Wandan Wanhui Temple

The principal Mazu temple much of Wandan and parts of neighboring Zhutian. It was founded in 1746 and rebuilt in 1930 with duichangzuo (對場作) or “rival-side” craftsmanship, in which competing artisans worked on opposite sides of the temple. On February 20th, 1945, a 500 kg bomb dropped by an American B-25J targeting Japanese troops at the adjacent public school struck the ground beside the temple, skipped through a house wall, and came to rest unexploded three hundred meters away. Worshippers attributed their survival to a fresh fracture in the thumb of the Daoguang era main Mazu icon. The defused bomb shell sits today beneath a sculpted memorial of Mazu catching it, dedicated in June 2000.