Paochueh Temple

Taichung


This Buddhist columbarium-and-temple complex has a few unusual monuments – a giant golden laughing Buddha with oddly placed windows, and an old temple (c 1920s) enshrined inside a new one built for the purpose of preserving it. Near the main entrance is a small graveyard with a Shinto shrine containing the bones of Japanese who died in Taiwan during WWII. Japanese diplomats come to pay their respects every year. Behind it, a pagoda commemorates 36,000 Japanese soldiers of Taiwanese descent.

There is also a modern office building shaped like a Chinese copper bell. The structure to your far left as you enter the complex is the columbarium (building storing funeral urns) which does not entertain sightseers.

Transportation

  • bus: 31

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