On the trail of Taiwan's Confucius

Not so many people have heard of Shen Guang-wen (沈光文), a scholar sometimes called “Taiwan's Confucius.” Shen was one of many thousands of mainlanders who fled to Taiwan after the Manchurians — then in the process of establishing the Qing Dynasty — seized the imperial capital and gradually extended their rule southward.

Shen was born in 1612 and died in 1688. He arrived in Taiwan a full decade before Koxinga. His life and achievements are celebrated in the Qingan Temple (慶安宮) in Tainan County's Shanhua Township (台南縣善化鎮).

The temple is a third-grade national relic. It is usually described as having 300-plus years of history, but like many other landmarks in Taiwan, the structure visitors see today is not the original.

During the 1624-1661 Dutch occupation of the Tainan area, the VOC (Dutch East India Company) established a one-room language school on the site, and dug a well to ensure it had a regular supply of water. During the Qing Dynasty this structure was converted into a shrine dedicated to Wenchang Dijin (文昌帝君), the god of education, and Confucian values were propagated.

When an earthquake flattened that shrine a little over a century ago, local worthies raised funds so a new temple could be built in its place. An icon of Mazu (媽祖), the Goddess of the Sea worshiped in hundreds of temples throughout Taiwan, was installed. The temple then acquired its current name.

The main building dates from 1945-1949, and features paintings by Ding Qing-shi (丁清石), an award-winning artist and lecturer who died in 2004.

In the main chamber there are plaques presented by political figures, including former presidents Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian and KMT Honorary Chairman Lien Chan.

Unlike most other shrines in Taiwan, Qingan Temple's icons are not behind bars or plastic screens. Visitors can therefore see the finer details (the gods' clothing, for instance, or the soot caking the images of Wenchang Dijin), and photographers can close in for decent pictures.

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