About This Issue
From faith and medicine to leisure and tourism, hot springs—long regarded as a cultural meibutsu of Japan—also shaped the development of Taiwan’s hot spring culture under similar environmental conditions. Beginning with Beitou, sulfur resources were transformed into thermal baths; military and police sanatoriums evolved into hot spring hotels. With the official opening of public bath facilities, what had once been an exclusive pleasure for officials and elites gradually became accessible to the general public. While not everyone could afford the cost of a hot spring resort, many were nonetheless able to experience physical renewal and quiet pleasure in public baths and the surrounding settlements—discovering the unique appeal of Taiwan’s hot spring landscapes.
The hot spring settlement of Guanziling offers a condensed timeline of how such destinations took shape in Taiwan. From the police sanatorium and the area’s first inn, Yoshidaya, to Ryutaya (Guanziling Hotel), whose wooden structure survives to this day; from upgraded public bathhouses to long-established inns such as Xinxin Pavilion and Qingxiu Pavilion; from the government guesthouse Tingshuian—once hosting Prince Fushimi Hiroyasu—to Taiwan’s only golf course with special checkpoints, located in Sakuragaoka Park behind the settlement. Among Taiwan’s cultural elites, Lin Hsien-tang was particularly fond of Guanziling; his annual retreats there are carefully recorded in The Diary of Master Guan-yuan.
The reputation and scale of many regional hot springs rivaled those of Taiwan’s four most famous resorts, inspiring poets and painters alike. Changhua Hot Spring, once praised as “one of southern island Taiwan’s proudest treasures” and listed among the Twelve Scenic Wonders of Taiwan, was renowned for its well-equipped baths, elegant atmosphere, and nearby attractions. Though the site is now a parking lot—and despite recurring rumors of restoration—it has yet to be revived. By contrast, Caoshan Hot Spring was repurposed as the Taipei City Teachers’ Training Center, while Jiaoxi emerged as northern Taiwan’s major hot spring destination outside Beitou. Though landscapes have changed, these routes—suited to solitary travel or shared journeys—still allow the mind to wander, once again losing itself in a modern-day Peach Blossom Spring.
Many Japanese painters and calligraphers who frequently visited Taiwan chose to stay at Matsutōen, celebrated as “Beitou’s finest hot spring lodging.” Newspapers even reported their stays to attract collectors, creating a mutually beneficial relationship between the inn and creative communities. This dynamic played a distinct role in shaping early colonial-era literature and visual arts, setting Matsutōen apart from other Beitou resorts. Beitou’s ties to the entertainment quarters ran even deeper. After the war, when neon signs of the pleasure districts went dark, former courtesans, bathhouse attendants, hostesses, women who sold their bodies to support families, and sex workers quietly disappeared—leaving the turns of their lives largely unrecorded.
The shifting image of Beitou diverged sharply from the Governor-General’s original vision of civilization and European-style resort culture—an image subtly intended to showcase the success of colonial governance. From hot spring destination to pleasure quarter, from red-light district to scenic cultural zone, Beitou’s public bathhouse itself fell into ruin and was later reborn. Only after its transformation into the Beitou Hot Spring Museum did the area’s tourism regain vitality and flourish once more.
A girl whose name was stolen by the Shingawa macaque; an island given a name by those who governed it. Above and below the earth’s surface, the enjoyment and provision of this “precious heat source” unfolds as a long history of healing—one that begins in the aftermath of war and in the surveys of scientific exploration. Within overlapping frames of cultural exchange and bodily experience, these currents continue to converge. Even today, the restless core of the earth pulses beneath us, while travelers seek solace for body and soul. Amid steam and mist, let the Shingawa macaque tell another story—one of human warmth and abundance, and of lives marked by transience and loss.
ISBN 9772518947009 10
