Keelungshi: The 1,000 British Soldiers Hauled into the Tunnels to Mine Copper, and a Golden Mountain That Hasn't Been Washed Clean Yet

30-Second Overview: Most people visit Keelungshi for the 220-kilogram gold brick at the Gold Museum, or for the orange-yellow light that was only lit in 2019 at the Thirteen-Storey Ruins at night¹ ². But the true story of this mountain is not in the gold—between 1942 and 1945, the Japanese military forced over 1,000 Allied POWs, primarily from the British Commonwealth, into the copper mines here. They called this place "Kinkaseki," while Taiwanese called it "Tunabi Liao" (Convex Nose Village)³ ⁴. On November 23, 1997, Canadian Michael Hurst and 150 survivors and family members erected a memorial monument at the original site³. Today, when tourists step on the abandoned smokestack for photos, the soil beneath their feet still contains arsenic and heavy metals several times over the standard⁵ ⁶.

The Sand Gold of 1890 and the "Gold Melon" of 1893

In 1890, workers building a bridge over the Keelung River in Qidu, Keelung, on the纵贯 (vertical) railway of Liu Mingchuan's project, scooped up sand gold⁷. Gold prospectors followed the river upstream. In 1893, a Chaozhou-surnamed farmer discovered a gold vein outcrop of "Little Gold Melon" in the Jiufen mountain area, and nearby found "Big Gold Melon"—because the mountain peak resembled a "gold melon" (pumpkin) in Hokkien, this place name was born⁷.

In 1895, Taiwan was ceded to Japan. In 1896, the Governor-General's Office issued the "Taiwan Mining Regulations," stipulating that only people from mainland Japan could mine, stripping the mining rights of the local population entirely⁷. In October of the same year, the Governor-General's Office cut the mining area in half along the north-south ridge lines of Mount Keelung: the eastern Keelungshi was given to Nakata Chobei's "Nakata Group," and the western Ruifang (Jiufen) was given to Fujita Denzaburo's "Fujita Group"⁷ ⁸. A single ridge line determined the fate of the two settlements for the next century.

The Nakata Group brought the entire mining technology system from the Kamaishi Copper Mine in Japan. In 1904, they mined Copper Arsenopyrite at Honzan Pit No. 3, transforming Keelungshi from a gold and silver mine into a "gold, silver, and copper" mine⁷. In 1925, the Nakata Group, facing poor management, sold to Miyauchi Shintaro, who established the "Keelungshi Mining Co., Ltd." In 1931, a new gold vein was discovered, and he was hailed by the Japanese media as the "King of Gold Mountains"⁹ ¹⁰. In 1933, it was sold again to the Nihon Mining Co., Ltd., and a state-of-the-art flotation plant was built at Shuihandong below the mountain—today's Thirteen-Storey Ruins⁷.

📝 Curator's Note: Keelungshi is not a story of "locals getting rich by mining gold," but of "foreign capital bringing foreign technology, turning locals' mining rights into illegal acts." In 1938, Keelungshi's gold production approached 70,000 taels,号称 (claimed) as the "Number One Precious Metal Mine in Asia"⁷ ¹⁰—but the direction of the gold flow was Tokyo.

"Kinkaseki" in 1942: British Soldiers Mining Japan's Copper

After the outbreak of the Pacific War, gold was deemed a non-defense material, and Keelungshi was forced to shift primarily to copper mining⁷. Between 1942 and 1945, the Japanese military established the "Keelungshi American-British Captive Labor Camp" here—known in Hokkien as "Tunabi Liao" (Convex Nose Village)⁷ ⁴. "Mi-Ying" (American-British) is the Japanese term for "American-British."

Over a thousand Allied POWs, primarily members of the British Commonwealth (United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa), were imprisoned here⁷ ⁴. Most were captured when Singapore fell in 1942, transported by sea from Changi Prison in Singapore to Keelung, and then marched up the mountain roads to Keelungshi³ ⁴.

The POWs' labor work was mining in the copper mines of Honzan. The temperature inside the pit was high, the air thin, and the dust filled with arsenic and sulfur. They worked in tattered shirts and wooden clogs; if they failed to meet the daily copper quota, they were beaten⁴ ¹¹. One survivor described it as a "Hell Camp"¹¹. In a 2015 interview with Canadian researcher Michael Hurst, BBC Chinese reported that he calculated the mortality rate in Keelungshi to be among the highest in the Pacific Theater Japanese POW camps⁴.

In the second half of 1944, after the US military gained air superiority, mining activities gradually ceased. In 1945, the POWs were collectively moved to Xindian for detention⁷. After Japan's surrender, the survivors took a boat home from Keelung Port—they forever remembered the name of this mountain as "Kinkaseki," not "Keelungshi"³.

📝 Curator's Note: The last batch of copper in Keelungshi was mined by the British. This story is almost non-existent in Taiwan's tourism narratives.

November 23, 1997: The Monument Erected by Survivors

Fifty years after the war, this history was nearly blank in Taiwan—even locals rarely heard of it. The turning point came at the end of 1996: Canadian Michael Hurst, living in Taiwan, accidentally learned of the existence of Tunabi Liao and began visiting survivors and launching a memorial project³ ¹¹.

On November 23, 1997, over 150 surviving POWs, family members, and representatives from Canada, the UK, and New Zealand/Australia unveiled a memorial monument at the location of the former POW camp—today's Keelungshi "International War Commemoration Peace Memorial Park"³. The monument bears the names of over a thousand POWs from Keelungshi and other POW camps across Taiwan³ ⁴.

Michael Hurst later established the "Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society," bringing survivors and family members back to Keelungshi every November for remembrance¹¹ ¹². In a 2005 interview with Taipei Times, he had already been doing this for eight years; by 2025, this work had continued for nearly 30 years¹¹ ¹².

"We do this not out of hatred for the Japanese, but to let these suffering people know that they have not been forgotten." — Michael Hurst, 2005¹¹

The monument in the park is still there. It is located just up from the Gold Museum, near the direction of Honzan Pit No. 5. Most tourists pass by without stopping.

The 1992 Film: Wang Tong Filmed Not Gold, But People Drowned by Gold

The first time "Keelungshi is more than just gold" was shown to Taiwanese people was through the director Wang Tong.

The 1992 film Silent Hills is set in Japanese-colonial Keelungshi. Screenwritten by Wu Nianzhen and starring Peng Qiaqia and Yang Kuimei, it tells the story of two tenant farmer brothers, A-Zhu and A-Lai, who escape their indentured labor contracts, go to Keelungshi to mine gold, and are ultimately swallowed by the mine pits, Japanese capital, and their own dreams¹³ ¹⁴. It won the Golden Horse Awards for Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Art Direction that year¹⁴.

The film has no heroes. Miners, widows, hostesses, Japanese foremen, children felled by plague—all are run over by the mountain's desire for gold¹⁴. This is much earlier than the 2004 opening narrative of the Gold Museum, which offered "Golden Years" and "Mining Settlement Preservation"¹⁵ ¹⁶; Wang Tong's 1992 offering was already "Silent."

📝 Curator's Note: Two narratives are fighting in Keelungshi. One is the "Gold Rush Dream" of the museum and tourism bureau; the other is Wang Tong and Michael Hurst's "How many people did this mountain swallow?" The former sells tickets; the latter is closer to the truth.

The 2019 Light: Illuminating the Thirteen-Storey Ruins, Not the Arsenic in the Soil

In 1987, Formosa Metals Mining Corporation (Formosa Metals) declared bankruptcy due to the collapse of international copper prices and an inability to repay bank loans, ending Keelungshi's century-long gold production era. The land was taken over by Formosa Sugar Corporation, and the Shuihandong copper smelter below the mountain was handed over to Taipower⁷. From then on, Keelungshi's population plummeted from tens of thousands at its peak to less than 2,000, mostly elderly⁷.

In 2019, during the Mid-Autumn Festival, Taipower hired lighting master Chow Lien, who lit up the Statue of Liberty and the New York Empire State Building, to illuminate the Shuihandong Thirteen-Storey Ruins with 250 LED lights after 32 years of shutdown¹⁷ ². From that day on, tourists set up tripods by the Yin-Yang Sea to photograph the 13-story ruins, and the "Shui-Jin-Jiu" secret spots flooded with large crowds on Instagram².

But in August 19, 2019, local residents of Ruifang went to protest against Taipower: the land of the Thirteen-Storey Ruins is a declared "Soil Pollution Control Site." Due to early copper smelting, it left behind large amounts of arsenic, copper, lead, and zinc. The abandoned smokestack extending along the ridge next to the ruins has had heavy metal pollution uncleaned for years⁵ ¹⁸. Taipower responded that "isolation measures are in place and continuous monitoring is ongoing," but admitted the site was indeed declared a pollution control site by the Environmental Protection Bureau¹⁸. A 2020 investigative report by United Daily News pointed out: that abandoned smokestack is now a popular check-in spot, but it itself is a facility designed in the 1930s to emit metal vapors, and the soil arsenic content has been unable to degrade naturally for decades⁵ ⁶.

The "Yin-Yang Sea" (which turned the Keelung Mountain golden and the bay below yellow-brown) is partly due to the natural oxidation of pyrite-rich rocks in the Keelung Volcanic Group, and partly due to upstream mine wastewater⁷ ¹⁷. It is a landscape, and also an industrial wound.

📝 Curator's Note: The Taipower that lit the lights and the Taipower that manages soil pollution are the same Taipower. Keelungshi's "beauty" and "toxicity" are two sides of the same coin, inseparable.

160 Meters Below Sea Level: Miners' Bento Boxes and Silicosis

What has been most thoroughly eaten up by tourism narratives is the miners themselves.

Going down from Honzan Pit No. 9 in Keelungshi, the deepest mine pit extends 160 meters below sea level¹⁹. The temperature inside the pit was high, humidity large, and oxygen low. The miners' bento boxes were fixed as "three bowls of white rice, pickled melon, salted egg," because other dishes would spoil in the pit¹⁹. There were taboos in the tunnels: no whistling, no mentioning snakes—these taboos were not superstition, but safety valves set by language in a high-mortality labor site¹⁹.

The highest-paid job was "pneumatic drill operator," because they operated vibrating drills to drill holes in rock faces—thus inhaling the most mine dust. Most died from silicosis (silicosis)¹⁹. Miners traded their lungs for gold. During the Japanese colonial period, the Nakata Group and post-war Formosa Metals both established employee hospitals in Keelungshi (today's Former Site of Keelungshi Hospital), which were both a welfare benefit and a business necessity—this settlement had to deal with trauma, hypoxia, and chronic pneumoconiosis simultaneously²⁰.

A 2024 VERSE magazine visit to Ruifang quoted local elders describing: the original elevation of the Honzan Keelungshi outcrop was 660 meters. Due to nearly a century of open-pit blasting from the Qing dynasty to Formosa Metals, the entire mountain was shaved down by over 200 meters. The "Gold Museum" we stand on today is actually standing on what was originally the mountainside²¹. The mine was not flattened by tourism, but by its own digging.

📝 Curator's Note: The Miner History Museum is in Houlong. Old miner Zhou Nanchan rents the changing room of the Ruisan Main Mine with his monthly 3,500 NTD pension to preserve history²²—this is how Taiwanese miners write their own history. In Keelungshi's "Gold Museum," the position of miners is still scarce.

The 1922 Crown Prince Guest House: A Building for an Inspection That Never Happened

In 1922, Nakata Mining Co., Ltd. spent a large sum to build a luxurious Japanese-style study architecture. It was intended for the then-Crown Prince Hirohito (later the Showa Emperor) to stay when he came to inspect Keelungshi's mining operations—but Hirohito never came²³ ²⁴. This is now the "Crown Prince Guest House" designated as a New Taipei City Historic Site²³ ²⁴.

After the war, it was renamed "First Guest House" and taken over by Formosa Metals. In 1989, it was transferred to Taipower, and preserved in 1994²⁴. It is one of the most complete and largest Japanese-style wooden mansions in Taiwan today—but it represents the peak of the 1920s when Keelungshi's gold and copper production was sufficient for colonial enterprises to believe "the Crown Prince was worth a personal look"²³ ²⁴.

The nearby "Four-Connected Buildings" is another story: built in the 1930s by Nihon Mining Co., Ltd. as four connected Japanese-style dormitories for Japanese staff and their families, each with an independent entrance, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and toilet—compared to the wooden houses lived in by local miners at the same time, this was a clear class line within the colonial mining settlement²⁵. After the war, it was changed to Formosa Metals employee dormitories and continued to be used²⁵.

Quanjitang: The Temple Where Miners Entrusted Their Lives to Guan Yu

Founded around the Guangxu Era of the Qing Dynasty (around 1896), Keelungshi Quanjitang enshrines the Four Great Benefactors: Guan, Lu, Zhang, and Wang. It is the most important local faith center in the Keelungshi settlement²⁶ ²⁷. In 1991 (Republic of China Year 80), Quanjitang cast a pure copper Guan Sheng Di Jun statue weighing 25 tons and standing 35 tai chi high on the top floor, facing the mountain and the sea. It remains the largest outdoor Guan Yu statue on the North Coast to this day²⁶ ²⁷.

An investigation in the January 2021 issue of Scientific American pointed out: Keelungshi's mining settlement formed a unique folk faith spectrum—the Golden Shrine brought by the Japanese (1897) coexisted with Quanjitang brought by local Minnan Han Chinese and the Mazu procession every April of the lunar calendar²⁸. After Japan left, only the shrine's remaining pillars remained, while Quanjitang continued to worship to this day—not because of the superiority or inferiority of the faith itself, but because the temple survived with the locals, while the shrine did not²⁸.

📝 Curator's Note: Miners praying to Guan Yu before entering the pit was not a cultural ritual, but risk management. In a work site with such high mortality, entrusting one's life to the gods was a very practical psychological insurance.

Standing at the Entrance of Honzan Pit No. 5 Looking Down

Today, when you go to Keelungshi, you can buy a ticket from the Gold Museum to enter the first 70 meters of Honzan Pit No. 5 for an experience, seeing the mine car tracks left after mining stopped in 1972²⁹. You can walk up to see the ruins of the Golden Shrine built by the Nakata Group in 1898 to "stabilize hearts"³⁰. You can go down to Shuihandong to photograph the night lights of the Thirteen-Storey Ruins¹⁷.

You can also step into that memorial park erected by surviving POWs in 1997—it is right next to the Gold Museum, just a few minutes' walk. The park is small and quiet, with names engraved on the monument.

Keelungshi is not just gold. It is the sand gold in the river in 1890, the 1,000 British soldiers in the tunnels in 1942, the silent miners falling down in Wang Tong's lens in 1992, the orange light illuminating the Thirteen-Storey Ruins in 2019, and the arsenic-exceeding soil that tourists step on today—all stacked into the same mountain.

"They have not been forgotten." — Inscription at the Keelungshi International War Commemoration Peace Memorial Park³

Further Reading:

Japanese Colonial Period — How the "Taiwan Mining Regulations" stripped the local population's mining rights entirely
Formosa Metals Mining Corporation — The complete context of Formosa Metals' operation of Keelungshi from its establishment in 1955 to its bankruptcy in 1987
History of Taiwan's Forest Development — Like Alishan and Taiping Mountain, Keelungshi was part of the Japanese Empire's resource colonial system
Sun Moon Lake, Alishan: The Empire's Forest Farm and Gao Yisheng's Mountain — The imperial economics behind three "tourist attractions"
History of Taiwan's Marine Trade — The maritime network transporting Keelungshi's gold and copper to Kyushu, Japan
Folk Faith: Guan Sheng Di Jun — Why miners worshipped Guan Yu; the labor risk logic behind Quanjitang's 25-ton copper Guan Yu statue
Keelung City — Keelungshi's gold was transported via aerial cableway to Shuinan Cave, then to Badu, then to Niuchou Port, loaded onto ships at Keelung Zhengbin Fishing Port to go to Japan

References

Historical Evolution | New Taipei City Gold Museum — Official historical evolution of the Gold Museum, recording the complete timeline from the mention of Taiwanese indigenous people trading sand gold in the Southern Song Dynasty's Zhu Fan Zhi (1225), the Taiwan Za Ji (1684) to contemporary park development, including the display of the 220-kilogram gold brick.↩
Photo. Direct Hit / This Light Took 32 Years to Light! Thirteen-Storey Ruins Illuminate Northeast Coast's "7 Secret Spots" | ETtoday — In 2019, Taipower launched the Thirteen-Storey Ruins lighting project, illuminating the Northeast Coast night sky again after 32 years of shutdown. Direct hit report and secret spot routes.↩
The Kinkaseki Memorial Dedication | Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society — First-hand English record of the unveiling of the monument on November 23, 1997, by over 150 surviving POWs, family members, and UK, Canada, New Zealand/Australia representatives at the original site of the Keelungshi POW camp.↩
Taiwan's War of Resistance: The WWII Allied POWs Almost Forgotten | BBC News Chinese — BBC 2015 in-depth report, containing over a thousand Allied POWs primarily from the British Commonwealth in the Keelungshi POW camp (Kinkaseki), site photos of the War Commemoration Peace Memorial Park wall, and Michael Hurst interviews.↩
【Deadly Trap / Part 2】Thirteen-Storey Ruins, Abandoned Smokestack Check-in Hotspot, Heavy Metal Pollution Hidden Dangers Remain | United Daily News — United Daily News 2020 in-depth investigation: The abandoned smokestacks for kilometers around the Shuihandong Thirteen-Storey Ruins are 1930s facilities, with arsenic, copper, lead, and zinc exceeding standards for years. It has become a popular check-in spot but remediation is not yet complete.↩
Heavy Metal Pollution Limits Development at Thirteen-Storey Ruins | PTS News Network PNN — PTS compiled the tug-of-war between the Thirteen-Storey Ruins soil pollution control site declaration, cultural asset status, and pollution remediation responsibility.↩
Keelungshi | Wikipedia — From the discovery of sand gold in the Keelung River in 1890, the 1893 Big and Little Gold Melon outcrops, the division of Nakata Group/Fujita Group, the 1933 Nihon Mining Co., Ltd., 1938 gold production near 70,000 taels, 1942-1945 American-British Captive Labor Camp, 1987 Formosa Metals bankruptcy to 2019 post-tourism era complete entry.↩
Second Generation Nakata Chobei | Wikipedia — 1858-1924, in 1896 the first generation Nakata Chobei obtained Keelungshi mining rights, inherited and operated the "Nakata Group" mine by the second generation Nakata Chobei in 1901.↩
Miyauchi Shintaro | Japanese Wikipedia — Purchased Keelungshi Mining from the Nakata family in 1925, served as president of Keelungshi Mining Co., Ltd., discovered the new gold vein "Golden涌ing Earth" in 1931, called the "King of Gold Mountains" in Japanese primary historical materials.↩
Formosa Mining Co., Ltd. | Wikipedia — 1897 Nakata Chobei obtained mining rights, 1920 Nakata Mining Co., Ltd. took over, 1925 Miyauchi Shintaro took over, post-war reorganization context.↩
'Hell Camp' Remembered | Taipei Times — 2005 Taipei Times interview with Canadian researcher Michael Hurst, first-hand records of eight years of investigating the Keelungshi POW camp and POW survivors' oral accounts of "Hell Camp."↩
The Society | Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society — Taiwan POW Camps Memorial Society official page, recording the process from the launch of the "Kinkaseki POW Memorial Project" at the end of 1996 to the annual November remembrance activities to date.↩
Silent Hills | Taiwan Cinema Network — Ministry of Culture Film and Audiovisual Bureau Silent Hills official introduction, plot, director Wang Tong, screenwriter Wu Nianzhen, 175-minute runtime official data.↩
Silent Hills | Wikipedia — 1992 Wang Tong directed film entry, including 1992 Golden Horse Awards Best Narrative Feature, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Art Direction award records.↩
New Taipei City Gold Museum Gold Museum Park Introduction (PDF) — Official data: "Taipei County Government re-renovated and opened in 2004, the park combines community power, adopting the concept of an ecological museum for the first time"—confirming the 2004 opening as Taiwan's first ecological museum.↩
Gold Museum | National Cultural Memory Bank — Ministry of Culture National Cultural Memory Bank Gold Museum 2010 photo entry, recording "Gold Museum opened in Republic of China Year 93 (2004)."↩
Shuihandong Thirteen-Storey Ruins | New Taipei City Tourism Network — Official introduction "Buildings standing along the mountain slope," including official historical narratives of Thirteen-Storey, Yin-Yang Sea, and Keelungshi Line Light Railway (predecessor of today's Taishan Railway Deep Ocean Line).↩
Responding to Ruifang Local Residents' Protest Today on Thirteen-Storey Ruins Pollution Affecting Safety | Taiwan Power Company — August 19, 2019 Taipower official statement responding to Ruifang residents' protest: admitting the site was declared a soil pollution control site, claiming "isolation measures are in place and continuous monitoring is ongoing."↩
【What Kind of Ore?】Digging Keelungshi's Memories with Sound | FM Taiwan — Gold Museum sound archive project compilation: mine pits extending 160 meters below sea level, bento boxes fixed as three bowls of white rice, pickled melon, salted egg, pit taboos (no whistling, no mentioning snakes), pneumatic drill operators suffering from silicosis due to dust, first-hand oral accounts.↩
Former Site of Keelungshi Hospital | New Taipei City Gold Museum — Gold Museum official humanistic attraction page, recording the history of the Japanese colonial Nakata Group and post-war Formosa Metals operating employee hospitals in Keelungshi, dealing with trauma and occupational diseases.↩
Explore the Unknown "Ruifang": From Century-Old Mining to Local Rebirth | VERSE — VERSE magazine visit report, containing Keelung Mountain's original elevation of 660 meters, elders' oral accounts of becoming the current 400-meter valley due to nearly a century of blasting and open-pit mining.↩
Taiwan Mining Years Miner History Museum Records Labor History | Shih Hsin University Small World — Report on Houlong miner Zhou Nanchan gathering old miners, renting the Ruisan Main Mine changing room with his monthly 3,500 NTD pension to establish the "Houlong Miner History Museum," the context of miners writing their own labor history.↩
Keelungshi Crown Prince Guest House | National Cultural Memory Bank — Ministry of Culture National Cultural Memory Bank Crown Prince Guest House entry, recording the fact that in 1922, Nakata Mining Co., Ltd. built it for Japanese Crown Prince Hirohito to come to Taiwan to inspect Keelungshi mining, but Hirohito never arrived.↩
Crown Prince Guest House | Wikipedia — Built in 1922 (Taisho 11), renamed "First Guest House" after the war and taken over by Formosa Metals, transferred to Taipower in 1989, preserved in 1994, currently a New Taipei City Historic Site (Residence Category) complete evolution.↩
Four-Connected Buildings | New Taipei City Gold Museum — Official introduction: Four connected Japanese-style dormitories built by Nihon Mining Co., Ltd. in the 1930s, changed to Formosa Metals Mining Company employee dormitories after the war—evidence of the hierarchical space within the colonial mining settlement.↩
Keelungshi Quanjitang | Wikipedia — Enshrines the Four Great Benefactors: Guan, Lu, Zhang, and Wang. In Republic of China Year 80, completed the top floor 25-ton, 35 tai chi high pure copper Guan Sheng Di Jun statue, still the largest outdoor Guan Yu statue on the North Coast today.↩
Keelungshi Quanjitang Guide | welcometw — Contains Quanjitang location, 20-minute drive distance from Jiufen, 25-ton copper-cast Guan Yu statue current status and other local field investigation information.↩
Century-Old History Gold Mine Mountain, Temples and Mazu Procession Festival | Scientific American Issue 613 — January 2021 issue special topic, analyzing Keelungshi mining settlement's unique folk faith spectrum: Golden Shrine (1897 Japanese), Quanjitang (Qing Guangxu Han Chinese) and annual April lunar calendar Mazu procession coexistence history.↩
Honzan Pit No. 5 | New Taipei City Gold Museum — Gold Museum official page, "Honzan Pit No. 5" is one of the nine tunnels of the Japanese colonial Honzan, elevation 295 meters, gold mining stopped in 1972, withdrawn in 1978, now opening the first 70 meters for tourist experience.↩
"Keelungshi Shrine and Mountain God Sacrifice" Special Exhibition | National Cultural Memory Bank — 1897 Nakata Chobei built the Keelungshi Shrine (Golden Shrine) due to "bandit activity and unstable hearts," official historical material evidence.↩