Gods and their property portfolios

A recent Taipei Times report reveals that around 2,300 plots of land around Taiwan totalling more than 200 hectares are owned by deities. Although the law specifies that land can only be owned by legal persons (such as humans, corporations or foundations), it seems many plots belong - on paper at least - to deities including Mazu, Guanyin (which the article refers to Avalokitesvara) and local land gods.

Fresh facts II: Taiwan's beaches

On a recent trip to Pingtung, we dropped into the Shell Beach Exhibition Hall (砂島貝殼砂展示館), where I learned the following:

The sandy beaches and mudflats on the west coast were created by shale washed down rivers from the Central Mountain Range; many are quite grey. However, most of the beaches in the south (including those on Little Liuqiu) are crushed coral or shell beaches. North Taiwan's beaches are generally quartz sand, while the east coast is rocky, the boulders being metamorphic material washed down from the Coastal Range.

Shadao Beach, pictured above, is next to the hall. It's a nature preserve and the public can look at it, but not set foot on the sand.

Banqiao's Lin Family Gardens

Ticked off another place I've wanted to visit for years: Lin Family Garden (林家花園, sometimes called the Lin Ben-yuan Garden) in Banqiao, a substantial but little-loved city just south of Taipei.

It's one of north Taiwan's best-known attractions, and now that admission is free it gets very crowded on weekends and holidays. Despite the crowds (and the noisy tour guides, and the photography-club members clustering around models hired for the day) it's well-worth visiting. No one building in the complex, nor any particular aspect of the gardens that surround them, is jaw-dropping. However, there is a great deal to see, and if I wasn't pressed for time I could easily have spent more than two hours here.

The Lin Family Mansion and Garden was built 1847-1853 by one of north Taiwan's richest and most influential families. In the late 19th century, the garden was surrounded by rice fields, and Guanyinshan was visible in the distance. Now, of course, it is surrounded by tall buildings. Nonetheless, it's a beautiful oasis of greenery and a good place to see Qing Dynasty architecture, stone sculpture, wood carvings and other decorative arts. The main residence, the Three-Courtyard House (pictured top right), has 52 rooms and more than 120 windows and doors. Other buildings within the Garden bear endearing names such as the Revere the Cosmos Pavilion and the Fragrant Jade Anteroom. Entrances and walls bear auspicious bat or butterfly motifs (pictured lower left).

The garden (open: 09.00-17.00 daily but closed first Mon of each month; admission: free) is about 15 minutes' walk from Banqiao's combined HSR/TRA/MRT station. Fuzhong MRT Station on the Blue Line is very slightly closer.

Fans of traditional mansions heading to south Taiwan should make time for the Hsiao Family Residence and the Gupoliao Zhuang Family Residence.

Taiwan's Mazu pilgrimage

My friend Rich J. Matheson (who took the cover shot for the first edition of my guidebook) joined part of this year's Mazu pilgrimage. His website includes many photographs of traditional religious events.

The full pilgrimage lasts more than a week and winds through Taichung, Changhua, Yunlin and Chiayi. For an excellent first-hand account of the 2010 pilgrimage, read Noah Buchan's Taipei Times article.

Million-dollar bathrooms

Nantou's Zhinan Temple (指南宮) is tiny and visually unimpressive, but exceptionally popular. On the day we visited it was all but impossible to see the main altar because of the crush of people. The temple is clearly very wealthy; in 2007 it spent a breathtaking NT$38.8 million (US$1.34 million) on the bathrooms pictured above.

They are very nice, it has to be said. Not only clean, well lit and spacious, but also decorated with works of art and equipped with a nursing room and an observation deck. The shape is supposed to represent fresh bamboo growing up out of the ground - not, as you might think, turds.

Book: Taipei Characters (aka Taipei People)

This slim volume (199 pages in this edition, published in 1982 by Indiana University Press; other editions carry different titles) contains 14 stories, all of which deal with the lives of mainland Chinese who relocated to Taiwan around 1949, the year the Republic of China's was defeated by Mao Zedong's Communists. Written in the 1960s by Kenneth Pai Hsien-yung (sometimes spelled Bai Xianyong 白先勇), the stories in Taipei People depict various types of people – former military officials and their widows, academics, courtesans and restaurant owners.

Pai's writing style is economical and beautiful; several of the stories are exquisite masterpieces. My favourites are Love's Lone Flower (in which the narrator recounts the life and demise of a Taiwanese bargirl/prostitute) and Winter Night. In the latter, two mainlander scholars meet up again after two decades apart; one spent those years in the USA, the other in Taiwan.

White-clad cleric

Taoist clerics in Taiwan usually wear black robes, so this one's white, harlequin-like attire caught my eye. I spotted him coming out of Shoutian Temple (受天宮) in the hills above Ershui, Changhua County. The character on his hat (gold on a red background) means Buddha.

The temple itself has an impressive location, yet looks as though it might slide down the mountain when the next big typhoon hits.

The Ershui area is famous for macaques, and we saw several when hiking up to the temple.