Residence (1950)—add a new layer roughly every 100 years. Shennong Temple represents the Han Chinese Qing-era settlement layer; Zhishan Rock School represents the Japanese colonial education layer; Shilin Official Residence represents the post-war ROC authoritarian layer. All three layers are within 1.5 kilometers at the edge of Shilin District, but 99% of night market tourists will never visit any of them. The depth of Shilin is not inside the night market—it is in these "unlit corners" beyond the night market.

The Temple Is Still There, 230 Years On

Returning to Cixian Temple at 7:30 p.m.

The last wave of tourists has just emerged from Jiantan Station, and stall owners begin their second round of business. The Hot-Star chicken cutlet stall has a line of 30 people, the omelet griddle is flipping, and the herbal spare rib soup pot steams. Looking out from the temple plaza, today's 2026 Shilin Night Market looks quite different from the 1909 Japanese-era red brick market. The number of stalls has grown from around 100 in 1915 to 288 on the ground level plus 53 underground after the 2011 renovation, later reduced to 35 underground stalls in 2025, with most of the ground level still operating.

But the temple remains in its original position.

The site where Pan Yongqing donated the land, Cao Qihe contributed funds, and devotees joined forces to build the temple in the third year of the Tongzhi reign, 1864¹—162 years as of 2026. Counting from the first Tianhou Temple built by Zhangzhou settlers on old Zhilan Street in the first year of Jiaqing, 1796, it is 230 years. The land beneath the temple—the coordinates of No. 84 Da Nan Road—have not moved in 166 years since Pan Yongqing drew the first line in the Gengshen year, 1860.

The temple has also watched the night market grow.

In 1909, when the market was first established, and in 1915, when the brick market opened, the temple watched vegetable market vendors squeeze from the temple plaza to the building across the street. In 1949, when the ROC government relocated to Taiwan and mainlander populations flooded into Shilin, and Wenlin Road began to be widened, the temple watched familiar Hokkien-speaking customers diminish and Sichuan-dialect and Mandarin-speaking customers increase. In 1955, when Yangming Theater opened, and second-run movie theaters and youth culture invaded Wenlin Road, the temple watched students in bell-bottom pants gather outside waiting for movie tickets. In 1992, when the first chicken cutlet was invented in Taichung, and in 1999, when Hot-Star moved in, the temple watched a piece of fried chicken larger than a face become the tourism symbol of this city. In 2002, demolition; in 2011, rebuilding; in 2024, the tourism ranking fell; in 2025, the food court was renovated—the temple watched the night market itself go through rounds of restructuring.

But the temple still enshrines the same Mazu. The same statue brought from Zhangzhou in 1796, rescued from the burned Tianhou Temple in 1859, and reinstalled at the current site in 1864¹.

Looking north from the temple plaza toward Da Bei Road, you see chicken cutlet stalls, bubble tattoo shops, and tattoo parlors lined up one after another. Looking further out—Wenlin Road, MRT Jiantan Station, the Taipei Performing Arts Center (built after the demolition of the Shilin Temporary Market), and further east, Jihe Road.

To outsiders, Shilin is a tourist night market, a giant chicken cutlet, a "fallen from grace" number-two tourism ranking. But the Shilin lived by people who live in Shilin follows a different axis: the tai chi uncles at Shennong Temple every morning at 8 a.m., the Saturday dharma assemblies at Cixian Temple, climbing Zhishan Rock to see a 4,500-year-old geological cross-section, the rose garden exhibition at Shilin Official Residence every November, the aunties at the Fulin Road morning market, and the Shilin Night Market vendors having one last cigarette before going home after packing up at 3 a.m.

This street took shape 162 years ago. From the moment Pan Yongqing placed the temple at the center and drew four avenues in the Gengshen year, 1860, to today in 2026, the temple has remained at that one coordinate for 230 years.

Next time you stand at the Shilin Night Market entrance at 7:30 p.m. holding a giant chicken cutlet, remember to turn a corner and walk 100 meters to No. 84 Da Nan Road. The bell of Cixian Temple is still ringing, and that 230-year-old temple is still there.

Further Reading:

• Taipei City — Panorama of 12 districts; Shilin was incorporated into Taipei City in 1968, previously under the Yangmingshan Administration
• Taiwan Old Street Culture and Commercial Districts — Main entry on old street culture; Shilin New Street is one of the few street districts in Taiwan whose 1860 Gengshen-year blueprint can be traced
• Monga — Same batch 1 sibling; the 1853 Ding-Xia Jiao Pin was the prelude to the 1859 Zhang-Quan clan war, another corner of the three-city triangle
• Dadaocheng — Same batch 1 sibling; in 1853, Tong'an settlers fled here to open a trading port, part of the same structural chain as Shilin's Zhangzhou settlers fleeing from Old Street to New Street
• Ximending — Same batch 1 sibling; 1896 Japanese-era entertainment district vs. Shilin's 1909 Japanese-era livelihood market—two kinds of material structures left by the Japanese
• Taiwan Religion and Temple Culture — Cixian Temple is a key node in Taipei's Mazu belief, alongside Dadaocheng Xiahai City God Temple and Monga Longshan Temple
• February 28 Incident — The post-1947 influx of mainlanders into Shilin, the widening of Wenlin Road, and the establishment of Shilin Official Residence
• Qing Dynasty Period — The century-long Qing-era context of Han Chinese settlement, Zhang-Quan clan wars, and Pan Yongqing's new street planning, 1796–1895
• Dalongtong — The defensive center where defeated Tong'an settlers retreated after the 1853 Ding-Xia Jiao Pin, alongside Shilin's 1859 Zhang-Quan clan war as two Qing-era ethnic conflict landscapes in northern Taiwan

References

Image Credits

This article uses 5 CC-licensed Wikimedia Commons images (hero + 4 inline), all cached in public/article-images/geography/ to avoid hotlinking to source servers:

• File:Shilin Cixian Temple 20100213.jpg — Shilin Cixian Temple Sanchuan Hall, Photo: 龍本, 2010-02-13, CC BY-SA 3.0
• File:2012-11-19 night market and the Shilin Cixian Temple.jpg — Shilin Night Market alongside Cixian Temple, Photo: Maya-Anaïs Y., 2012-11-19, CC BY 2.0
• File:Shilin Night Market Dadong Road.jpg — Shilin Night Market Da Dong Road night view, Photo: Ganmatthew, 2024-06-04, CC BY 4.0
• File:Shilin Cixian Temple roof 20190517.jpg — Cixian Temple roof jiannian decoration, Photo: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada, 2019-05-17, CC BY-SA 2.0
• File:Chiang Kai-shek Shilin Residence.JPG — Shilin Official Residence main hall, Photo: Kuailong, CC BY-SA 3.0