Tsai Chin-mu Residence

The last Japanese colonial era house standing near the head of Liugong Canal (瑠公圳), an irrigation system begun in 1740, in what is now Xindian. It was built prior to 1945 by Tsai Chin-mu (蔡金木), who settled beside the canal under a verbal arrangement with the colonial irrigation authority to guard its embankment. The family held title to the house but not to the land beneath it, allowing the irrigation association to sell the plot to a developer and touch off more than a decade of eviction litigation against Tsai’s granddaughter. A temporary monument designation stayed demolition in 2025, but the municipal cultural bureau declined to grant the house heritage status in 2026.