found this fb photo page with photos of Tainan after 1945’s March 1st American bombing
facebook.com/newansun/media … 0110899381
didn’t know so many temples were bombed as well.
A photo of an Aboriginal building back in 1910. Likely a Puyuma Takuvan (Youth Warrior House).
Taipei train station during the Japanese era, build around 1901. The statue depicts Hasegawa Kinsuke (長谷川 謹介), the father of Taiwan railroad. Hasegawa passed away in 1909, the statue was built in 1911 to commemorate his contributions.
pizza hut train station today
Before the Japanese, Taipei train station looked like a barn shed without walls.
In 1923, they added another attached train station to service Banka line on the other side of the main train station.
That building was later burnt down… The area is still known today as Houchezhan (後車站).
The Japanese Taipei station is not at the same location as today’s Pizza hut train station.
After the war, KMT continued to use the Japanese train station until 1978. However, this is what their remodelling looked like.
When they decided to move the railway under ground, they built a temporary train station.
The pizza hut train station was completed back in 1989.
This is what the spot of the original train station looks like today:
I love the buggy in the top picture. I think we all ought to be riding around in those (electrically-powered of course, Segway style). Much more genteel that all those bloody scooters.
I think this is what you are looking for
There’s an old train car and a plaque about the Houchezhan here (on its original location I think)
Taipei’s East gate (Jing-de gate) before 1966 and during the 2014 Sunflower protest.
Ever wonder why the KMT insists that the gate in front of the presidential palace is a “historical building” even though it bizarrely has KMT emblems on it?
I was a bit surprised to find out that the Japanese didn’t tear down most of Taipei’s gates. They did tear down the walls to make way for rail and main road ways, but most of the city gates were in tact.
Taipei city had 5 gates, East, West, North, South, Little South. In 1905 the Japanese torn down the west gate. The Japanese prefecture declared the rest historical buildings and had them protected by law in 1935. The buildings remained the way they looked until 1966.
All of Taipei city’s original gates were Fujian style buildings. KMT decided they needed to make the city prettier, so except for the North gate, they “renovated” all the gates to have a northern Chinese appearance. They also added KMT emblems to them, just in case these “new” gates weren’t pretty enough. They didn’t renovate the North gate, because they planned to tear it down.
So in reality, with the exception of the North gate, rest of the gates are hardly historical buildings, the KMT’s outcry against people painting white over the KMT emblem on the grounds of protecting historical buildings is just ironic.
I like the red car.
Wow, the original East Gate looks just like the North Gate.
[quote=“hansioux”]
Taipei city had 5 gates, East, West, North, South, Little South. [/quote]
I heard the reason there were five gates instead of four is that there were two rival clans in the area. They didn’t want to share the same gate, so one of them decided to build a fifth gate for its own use
Thank god they didn’t. The only problem with the North Gate right now is it’s very hard to get to with all the heavy traffic around it. Mayor Ke said he will make the gate more approachable for pedestrians with a plan to overhaul the area.
There another smaller gate on the northeast corner of Linsen and Renai next to Y-17. Anyone know the story behind that gate?
[quote=“Incubus”]
There another smaller gate on the northeast corner of Linsen and Ren’ai next to Y-17. Anyone know the story behind that gate?[/quote]
[strike]If I am not mistaken, the tiny gate is all that’s left of the Nishi Honganji (西本願寺)[/strike]
well, I was mistaken. The bell tower belongs to antoher Japanese temple, the Tōwa temple (東和禅寺). It was a Soto Zen Buddhism branch here in Taiwan (曹洞宗大本山臺灣別院).
sniper99.pixnet.net/blog/post/10 … 5%E7%9C%9F
The tower back then.
The bell tower after 1949. The tower itself is surrounded by refugee dwellings.
blog.udn.com/cty43115/1211691
some refugee once lived in the tower
geocaching.com.tw/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2167
The bell tower today
tonyhuang39.com/tony0306.html
photo of Towa temple.
blog.xuite.net/hsu042/twblog1/12 … A%E3%80%91
So it’s not a gate but a bell tower? Good thing the KMT didn’t alter this one. Nice investigation. :bravo:
Incidentally, the newly renovated Nishi Honganji has a bell tower too with an actual bell in it. Yup, Taipei has its own Liberty Bell too.
Wow, I was there just three weeks ago! The bell tower is today on the grounds of some branch of the Taipei government focusing on youth, although the building has a number of commercial tenants as well (including a restaurant I was eating at). I remember walking under the bell tower and thinking that it was an unusual structure; my uncle said something about the history but I wasn’t paying enough attention.
This one they fixed up nice at least. Ten or fifteen years ago it was forgotten on the way into a squatter’s village and pretty ratty.
Taiwan photo series by Mr. Kent Mathieu, who came to Taiwan with the USAF back in the 1960s.
One photo dates the series to be around October 10th, 1962.
facebook.com/daming.yeh/med … 078&type=1
Most of the pictures were taken in Southern Taiwan, and it looked amazing.
As for Taipei:
That’s Yuanshan without the hotel.
There’s also a billboard for The Yellow Rolls-Royce (1964).
Chiang Baldie
Near today’s Taipei Story House. US military base used to be across the street. Anyone could name that tri-color flag next to the ROC flag?
Taipei train station remodelled from the original Japanese structure
in rural Taiwan, this used to be the standard living quarters…
that’s probably at Guandu.
Gods procession
harvest
[quote=“hansioux”] Anyone could name that tri-color flag next to the ROC flag?
[/quote]
Madagascar?
[quote=“Incubus”][quote=“hansioux”] Anyone could name that tri-color flag next to the ROC flag?
[/quote]
Madagascar?[/quote]
I think you are right, I thought the lower color is blue.
Interesting the see the Keelung River in its original course at left, in the are to the south of where Jiantan Station is now.
That’s Hao Bo-Tsun behind him, right?
[quote=“Tempo Gain”]
That’s Hao Bo-Tsun behind him, right?[/quote]
[strike]you are probably right, that’s Hao doing a blue steel look.[/strike]
hmm, looked at Hao’s wiki, maybe that’s not him. I don’t think he earned a spot behind the Chiangs until 1981.
That might be 彭孟緝 Peng Mengqi doing a blue steel look.
Peng is famous for his massacres in Kaohsiung during aftermath of 228. He’s known as the Butcher of Kaohsiung.
I kind of like how green and less developed Taiwan was at that time. Today, housing projects creep up every possible slope, and that does NOT make Taiwan a more beautiful place.
that picture of Guandu could almost pass for Kualoa