Return to Losheng Sanatorium (樂生療養院)

February 18, 2018 in Photo Post, New Taipei City, Urban Exploration, Taoyuan

Since I opened this website a few years back, one of my most consistently popular blog posts is the one I wrote about the abandoned Losheng Sanatorium in New Taipei City.

The Japanese-era sanatorium is one of the most accessible abandoned buildings in northern Taiwan and is one where beginner Urban Explorers are able to get their feet wet with an expansive hospital complex with a considerable amount of left bedding historic materials.

Even though the Sanatorium has been abandoned for several decades and offers easy access, it is important to remember that the area is still home to a community of people who suffered from leprosy and never felt like they were able to fully rejoin society.

The popularity of the abandoned hospital has become somewhat invasive into the lives of the people of the close-knit community that surrounds it and I’ve heard from friends that they have had to get guards to block access to large groups of people who show up on weekends to check it out.

When I took the photos for my first post about the hospital, I visited alone and made sure to take time to become acquainted with a few of the residents of the community. I think the fact that I showed interest in the hospitals history and made an attempt to get to know the story of the residents of the community helped out quite a bit.

It helped not only with my writing and understanding of its history but by becoming a recognizable face to some of the residents of the community, which made it easier to enter the building. If you plan on visiting, why not spend some time getting to know some of the people that it originally served and try to understand the history of the building a little better? I guarantee that you’ll feel better if you do and it is also helping out a group of people who have been marginalized by society due to the negative physical effects of leprosy.

So what was the reason for my most recent visit to the Sanatorium? Well its quite simple - I’m in the process of updating quite a few of my blog posts and as I’ve heard that things are changing at the hospital, I decided to go back and check it out to see what’s new and if I needed to update any of the information I’ve provided.

With the renewed interest on the national level for preserving historic buildings from the Japanese Colonial Era, it seems that the efforts of civic activists over the past decade to have the abandoned hospital preserved for future generations has met with a bit of success as of late. That success however is not fully decided yet and discussions are ongoing about what course of action the government will take to preserve the building and what is best for the community around it.

Unfortunately information about all of the most recent developments are only in Chinese and as nothing is yet concrete, I’m not going to spend a lot of time translating what is going on - Here are a few links however that explain current events with regard to the preservation of the community and the MRT depot that is encroaching on its space as well as (in my opinion) one of the best English blog posts about the place.

Since my last visit a large canopy has been constructed above the building which is meant to help preserve the original building and its beautiful Japanese-style roof from the elements until the restoration efforts commence. The interior of the hospital has also been cleaned up with several rooms being emptied - most notably the former library - with quite a lot of the original historic documents being removed.

My photos this time focused on aspects of the hospital that I may have missed in my previous visits, so if you want to see the full set of photos from the hospital, make sure to click the Flickr link below that has both my older photos as well as these new ones.

I’ll continue to update the original blog post as planned, but I won’t make another visit to the hospital until it is fully restored which I hope is sooner rather than later considering the condition of the roof in some areas of the building.

If you plan on visiting, make sure to be respectful of the residents of the community and be reminded that if you visit on a weekend with a large group that you may be denied access

Gallery / Flickr (High Res Shots)

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November 18, 2017 in Urban Exploration, Taipei, Photo Post

When it comes to Urban Exploration, the most interesting finds are the ones where there is a story involved as to how the place ultimately became abandoned. There is usually some historyinvolved that explains what happened or how these places ultimately became abandoned and forgotten by society.

I’ve written in the past about abandoned temples, theatres and hospitals which all had interesting stories to tell with regards to history and their current states of existence. Today’s post however is really just an abandoned house that I’ve found on one of my excursions.

I’m quite sure there is an interesting story to be told here, especially about the family or families who lived in it before they ultimately left it to be reclaimed by nature, but after spending a bit of time searching information online to see if there was anything available, I came up completely empty.

What I can tell you is that this beautiful abandoned three bedroom home is in a great location in Taipei and despite being a bit of a fixer-upper, it would be a great place for a small family to live. The living room comes equipped not only with beautiful windows that allow quite a bit of light during the afternoon but also a fireplace, which is something quite uncommon in Taiwan.

Two of the bedrooms are empty but one of them strangely still has a bed, with blankets that wasn’t moved out when whoever lived there left. The kitchen as well is full of dishes, pots, pans , knives, cutting boards, etc.

Another appealing factor that would make even myself want to move in is that it has not only a front yard but also a back yard. The back yard looked as if there was once a garden and a coop for chickens but it has since grown over and it wasn’t as accessible. I’m also a bit afraid of snakes, so I didn’t bother to attempt walking around the back.

When it comes to urban exploration, its usually best not to give too much information about locations, so I’m just to finish up here and let people enjoy the photos of this historic Taiwanese home.

As always, if you are interested in this kind of thing, one of the best resources on the internet on the subject of urban exploring in Taiwan is my friend Alexander’s blog, so head on over there to check out some of the cool places he’s found during his travels.

Gallery / Flickr (High Res Photos)

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Baiyun Police Station (白雲派出所)

Feb 26, 2022

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Yishan Hall (一善堂)

April 08, 2017 in Photo Post, Urban Exploration, Temples, Hsinchu, Travel, Japanese Colonial Era

I've been on a bit of a kick lately searching high and low around Taiwan for remnants of the Japanese Colonial Era. I've discovered that there is still a lot to be found but it just so happens that not everything I end up finding is in very good shape, photogenic or has a story to tell. Nevertheless I have spent a considerable amount of time searching the Internet up and down for clues as to something interesting and have been setting off to find it whenever I have the chance.

The Lunar New Year holiday this year was a short one so instead of planning a trip outside of the country, I decided that I would make several day trips around the northern part of the country to find a few things that I had on my list. My first trip ended up being a bit of a screw up as I drove all the way from home to Jhudong (竹東) in Hsinchu to get some more shots of the half-abandoned Timber Industry dorms.

Unfortunately upon arrival I took my camera out of the bag and upon taking the first shot I realized I didn't have either of my usual memory cards in my bag and my spares were also sitting on top of my memory card reader at home. I had to walk around an empty city looking for an open electronics store on the first day of the new year which was quite difficult.

Having learned my lesson I packed several cards in my bag and prepared for my next trip, a quick one to to southern most train station in Hsinchu - Xiangshan Station (香山車站). Xiangshan is known for its Wetlands (香山溼地), its "several hundred" year old Mazu Temple (香山天后宮) and its cute little wooden Japanese train station. A short walk from the station however is a huge (and somewhat out of control) God of Wealth (財神) temple which sits up on a hill above the main road that goes through the village.

I've never really been a huge fan of temples dedicated to the God of Wealth but I was only going to be passing by - I was actually looking for (what I thought was) a Japanese temple that Google Maps showed me was on the mountain somewhere behind the temple. The problem was that there was no road to the building on Google Maps, so I had to do a bit of exploring to find my own way.

With my cellphone in hand I walked around looking for a path that would lead me to the temple and after no more than five minutes I found a rugged-looking stone pathway that led up a hill and figured I hit the jackpot. When I reached the top of the hill I saw the temple sitting there and it looked like it was in great shape so I was really pleased with my find.

I had noticed an older lady off to the side doing some gardening work but was able to walk in unnoticed and did my thing getting shots of the exterior. Eventually I walked up to the door and pulled back some plastic sheets and walked into the shrine room. The little temple was just a one room shrine full of Buddhist statues, spirit plates and pictures of people who I figured were local people or patrons of the temple back in the day.

I got all the shots I needed and then walked outside and got more shots of the exterior before being noticed by the old lady who came over and looked at me quote oddly. She asked me in a somewhat unintelligible dialect of Mandarin: "Why are you here?" I replied that I was researching the Japanese Colonial Era and was interested in this building.

She replied back: "This is Taiwan, not Japan. There's nothing Japanese here."

The building seemed to have been built with Japanese design and from what I saw online was built in the later parts of the 1800's meaning it was constructed during the colonial era. The wooden construction and the roof seemed to point in that direction and the wood inside the building was made entirely of Hinoki Cypress (檜木) which is very popular with Japanese construction of that era.

I figured there must have been a communication error so I replied to her: "I know this is Taiwan, but this temple looks like it was Japanese design and origin." which brought on the same look of confusion on her face that I had on mine. I'm not going to lie, the lady seemed a bit off and I have had bad luck running into crazy religious people in the past so I wasn't going to keep pressing the issue. I thanked her for the quick chat and then walked off to take a few more pictures before leaving.

Internet research however makes the story of this interesting little temple a little clearer.

The history of this temple dates back to 1884 (明治17年) where it was originally constructed near the coast just behind Xiangshan's modest but historic Mazu Temple (香山天后宮). The original name was Yishan Temple (一善寺) and was a monastery style building constructed with a main hall and two halls to the sides. The temple worshipped Guanyin, the Buddha of Compassion and sought to promote Buddhist philosophy to the people of the area - more importantly the women who it offered specialized six-month "bhikkhuni" (nun) classes where women could take short-term monastic vows.

In 1935 however the devastating Shinchiku-Taichu Earthquake (新竹台中地震), one of the deadliest earthquakes in modern Taiwan history destroyed the temple. The following year it was decided that the temple would be relocated to a spot on the mountain nearby.

When the temple's reconstruction was completed it was renamed "Yishan Hall" (一善堂). The new version however was completely different than the original - It was a simple one room building with a main shrine dedicated to Buddhism and ancestral shrines on either side dedicated to the Zheng family (鄭家). Today there are several generations of spirit tablets (神位) and photos of the Zheng family.

While the main shrine of the temple is dedicated primarily to important figures within Buddhism, there are also elements of Taoism and Taiwanese folk-religion grouped together with the Buddha's which is typical of Taiwanese religious traditions.

The design of the temple is the part which was the most confusing. The temple was constructed during the Japanese Colonial Era (1895-1945) and to the naked eye seems distinctly "Japanese" in design, but as I recently learned with my blog posts about Taiwan's Butokuden Halls (Longtan, Daxi, Tainan), what we in the west consider to be "traditional" Japanese design is actually heavily influenced by the architecture of the Tang Dynasty (唐朝).

The confusion I experienced while speaking with the lady at the temple was based on this fact.

The temple seems to be of Japanese origin and its inarguable that Japanese architecture and construction methods were used in its construction but they claim that it was designed to imitate a Tang Dynasty building.

There is an argument to be had here - My point of contention on the issue stems from the fact that it would serve a political narrative now that the hall has transitioned from its original purpose as a monastery to that of an ancestral hall to claim that it was of 'Tang' design rather than 'Japanese' - especially if the caretaker who is there most of the time hails from China herself.

I'd like to hear from any of you though - If you know something about Tang Dynasty design and what we consider traditional Japanese architecture, I'd appreciate it if you took a close look at the photos and weighed in with your opinion!

No matter what the design origin of this small hall is, it is quite peaceful and while it hasn't received much care with regards to its preservation, it is one of a few buildings of its kind that remains in Taiwan today making it important historically.

I'm not sure I should recommend people visit this shrine. I'm going to leave a map location to it and if you would like to see it, by all means go check it out - but it's hard to say whether you'll be welcomed or not. It's an interesting place but I think not much is known about it for a reason.

Historically speaking it is a great example of Japanese Colonial Era architecture and construction techniques and I appreciate the fact that there are privately owned shrines like this that are still in existence today.