Fuyuan Theater

A theater that operated for roughly two decades in the village of Fuyuan (富源), north of central Ruisui, Hualien. According to a local shopkeeper whose father was among them, it was founded by six villagers who pooled their funds, with day-to-day management falling to a grocer surnamed Zhong (鍾). The wooden hall, reputedly seating around 550, screened mostly Japanese films and staged Taiwanese opera (歌仔戲). Never especially profitable, it was gutted by a nighttime fire; the shareholders chose not to rebuild, and only fragments of a cinder block wall might survive today.