基隆聖濟宮

Keelung Shengji Temple

September 20th, 2024

Last updated September 20th, 2026

Shengji Temple (聖濟宮) — The temple exterior on a gloomy afternoon in 2016.

Shengji Temple stands below the modest Yunlong Mountain (雲龍山) in Zhongzheng District, Keelung, and primarily venerates a red-faced incarnation of Sun Wukong (孫悟空), the Monkey King from the Chinese classic Journey to the West (西遊記). The temple was founded in 1959 by Guo Yushui (郭玉水), a practitioner of Chinese medicine whose family had kept the Sun Wukong image as an heirloom for generations. In the early post-war years fires regularly swept through the surrounding neighbourhood and the deity was said to have instructed that his own image be carried through the flames to absorb the calamity; no further fires followed, and the newly-built temple became a center of devotion in the district.

Main Altar at Shengji Temple (聖濟宮) — The main altar of Shengji Temple in 2016.

Sun Wu-kong at Shengji Temple (聖濟宮) — Sun Wukong occupies the center of the main altar.

Banana Offering at Shengji Temple (聖濟宮) — One of the few temples where I’ve seen bananas as offerings.

The temple prospered in the 1960s and became a regular place of pilgrimage for families and their children, partly because of the novelty of seeing Sun Wukong on the main altar. The popularity of the site prompted the Guo family to establish the nearby Eighteen Arhats Cave in a derelict air raid shelter in 1971. This was followed by the Alladin Family Amusement Park, located immediately beneath the temple forecourt, likely after the release of the classic children’s film in 1992.

One of the Eighteen Arhats at Shengji Temple (聖濟宮) — A depiction of Gobaka (戌博迦尊者), the Open-Heart Arhat (開心羅漢), salvaged from the Eighteen Arhats Cave after it closed in 1996.

Secondary Altar at Shengji Temple (聖濟宮) — The secondary altars exhibit a very aesthetic design.

Thousand-Armed Guanyin at Shengji Temple (聖濟宮) — A depiction of the Thousand-Armed Guanyin (千手觀音) on the sacred Mount Putuo (普陀巖).

Overgrown Rooftop at Shengji Temple (聖濟宮) — A closer look at the rooftop in 2024.

Oblique View of Shengji Temple (聖濟宮) — An oblique view of Shengji Temple in 2024, years after it closed to the public.

Despite the popularity of the temple and its associated attractions they all closed, one by one. The cave temple was shut after catastrophic flooding in 1996 and the children’s amusement park followed, probably sometime in the 2000s. The temple itself also closed around 2021, seemingly due to a lack of a caretaker, and as of the mid-2020s it is no longer open to the public. A small table stands outside the front door where offerings can still be made to the deities sequestered within.