Kimura Tomio Monument

A weathered stele in the hills south of Beipu commemorating Kimura Tomio (木村富雄), a Japanese postal deliveryman killed during the Beipu Incident (北埔事件) of November 1907, an armed uprising against Japanese rule. According to local tradition, a farmer of Nankeng Village (南坑村) found Kimura’s body in his peanut field and buried him out of pity only to be denounced as the killer and condemned to death. He was spared at the last moment when a Japanese policeman he had earlier hosted for a meal intervened on his behalf. A monument was later raised over the burial place, but it was lost to flooding and forgotten for decades. In 2006 a resident named Peng Guoxian (彭國賢) found the stele broken in two in the bed of the Daping Creek (大坪溪); the farmer’s grandson, Huang Yongchang (黃永昌), recognized the story passed down in his family and, a cement worker by trade, repaired the stele and re-erected it on the riverbank with a memorial rite. It now stands within the grounds of the Laoshidai Leisure Farm (老時代休閒農庒); permission should be obtained before visiting.