Urban Exploration

Abandoned Tea Factory

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When foreign streaming services started arriving in Taiwan, a battle started over access to local content, which could be added to their extensive libraries of movies and television shows. With Netflix and Disney+ being the most popular choices for most consumers in Taiwan, both companies sought to add as much Taiwan-made content as they could, while also investing in producing new content as well.

Suffice to say, this resulted in a considerable amount of freshly-made content, which was afforded the financial backing and support of these massive media companies, and more importantly, higher quality production values, which has been a recipe for success. Television shows like Light the Night (華燈初上), Seqalu (斯卡羅) and Detention (返校) are just a few examples of the recent success that the addition of streaming services have helped bring to Taiwan, allowing the country to tell its own stories on an international level.

Link: 別再說韓劇比較好看！10大必看神作開啟台劇新高度，道盡職場辛酸血淚 (風博媒)

One of the other recent additions was the series Gold Leaf (茶金), lauded as the first-ever television show that was filmed entirely in Hoiluk (海陸腔), the most commonly spoken dialect of the Hakka language spoken in Taiwan. A co-production from the Taiwanese government’s Hakka Affairs Council (客家委員會) and the Public Television Service Foundation (公共電視), the twelve-part series focused on the family of entrepreneur Chiang A-hsin (姜阿新), who hailed from the predominately Hakka village of Beipu (北浦鎮) in Hsinchu.

Link: Hakka period drama ‘Gold Leaf’ to air in November (Hakka Affairs Council)

Telling the story of the family’s struggle to stay in business as the Japanese left Taiwan and the Chinese Nationalists took over, the series (is said to have) done an excellent job helping people learn about the booming tea trade during the 1950s, and it’s popularity got domestic tourists to visit places like Beipu Old Street (北浦老街) and the Daxi Tea Factory (大溪老茶產) to experience that history firsthand.

I have to admit though, I haven’t actually watched it..

The family of tea tycoons depicted in the television show, however, is very closely connected to the subject of today’s article, which will tell the story of an abandoned tea factory in the hills of Hsinchu. Having visited the abandoned factory on a few occasions prior to the television show coming out, I had never really made the connection between the two until I started doing a bit of research into the old building.

My personal interest in the tea factory came after my first of many visits to the recently restored Daxi Tea Factory. As I was looking for information about other Japanese-era tea factories around the country, once I found it, I visited a couple of times to get photos.

This however is where I have to add my usual disclaimer regarding my articles on Urban Exploration - In this article, I’ll provide historic information about the tea factory - I’ll even provide it’s name - What I won’t do though is provide readers with any of the other particulars, so if you find yourself so interested that you’d like to check it out on your for yourself, it shouldn’t take very long to figure out where it is.

Before I get into any details about the abandoned tea factory, it’s probably a good idea to start out by introducing talk about the man (and the family), of tea tycoons who owned it - and several others throughout the mountains of Hsinchu - and for whom the television show mentioned above is dedicated.

Chiang A-hsin (姜阿新)

The life of Chiang A-hsin was a long and eventful one, and given that there has been quite a bit recorded about the rise and fall of his family’s tea empire over the years, I’ll try to keep this a brief introduction.

Born in 1901 (明治34年), in what is now Baoshan Village (寶山鄉) in Hsinchu, Chiang A-hsin was adopted as a child by Chiang Qing-han (姜清漢), who was heir to the Beipu Chiang family, and who was described as ‘barren’ or unable to have children of his own.

Little seems to be written on the subject in English, but in Taiwan, it was common (for a variety of reasons) for well-off families to adopt children from families who would otherwise have trouble raising the child on their own. In this case, it was because the Chiang family required a male heir to carry on the family name, but in other cases it could be that the family required a daughter to marry to one of their sons, or for purposes of indentured servitude, etc.

Nevertheless, Chiang A-hsin was adopted and groomed to become the heir of the wealthy Beipu family, who struck it rich during the Qing Dynasty with their Jinguangfu Land Reclamation Company (金廣福墾號). Starting his education at the Beipu Public School (北浦公校), he then moved on to the prestigious Taihoku Kokugo Gakko (臺灣總督府國語學校 / たいわんそうとくふこくごがっこう) at the age of fourteen.

Shortly after his graduation from the college, he traveled to the Japanese mainland, and spent a year reading law at Meiji University (京明治大學) in Tokyo. However, do to pressing family matters back at home, he didn’t end up finishing his degree and instead returned to Taiwan to help out.

Over the next several years, Chiang attempted to invest in or start his own business on several occasions, but each attempt was met with opposition from his father. Chiang then took a job as the assistant to Tanaka Tori (田中利), the head of Hopposhō Village (北埔庄 / ほっぽしょう), known today as Beipu Village. He’d only end up spending two years in the position however as the opposition of his father turned into approval when A-hsin became the head of the family, and proved to his father that he was capable of investing the families wealth responsibly.

Even though his position as assistant to the head of the village might have been short-lived, Chiang used his time in office to familiarize himself with the growing tea manufacturing industry in the village, which was praised for the high-end product that it was producing. Using what he learned and the important networking opportunities that he had, Chiang threw his own hand into the industry by organizing the Beipu Tea Collective (北埔茶葉組合), which grew exponentially over the next few years - starting with the Beipu Tea Farm (北埔茶場) in 1934 (昭和9年), Emei Tea Factory (峨眉茶廠) in 1935 (昭和10年) and then the Hengshan Tea Factory (橫山茶廠), Wufeng Tea Factory (五峰茶廠), and finally the Daping Tea Factory in 1936 (昭和11年).

To give you of an idea of the high-quality nature of the tea that was being produced by Chaing’s Beipu Tea Collective, the tea being produced in the mountains of Hsinchu at the time was sold at a price ten times to typical market price for Oolong Tea at the time. Given the high quality of the tea and the reputation that came with it, Chiang formed partnerships with the Mitsui Agriculture and Forestry Association (三井農林會社), which brought the benefit of having the most modern tea-producing technology available at the time.

However, during the Second World War, the Governor General’s Office in Taipei moved quickly to control certain areas of the economy, especially those with regard to the supply of commodities. The production of tea was an important one for both domestic and international consumption, so the government took control in order to better siphon off the profits, which could be distributed for the war effort.

By 1941 (昭和16年), the “Beipu Tea Collective” was restructured into the Chikuto Tea Company (竹東製茶株式會社). Yet, thanks to his experience in the industry, and his notoriety, Chiang was able to continue as president, maintaining his position and influence within the industry.

After the war, the Chikuto tea Company was dissolved and the ownership of the tea factories was returned to their original owners. By that time, the reputation of Beipu’s tea was pretty solid, specializing in what is known in Hakka as “phong-fûng chhà” (椪風茶) or Oriental Beauty Tea (東方美人茶). In the Hakka language, the name of the tea was essentially “Braggers Tea”, which was used because the producers were ‘so proud of their product that they bragged to everyone’ about how much money they were making from selling it.

Link: Dongfang meiren 東方美人茶 (Wiki)

Shortly after the Chinese Nationalists took control of Taiwan, Chiang renamed the company Yung Kuang Tea Company (永光股份有限公司) and started exporting tea under the Three Star (三星) and Ho-ppo Tea (北埔茶) brands. The success of the global export industry apparently surpassed even that of India’s Darjeeling Tea for a short time, putting Taiwanese tea on the world stage and attracting guests from all over the world to visit Taiwan. With all the foreign tea trading companies visiting Beipu, Chiang decided to build his famous mansion in Beipu where his family lived and received guests.

However, things changed in the 1950s when other tea producing areas around the world, affected by the war resumed production. With its competitive advantage lost, Taiwan’s tea production started to suffer and the relationship between Chiang and his foreign partners suffered.

At wits end, Chiang eventually retired and the company was taken over by his daughter, who attempted to make changes to save the business. Ultimately, the international market, Taiwan’s political situation and the amount of loans proved too difficult to overcome and they were forced to file for bankruptcy in 1965 (民國54年). I don’t want to give you too many spoilers, so if you have the time to watch ‘Gold Leaf’ on Netflix, you’ll be able to see the struggles the family had to go through.

Chiang later moved to Taipei with his family and lived there until his death in 1982. Today, his historic mansion has been restored, and is open in Beipu for tours.

Daping Tea Factory (大平製茶厰)

The Daping Tea Factory (大平製茶厰) opened in June of 1934 (昭和9年) under the official name “Dapingwo Tea Cooperative Factory” (太平窩茶葉組合製茶工場), and was one of the first tea factories in the area that was able to make use of modern technology in the production process.

While the tea factory was officially part of Chiang A-hsin’s ‘Beipu Tea Collective’ mentioned above, throughout its history, it has been managed by a number of different groups of local tea farmers, more specifically after the war, the Hsinpu Liu family (劉氏), one the prominent clans of Hakka residents of the area.

Link: Hsinpu Ancestral Shrines (新埔宗祠)

The history of the factory is one that is reminiscent of many of Taiwan’s agricultural industries in that they had to find a way to deal with the transition of political control from the Japanese to the Chinese Nationalists. For the locals, the ability to successfully stay afloat in business during either era was a delicate (and dangerous) balancing act that required a considerable amount of political knowhow. The Beipu Tea Collective under the leadership of Chiang A-hsin, though, was one of the fortunate pieces of Taiwan’s agricultural industry that was able to successfully navigate the transition.

However, as I’ve already pointed out, Taiwan experienced somewhat of a ‘golden era’ of tea production after the war with the support of the Chinese Nationalist regime. When that golden era came to an end, not even endless government subsidies were even able to keep successful businessmen like Chiang A-hsin afloat, and many of the tea factories across the island started to shut down.

Tea baskets that have seen better days.

Despite the decline in the fortune of the Chiang family, the Daping Tea Factory was able to outlive many of the other tea plantations across the country, and with the cooperation of the government, the owners cultivated several varieties of tea. Transitioning away from Oriental Beauty (東方美人 / 青心大冇) to other types of of tea leaves, they produced popular varieties such as Black Tea (紅茶), Baozhong (包種茶) and Dong-ding (凍頂茶), which continue to be the most common varieties of tea that are cultivated in Taiwan today.

Interestingly, in the post-war period, the cultivation of tea in Taiwan expanded upon some of the experimentation that took place during the Japanese-era, and the result was a number of hybrid species that combined indigenous teas with those more common in India, and other major tea producing countries around the world. The cultivation of these new ‘Taiwan teas’ was streamlined throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and the teas being produced received official classifications based on the experimental process that was used to create them.

Instead of having a bunch of confusing names, the government promoted teas with a number - for example “Taiwan #1” (台茶1號) through “Taiwan #13” (台茶13號), a classification system that remains in place today - and was a beneficial exercise in marketing Taiwanese produced teas to the international market.

In the 1950s, there were over three-hundred tea factories spread throughout Taiwan, a third of them located in Hsinchu. Working together with the other fifteen factories in Hsinpu Village (新埔鎮), the tea produced in the area maintained a high reputation for quite some time, and the success of the export market helped to stabilize a tea industry that was showing signs of decline.

Nevertheless, the decline, which was brought on by international market trends dealt a decisive blow to Taiwan’s tea industry, and even though earnest attempts were made to revive the struggling industry, by 1988 (民國77年), only nine of the original fifteen factories in Hsinpu remained in operation. Less than a decade later, only two of them remained.

By 2013 (民國102年), almost all of the tea factories in the area had been abandoned, with the few remaining converted into tea wholesale businesses.

Unfortunately, information regarding the closure of Daping Tea Factory’s business operations is difficult to find, so I can’t give you an actual date as to when it went out of business, but it’s safe to say that it fell victim to the number of closures that took place between the late 1980s and 1990s.

It’s also difficult to say when the place was abandoned, but given that there was a residence and/or a dormitory within the building, it might have been occupied for a period of time after going out of business.

Recently, the arched wooden roof of one of the buildings collapsed, and out of concern for the local community, the owners of the properly planned to have the building torn down, but the Hsinchu County Bureau of Cultural Affairs (新竹縣政府文化局) stepped in and sought to have the building ‘protected’ for future use, although it is currently unclear as to what that will entail.

One would hope, given the popularity of the television series, as well as the Daxi Tea Factory as a tourist destination, that it’s likely that it might receive some attention sooner rather than later. But that’s up in the air at this point.

Link: 百年大平製茶廠 竹縣爭納古蹟 (自由時報)

Now, let me take a few minutes to detail the architectural design of the building, which even though is in pretty rough shape at the moment, remains quite interesting.

Visiting the factory today, its rather obvious that the original tea factory, constructed during the Japanese-era, was expanded upon several times over the post-war era to meet the needs of a modernizing industry. When we view the factory today, it is essentially split into three different sections - each of which varies with regard to its architectural design and construction methods.

It probably goes without saying that, as far as I’m concerned, the section that remains from the Japanese-era is the most interesting - but taking into consideration that it was constructed primarily constructed of wood in the 1930s, it’s also the part of the factory that is currently in the worst condition.

The original section of the tea factory was actually quite similar to what you can still see at the Daxi Tea Factory in Taoyuan in that it was a two-story brick building, which featured load-bearing walls. In both cases, the top floor was used as a drying area, while the first floor was where the tea was processed.

The roof that covered the drying area was a typical hip-and-gable roof (歇山頂) which was covered with red roof tiles (閩式紅瓦), a type of clay tile which are ubiquitous with traditional Hokkien (閩南) and Hakka (客家) buildings in Taiwan. While the decorative elements of the roof are subdued compared to most other historic buildings in Taiwan, the roof’s fusion of Japanese-style architectural design with that of Hakka elements is an interesting one, but not entirely unique, as you’ll see in the link below.

Link: Zhongli Elementary Teachers Dorms (壢小故事森林)

Starting with the shape of the roof, ‘hip-and-gable’ in this case is better referred to as irimoya-zukuri (入母屋造 / いりもやづくり) as it is one of the most common forms of traditional Japanese architectural design, and is used on anything from Buddhist temples and Shinto Shrines to buildings like this one. Roofs in this style tend to vary in the level of decorative elements added, and in this case the decorations are quite subdued.

Nevertheless, this style of architectural design tends to be quite practical given that the ‘hipped’ section provided excellent stability to the base of the building, while the ‘gable’ section ensures the stability of the roof. All of this was accomplished through a genius network of trusses (屋架) located within the ceiling that assists in distributing the weight and support the four-sided sloped hip roof (四坡頂).

If you explore the tea factory today, you can see the original wood used to help stabilize the roof in the section left standing and contrast it with the section that has already caved-in. In the latter, the trusses remain in pretty good shape despite having caved in and being open to the elements for a number of years, which likely points to the fact that they weren’t the cause of the cave in.

As mentioned above, the roof tiles feature as part of the roof’s decorative design, but the fusion of Japanese-style architecture with Taiwanese red roof tiles here tends to play a more functional role than a decorative one. Along the arched section of the roof, you’ll find what appear to be lines of cylindrical roof tiles separated by flat sections of tile that make it seem like ocean waves. The functional nature of the roof tiles placed in this way assist in controlling the flow of rain water.

With the building constructed during the Showa-era, construction techniques in Taiwan had become considerably more refined, so even though the weight of the roof was stabilized by the trusses within the building, the load-bearing brick walls allowed for a number of windows to be placed on all sides of the building to assist in the process of drying the tea leaves. Surrounding the remaining second-floor section of the second floor on three sides, the windows allow for a considerable amount of natural light and in the summer sun, the room tends to shine, making it the most interesting section of the building, photographically.

Diagram of the three sections of the tea factory based on when they were constructed.

Located to the rear of the original section of the building you’ll find a post-war addition to the original tea factory. This section, similar to the building in front is a two-story structure, but it also includes a basement where you can still find a considerable amount of the original machinery that was used in the process of tea production. Having all of this historic machinery just sitting there open to the elements is actually quite sad as it is just wasting away in its current condition. The basement of the building tends to be quite damp and muddy, so it’s hard to say that much of anything inside would be of any use other than for display purposes.

Finally, the most recent addition to the tea factory is simply a three-story reinforced concrete building that is typical of post-war design. The building features very little in terms of decorative elements and was never painted.

Essentially it looks like almost every Taiwanese house that was constructed over the past forty or fifty years. Within the interior of the building however you’ll find what was probably the factory’s administrative section as well as an area reserved as the dormitory for the factory’s employees, who were likely migrant laborers.

What is probably the best part of this section of the factory is that you can easily access the roof to get a better view of the caved-in section of the original tea factory, but if you do explore the building, you’ll want to be careful walking around as it could be somewhat dangerous as well.   

As mentioned earlier, this article is currently classified as one of my ‘urban exploration’ articles, which means that I won’t be sharing much about the location of the building, or how to gain entry to the building.

I do hope that at some point that I’ll be able to offer readers an update if and when the building is restored and re-opened to the public as a tourist attraction - So here’s to hoping that the popularity of “Gold Leaf” will rub off on local officials in Hsinchu looking to cash in on the renewed interest in Taiwan’s golden age of tea, something which this (and many other) tea factories played a role in.

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Abandoned Church (廢棄的教堂)

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I’m going to preface this one with a bit of a personal story. 

Living in Taiwan, people tend to assume a few things about foreigners.

One of them is that we’re all American, of course.

Another is that we’re all Christian.

Given Taiwan’s post-war history, its understandable that a lot of older people would just assume that you’re an American. For most of us Canadians living here, it can be something that becomes relatively annoying, but after a few years, I came to the conclusion that there obviously weren’t any ill-intentions involved.

The latter though, I’m assuming is because there are so many clean cut missionaries bicycling around the island evangelizing that people just started assuming we’re all followers.  

I may have grown up in a predominately Christian community, with a grandmother who tried to frighten my younger sister and I into religion. As most young people of my generation are likely to understand, the old ‘fire-and-brimstone’ style of scaring people into religion was something that had to change as young people, like myself, rejected the negativity presented by the church. The shift wasn’t something that happened overnight, but I have vivid memories of being sat down in front of a TV during my pre-teen years at my grandma’s house with my younger sister and was forced to watch an ‘End of Days’ film.

The movie was so poorly made that it didn’t really have the desired effect.

The problem for most churches in North America is that the vast majority of congregations aged to a point that, from a business point of view, wasn’t very sustainable. Senior citizens were going to go to church every Sunday, no matter what was going on. When it came to young people though, a strategy change was necessary. So, by the time I was a teenager, church services started changing to a ‘less threatening’ rock concert-like experience.

Gone were the days of preacher man standing at his pulpit telling everyone they were going to hell.

Instead, the philosophy became one of “God is Love,” focusing more on the positive aspects of faith. 

None of this really had any effect on my life, but for some young people it was good enough.

One of them was my sister, who continued attending with my grandma for the rest of her high school days. Fortunately, my parents were pretty cool (non-believers themselves), and when I told them that I wasn’t interested in attending with my grandma, they didn’t force me.

Years later, I recall having a video chat with my family during the holidays, and my grandma asked if I ever started going to church here in Taiwan. I just smiled and didn’t say anything to which she quipped, “Oh yeah, I forgot. You’re a nothing,” which probably sounds insulting, but it’s only because she doesn’t know how to say “non-believer” or “atheist” in English. And hey, it’s better than being called a “heathen” or a “sinner.”  

Shortly after that conversation, I heard from my sister that the church she grew up attending was forced to re-locate to a smaller building across town. Religious organizations may not have to pay taxes in Canada like the rest of us, but the price of heating and paying the staff became far too much for the small congregation to support, thus requiring a move. A year later, the declining attendance and revenue ultimately forced them out of business for good, sending my grandma and her church friends elsewhere.

That’s capitalism for you. 

In 2019, it was reported that out of Canada’s 27,000 churches, more than a third of them would face closure within the next decade. The Anglican Church of Canada for example had about 1.3 million members in 1961 but by 2017, that number had dropped to 282,000 - the vast majority of them senior citizens.

Sociologists predict that by 2040 the Anglican Church in Canada will have already disappeared. 

Link: COVID may have hastened Christianity's decline in Canada (National Post)

My experience of course is essentially a Canadian one, but the decline we have seen in Canada is not an isolated one as there have been similar issues for the church across the world.

But what about here in Taiwan?

When people think about this country, I think it’s safe to assume that most wouldn’t guess that Christianity is as prevalent as it is - There are so many Taoist, Buddhist and Taiwanese folk-religion temples wherever you go in the country that the growing number churches here almost seem insignificant.

That’s where you’d be wrong though.

One area where the church has succeeded in Taiwan, where it has failed elsewhere is attracting young people. The shift that we saw in the attitude of the church towards one of “love” instead of scare-tactics is one that works here, with quite a few young people attracted to the less rigid and less time consuming form of Christianity. Coupled with the fact that a high percentage of Taiwan’s Indigenous population (nearly 70%) are believers, Christianity in Taiwan is experiencing a surge in numbers that makes for a success story that churches elsewhere are likely to be quite envious of; Still, with only an estimated 3.9%-4.7% of Taiwan’s total population professing to be Christian, believers here see room for continued growth.

That being said, the topic of today’s post is an abandoned church, so even though the number of Christian believers appears to be growing in Taiwan, the country isn’t immune to the same closures that we’ve seen elsewhere. That being said, it’s safe to say that the closure of churches here in Taiwan are often for reasons that are quite different than other areas where the religion finds itself in decline. 

The largest factor for church closures across Taiwan is due to a decline in the population of small communities and villages. This is because the vast majority of the ‘traditional’ churches that you’ll find across the country are located within mountainous villages, home to Indigenous peoples.

Many of these communities have been in decline in recent years with young people leaving for better opportunities elsewhere. In a community that was once able to support several churches, some have had to close, share their space, or act as a community center or clinic during the week.

In most cases, the building which once housed a place of worship has been converted into a local community space rather than being completely abandoned. Nevertheless, there are a growing number of abandoned churches across the country, and the photos I’m sharing today are from one of them. 

Link: TUBA Church (基國派老教堂)

It’s at this point that I have to remind readers that this is an Urban Exploration article, so I won’t be offering specifics as to the location of this building, or how you can get inside;

So, enjoy the photos, but don’t contact me to ask for additional information. 

Part of the Catholic Church of Taiwan, this modest place of worship in the mountains of northern Taiwan’s farm country dates back to 1953, shortly after the Chinese Nationalists arrived on the island.

Located within a tea and rice farming community, the church was a branch of the much larger catholic church organization, headed by Spanish missionaries, which was part of an effort to evangelize to the people of the countryside. Unfortunately, historic information about those churches is difficult to find, but from what little is available, the thing I found most impressive is that the Spanish clergy held their services in either Taiwanese (台語) or Hakka (客家語), depending on where the church was located. Having proficiency in either language is an accomplishment that very few foreigners, including myself, are able to claim.

Due to the lack of information available about the churches, it’s difficult to pin down any precise information about when this specific building was abandoned, but from personal experience (I’ve been driving by the place for quite a while), it’s been abandoned for at least over a decade.

Coming with the main church building, a bell tower, classrooms and an office building next door, the entire complex has been overtaken by nature in recent years. When I first visited a few years back, it was obvious that someone was still maintaining the grounds, but they’ve stopped in recent years.

Navigating your way through the brush that has grown up in the administrative section next to the church, you’ll find that this is the area that seems the most dated. The building was gutted at some point, leaving very little remaining, but a skeleton of the original building. To the rear, you’ll find a space that was likely used as an office for the staff at the church. This section of the building is in better shape, but its completely empty as well. 

The main attraction here though is the interior of the church, which is quite beautiful in the right light.

Like the other buildings, not much remains within the interior as all of the chairs and decorations have been removed, leaving a mostly empty shell of what was once there. Having all of the clutter removed though isn’t necessarily a terrible thing as you’re able to get a much better perspective of its architectural design.

Just above the main doors to the building there is an open second level where you were likely to have found a piano at some point. This is also the space connected to the bell tower where staff would be able to ring the bell before services started. The second floor is reachable by a beautiful, yet very narrow set of spiral stairs.

From the top there isn’t much space, but you get a nice view of the interior as well as the stained glass windows that would have provided some excellent natural light during the early morning and afternoon. 

Likewise on both sides of the building you’ll find stained glass windows, some of which are broken, but are still quite beautiful. As someone who comes from North America, these windows are one of those familiar things that you don’t see too often in Taiwan, but are a welcome inclusion to the exploration experience. 

The pulpit area is where being abandoned to the elements has had the most detrimental effect to the interior as the wooden stage is in pretty rough shape. You have to be careful while walking on it as any step could find yourself sinking through the moldy wood.

Similarly, the curved ceiling is in pretty bad shape with some of the wooden panels starting to fall off.

One thing that I didn’t actually notice until I got home was that the ceiling was home to several large wasp nests, which actually makes exploring the church quite dangerous if they’re annoyed by your presence.

The only object that actually remains within the church is the altar at the read of the building. The simple table stands in a space just behind where the priest would have stood to give his sermons.

To the left of the altar was a rear exit to the building and to the right is a cubicle space that I’m going to assume was used as a confessional, but it’s in pretty bad shape so its hard to tell for sure. 

Suffice to say, there isn’t all that much to see at this ruin. If you’re able to find it, you’ll be able to explore the space and take an ample amount of photos in less than half an hour. 

You may find that some my earlier statements about the church somewhat negative, but I assure you, I’m ambivalent about all of it. People are free to believe in whatever makes them feel better. Christianity has played a massive role throughout our history, so it would be sad to see it completely disappear, but then again throughout our history some pretty terrible things have happened because of religion.

Back home in Canada, the nation is currently wrestling with the absolutely disgusting history of our so-called ‘residential school system’, where the church ran boarding schools for Indigenous peoples across the country. Now, after more than a century, we’re only recently starting to discover the horrible truth of what actually took place at these death camps, which is a stain on our nation, and is likely to drive people further away from the church. 

Who knows, maybe during my next trip home, I’ll be able to explore abandoned churches like this one!

Khóo Tsú-song Mansion (許梓桑古厝)

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Over the past few months I’ve spent quite a bit of time either in or around Taiwan’s northern port city of Keelung, one of my favorite places to visit. While some might argue that it’s an old, uninteresting city that is constantly raining, I tend to see it in a different light as these things are part of its romantic charm.

Walking around Keelung never fails to be a rewarding experience, and you can learn much about Taiwan’s history while exploring the city. This is especially true in recent years as the city has invested quite a bit in its history, with the restoration of a number of historic buildings that have been reopened as cultural attractions.

With historic attractions spanning from Dutch and Spanish Formosa, the Qing Dynasty, the Japanese-era and the post-war period, a visit to Keelung puts travelers in a unique position to be learn about places of interest that span a wide variety of Taiwan’s history.

With so many historic buildings being restored and re-opening as cultural attractions, especially those from the Japanese-era, I have a long list of places to visit, as well as a long list of places that I need to write about. So, I’ll happily be spending a considerable amount of time exploring the city over the next few years as it seems like there is always something new to see and do in Keelung!

Today, I’ll be introducing an historic Japanese-era mansion that sits atop a hill within the downtown core of the city. While it has received a bit of attention in recent years, the long abandoned mansion, once home to a prolific local political figure, lays ruined as decades of abandonment have been rather unkind. While only a short walk from the city’s popular night market, the mansion remains somewhat obscure and is surprisingly only popular among those interested in history or urban exploration, like myself.

Unfortunately, even though the Keelung City Government has invested a considerable amount of public funds restoring historic buildings within the city, it doesn’t seem like this beautiful old mansion is on the list of properties to restore. There are of course a number of reasons for this, which I’ll detail below.

Thankfully, local civic groups have taken an interest in its upkeep, and have striven to clean it up and maintain the grounds until the time comes when it can receive some official attention.

Until recently there has been very little coverage about the mansion in the English language, save for an excellent article by my friend at Spectral Codex, I figured it was about time to provide my own take on the mansion and its history. I highly recommend anyone reading this to take some time to read his piece on the mansion as he’s a much more thoughtful writer than I am.

Link: Khoo Tsu-song Old House 許梓桑古厝 (Spectral Codex)

Before I start introducing the mansion, I think it’s important to first offer a brief profile of the prolific figure who lived in it, so that you can better understand its historical significance.

Khóo Tsú-song (許梓桑)

Walking nearby the historic mansion today, you’ll find one of the typical brown road signs that indicates a cultural or historic attraction. The sign reads, “Xu, Zi-Sang Historical Home (許梓桑古厝).”

Likely to confuse most foreign tourists, the name “Xu Zi-Sang” is the pinyin romanization of “Khóo Tsú-song,” who arguably happens to be one of the most prolific Taiwanese-born figures in Keelung’s modern history, known locally by another name: the First Person of Keelung (基隆第一人).

Why they chose to go with the pinyin romanization rather than using the Taiwanese-Hokkien pronunciation is a head-scratcher - it’s certainly not how anyone would have addressed him while he was alive.

Born in Keelung in 1874 (同治13年), Khóo was brought up by his mother, who was widowed when he was quite young. The heir to the Khóo family and its fortune, as a young child he was afforded the opportunity of receiving a private education, at a time when a formal education was a rare thing in Taiwan.

Preparing for years to take the Civil Service Exam (科舉), Khóo was highly regarded for his literary prowess, especially when it came to poetry. Suffice to say, by the time he was prepared to take the exam, China found itself at war with Japan, resulting in an embarrassing defeat, and the loss of Taiwan in the process.

When Japanese forces arrived in Keelung to take control of the island, many of Khóo’s intellectual contemporaries, couldn’t accept being ruled by a foreign power, so they hopped boats with other Qing officials and left the island. The reality of Khóo’s situation however was a bit more complicated. As the twenty-one year old head of his clan, it would have been difficult for him to abandon his family, their fortune and their land holdings here in Taiwan.

So, instead of becoming a refugee from his place of birth, he made the decision to instead work with the incoming regime as the Japanese authorities sought out local scholars to work together to assist in stabilizing the political vacuum left by the outgoing regime.

This is where opinions on the man diverge as some would point their fingers and call him a traitor, while others would laud the great contributions he made over a life as a public servant - No matter what political side you take, it would be an understatement to say that Khóo’s legacy continues to reverberate in the city today, and his efforts to maintain local cultural traditions have ensured that we are still able to celebrate those traditions today.

Starting his career as a public servant at the age of twenty-one, Khóo assisted in the effort to maintain social order with the income regime, and was quickly appointed as an official in the Keelung City Office (基隆街庄長事務所書記). Keeping in mind that the Japanese used the port city as a staging point for their armed forces to make their way further inland, it was of the utmost importance that Keelung remained stable, and Khóo played an important role in ensuring that the transition went smoothly.

Having been afforded a private education while growing up, Khóo took it upon himself to adapt to the new reality by establishing a Japanese-language school (國語訓練班) for locals, and hired a private tutor to accelerate his own learning process. For his efforts, in 1901 (明治34年) he was awarded a ‘blue-ribbon’ award (藍綬紳章) by the Governor General, a highly prestigious award for someone of his youth.

Amazingly, in 1903 (明治36) at the age of twenty-nine, Khóo was appointed to a position that was essentially mayor of Keelung (基隆街庄長), and as time went by his career continued to advance as the mayor of Keelung District (基隆區長), and as congressperson of Taipei Prefecture (臺北州協議會員), receiving numerous commendations from the Governors Office in Taipei throughout his career.

Still, it’s important to keep in mind that apart from his career in public service, Khóo remained in his role as chief of the Khóo clan, as well as a prominent member of society making time to take part in local literary societies as well as serving as head of one of Keelung’s most important places of worship.

As one of the administrators of Keelung’s Qing-an Temple (慶安宮), Khóo’s influence ensured that the temple’s Mid-summer Ghost Festival remained the most prominent religious celebration in the city throughout the colonial era. Thanks to his political power, the scale of festival was larger than any of the other local religious festivals, especially those held by the local Shinto Shrines. This is one of the areas where Khóo’s influence continues to reverberate today as the annual Ghost Month celebrations in Keelung continue to be one of the busiest times of the year in the city, steeped in tradition that goes back hundreds of years.

Note: If you find yourself visiting Keelung checking out the mansion and the night market, I can’t recommend enough that you also stop by the beautiful Qing-an Temple, one of the prettiest and most historic places of worship in the city, dating back to 1780 and is one of the three most important temples in Keelung (基隆三大廟).

Interestingly, despite all of his achievements, little is known about his personal life, and even though he constructed a giant mansion for himself in the middle of the city, much of his prominence came crashing to the ground when the Japanese were forced to surrender Taiwan at the end of the Second World War.

Given the atrocities that took place when the Chinese Nationalists took control of Taiwan in the post-war era, its safe to say that Khóo saved himself quite a bit of misery by instead passing away at the at the age of seventy-one that same year.

Despite all of his achievements, his collaboration with the Japanese throughout his career would have landed him in a precarious situation with the nationalists and he would have likely ended up being just another one of the nameless faces floating face up at the port of Keelung.

In retrospect, one could argue that even though he worked with the Japanese to advance his career, he spent a considerable amount of time and effort working to preserve Taiwanese culture and traditions at a time when things like this were frowned upon - and given the era for which he lived, the architectural design of his mansion is arguably a pretty good indicator of what kind of man he was.

Qìngyú Hall (慶餘堂)

Growing up in what we’d consider prime real estate within Keelung, the Khóo family constructed their family home in what was known during the Qing Dynasty as ‘Hsintien town’ (新店街), stretching from the harbor front and encompassing much of the city’s historic economic district. Home to three of the city’s most important places of worship, Dianji Temple (奠濟宮), Qing’an Temple (慶安宮), and the City God Temple (城隍廟) as well as the Kanziding Fish Market (崁仔頂魚市), it would have been the most important section of town prior to the city’s expansion during the Japanese-era.

Within a few short years of the Japanese occupation, the colonial government proposed some pretty ambitious urban renewal and development plans (市區改正) for many of Taiwan’s major towns and cities. In the early 1900s, planning for Keelung was finalized, and with Khóo at the helm, the government went ahead with some unpopular land-expropriation initiatives. Little is written on the subject, but I can imagine that official messaging on the touchy subject went over a little smoother when citizens realized that not even the Khóo’s family home would be spared in the process.

Link: 臺灣日治時期都市計畫 (Wiki)

Having little to no public works in the city, the renewal plans essentially re-shaped Keelung and modernized it by improving roads, adding an electricity grid, and constructing public works that took care of sanitation and sewage as well as offering citizens access to clean running water for the first time.

In 1909 (明知42年), the family moved to a new home where they would live for the next two decades. It was in this home that Khóo famously held his poetry and literature society meetings, promoting Chinese classics and Taiwanese literature.

At the age of 57, close to retirement, Khóo had a new mansion built for his family on a nearby hill, nicknamed by locals as “Major-General’s Mountain” (少將腳), given that it was also home to one of the Japanese forces commanders in Keelung.

Note: It’s reported that when was asked why he constructed his mansion on the hill, he remarked that in his golden years that he hoped for peace and quiet and a house constantly full of visitors couldn’t really achieve that. Basically he wasn’t just retiring from a life as a civil servant, but also as a public figure.

Completed in 1931 (昭和6年), the Khóo family mansion was officially named ‘Qìngyú Hall’ (慶餘堂), a pretty common title for traditional residences, hailing from an ancient Chinese idiom about ‘longevity’ and ‘greatness’ (積善之家，必有餘慶). In this specific case however, I find the name of the mansion interesting given Khóo’s background as an administrator at the nearby Qing-an Temple (慶安宮), which shares the same first Chinese character as the name he chose for his mansion. Coincidence? Possibly.

While technically located within the same area of the city as the family’s original residence, this time the mansion was constructed on a hill overlooking the commercial district and the port. With other well-off neighbors, the hill would have been a nice spot to live with great views of the hustle and bustle of the city.

That being said, the family were only able to live in the mansion for about a decade until the Second World War brought with it allied bombing campaigns and Keelung one of the most important targets. For their own protection, the family moved to another location on what they thought would be a temporary basis, however even though the mansion escape destruction, Khóo Tsú-song never returned.

Passing away just as the war ended, the mansion became home to several families of Chinese refugees who illegally squatted in the building for quite a while, and as time passed by, the ownership rights of the family seems to have deteriorated, and weren’t recognized by the new government. While it is not entirely supported by evidence, there are claims that the ownership rights of the family were disregarded by authoritarian government of the time as Khóo was considered a ‘collaborator’ with the Japanese Colonial Government and was a traitor, despite his legacy being one that is fondly remembered by locals. Nevertheless, the continued confusion as to the status of the mansion’s ownership is one of the main reasons why the Keelung City Government has been powerless to have the site fixed up.

When the mansion was ultimately abandoned is unclear, but it’s been empty for decades and the years have not been kind as much of the wood has rotted, the roof caved in, and anything on the interior was looted. As mentioned above, local civic groups however have taken an interest and over the past decade have been organizing volunteer groups to assist in cleaning up the site, which attracts quite a bit of garbage.

But its not likely that we’ll see much official effort to restore the building for the foreseeable future.

Architectural Design

As mentioned above, what remains of the mansion today is merely an empty shell of its former glory. Nevertheless, from what little remains and with the assistance of historic records, we can get a pretty good idea of how the mansion would have appeared in the 1930s.

Before I go into detail, I think it’s important to point something out that I briefly touched on earlier - I haven’t really seen this mentioned in any of the articles I’ve read about the man, or the mansion while researching for this article, so I’d like to point out that the narrative that Khóo Tsú-song was somehow a race traitor is a questionable one.

Khóo was a highly-educated man and especially gifted when it came to Chinese literature. However, when it came time for him to take his Imperial exam, the Japanese took control of Taiwan and the Qing Dynasty ended shortly thereafter. As a young man having to adapt to Japanese Colonial control, he dedicated his life to a career of public service and the development of the city he called home.

When it came time for Khóo to start considering retirement, he constructed a new mansion in his home town. Built during the Showa-era (昭和), when construction techniques in Taiwan were at their most refined, he could have easily had a Japanese-style mansion built for himself, and it would have been beautiful given the views of the city and the port at the time - But he didn’t do that - he paid homage to his heritage and constructed a traditional Fujian-style mansion on that hill almost as if he was making a bold statement about his cultural heritage.

That being said, Keelung is and always has been an international city, so even though the mansion takes most of its architectural inspiration from the traditional Fujian-style architecture that is so common in Taiwan, it is also an eclectic mixture of Japanese and Western influences in addition to making use of modern construction materials and techniques.

A traditional three-sided courtyard building (閩南式三合院建築), Khóo’s mansion is a two-floor structure that also included a basement. Essentially a three floor building, it was constructed with a mixture of brick and concrete using the ubiquitous Taiwan Renga (台灣煉瓦株式會社) red bricks made during the colonial era.

Note: These famed bricks can be found in many of the buildings from that era and amazingly remain in great shape today. So, if you look closely while touring the mansion, you may find bricks with “TR” printed on the top of them.

Suffice to say, the vast majority of the three-sided courtyard houses that you’ll find in Taiwan these days are single-floor buildings. This one remains quite special because it was constructed on the side of a mountain, which was carved in a way that allowed it to have a basement and two floors. The top floor was where the traditional design was most prevalent featuring a main section and ‘guardian dragon’ wings (護龍) on the left and right as well as a courtyard in front.

Interestingly, the ‘courtyard,’ here appears similar to its contemporaries, but is mostly just a flat section of the roof that covers the floors below. With this in mind, the top floor of the mansion is considerably smaller than the two floors below, but is also the most ornate part of the building. Likely used by the family as an ancestral shrine (given Khóo’s position as the head of the family) as well as providing a living space for the family’s servants within the wings, the architectural prowess used here was quite genius in its design.

Note: The Neihu Red House (內湖紅樓) might be of interest regarding brick Japanese-era mansions constructed with a fusion of architectural design.

Like many Hokkien-style buildings, the mansion was beautifully decorated with ornate cut-porcelain carvings (剪瓷雕) of flowers and birds and features some pretty cool bamboo windows (竹節圓窗) on either side of the door on the main wing. Similarly, one of the distinctive design features of the building are the ox-eye windows (牛眼窗) that you’ll find on each of the wings, which are Western Baroque-inspired inclusions.

Unfortunately there isn’t much I can say about the design of the floors below as they have been pretty much emptied out. The stairs and anything else that once existed inside on both the first floor and the basement have disappeared over the years as the mansion was left to rot and open to looters.

The last thing I’ll highlight about the design is the stone-washed triangular staircase located in the center-front of the building that allowed visitors to reach the top floor from the outside. Today, this set of stairs is pretty much the only method for visitors to reach the top floor of the building as the wooden stairs within the interior of the building have rotted away and were removed at some point over the past few decades.

The stairs are part of a network of stairs that were constructed especially for the mansion as there are two paths from ground level that were constructed for the building.

In the records that I’ve seen, it was reported that when the mansion was under construction, it was far too expensive to have laborers carry the bricks for the building up the hill, so Khóo enlisted the help of local children who were paid a cent for every brick that they carried up the hill.

Today, the mansion lies in ruins with the roof having already caved in and the staircases between floors taken away (likely by volunteers for the safety of those visiting). Although it is an empty shell of its former self, the building has interestingly been overtaken by nature with trees and roots growing along the outer walls of the mansion reminiscent of the popular Anping Tree House (安平樹屋) in Tainan.

The Keelung City Government for its part has set up some plaques with information about the mansion’s history, and the set of stairs that leads you from ground level to the mansion has been adorned with some interesting murals depicting the building in its original state. Unfortunately for the reasons mentioned above, that’s about the extent of what they’re able to do at this point until the legal situation of its ownership is settled. Visiting the mansion is pretty easy as it is a simple detour from the popular Miaokou Night Market area, so if you are planning on enjoying a day exploring the city, it shouldn’t take you too long to get there to check it out.

Getting There

 

Address: #15, Lane #2 Aisi Road, Keelung (基隆市仁愛區愛四路2巷15號)

GPS: 25.127360, 121.744070

Situated on a hill that overlooks Keelung Harbor, the long-abandoned mansion is currently obscured by all of the modern buildings that have been constructed around it. For decades it has been hidden in plain sight within close proximity to the city’s famed Miaokou Night Market with most unaware of its existence.

These days, it is a bit more well-known, but still somewhat of an obscure tourist site within the city that the vast majority of tourists tend to miss.

The area around Keelung Harbor is very walkable, so if you find yourself in the city looking for something to do before the sun goes down and the night market comes to life, a stop by this historic mansion is a pretty great option given its close proximity.

In a departure from my usual style, I’m only going to be providing walking directions for this one. The reason for this is because the mansion is in pretty close proximity to the night market, so if you take the train to the city, you can get there pretty easily. On the other hand, if you’re driving a car, you’re going to have to park in one of the parking garages near the night market and you’ll end up walking from the there.

The narrow roads near the night market don’t really make the route to the mansion accessible most of the time, and if you attempt it, you’ll likely find yourself stuck for quite some time, without any opportunity to find a parking spot nearby. So, if you’ve got a car, park it somewhere near the harbor and walk around the downtown core. It’ll be a far more enjoyable experience, I promise you.

Walking through the night market area on Rensan Road, you’ll make a right turn on Aisi Road (愛四路) where you’ll continue walking until the narrow road starts to curve right. When it does you’ll notice a set of stairs on the left side of the road with a brown sign that (probably still) reads “Xu, Zi-Sang Historical Home.”

From there you’ll simply walk up the hill where you’ll find the mansion at the end.

Along the way you’ll want to take note of some of the murals on the walls that depict how the mansion originally appeared.

Once you arrive, you’ll want to be careful of where you’re walking as you explore as some of the sections of the mansion aren’t as stable, especially in the areas where the stairs between floors once existed.

Watching over the modern development of Taiwan’s Northern Port City for almost a century, the old Khóo mansion is one of the city’s historic treasures, and even though it is in pretty bad shape, its continued existence is an important look into the history of the city. While it might seem like a somewhat obscure tourist destination, if you find yourself in Keelung and have a bit of time, visiting won’t take too much of your time, and you’ll be rewarded with a nice view of the city when you’re there.

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