Tainan is Taiwan's fourth-largest city, but probably first in terms of cultural kudos. As the first capital city of Taiwan, the city retains a tremendous historical aura, an impression reinforced by the many historical sites and temples in and around the city.
Tainan briefly flourished as a Dutch trading station in the seventeenth century, before being taken over in 1662 by the famous Chinese prince and Ming loyalist, Cheng Cheng-kung, also as known Koxinga.
The Cheng family ruled Taiwan for only two decades, but is credited with bringing the island back into the Chinese fold and for introducing Chinese political institutions and literary traditions to Taiwan.
PHOTO: GARY HEATH
From 1684 until 1895, Taiwan was ruled from a distance by the Ching dynasty, and during most of this time Tainan flourished, becoming a major administrative center, trading emporia and portal for immigration from the mainland. Up to1790, Tainan's economy greatly benefited from a monopoly on cross-Strait trade.
By the end of the nineteenth century, however, Tainan's heyday was already over; the coastline shifted drastically leaving the city behind, and the capital of Taiwan was moved north in 1885, briefly to Taichung, and finally to Taipei 10 years later.
The place most Taiwanese people would go to if they only had time to visit just one historical site in Tainan is probably the Confucius Temple. The Temple was founded in 1665, the last major restoration completed in 1917.
PHOTO: GARY HEATH
The Confucius Temple was established to spread Chinese civilization in `barbarian' Taiwan by the Cheng clan back in the 1660s, and therein lays its significance for local people who still hold those orthodox Confucian ethics in high regard.
Not far from the Confucius Temple in the central district of Tainan City is the Koxinga Shrine, which memorializes Cheng Cheng-kung and various Ming officials including Generals Kan Hui and Wan Li. The original shrine was quite small, but a bigger one was built in 1875, only to be controversially demolished and rebuilt in the northern Chinese style in the 1960s.
Most of Tainan's historical sites are concentrated in the western half of the city. Chih Kan Lou, formerly known by the Dutch as Fort Provintia, was built in response to a local Chinese rebellion against Dutch rule in 1652.
PHOTO: GARY HEATH
Further west, in the Anping district of Tainan is Fort Zeelandia, or Anping Castle. In the seventeenth century this area was effectively an islet. The strategic value of the location was not lost on the Dutch who built their first fortification on what was then a sand spit in 1624.
Today, Fort Zeelandia is largely a re-construction of the original, and probably not a very accurate one.
In the grounds of Fort Zeelandia a section of wall belonging to the original fort still stands, and its thickness and height suggest the original fortification must have been quite imposing.
PHOTO: GARY HEATH
The temples of Tainan are quite literally all over the city. Over 130 deities are still worshipped and revered in perhaps over three hundred temples in and around Tainan City today.
Tainan is thought to represent the quintessential Taiwan -- a bastion of tradition and conservatism. However, the city has seen boom times, and with its garish KTV-parlors and innumerable feral pubs, Tainan also makes a convincing frontier town, especially on Saturday nights.
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