Fangliao Long’an Temple

A rural temple in Fangliao notable for a small shrine on the left side of the main hall, Xianfeng Shrine (先鋒祠). Enshrined here is a deified Japanese sailor surnamed Higuchi (樋口勝見) who went down with his warship in the western Pacific in 1944. In 1971 a local fisherman, Zhang Xifa (張溪發), repeatedly hauled up the same spirit tablet at the mouth of the Shiwen River (士文溪口), reportedly after three nights of strange red lights on the water; its inscription named the soul of the lost sailor. Zhang’s mother, the temple abbess Zhang Chen Qingjin (張陳清金), spent decades tracing his relatives in Japan, finally reaching them in 2002. Believing that Guanyin had guided the soul across the sea, the temple built the side shrine and installed a gilded statue, modelled on a photograph supplied by the sailor’s younger brother.