Rumors die hard, especially where buried treasure is supposedly involved.
In dozens of places across Taiwan, treasure hunters are digging for gold and other booty they believe Japanese troops buried before their hurried retreat from Taiwan after WWII.
One of the most unusual digs is going on in a parking lot just blocks from the Presidential Office, where a backhoe spews smoke into the night air as its claws crack through the asphalt.
PHOTO: AP
The dig was the idea of a mysterious and grumpy retiree who only gives his surname, Yang, and claims to be a former air force officer.
After getting government approval to start prospecting for the gold, Yang attracted little attention until a magazine did a story recently and prompted a media frenzy.
"Go away, you're disturbing us," Yang recently said as he shooed reporters from the site.
"I am not going to tell you anything," he said, closing two metal doors at an entrance to the lot.
Yang expects to uncover at least NT$50 million (US$1.5 million) in gold, the magazine reported.
But so far, his search has been in vain and time is running out. His permit from the National Property Bureau expires today.
Since the 1960s, the government has granted 51 permits to treasure hunters for sites around Taiwan, said Su Wei-cheng (
"But no one has ever uncovered anything," Su said.
The government doesn't mind. Costs for the digs are usually handled by the diggers, and the law says whatever they uncover is national property.
But the treasure hunters could get between 30 percent and 50 percent of whatever they find, Su said.
Many historians just laugh when asked about the possibility of buried Japanese gold.
It was common for Japanese troops to stash weapons, clothes, food stores and gold in mountainsides, said Hsueh Hua-yuan (薛化元), a history professor at National Chengchi University.
"But it's hard to imagine that if it really was buried here, someone would not have run off with it long ago," Hsueh said.
That hasn't stopped people from digging. Even governments are getting involved.
Taiwan's Ministry of the Interior approved an NT$3 million (US$91,185) budget to help support another dig in northern Taiwan. For years it has been rumored that Japanese gold was also buried at the Tawulun Battery Fort, a high mountain peak that watches over the northern port city of Keelung.
The peak is an ideal lookout spot. Enshrouded in thick cover of trees and shrubs, the platform peers down over Keelung and the surrounding sea.
The Japanese built bunkers, storage tunnels for cannon balls and tracks for cannons on the peak.
It's rumored that 5,000kg of gold is buried somewhere near the fort. The rumor first started when a man wrote to the Defense Ministry in 1983 asking if he could dig for gold on the site.
Although no one knows if the rumor is true, the story continues to inspire. A few months ago, some eager gold-seekers drove a backhoe onto the site and began digging in the middle of the night, said Lin Chen-hsing (
Lin wouldn't say whether he believed the rumor was true or not, or whether he hoped the gold would be recovered.
"This is all about protecting the historical site. It's not about the gold," Lin said.
Keelung residents are glad the government is taking over the dig, said Lee Yuan-lin, a neighborhood leader.
"Residents are tired of people coming in and digging up land here and there," Lin said. "They've had enough."
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