West Central Dist.

Taiwan Fucheng City Wall South Gate Section remains(臺灣府城城垣南門段殘蹟) are located on Shulin Street in Tainan City, the outer edge facing Shulin Street (樹林街)and the rear connecting to National Tainan Girl’s Senior High School, serving as part of the perimeter wall. The remains were restored according to an ancient method and look basically how they did originally. The internal structure of the wall has been deliberately left exposed in one section to allow observation. The wall runs east to west. The school part is eighty meters long and four meters high and is thebest-preserved section.

Built in 1750, the temple is a land god temple of great importance on Puji Street (普濟街) as well as being the only land god temple(土地公廟) in Tainan that is listed as a historic site. This was once the site of the Fotou Harbor(佛頭港) of the Five Channels(五條港), with many boats sailing to and from and the temple attracting a large number of worshippers. The temple has a plaque, on which “Wan Wu Zi Sheng” is carved. Today, Futou Harbor is long gone, but Jingfu Temple(景福祠) remains to remind people of the area’s prosperous past.

Wanfu Temple was originally the residence of Ruan Jun, a general under Koxinga, built during the Yongli Reign of Ming Dynasty (1646~1683). It is a city-designated historic site. During the Yongli Reign of Ming Dynasty (1656), Ruan died while stationed on Zhoushan. Three years later his wife traveled to Taiwan with Zheng Jing along with Ming dynasty descendants and settled behind the palace of King Ning Jing on this spot where she chanted scripture, abstained from eating meat and worshipped Buddha the rest of her life.

Built in 1739, the God of Wind (Feng Shen) Temple (風神廟) is the only temple in Taiwan dedicated to the God of Wind, and is one of Tainan’s famous shrines and temples. The main god of worship is the God of Wind, but on the left and right hand sides the God of Wind is flanked by the green God of Water (水神) and red God of Fire (火神). Further to the left side is Lei Gong (雷公), the God of Thunder, and to the right side is Dian Mu, the Goddess of Lightning (電母).

Mrs. Xiao’s Chastity Archway is located in an alley behind Kuo General Hospital. It has a long history. Over the years, its surrounds have changed much, and it’s now surrounded by houses, creating the strange site of historic site and residences close together. The archway is a two column, two level archway, a type rare in Taiwan, and is the smallest type of stone archway. On it, the characters jie xiao (chastity) are carved. It was built in praise of the loyalty and chastity of Mrs.

Chen De-Jiu Family Hall(陳德聚堂) was built in 1644. It is now the largest Chen family ancestral hall in Taiwan and currently houses the Tainan Guide Association.

Dehua Hall (德化堂) was built around 1838. After road building in the Japanese Colonial Time and aerial attack in World War II, its scale today has been significantly reduced compared to how it was originally. Dehua Hall is a Zhaijiao Longhua School Temple(齋教龍華派寺廟) which is home Buddhist practice in character, therefore, the layout is similar to that of a traditional house, however, it has the paintings and decorations of a Buddhist temple.

Many people will begin to feel hungry when they hear the words Shuixian Temple Market(水仙宮市場). The market gets its name from Shuixian Temple, which enshrines Shui Xian Zun Wang(水仙尊王), which is inside the market. The original temple was built in 1703; this location was once Nanshi Harbor of the Five Channels and had a lot of merchants. The temple was actually built with funds provided by local merchants. The temple is no longer as large and imposing as it was when it was once one of the seven Buddhist temples and eight Taoist shrines of Tainan, in its place is a busy market.

It is said that Tainan is shaped like a phoenix, which is why it was nicknamed phoenix city. As Puji Temple(普濟殿) is located at the center of the fengshui bagua (eight divinatory trigrams) net, to prevent the phoenix that brought the city prosperity from flying away, Puji Temple and the bagua net shaped streets around it were built. Puji Temple has become well-known in the last few years, the reason being its creative painted lanterns, introduced for the first time at Chinese New Year in 2014.

A church with a white dome that is a copy of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London is hidden down an alley on Kuohua Street. This place is of great significance in terms of the history of the meeting of Tainan and Westerners. This was where Dr. James Laidlaw Maxwell(馬雅各醫師) practiced medicine and spread Christianity after arriving in Tainan in 1865. At the time, this was an important street in the Five Channels area. As the street runs west, it was called “Kanshi Street.” The doctor-missionary was forced to leave not long after arriving after encountering resistance from local traditionalists.