Agenna Shipyard 阿根納造船廠

Overlooking Agenna Shipyard

Āgēnnà Shipyard 阿根納造船廠 is among the most popular abandoned places in northern Taiwan. It is located in the historic port city of Keelung across the narrow Bāchǐmén Channel 八尺門海峽 from Hépíng Island 和平島, site of the first Spanish settlement in Taiwan, and just around the corner from the equally photogenic Zhèngbīn Harbour 正濱漁港. The shipyard opened in 1967 but was only in business until the 1980s. After many years of neglect the skeletal ruins of the shipyard aroused renewed interest in 2016 when the current leaseholder attempted to demolish the structure. An immediate public outcry prompted the government to designate the shipyard a heritage property, and the cultural bureau is now formulating plans to develop the area into a tourist attraction of some kind. In the meantime, the crumbling ruins of the former shipyard attract hundreds or even thousands of daily visitors.

Grace Hill 麗庭莊園

Grace Hill in the Songshan Airport Flight Path

Grace Hill (Lìtíng Zhuāngyuán 麗庭莊園) is a former wedding venue situated in an industrial park in Neihu, Taipei. It opened in 2005 under the management of the Zhǎngxìng Wedding Company (長興婚禮事業有限公司), an outfit keen to disrupt the local market with a larger, more extravagant space for weddings and other events. The business struggled at first but became more widely known after it was featured in television series, music videos, and the news. In 2007 the space was leased to Dears Brain (迪詩), a Japanese wedding company hoping to enter the Taiwanese luxury wedding market. The original owners took a step back, ceding control of day-to-day operations to Japanese management, and the business continued to grow over the next several years.

A Door in the Forest

A Door in the Forest

An abandoned bunker in the foothills of Yangmingshan.

Recently I went riding up Jiànnán Street (劍南街), a scenic mountain road connecting Zhongshan and Shilin. Along the way I noticed many bunkers and sentry posts, remnants of a time when this entire mountainside was under military control and strictly off-limits to civilians. One bunker in particular struck me as particularly pleasing, for it was little more than a door in the forest, a dark promise surrounded by a vivid shade of green. For reference, this place is located on the eastern flank of the modest Wénjiānshān (文間山), and for more about the area you can consult Chinese language blogs here and here.…

Keelung Dahua Theater 基隆大華戲院

Exterior View of Dahua Theater 大華戲院

Dàhuá Theater 大華戲院 is an early post-war movie theater in the grim northern port town of Keelung City, Taiwan. It was in business as early as 1949 and officially registered by 1952. Beyond that, little trace of it can be found online. Until recently I assumed this theater had been demolished, just like every other vintage standalone in downtown Keelung, one of the most densely-packed urban environments in the nation. Acting on a tip that a signboard was still in place I went to scope it out one afternoon in 2018—and was completely surprised to find the theater still standing, albeit in an extremely dilapidated condition.

Puli Tuberculosis Sanatorium 埔里肺結核療養所

Within the Puli Sanatorium 埔里肺病療養院

Tuberculosis remains the deadliest communicable disease in Taiwan, claiming approximately 600 lives per year, but great strides have been made in reducing its toll throughout the 20th century. Nearly 5% of the population were afflicted by the disease in the late 1940s—and with an annual mortality rate of 3 in 1,000, it was also among the leading causes of death of any kind in post-war Taiwan. The disease was especially prevalent among the Taiwanese Indigenous people of the remote mountainous interior, who simply couldn’t afford to see a doctor or purchase medicine (even if there were a clinic anywhere nearby).

Christian missionary organizations went to great lengths to expand access to medical services in the late 1950s, founding numerous clinics and sanatoriums in Indigenous territory all across Taiwan. In 1957 this particular tuberculosis sanatorium was constructed next to a secluded lake on the outskirts of Puli, Nantou, to provide free treatment and relief for people of the mountains. The next several decades saw great advances in healthcare in Taiwan and the sanatorium closed in 1980, its purpose fulfilled. It reopened as a Presbyterian retreat center and campground in the late 1980s and was ultimately abandoned to the elements sometime in recent years.

Taiwan Summer Road Trip 2017: Taichung to Nantou

Overlooking the Ninety-Nine Peaks

In the summer of 2017 I embarked upon a series of road trips around central and southern Taiwan. I began in Taichung and ended up riding as far south as Kaohsiung over the course of several months. It was not one continuous journey; I would head south, ride for several days, stash the scooter at a train station, and return to my residence in Taipei before doing it all over again. There wasn’t a lot of planning involved, nor were these trips entirely random. Usually I had some idea of what to see and where to go, but there were also many serendipitous discoveries along the way. Ultimately I gathered material for more than 50 posts, many of which have already been published. This introductory post gathers an assortment of photos from the first segment of the trip from Taichung to Nantou, with particular emphasis on the districts of Taiping, Puli, and Shuili.

Zhongli Dadong Theater 中壢大東戲院

Inside a projection room at Dadong Theater

Zhongli is home to a surprising number of disused and abandoned cinemas, relics of a lost age of theater in this conurbation of half a million sprawling across the central Taoyuan Plateau 桃園台地. Decades ago there were nearly two dozen standalone movie theaters in town—but only Zhongyuan Theater 中源大戲院, one of two in Taiwan still displaying hand-painted movie posters, clings to life as of 2018. Most of the others have been renovated beyond recognition or demolished, but several more are derelict, hard-worn subjects of entropy. Among these relics there are none more alluring than the imposing Dàdōng Theater 大東戲院 (literally the “Great Eastern Theater”), former anchor of Zhongli’s long-vanished Cinema Street 戲院街.

Chishang Wuzhou Theater 池上五洲戲院

Exterior View of Wuzhou Theater 五洲戲院

Wǔzhōu Theater (五洲戲院) is the last remnant of cinema in Chishang, Taitung, a picturesque town located in the fertile Huadong Valley of Taiwan. Built in 1965 in the midst of the Taiwan Economic Miracle, it remained in business until 1982. After the final screening the theater was neglected for decades, falling into disrepair but remaining more or less intact until recently. More recently Chishang emerged as a tourist destination, prompting a local community development association to invest in revitalizing the theater in 2013.

Longteng Broken Bridge 龍騰斷橋

The Ruins of Yutengping Bridge 魚藤坪斷橋

Lóngténg Broken Bridge (龍騰斷橋) is a historic roadside attraction in the rolling hills of Sanyi in southern Miaoli, Taiwan. More formally known as Yúténgpíng Broken Bridge (魚藤坪斷橋), it was originally constructed in 1907 during the Japanese colonial era, connecting Zhunan and Taichung along what is now known as the Old Mountain Line (舊山線). The bridge collapsed during the devastating 1935 Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake but the ruins were never cleared away. Further damage was done in the 921 Earthquake in 1999. Several years later, in 2003, it was designated a historic site by the county government and subsequently developed for tourism along with the former Shèngxìng Railway Station (勝興車站).

Xiluo Yuandong Theater 西螺遠東戲院

Yuandong Theater Ticket Booth Trash

Xiluo is a small historic town in rural Yunlin, Taiwan. Despite its diminutive size Xiluo was once home to three standalone movie theaters: the eponymous Xiluo Theater (西螺戲院), Yisheng Theater (一生戲院), and Yuǎndōng Theater (遠東戲院, literally “Far East Theater”), the subject of this brief report. Previously I misidentified Yisheng Theater as Yuandong, something I only learned after visiting a photo exhibition at Huashan 1914 Creative Park in 2017. After realizing my mistake I went to some lengths to locate and later visit this theater—which, in hindsight, I’ve passed on several occasions without noticing it down a small side street of the same name.