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Published: April 5th 2010
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Tainan, in the south west of Taiwan, used to be the country's capital city. This is where the Dutch held power in the 1600's before Zheng Chenggong, also known as Koxinga, defeated them and took power of the island.
There is an interesting mix of European, Chinese and Japanese culture apparent in Tainan: with colonial buildings and merchants houses, palaces and temples. Tainan is home to some of the most interesting buildings in Taiwan.
Fort Zeelandia was a highlight in our day of exploring Tainan - a lot of the original brickwork is still standing which is remarkable when the cement holding it together was made with glutinous rice flour and sugar! The fort was built by the Dutch in 1624, but was seiged in 1661 by Koxinga. The Dutch eventually signed a treaty with Koxinga in 1662 and left Taiwan for good.
Another highlight was a visit to Tait and Co.'s former merchant house where the store houses and outbuildings have been completely over grown by impressive Banyan trees. The house itself is still in good condition and is home to an excellent museum explaining the way of life for the various groups found in Tainan's multi-cultural
society in the 17th century.
We also visited a selection of the many temples in Tainan, most of which don't conform to just one religion, but cover all the bases. one of the most interesting was a small temple called Dongyue - which has graphic murals on the walls depicting scenes from hell. Pictures include disembowelments, eye gougings, stabbings, boilings and so much more.
Outside another temple there were four large statues of gods, with movable arms. Locals were queuing to touch their aches and pains with the arms of the gods - it is supposed to help you return to health. Cynthia also explained temple etiquette to me - you should always enter the side door on the right of the temple as this represents the dragon, the left is the tiger and you wouldn't enter a tigers mouth so you only use this door to exit the temple. You shouldn't stand on the wooded barrier in the doorway, instead you should step over this. (In some temples its really high - this was to prevent women from entering in the days where long skirts were worn). you should never use the central door, this is for
extremely important people only.
A walk in the park later in the day bought us up close with some friendly squirrels who happily posed for some photos! The day was completed with a stop in an unusual cafe - to get in you had to squeeze through a tiny gap between two buildings!
You could be forgiven for thinking there were no people under 30 in Tainan, but as a University city I knew this couldn't be true. It turned out that Taiwanese students are nocturnal, but rather than going to pubs in the evenings they all head to Tainan's crazy night market. Heaving with people, you can get pretty much anything here from congealed pigs blood soup to stinky fermented tofu. Cynthia insisted I try just about everything and I left about two stone heavier!
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