What to do and see in Changhua, Changhua: The Best Sacred & Religious Sites

Reviewed By OrderintheHouse

For our 40th wedding anniversary my wife and I enjoyed an 18 day Asian tour from 28 December 2019 to 14 January 2020 visiting in order Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Laos and Singapore. Our 6 night private tour of Taiwan was arranged through Wendy Wu Tours and we visited Taipei, Taroko Gorge, Sun Moon Lake, Tainan and Kaohsiung. On the last day of our tour we travelled from Kaohsiung (Taiwan’s third largest city and its largest port) back to the capital Taipei, where we spent our last evening before leaving for Laos. It was a 350 kilometre journey to Taipei but mostly we travelled with ease on an excellent highway. On the way we visited the charming town of Lukang (formerly known as Lugang) at the halfway point and visited the rather impressive Lukang Longshan Temple, described by the Ministry of Interior Affairs as the best preserved Qing dynasty (1644 to 1912) building in Taiwan. What makes a visit to the Longshan Temple so special is its amazing octagonal caisson, also referred to as a caisson ceiling, or spider web ceiling, located in the front hall of the temple. It is quite a stunning masterpiece and brilliantly constructed during the temple’s reconstruction in 1831. This makes it the oldest caisson of its type in Taiwan. What is particularly impressive is that this wood structure was precisely calculated, and craftsmen managed to sustain the whole ceiling without using a single nail. There were seats provided on the floor at the edge of the caisson, so we spent some time just looking up in total awe and wonderment at the ability and immense talent of these early craftsman in being able to create such a ceiling of pure intricate beauty and all without today’s computer models. The front hall of Longshan Temple is called the Five Portal Hall because of the five pairs of entry doors along its front side featuring colourful God paintings, the work of Lukang’s renowned religious artist Guo Shin-lin (1902 – 1973). These paintings were pleasing to the eye. In between each pair of doors there are wooden panels with very nicely designed lattice work. The centre pair of doors feature paintings of the two principal door guardians of Buddhism. A feature of note at the entrance to the worship hall is the pair of dragon columns supporting the structure and reinstalled during the 1852 renovation of the temple. On each column is featured a dragon in high relief with its tail circling up each column. Inside this hall can be seen a number of very colourful and ornate Buddhist images including some spectacular ceiling lights. There is an information sign in the temple courtyard which gives this temple the highest possible accolade in the eyes of the Taiwan public. It lists the Long-shan Temple, Lukang as one of “The Top 100 Religious Scenes of Taiwan “, encompassing a hundred iconic religious sites and activities that were chosen via public vote and announced by the Ministry of the Interior on 22 November 2013. After visiting this attraction we could understand how the Taiwanese people value this temple so highly. My wife and I, as visitors to Lukang, were equally impressed.