Changhua City Red Hair Well 彰化市紅毛井

Red Hair Well, Changhua City
Red Hair Well at the foot of Baguashan in Changhua City.

The Red Hair Well 紅毛井 (pinyin: Hóngmáojǐng) in Changhua City is another curious footnote. Located behind the Changhua Arts Museum at the foot of Baguashan, this well supposedly dates back to the mid-1600s, in the midst of the Dutch colonial era. The Dutch sunk this well to provide for soldiers and missionaries passing through the area but never actually controlled this land. The name derives from âng-mo, which is literally “red hair” in Hokkien or Taiwanese, an obvious visual contrast to the black hair of Chinese people.

A shrine by the old Dutch well
A shrine by the old Dutch well.

The Dutch ruled much of southern Taiwan from 1624 to 1662 before they were unceremoniously kicked off the island by Koxinga 鄭成功, who founded the short-lived Kingdom of Tungning 東寧王國 in modern-day Tainan, the center of Dutch colonial power. When the well was dug this part of Taiwan would have been part of the Kingdom of Middag, an alliance of Taiwanese Indigenous peoples based in Dadu, just across the river from Changhua City in western Taichung.

Laundry time at Red Hair Well
Laundry time at Red Hair Well.
Washing clothes in the waters of the Dutch well
Washing clothes in the waters of the Dutch well.

Nowadays the well is also the site of a small shrine to Tu Di Gong 土地公, the earth god of Chinese folklore. On every occasion I’ve swung by the well I have seen old women washing clothes in the water the runs out of the well. There’s no particular need for this with the preponderance of modern laundries around so I suspect it has something to do with good luck or tradition.

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