Weirdest temple in Taiwan?

男人石 (Man Stone) in Taidong isn’t exactly a temple, but many people go there to pray for fertility and such. It’s a unique place to take visiting friends and relatives. Google Image search the Chinese to see what you’ve probably already guessed about it.

2 Likes

It isn’t a temple but it’s a Catholic church. I visited it today. It’s been designed and built in a traditional Chinese style, therefore it looks bizarre.

CKS’s mausoleum is in Cihu, Taoyuan.

Yes, but at Cihu people worship him like a supreme leader, not a deity. Hokwongwei and I are talking about a row of CKS statues sitting on a shrine with incense and offerings, and people actually praying to the statues as if the CKS god is going to grant their wishes.

I knew about the “temple” church in Hong Kong but didn’t know about this one. Interesting!

I wonder if there’s a “church” style temple somewhere.

Heh, I walk past that temple/church every day, it always has a creepy life-size cardboard model of the pope outside.

There was one inside when I was visiting. Well creepy.

went there today. seems to be renovated. disappointed that i couldn’t find a basement with a grave, even though i asked the staff. there was another dog temple around the corner too with a huge statue, still not sure why there are two temples… was pretty awesome though overall and cool to learn about this place and the ‘ghost’ part of taiwan temples.

Catholic churches typically have a picture of the current pope hanging around somewhere. Some may go a different route and put up a life-size cardboard cut-out. I’ve seen instances of that elsewhere. Not too atypical.

As for creepy, well there’s plenty of comments on Pope Francis and what he’s doing under his papacy on the Internet. I’ll leave it as such (and I state that as a practicing Catholic).

I often find unusual temples while doing my favorite hobby, geocaching. Here are three that I like:

  1. Da Yi Temple (大義宮) on Penghu This 200-year-old temple is dedicated to Guan Yu (關羽), my favorite Taoist character. The unusual part is the grotto under the temple, with its sea turtles and other marine life.

  2. San Jiao Du Tian De Temple (三腳渡天德宮) in Shilin This tudigong, located on an embankment of the Keelung River, is built on lifts which allows the entire temple to be raised up 7 meters to prevent flooding. It’s the only lift temple in Taiwan.

  3. Wuchang Temple 武昌宮 in Nantou Located in Jiji Township, the epicenter of the devastating 921 earthquake, Wuchang Temple’s upper floors collapsed onto the first floor. A new temple has been built next door, but the original pancaked structure remains as an eerie reminder of that day.

4 Likes

Well, there is even some worship towards Chen Chin-hsing, the murderer of Bai Ping-ping’s daughter, who alsokidnapped the South African ambassador’s family.

I call it the floating Temple.

Some temples in Taipei have a God that protects prostitutes. Haven’t seen this actual event in Taiwan, but you can watch the girls in Thailand and Singapore stop and give offerings on their way to work at night asking for safety with nice customers that give them good money.

Ok, I was doing some reading on the Rover incident and came across this gem in Kenting:

image

The title of the Goddess is Princess of Eight Jewels (八寶公主). The locals say it’s a Dutch princess named Margaret who came back to Taiwan in search for her lover. Her ship sunk at Dawan bay, and was raided by the Paiwan tribe of Kuarut (龜仔甪社). At first the Aboriginals didn’t kill the princess because it was in their tradition not to kill women, but when the raiders returned to the village, an envious villager wanted in on the action and returned to the beach in search for loot. There was nothing left but the 8 jewelries on the princess, and the villager killed her. The action caused wrath and nearby villages were attacked by foreign soldiers. To avoid being attacked, all the villages banned raising roosters, fearing foreign soldiers would find them following their crow.

The temple was build in 1934, during the Japanese era, when the princess came to a local’s dream, asking him to build her a ship so she can return home. After fulfilling the demand and building the ship, the princess thanked him in his dream and promised to repay him by protecting the village.

The time and event of the story match the Rover Incident. So the “Princess Goddess” is likely not Dutch, but the wife of Captain Hunt, Mercy G. Beerman Hunt, which would make her an American.

6 Likes

I’ve seen that temple next to the parking lot and was curious but never investigated. Good info.

1 Like

Come to think of it, Beerman is a Dutch name…

1 Like

At least they had enough sense to stick it behind the temple…

1 Like

Zhenxing Gong, the leaning temple of Jiayi.

8 Likes

Wow! Can you go in?

I’m glad the photo included the Chinese characters because I couldn’t find anything online about this temple using pinyin. Now that I’ve located it, it’s time to visit and add a geocache :grin:

太和振興宮
05 266 1833

4 Likes