Jinja in Taiwan

The February 16^th issue of Jinja Shinpō included an article by a priest from Chiba Prefecture, about a trip to Taiwan that the prefectural branch of the Shintō Seiji Renmei (神道政治連盟) organised last year to mark the 80^th anniversary of the end of the war. The group visited a number of locations, most associated with the war dead, which is standard for these sort of visits. The first that he mentioned was a Taiwan-style memorial to the crew of a Japanese warship. A priest from Yasukuni Jinja performed an ireisai (慰霊祭) there in November last year, and apparently quite a lot of people attended. The site displays a number of items from Japanese jinja, and has a statue of Abë Shinzō in the grounds. The article says nothing about its origins, however — the statue, at least, must be recent, and almost certainly postdates Abë’s assassination.

After visiting a graveyard and the site of the Taiwan Gokoku Jinja, which was founded for the war dead from Taiwan, they went to see “Momozono Jinja” (桃園神社). There are quotation marks because I am not sure that that is the correct reading of the Japanese name, and I would imagine that they pronounce it differently in Taiwan. It is now known as “Taoyuan Martyrs’ Shrine” in English — thanks to Kaminoge in the comments for that information. The Japanese reading may be “Tōen”,

This apparently looks just like a Japanese jinja, with a torii, purification font, sanctuary, and jinja office. The building that was the main sanctuary now memorialises some Taiwanese, but the jinja still exists on site, in a small building next to the office. The office offers omamori, ema, and goshuin, just like a Japanese jinja.

This jinja was almost certainly founded during the Japanese rule of Taiwan (edit to add: yes, in 1938 according to the tourist information page), although the article does not say so explicitly, and has been preserved by local people, albeit with modifications. (The author does explicitly say that they are grateful to the local people for preserving it.)

These locations are not, I think, representative of Taiwanese culture as a whole — although I know very little about it. That was not the purpose of the visit, after all. They are, however, physical evidence of something that is generally true. Taiwan has a much less negative attitude to the period of Japanese rule than most of the other countries that fell under it. (And that’s one reason I use “rule” rather than “occupation”.) Part of that, I am sure, is that the Other in Taiwan’s national narrative is mainland China, not Japan. But in order for that to have been a feasible choice, the memories of Japanese rule in Taiwan cannot have been felt to be that bad.

In any case, Momozono Jinja is a very interesting example of an active jinja outside Japan.