Bangka Stories: Time in

TEXT　Rick Charette

PHOTOS　Powei Chen, Vision

This is where it all began for the city of Taipei, the citay's oldest community. Imperial-era settlers chose this swath of flat land because it was best for trade and communication in the Taipei Basin. The story of Taipei is told here, in the form of "living museum" heritage temples, markets, shops, and other attractions.

The Banka area, known today as Wanhua District in Mandarin Chinese, was renamed "Manka" during the Japanese era. "Manka" is a Japanese word with a positive connotation of prosperity. While the official name has changed, the original name "Bangka" (or "Monga") continues to be used in the Taiwanese language and also appears in English publications. We start our exploration of Bangka with a visit to Lungshan Temple, which is easily reached by a short walk north of MRT Longshan Temple Station. ("Lungshan" is also spelled "Longshan," hence the MRT station's name.)

Lungshan Temple

The visually loud, majestic old Lungshan ("Dragon Mountain") Temple is both key to Taipei's history and the key portal to Bangka's heart and soul. Founded in 1738 – the present iteration took shape in the 1920s, with some of the most illustrious craftsmen brought in from China – this is one of the world's greatest showcases of Chinese temple art, renowned for its exquisite stone sculptures, woodcarvings, and bronze work. Of special note are the twelve major support columns at the main hall, enveloped in writhing auspicious dragons hewn from solid stone.

More than 100 icons of myriad gods are enshrined within. Temple lore attests that the main deity, Guanyin, the Goddess of Mercy, has proven unusually powerful over the centuries. In one example, when the area was devastated by an earthquake in 1815, Lungshan's Guanyin emerged serene and unscathed. In another, during WWII Allied bombers inadvertently hit the temple, and though the explosions and ensuing fire razed the main hall, the goddess miraculously survived intact, singed but nothing more, though the protective iron railings surrounding her had melted.  A common sight at the temple is the casting of divination blocks to draw divination slips. After receiving a positive answer from the deity – one flat side up and one rounded side up – you can draw a divination slip and interpret the oracle.

As well, be sure to visit Yue Lao ("Old Man Under the Moon"), the Chinese Cupid (complex rear, left corner). Young people will cast divination blocks to ask for a red thread from Yue Lao. Carrying this thread with you is believed to bring luck in finding true love.

Join a guided tour (90min) of the temple with a knowledgeable volunteer. Tours are offered in Chinese, English, and Japanese, starting at the waterfall near the temple entrance at 9:30am, 1:30 pm, and 7:00pm. Also, at around 6:00am, 8:00am and 5:00pm each day, sutras are chanted in the courtyard and you're welcome to join.

Turn left after leaving the temple and you come right to Herb Lane.

Herb Lane

Along the temple's east-side wall is priceless Herb Lane, a short, covered narrow alley thick with open-faced shops stacked high with teas and more than a hundred herbs. This originally was the start of the pathway-type road leading east from the temple, which wended through what is today known as the Bopiliao Historic Block, another prime Wanhua attraction.

In the old days, when doctors were a rarity, Taiwan temple worshippers suffering ailments would ask a god for a divine herbal-medicine prescription, then proceed to local sellers for the needed ingredients. In the 1980s the Taipei government prohibited temples from issuing medicinal divination slips, but aromatic Herb Lane continues to supply items for Chinese doctor-prescribed traditional medicines and tonic foods and also sells herbal ointments, teas, tea bags, and bath bags. Most of the fresh herbs used come from north Taiwan, dried and processed herbs from the center/south.

At Herb Lane's east end, on Xichang Street, you'll see several busy drink stands, selling herbal teas and other tonic drinks. The vendors will be happy to explain, which are best for summer cooling or winter warming of your metabolism.

From Lungshan Temple, walk east along Guangzhou Street, turn right onto Kangding Road and you'll soon see the entrance to Dongsanshui Street Market on the left-hand side.

Dongsanshui Street Market

Long, sinewy Dongshanshui Street Market, snaking an entire block, is perhaps Wanhua's most important traditional market. It is, in effect, an elongated tunnel, just wide enough for three or four people walking abreast, score upon score of small vendor stalls stretched out either side its entire length, a low roof shielding shoppers from rain and sun. The market took shape way back in the 1920s. The range of offerings is dazzlingly culture-illuminating, ranging from fresh produce and cooked foods to daily necessities, with many sellers of traditional delicacies.

One of the best vendors in the market is Duo Jia She, well known for its five-colored dumpling combo. The dumplings are filled up generously with natural, high-grade ingredients that are carefully selected and hand-processed.

A short side corridor beside this stall leads to what strikes the visitor as an open-air mini "urban canyon," walls formed by the backs of buildings on all sides. Within it is a precious "hidden-away" heritage treasure, the renovated Xinfu Market, which though Japanese-built in 1935 looks spanking new.

This distinctive building has a horseshoe shape and a narrow central courtyard facilitating ventilation and light entry. The exterior is Art Deco, and the radial and stair patterns that were avant-garde when it opened have been retained. Opened as Taipei's first public market to meet the city's progressive new hygiene standards, today it's rebranded as "U-mkt" after its U-shape structure and serves as host to a history display, café, and other facilities (no traditional-style vendors).

Duo Jia She 多餃舍

🚩70-5, Sanshui St, Wanhua Dist.

🕝8:00am-3:00pm

U-mkt

🚩70, Sanshui St, Wanhua Dist.

🕝Tue-Sun 10:00am-6:00pm

The Lungshan Temple neighborhood teems with long-in-place vendors, some enterprises in operation for more than a century, serving Lungshan and the corps of other community temples, devotees, and local citizens: Buddhist implements shops, embroidery shops, incense and spirit money shops, dowry shops, vendors of traditional pastries, lanterns, and much else – including, as we've just seen, herbs and teas.

One of those long-established businesses is the following incense shop, three blocks north of Lungshan Temple.

Lao Ming Yu Incense Shop is a venerable enterprise that has been hand-crafting incense since 1897. The entrance is a portal into a fantastic, densely crammed world of multitudinous types of incense sticks and coils along with multifarious other articles needed for religious worship. An image of the shop's founder – the fourth generation today runs the show – is featured on a selection of the auspicious red packaging used for the incense sticks; the florid antique-style graphic design it accompanies was done by the founder himself.

A Lao Ming Yu specialty carried on since the shop's founding is the use of Chinese-medicine fragrances in its incense offerings, using a secret house practice, which have distinctive individual delicate fragrances and, today's proprietors stress, contain no elements harmful to health. According to the owner, foreign visitors coming to his show are especially fond of golden paper and Taoist paper art, traditionally used in offerings during festive celebrations.

Lao Ming Yu Incense Shop 老明玉香舖

🚩155, Sec. 2, Guiyang St., Wanhua Dist.

📞(02) 2381-5569

🕝8:30am-9:30pm

One minute west on foot from Lao Ming Yu is FullDone Old Tea. This proud business goes back all the way to 1845. The founder opened his tea-processing/selling venture soon upon emigrating from China.

Now in the hands of the sixth generation, the tried and true original technology and techniques are still faithfully followed. This includes a unique family-specialty charcoal roasting technique that "reveals and further enhances" the aromas and distinctive characteristics of the premium Taiwan leaf types used. The family also stresses sourcing of leaves for which natural cultivation and harvesting eco-protection methods are used.

FullDone Old Tea 福大同茶莊

🚩196, Sec. 2, Guiyang St., Wanhua Dist.

📞(02) 2375-6527

🔗www.f-tea.com.tw

🕝10:00am-7:30pm

Our last stop on this whirlwind tour of Wanhua is a shop three blocks northeast of the aforementioned two stores.

Founded in 1965 by a Taipei local, the signature creation of Favor Tonic Soup, using a guarded family recipe honored by today's third generation, is "four herbs soup," the Chinese name translating literally as "four gods/spirits soup." The four starring Chinese medicinal "deities" in question: dried fox nut barley, white lotus seeds, Chinese yam, and poria cocos mushroom.

It is believed to have a wide variety of health benefits, including stress relief. Most customers pair their soup with the chewy house sourdough-made baozi (buns with fillings). Amidst today's bright, inviting modern-look outside and inside, a mottled red tale from the founder's era has been retained as a cherished visual reminder of the shop's long history.

Favor Tonic Soup 惠安四神湯

🚩142, Neijiang St., Wanhua Dist.

📞(02) 2371-0898

🔗facebook.com/4godsoup

🕝Mon-Fri 6:00am-7:00pm

　Sat 6:00am-5:00pm