Hongmaogang Bao’an Temple

Originally founded in the Hongmaogang fishing village in 1923 when fishermen retrieved human remains from the sea, the temple’s principal deity is the folk god Guofu Qiansui (郭府千歲). It later came to enshrine a second figure, Haifu (海府), or Haifu Da Yuanshuai (海府大元帥): speaking through a medium in Japanese, this spirit identified himself as the commander of the No. 38 patrol boat (蓬第38號哨戒艇), a converted destroyer sunk during the Pacific War, and was eventually named as Takada Matao (高田又男). A scale model of the vessel, said to carry its 72 crew, is kept in the temple. It was relocated to its current site in Fengshan, Kaohsiung, after the Hongmaogang village removal in the 2000s. Japanese delegations visit annually, and a statue of former Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was erected in 2022.