Some tourists visiting the Jinguashih Shinto Shrine in New Taipei City’s (新北市) Rueifang District (瑞芳) have criticized the historical site’s owner, the state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower), for doing what they said was “unbelievably lousy” work while restoring the monument.
Taipower’s Shen-ao Power Plant began work on the shrine in May 2012 after receiving the green light from the New Taipei City Government’s Cultural Affairs Department, which designated the site a cultural heritage in March 2007.
Also known as the Gold Temple (黃金神社), the shrine was constructed in 1933 by a Japanese mineral company during the Japanese colonial era to pray for good luck for the old mining industry in Jinguashih (金瓜石).
Photo: Lee Ya-wen, Taipei Times
However, only parts of the shrine, including its base and pillars, two torii gates and dozens of stone lanterns remained intact after the area was vandalized after World War II.
A torii is a traditional Japanese gate often found at the entrance of Shinto shrines that serves as a symbolic boundary between the sacred and the profane.
Local residents had hoped the restoration project would breathe new life into the area, only to discover that the company had used cement to repair the site, of which exterior walls and pillars were finished in washed granolithic material.
The choice of repair materials caused dramatic color discrepancies between the original structures and the patches.
Some characters carved onto the shrine’s torii that carried cultural significance were also covered by cement.
A tourist surnamed Lo (羅) said he “could not believe his eyes” when he saw how the repair work had “ruined” the Japanese temple.
“Most torii have the Chinese characters fengna (奉納, offering) and fengxian (奉獻, devotion) carved on the front and the names of contributors to the temple on the back,” Lo said, adding that although the characters on the shrine’s gates had worn away over time, they had still been visible to the human eye before the restoration project began.
“I doubt the company did its research before carrying out the repair work,” Lo said.
Tseng Chi-tien (曾繼田), chief of the Cultural Heritage Section at New Taipei City Government’s Cultural Affairs Department, said that while Taipower’s intentions to carry out the repair work were well-meant, the company was ordered to suspend the project after its choice of repair materials and techniques were found “inappropriate.”
“The department also requested the company to conduct thorough field research and submit another proposal for the shrine’s restoration. It will not be allowed to continue the repair work until the department approves the proposal,” Tseng said.
In response, Shen-ao Power Plant spokesman Lu Ching-lung (盧金龍) said the company submitted a restoration proposal for the shrine to the department for its review and made it a requirement that repair workers be equipped with the adequate skills.
“After all, monument maintenance is really not one of the company’s strong points,” Lu said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods