urbex

Abandoned Tea Factory

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.


Abandoned Church (廢棄的教堂)

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!


Abandoned Resort (廢棄的俱樂部)

Shortly after my arrival in Taiwan, I was eager to maintain the same level of fitness that I was able to enjoy during my university days. Finding a health club to work out at was important, but at that time, gyms in Taiwan weren’t as popular then as they are now, and with so few options, I decided to go with the one that seemed to have the best reputation.

After asking around, one of my new friends and I marched into the local gym and negotiated a year-long membership. It was at this time that we discovered that negotiating a gym membership in Taiwan was a bit like purchasing a used car, and it was likely that we were taken for a bit of a ride by an eager salesperson. The facilities however were top notch and the membership fee seemed comparable to what we were used to back home, so we bit the bullet and agreed to the terms.

For a couple of months after, we enjoyed the gym on an almost daily basis, heading over early in the morning for a workout and then making our way to a local breakfast restaurant to enjoy our new love, Taiwanese egg pancakes..

Randomly, one day we showed up to the gym and the doors were barred shut with a group of regulars standing outside scratching their heads wondering what was going on.

Over the next few days, the local media reported steadily on what had happened as it became a sensational national scandal, affecting tens of thousands of members across the various branches around the country.

Needless to say, a number of factors came together to shine a light on a disastrous business operation that resulting in all of us being defrauded of our membership fees thanks to one of the major shareholders more or less escaping to China with bags of stolen cash.

Having been a member for only a few months, my friend and I lost about 75% of the money we paid for our memberships, but the news reported that the company had continued searching for new members up until the doors were barred shut, so in retrospect our losses might not have been all that bad.

Nevertheless, it was a huge scandal, and I learned a valuable lesson because of it.

That being said, this wasn’t the first national ‘health club’ scandal of its kind, and today I’m going to be sharing photos from a luxurious club, which for quite a while was frequented by the rich and famous of the country.

Abandoned now for two decades, this giant resort and health club collected massive membership fees from its members, and its sudden closure, much like the health club where I lost money, continues to reverberate around the country today, with almost two thousand of its former employees and members financially shortchanged due to some pretty shady business operations.

Admittedly, it has been a while since I’ve posted an Urban Exploration-related article, so let me take a minute to offer some important reminders about this article: First, I won’t be offering the specific travel information that I usually provide for the places I write about; If you’re reading this and looking at the photos thinking its a place you’d like to check out, please don’t contact me to ask where it is.

I’ll leave enough clues for you to figure that out on your own.

Even though I’ll provide some clues, I will be purposely vague with the information provided about the backstory of this massive ruin, but if you do find yourself invested enough in figuring out where it is, I’m sure you won’t have too much trouble.

Ultimately, this post will more or less just let the photos do the talking.

Abandoned Resort (廢棄的俱樂部)

Most of the time, when I explore abandoned buildings, I don’t post very much about them.

You won’t often see me sharing photos on any of my social media accounts, and it’s even more rare that I write articles about them, unless of course they have some important historic value.

Few of the places I’ve explore though have ever come close to the size of this one.

Exploring this place took the better part of an afternoon and the reason I’ve decided to write about it due to its ostentatious architectural design.

Abandoned for two decades, this 13,000㎡ (4000坪) resort featured a number of amenities including a health club, swimming pool, tennis courts, basketball courts, restaurants, bars, sauna, massage room, banquet space, etc.

With a focus on luxury, lifetime membership fees were reportedly priced at $500,000NT per family ($17,000 USD), with an additional $5000NT ($160USD) monthly service fee.

Basically a pricing scheme that would have weeded out the riffraff like myself.

Despite the high cost for membership, the resort reportedly boasted 1500 members prior to going out of business. It’s unclear however whether or not the number of ‘members’ included the family of paying members. Nevertheless, with such a high cost for participation, one might assume that there must have been some epic stupidity involved in a place like this going out of business.

In addition to the resort facilities, space was also reserved for outside events in its large fully-equipped banquet hall, that would have provided a high-class experience for weddings or corporate banquets with cuisine that appeared to specialize in the Cantonese style of dining. Featuring a banquet hall for large events and several smaller rooms to the side, the banquet space of the resort in addition to the adjacent restaurants made up for a large section of the actual space in the main building.

Essentially split into three sections, the main building features five above ground floors with two sub-ground floors. As mentioned above, much of the space is reserved as banquet and restaurant space, but you’ll also find the main lobby and customer service sections. The upper floors featured restaurants reserved for members in addition to a fully stocked bar and pool hall.

As far the resort area is concerned though, most of the facilities were located below ground with a squash court, gym, massage rooms, sauna and spa, children’s play area, dance hall, yoga room and entertainment room. On the level below that were the administrative sections of the resort as well as the staff change rooms.

Connected directly to the resort area of the basement was a passageway that led directly to the retractable-roof covered pool area where members could enjoy the sun and go for a swim. Finally, connected directly to the pool area is another large building that featured a car park on the lower levels and a tennis court above.

Having been abandoned for two decades with little-to-no upkeep, the interior of the building remains in relatively good shape, especially since some areas have been open to the elements for years and given its proximity to the coast. When abandoned, the place wasn’t gutted, so you can still find quite a few interesting items inside that allow you to easily date when the place went out of business.

That being said, in recent years a considerable amount of vandalism and theft has taken place within the building. While much of what remains inside that would have been of some value is outdated and unusable in terms of the electronic equipment, the vast majority of visitors you’ll find in the building aren’t respectful urban explorers, but scavengers who are ripping up the walls in order to tear out electrical wiring, which can be sold for a significant amount of money.

Obviously, it’s highly unlikely that this resort will ever be revived, nor will any of the people who lost money be refunded. Its situation however is a complex one as the business group that ran the resort and the actual landowner are different. Eventually the landowner may just decide to have the whole thing torn down with plans to make better use of the land. As time has passed, the scandal involved in the closure of the business and its members being defrauded has been largely forgotten, but recent developments with Taiwan’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic have brought what happened back to the limelight with the former owner of the resort resurfacing and becoming a public figure once again.

And there is your clue.

As mentioned above, what attracted me most about this resort was the massive size of the ruin - It’s rare that we’re able to explore a ruin so large as spaces like this are usually repurposed quite quickly, especially here in this part of the country. Taking into consideration that this was a luxury resort for the rich and famous, the architectural design of the interior is large and open and one of the coolest aspects are the stairs in the main building, which are quite uncommon in Taiwan.

Spending the better part of a day exploring this place, one visit really doesn’t seem enough as there is so much that you can see while inside the building. This is especially true with all of the random objects strewn about the lower levels, notably including VHS cassettes of classic cartoons, Windows and MS-DOS floppy discs, old arcade machines, old magazines, newspapers, etc.

While exploring a ruin like this, the objects left behind are often able to paint a picture of the history of the building making the exploration process considerably more interesting.

Even though a considerable amount of what probably once existed within the building has been looted, there is still a treasure trove available for explorers to enjoy.

Anyway, that’s all for this one. Enjoy the photos.