2 Temple and History
2.4 Japanese Era Taiwan (1895-1945)
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students to pass the civil examinations. Omitting these aspects from consideration would mean that there would have not been any difference between academies aimed to train a pool of talented man and prospective government officials, and those academies that were established as a conscious alternative and challenge to the civil examination system, which put main emphasis on the self-cultivation. Both types of academies relied on classical texts, but in both primary and higher education, attention should be paid to the teaching methods, the way the text were interpreted, social relations among the teachers and students, and both motivations for entering the study and an eventual effect the education had on both the thought and conduct of the student.
2.4 Japanese Era Taiwan (1895-1945)
Important development in this period was that the Confucian temples were taken over by local elites, and sacrifices to Confucius were organized by local society. Japanese officials supported and participated in these rituals, but did not try to extend direct control, which is in contrast to the later Kuomintang era. Colonial administration was also generally supportive of groups and activities promoting Confucian culture since they were seen as having positive effect on stabilizing social order. Only during the kōminka 皇民化 campaign (1937-1945), it was ordered to change rituals in Confucian temples to Shinto style. Yet, these were without a lasting effect and the rituals returned to the Qing style after the war. Since the original Temple of Culture in Taipei was eventually torn down, a former Japanese colonial official and local Taipei elites organized together in undertaking to build a new temple, i.e. the contemporary Taipei Confucius temple. Although Confucian schools and academies were abolished, private schools continued to function in a manner not substantially different from the Qing era.
However, this type of schooling was declining due to competition by the modern Japanese schools, until these private schools eventually disappeared completely. Japanese public schools provided special curriculum for Taiwanese students copying the private schools, but on top of that provided extremely popular education in sports, and in the final count were an important channel of upward social mobility.
Having lost the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), the Qing court was forced to sign the Treaty of Shimonoseki, and ceded Taiwan and Penghu to Meiji Japan. The colonial administration in its first years had to rely on military force to establish control over the island population.127 The Treaty of Shimonoseki allowed inhabitants of Taiwan to make a choice and leave for China before May 8th 1897, and it has been estimated that around 23 percent of the population emigrated. Majority of the upper elite families left Taiwan, which influenced the local elite social structure.128
The Taipei Temple of Culture was garrisoned by the Japanese army in 1985, and turned into a military hospital. The furnishings of the temple, including the spirit tablets, were damaged or destroyed in the process. The temple school as well as other Confucian schools
127 Harry J. Lamley, “Taiwan under Japanese Rule, 1895-1945: The Vicissitudes of Colonialism,” in M. Rubenstein (ed.), Taiwan: A New History, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 2007, p. 205.
128 Lamley, “Taiwan under Japanese Rule, 1895-1945,” p. 208.
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and both government and private academies were closed, their buildings often repurposed for other uses. When the hospital moved out in 1900, the temple was left neglected and fell into disrepair.129
In 1898, the governor-general Kodama Gentarō limited the role of the military and handed the control over colonial affairs to the chief of civil administration Gotō Shimpei who initiated range of modernizing policies, which comprised building new infrastructure, introduction of a new system of education, public and health sanitation reforms, and expanding agricultural production.130 New construction projects lead to destruction of many temples within the walled Taipei city. The Temple of Culture was torn down in 1907 in order to make room for a dormitory of a Japanese language school.131 There is certain symbolism involved in replacing the Temple of Culture build by Qing provincial authorities with a Japanese language school and a high school for girls. Even if it may not have been intentional, it symbolized in physical form the aims of colonial administration to introduce the new universal modern education instead of the Chinese learning, which Japanese educators perceived as “backward”.132 But later, new spirit tablets of Confucius, the Four Sages, and the Twelve Scholars were carved and placed inside a small pavilion on the school premises.
Students and teachers would then every year make a sacrifice.133
The Meiji education system was divided into two levels; the aim of primary education was to transform the common people into citizens by teaching them basic literacy and skills that would make them economically useful and politically loyal. Higher level comprised small number of highly trained specialists – scholars, technicians, and bureaucrats. This elementary education was the model for the system of public common schools kōgakkō 公学校 for the Taiwanese, which constituted a separate educational track from the schools for Japanese inhabitants in Taiwan. 134 In 1898, there were seventy-six common schools; eight years later, there were 180 schools; pupils included both boys and girls.135 Although the Qing academies in Taiwan were closed, local private schools, called shobō 書房 by the Japanese, were allowed to continue hold classes for the Taiwanese populace. Qing community schools (yixue) that managed to stay open though the transition period were absorbed by the shobō.136 As from 1898, the shobō were incorporated into the regional administrations, which were to oversee that the school day used fixed hours and that only textbooks approved the government-general were used, and that the teachers attend summer schools. The requirement of gradual
129 Taipei Confucius Temple Website, Accessed August 30, 2016, http://www.ct.taipei.gov.tw/zh-tw/L/About/HistoryChronicle/1/1.htm.
130 Lamley, “Taiwan under Japanese Rule, 1895-1945,” p. 209-210.
131 Taipei Confucius Temple Website, Accessed August 30, 2016, http://www.ct.taipei.gov.tw/zh-tw/L/About/HistoryChronicle/1/1.htm.
132 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, pp. 11-12.
133 Taipei Confucius Temple Website, Accessed August 30, 2016, http://www.ct.taipei.gov.tw/zh-tw/C/About/History/1/3/12.htm.
134 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, pp. 10-11.
135 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, p. 19.
136 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, pp. 30-31.
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introduction mandatory Japanese language and arithmetic classes was not probably widely practiced. The local Taiwanese dialects continued to be used as the language of instruction.137
Although shobō posed a formidable competition for kōgakkō, the colonial administration tried to attract the families of students to attend shobō rather than to force them. Therefore, the common schools for Taiwanese boys offered a four-year curriculum which utilized the Three Character classic and the Classic of Filial Piety in the first year, followed by The Great Learning and Doctrine of the Mean in the second grade. Last two grades were dedicated to the study of the Analects. The classes were taught by the Taiwanese teacher using the same teaching methods as in the local private schools. Only the last two years of the six-year elementary education were taught in Japanese fashion.138 But the main emphasis of common schools was on teaching spoken and written Japanese, and moral instruction. The ethical education made use of selected Confucian ideas, which were presented as Japanese or universal values shared by both the Chinese and the Japanese.139
Despite the efforts at accommodation, the common schools were not very popular among the parents in the early years of the colonial era. Many pupils were enrolled in both kōgakkō and shobō, and the average daily absence rates in kōgakkō remained high.140 Yet, the Chinese schools started to decline after 1906, and when they were closed down in 1939, only a few shobō remained open at that time since Taiwanese had started to prefer the Japanese schools. In parallel to the decline of shobō, time devoted to classical Chinese in kōgakkō was reduced after 1910. The classes were made elective in 1922. Eventually, in 1937, the classical Chinese was removed from kōgakkō curriculum altogether since the shobō were not perceived as a threat anymore.141 Major reason for shobō losing competitiveness was the physical education and music. Although wary at first, Taiwanese soon grew great fondness for the sports introduced by Japanese, and it was these popular activities, which were not to be found in the shobō.142 Since Meiji educators were keen on getting girls into public schools, the same agenda was applied in the colony, and met here with larger resistance than previously in Japan.
The girls have been taught at home and the parents were not willing to send them to school.
In order to entice the Taiwanese families, Japanese common schools for girls offered a curriculum focused on a wide range of handicrafts.143
Since the Taiwanese were colonial subjects, they faced discrimination in many aspects of daily life. In the sphere of education, after having passed the common school, the only available option in Taiwan was vocational training in teaching or medicine.144 On the other hand, although the purpose of the educational system was to transform the Taiwanese into
137 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, p. 31.
138 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, p. 20.
139 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, p. 21.
140 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, pp. 19-20.
141 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, pp. 111, 114.
142 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, p. 168.
143 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, p. 29.
144 Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education in Taiwan, p. 25.
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imperial subjects and a gradual process of assimilation into the Japanese empire, the process of assimilation was gradual before the war with China.
In 1917, the members of the Yingshe 瀛社 poetry society (established in 1909) and the Taishō Association 大正協會 (established in 1912), who shared a common goal to restore sacrifices to Confucius, jointly established the Association for the Veneration of the Sage (Chongsheng hui 崇聖會).145 The founder of the Taishō Association was a Japanese educator Kimura Kyo 木村匡 (1860-1940) who held the post of the chief of the school office section in the colonial administration. Kimura envisioned the Taishō Association as a platform for interactions between Japanese and Taiwanese elites, mainly landowners and businessmen.
Main channels of communication were to be commerce and the promotion of Confucianism.
To this end, the association performed its first sacrifice to Confucius in 1916.146 Ritual participants were Taiwanese members of the Taishō Association, Kimura and Japanese officials, but not Japanese members of the association.147 Since Japanese members of the Taishō Association, including Kimura, were not versed in the traditional Chinese learning and poetry, the association differed from poetry societies and functioned as a “salon”, i.e. meeting place for discussions.148 Kimura was named the chairman of the Association for the Veneration of the Sage; the two vice-chairmen were Li Jingsheng 李景盛 (1860-1922) and Yan Yunnian 顏 雲年 (1875-1923). Later, they gathered the local degree holders, teachers from Chinese schools, and merchants, and formed the Committee for the Sacrifices to the Sage (Taibei jisheng weiyuanhui 臺北祭聖委員會). Members of the society would then every year on the 27th day of the eight lunar month take the spirit tablets from the Japanese language school and perform sacrifices in Baoan Temple in Datong District, Longshan Temple in Wanhua District, or common schools in Datong District and Dadaocheng.149
In 1925, members of the associations decided to pursue the plan, proposed by Kimura,150 to build a new Confucius temple, and for that purpose established the Office for Preparation of Construction of Temple of the Sage (Taibei shengmiao jianshe choubeichu 臺 北聖廟建設籌備處) in order to manage the administration of building a temple. Chen Pei-ken 陳培根 (1876-1930) and Koo Hsien-jung 辜顯榮 (1866-1937) donated land to the west of the Baoan Temple, and many other people responded to the fundraising calls. Among the donators, there were also women and Christians.151 After having been approved by the colonial authorities, the construction started in 1926. The organisers invited Wang Yishun 王 益順 (1861—1931) to design and oversee the construction of the Confucius temple. Wang was the most famous Fujianese architect-carpenter of the late Qing era. In 1920, he had arrived in Taipei in order to rebuild the Longshan Temple, and in 1924 constructed Temple of
145 Li, Rijushidai taiwan rujiao jieshe yü huodong, p 63.
146 Takano Fumie, “Rizhijushiqi taiwanshen de lingwai jiaoliu fangshi - Yi mucunkuang weilie (1895-1925),”
Master’s thesis, Guoli chenggongdaxue, 2008, p. 69.
147 Takano, “Rizhijushiqi taiwanshen de lingwai jiaoliu fangshi”, p. 72.
148 Takano, “Rizhijushiqi taiwanshen de lingwai jiaoliu fangshi,” p. 56.
149 Li, Rijushidai taiwan rujiao jieshe yü huodong,” pp. 63-64, 301.
150 Takano, “Rizhijushiqi taiwanshen de lingwai jiaoliu fangshi,” p. 74.
151 Li, Rijushidai taiwan rujiao jieshe yü huodong, p. 302.
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the City god in Hsinchu. He also worked on the refurbishment of the Nankunshen temple (Nankunshen daitianfu 南鯤鯓代天府) in Tainan between 1923 and 1937.
In 1931, main body of the Confucius temple consisting of the main hall, Chongsheng Shrine, together with the surrounding buildings on eastern and western side, and Yi Gate was completed. On the 27th day of the eight month 1931, the sacrificial ceremony celebrating the birthday of Confucius was held in this new Confucius temple.152 During the preparations, members of the association consulted the details of the ritual with the governor of the Taihoku Prefecture, Yoshioka Kōzō 吉岡荒造 (1878-?), who personally revered Confucius and had a previous experience as the main sacrificer in the Yilan Confucius temple.153 Eventually, there were two differences from the Qing era sacrifices. Firstly, the ritual participants included influential businesspersons. Secondly, the three kneelings and nine prostrations (san gui jiu kou 三跪九叩) were replaced by simple bow; the reason was probably to accommodate the customs of the Japanese who were to act as the main sacrificers.154 The decision to simplify ritual was castigated in a public opinion article published in the Taiwan Daily News (Taiwan Nichinichi Shinpō 台湾日日新報). The author, calling himself simply an “old man from Taipei”, disapproved this unsubstantiated change, and emphasized that since rituals in the Confucius temple in Tokyo continued to be performed in the old-style, including three kneelings and nine prostrations, such a ritual cannot be called “uncivilized” and wilfully modified in order to accommodate the new times.155 In reply, a representative of the Association for the Veneration of the Sage, Huang Chunqing 黃純青 (1875─1956), stated that what is constant in ritual is sincerity, but the concrete ritual procedures had been changing throughout the times, and such a change is permissible. Reflecting a passage from Analects,156 Huang added that the ritual ought to be simple rather than extravagant, and as such, the change from three kneelings and nine prostrations is legitimate.157
The original aims for the new Taipei Confucius temple were to restore the temple-school system, and the plans for educational facilities inside the temple included higher temple-school of Chinese learning, or an academy.158 The hopes were not fulfilled, since the first construction phase stopped that year due to the lack of funds. In 1935, Huang Tsan-chun 黃贊鈞 (1874-1952), Koo Hsien-jung, and other members of the Association initiated another fundraising campaign, and soon afterwards the constructions on temple could continue. Since Wang
152 Taipei Confucius Temple Website, Accessed August 30, 2016, http://www.ct.taipei.gov.tw/zh-tw/L/About/HistoryChronicle/1/1.htm.
153 Takano, “Rizhijushiqi taiwanshen de lingwai jiaoliu fangshi,” p. 79.
154 Takano, “Rizhijushiqi taiwanshen de lingwai jiaoliu fangshi,” p. 79.
155 Takano, “Rizhijushiqi taiwanshen de lingwai jiaoliu fangshi,” p. 79.
156 “Lin Fang asked about the basis of ritual practice. The Master said: A large question indeed! As for ritual practice rather than being lavish one should be economic; in the practice of funeral arrangements, rather than being nonchalant one should show grief.” (Analects 3.4)
157 Takano, “Rizhijushiqi taiwanshen de lingwai jiaoliu fangshi,” p. 79.
158 Li, Rijushidai taiwan rujiao jieshe yü huodong, p. 302-303.
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Yishun had passed away, a Taiwanese architect was hired for the work, which was completed in 1939. The Minglun Hall as a place for a temple school was not built.159
Looking at the people who were involved in the process of building the Confucius temple, we cannot simply categorize them as “Confucians” in an exclusive sense of “creed” or
“confession”. There were Christians among the donators, and father and grandfather of the vice-chairman Li Jingcheng were both members of the Presbyterian Church. 160 Other members of the association also participated in different projects and organizations. Chen Pei-ken for a period of time managed the affairs of the Baoan temple, and was probably related to Chen Peiliang 陳培梁161 who was a member of a spirit-writing group centred around the Taoist immortal Lü Dongbin, which gradually transformed into Juexiu temple.162 Huang Zanjun 黃贊鈞 aside from donating to the construction of the Confucius temple, financially supported works on the Baoan temple and the Zhinan temple (Zhinan gong 指南宮).163 Although Kimura was able to quote Analects in his writings, and was especially active in propagating Confucianism during his stay in Taiwan (1895-1925), after his return to Japan in 1926, he did not participate in any events or activities related to Confucianism and his writing do not make any references to Confucianism or Taiwan.164
Under the Japanese colonial rule, Confucius temples and sacrifices to Confucius were no longer an exclusive domain of the state officials. Many local elites, scholars as well as entrepreneurs, therefore moved into this emptied cultural sphere. As such, efforts at restoring damaged or destroyed Qing Confucius temples and resuming the sacrifices had been undertaken in other cities where such temples had been built before since the colonial regime and society stabilized around the year 1900, i.e. Yilan, Hsinchu, Chiayi, Changhua, Kaohsiung, and Tainan.165 Apart from these old official temples, there were new Confucius temples built initiated by local elites, just like the one in Taipei – temple in Lotong in 1900, Miaoli 苗栗 in 1901, Puli in 1926, Kueijen in 1927, and Sun Moon Lake Temple of Civil and Military Culture in 1934.166 Various other groups performed their own sacrifices to Confucius outside of the Confucius temples; these included literary and poetry societies, benevolent societies, societies for cherishing the written word (xizishe 惜字社), or private Chinese elementary schools.167 These elites were not necessarily old “gentry” degree holders longing for the past, but their influence in local society was related to the entrepreneurial activities. They often acted as
159 Taipei Confucius Temple Website, Accessed August 30, 2016, http://www.ct.taipei.gov.tw/zh-tw/C/About/History/1/3/16.htm
160 Taiwan Memory, Accessed August 30, 2016, http://memory.ncl.edu.tw.
161 Stephan Feuchtwang, “City Temples in Taipei under Three Regimes,” in Mark Elvin and George William Skinner (eds.), The Chinese City Between Two Worlds, Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1974, p. 295.
162 Baoan Temple Webpage, Accessed August 30, 2016, http://www.25977463.org/aboutus.asp.
Members of the Chen family continue to participate in the temple affairs to this day.
163 Taiwan Memory, Accessed August 30, 2016, http://memory.ncl.edu.tw.
164 Takano, “Rizhijushiqi taiwanshen de lingwai jiaoliu fangshi,” p. 87.
165 Li, Rijushidai taiwan rujiao jieshe yü huodong, p. 303-306.
166 Taipei Confucius Temple Website, Accessed August 30, 2016,
166 Taipei Confucius Temple Website, Accessed August 30, 2016,