- TAIWANTODAY.TW - Taiwan Review - 01/Aug 00:00

Cultural Spring

A historic Beitou site is a source of memories that forges new international connections. Earlier this year, the Ministry of Culture designated 110 sites across Taiwan as official Taiwan Culture Bases. They were selected from over 1,000 submissions, ranging from bookstores and craft studios to museums and performance venues, and were evaluated by a 21-member committee based on criteria such as operational efficiency, cultural diversity and public accessibility. Each base serves as a local cultural hub, connecting communities through grassroots networks. Culture Minister Li Yuan (李遠) launched the initiative shortly after taking office, aiming to integrate decades of public-private cooperation in community development, regional revitalization and historic preservation. At a ceremony held in May at Taipei City’s Huashan 1914 Creative Park, a former Japanese colonial era (1895-1945) brewery, Li awarded certificates and described the role of the venues as a continuation of Taiwan Cultural Association work that started in the 1920s to shape a distinct local cultural identity. Among the sites is the Beitou Museum in northern Taipei’s Beitou District. At the ceremony was Director Hung Kan (洪侃), formerly a curator at the National Palace Museum and Taiwan Museum Association. As a rare example of a private museum housed in a heritage structure, it is the only one in the capital to be awarded culture base status in the museum and cultural facility category. It was chosen for its outstanding education, heritage preservation and community outreach. The building dates to 1921, when it was an upscale hot spring hotel. (Courtesy of Beitou Museum)The museum displays a Japanese-era bill for a stay at the site’s former luxurious Kazan Hotel. (Photo by Chen Mei-ling)Beitou Museum is housed in a traditional Japanese building. (Photo by Chen Mei-ling)Originally the luxurious Kazan Hotel, constructed entirely in timber with tatami rooms, decorative sliding wall panels and lattice windows, the museum was designated as a historic site in 1998. Hung said that the museum will continue to build partnerships with other historic sites, artisans, cultural tourism operators and neighboring institutions such as the Beitou Hot Spring Museum. The museum displays samples of hokutolite, a mineral that takes Beitou’s Japanese name, Hokuto. (Photo by Chen Mei-ling)Natural Riches Beitou’s historic significance is deeply tied to its unique natural setting. Located near Datun Mountain, one of only two active volcanoes in Taiwan, the area is renowned for its hot springs and geothermal activity. Among its unique features is a mineral that forms naturally in hot spring environments and contains the radioactive element radium. Discovered in 1905 and named hokutolite after Beitou’s Japanese pronunciation, Hokuto, it is the only naturally occurring mineral called after a location in Taiwan. Hokutolite was officially recognized as a natural cultural asset by Japan in 1932. The Beitou Museum displays samples of the mineral alongside artifacts and historical photographs that illustrate the district’s rich hot spring culture. The museum’s collection of over 6,000 pieces includes items from everyday life, with about a quarter originating from Indigenous communities. More than 1,000 objects have already been digitized as part of an expanding archival project that supports academic research and public access. The museum collection holds four statues that were originally installed around Taipei in the 1920s to pay tribute to Japan’s Shingon school of Buddhism. (Photo by Chen Mei-ling)Apart from the social and commercial development associated with its recreational hot springs, Beitou has another aspect as a cultural and spiritual center. The museum holds artifacts linked to Japanese Buddhist Master Kūkai, the ninth-century monk who founded the Shingon school of Buddhism. In the 1920s 88 statues were installed in Beitou and elsewhere in Taipei to echo those on Japan’s Shikoku island. Today, the museum houses four of the roughly 40 surviving statues, including one newly acquired in April. Motion Pictures The museum building itself has had many incarnations. After its start as a hotel for the Japanese elite, the site was repurposed after World War II to house Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff. It returned to private ownership in the 1960s and reemerged as a public museum in 1984, adopting its current name three years later. The museum’s restoration work uses traditional techniques to return the historic structure to its original form. (Courtesy of Beitou Museum)The book “Beitou March” by historian Yang Ye features anecdotes about the Kazan Hotel. (Photo by Chen Mei-ling)Between 2002 and 2008 the building underwent meticulous restoration led by the Fu Lu Culture Foundation. “We avoided modern shortcuts and used traditional techniques to return the structure to its original form,” Hung said. The preservation of authentic features retained the building’s historical integrity so that it has become a popular location for shooting period movies. In fact, even before the building’s restoration, Beitou was popular as a movie location, with hundreds of films made in the area over the decades, contributing to its status as an iconic backdrop for Taigi- and Mandarin-language cinema from the 1960s to the early 1980s. The nearby Beitou Hot Spring Museum has a section dedicated to Beitou’s past as the Hollywood of Taiwan. Members of the public can learn about the Japanese tea ceremony at the museum. (Courtesy of Beitou Museum)This cinematic history connects to the district’s broader commercial success story, which includes sulfur mining during the Spanish era in the 1630s. Much of this legacy is captured in “Beitou March,” a 2023 book by historian Yang Ye (楊燁) featuring nearly 1,000 rare images and anecdotes, including that the Kazan Hotel hosted Japanese kamikaze pilots before their final missions. Yang and other local academics regularly work with the museum on public exhibitions, such as 2021’s “Centennial Stories: The Life History of Beitou Elders,” which celebrated the building’s 100th anniversary. The museum’s recent exhibition, “Unwavering: 40 Years of the Beitou Museum,” highlighted the district’s folk traditions, Indigenous cultures and Japanese tea practices, the latter a topic that the museum has promoted through public classes since the mid-2000s. Branching Out International collaboration is central to the museum’s brief. It has partnered with Japanese institutions on exhibitions exploring kimonos, Kyoto lacquerware and the work of Yumeji Takehisa, a poet, painter and design pioneer influential in early manga and animation. In 2026 the venue will host an exhibition with Hiroshima prefecture’s Miyoshi Mononoke Museum on mythical creatures from East Asian folklore. “In the future, we plan to organize exhibits in Japan on Beitou’s ceramic traditions and Indigenous artifacts from groups around Taiwan to raise awareness of the country’s diverse cultures,” Hung said. The museum is also forging links with Austronesian communities. Taiwan is an origin point for Austronesian peoples, whose diaspora stretches from Madagascar to Southeast Asia and as far as Rapa Nui off Chile’s coast. “We hope to engage with Indigenous cultures across the Pacific and the Americas,” Hung said. “As a Taiwan Culture Base anchored in Beitou but connected to the world, we’re committed to expanding our role as a platform for history, education and global exchange.” Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw