In Taiwan, many school campuses are said to have been built upon the site of public cemeteries. This article will probe into the mystery of school campuses by looking at the history of public cemeteries and the founding of several schools in Taipei City.

By Chi-cheng
Translated by George Bobyk
Edited by Elizabeth Gardner, Sabrina Chung, and Yu-Han Huang

This article first appeared on Black Story and was translated and published with the permission of the original publisher.

School campuses are often imagined as haunted sites, making them an unsettling backdrop for eerie tales. In Taiwan, many school campuses are said to have been built upon the site of public cemeteries. This article will probe into the mystery of school campuses by looking at the history of public cemeteries and the founding of several schools in Taipei City.

LOCATING PUBLIC CEMETERIES

Before we examine the eerie tales about school campuses in Taipei, we must first define what a cemetery is.

First, we need to exclude all cemeteries constructed on private land. These cemeteries are administered by the landlords and their clan to worship their ancestors. In terms of popular belief and management, they differed from the typical type of public cemetery feared by many.

Second, during the Qing dynasty, certain cemeteries were designated as “Wanshangong” (萬善公) or “Tongguisuo” (同歸所) - burial sites for the anonymous and the unclaimed. Through subsequent government efforts, these sites were reorganized to become cemeteries for the burial of ordinary people.

Third, during the Japanese colonial era (1895-1945), regulations on “public cemeteries” (共同墓地) were introduced. The colonial government managed and demarcated the boundaries of these public cemeteries, regulating the ways by which the dead should be buried. It was no longer possible to freely dig a grave in accordance with geomancy (fengshui) or one’s own personal preference. In the case of Taihoku City (present-day Taipei City), during the first year of Japanese rule, the Governor-General Kabayama Sukenori (樺山資紀) issued regulations stipulating that public cemeteries had to be built on sites at least 1500 meters from northeastern Tuā-tiū-tiânn (大稻埕; Dadaocheng).

In the early years of Japanese colonial rule, dozens of initial settlements around Taihoku City were equivalent in size to Qing-dynasty Han settlements. These settlements remained relatively small, and the land beyond its borders was largely marshland and farmland. At that time, land outside of downtown areas was cheap and easy to acquire. As a result, many schools and cemeteries were constructed on these plots with ample farmland for construction and use, schools and cemeteries would not be built alongside one another, nor were school campuses built upon the sites of burial grounds.

An image of the Elysium Funeral Home on Taipei's Linsen Road, 1970s.

Source: Anonymous

The following are all examples of cemeteries built in Taihoku City:

Tuā-lông-pōng Public Cemetery (大龍峒共同墓地 )
Tuā-tiū-tiânn Public Cemetery (大稻埕共同墓地)
Gû-poo-tsng Public Cemetery (牛埔庄共同墓地), near present-day Taipei Film House
Nâ-kháu-chng Public Cemetery (林口庄共同墓地), now the location of the Taipei City Hakka Cultural park
Tsiàu-an-tshù Public Cemetery (詔安厝共同墓地), near present-day Tianjin Street
Lîng-áp-kháu Public Cemetery (龍匣口共同墓地), near the Taipei Botanical Gardens
Sin-khí-ke Public Cemetery (新起街共同墓地), near present-day Red House
Sann-pang-kiô Public Cemetery (三板橋共同墓地), this cemetery was specifically designated for Japanese people

Today, the major districts of Taipei City converge with the sites of public cemeteries. With this in mind, perhaps you might feel a slight chill in the air when you walk on the scorching-hot streets of Taipei City next time.

A report of Governor-General of Taiwan Akashi Motojiro’s burial at the Sann-pang-kiô Public Cemetery.
Source: *Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpō*

THE UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS OF CEMETERIES

On a winter day of January 1907, the residents of Tsiàu-an-tshù (詔安厝) discovered a severed leg on the street that had been mauled by dogs. The frightened people immediately reported the case to the police, who then confirmed that the severed leg belonged to a child around six years of age.

Upon discovery, the leg had already turned dark purple and was riddled with bite marks, suggesting that it had probably been dug up from a grave by wild dogs. The people of Tsiàu-an-tshù investigated the cemetery, whereupon they found a small plot where a new grave appeared to have been recently dug up. Dogs had left the site a complete mess. Upon hearing the news, the family of the child rushed over to the cemetery. The bereaved family were infuriated that the wild dogs had desecrated the burial place of their beloved child. They blamed themselves for not digging the grave deeper, believing that this would have stopped the wild dogs from sniffing and digging up the corpse of their child.

Cemeteries were also the sites of secret burials. When the Iûnn family of Gû-poo-tsng left to inspect their lands, they surprisingly found a large metal pot on public cemetery land. Upon further inspection, they were horrified to discover the corpses of infant twins inside!

Police officers examined the corpses and speculated that the twins were no older than four months. Given that they had not yet grown hair, and that it was difficult to determine their sex, it was likely that the twins died after a premature birth. Perhaps the mother of the twins or the family were trying to avoid attention from the neighbors, so they had deliberately hidden the corpses in a metal pot. Since there is no way of knowing the truth, the police officers could only place the corpses of the twins in the Gû-poo-tsng Public Cemetery.

As you can see, anything could happen in a cemetery. But how are all these related to school campuses?

LIVING AMONGST THE DEAD: POPULATION GROWTH IN TAIHOKU CITY

As we have seen, the first wave of cemeteries did not spatially overlap with school campuses. However, problems arose when the downtown area began saturating, the city started encroaching upon public cemeteries. As such, the people living in urban Taihoku City wanted to relocate the graves. For example, a 1905 plan to improve the downtown area was announced, with the government realizing that the city would be unable to cope with Taihoku City’s expanding population in the near future. The new plan established new residential districts and public infrastructure. They unified the three settlements of Taihoku City: Tuā-tiū-tiânn (大稻埕; Dadaocheng), Báng-kah (艋舺; Mengjia) and Tâi-pak Siânn (臺北城; Old Walled City).

As this plan got underway, the irksome issue of public cemeteries became increasingly apparent. Those public cemeteries previously located in open countryside now became an obstacle that needed to be removed so that infrastructure under the plans to rejuvenate the city, such as schools and markets, could be built.As Taiwan Nichi Nichi Shinpō reported in 1919:

“…(the graves) must be relocated. There are 767 marked graves, in addition to over 4000 unmarked graves. There is currently no trace of these tombs in the three settlements.”

The “three settlements” referenced above refers to Tuā-tiū-tiânn, Báng-kah, and Tâi-pak Siânn. After 1909, many of the aforementioned public cemeteries were largely relocated to the “Tíng-lāi-poo Public Cemetery”, and grave sites were no longer seen in the busier downtown area of Taikoku City. Being a rural area, Tíng-lāi-poo was surrounded by open fields in the southeastern region of the Taipei basin, to the south is Kíng-bé (景美; Jingmei) and Tuā-pînn-nâ (大坪林; Dapinglin). As such the Tíng-lāi-poo Public Cemetery and the surrounding mountains became the new home of the displaced graves .

Since the Qing dynasty, the expansive Sin-khí-ke Public Cemetery amassed the corpses of those Han people who died fighting against each other. After the authorities decided to construct a Japanese-style playground in modern-day Ximending, the graves located there became targets for relocation. Based on historical sources, there were 1159 ancestral halls with household names and marked graves, in addition to 1000 plus unmarked graves and ancestral halls, reaching a total of almost 3000 grave sites. After 1908, these graves were successively moved to the Tíng-lāi-poo Public Cemetery. This is perhaps one of the earliest examples in Taiwan’s history of a mass relocation of graves to make way for public infrastructure.

In an interesting turn of events, when the unscrupulous folks living at Tíng-lāi-poo heard that the government was spending money on relocating graves and purchasing new land for public cemeteries, they quickly dug up empty plots, creating several small mounds. When relevant authorities came to buy the land for new grave sites, locals falsified the facts and told them that the mounds were the burial sites of their ancestors, demanding five or ten yen as payment to clear the sites for use. Now, that’s a Taiwanese take on petty crime!

SKELETONS IN THEIR BASEMENT? NATIONAL TAIWAN UNIVERSITY AND OTHER SCHOOL CAMPUSES

Due to the needs of urban development, the burial sites mentioned at the beginning of this article were gradually relocated to the Tíng-lāi-poo Public Cemetery or even mass grave sites farther away during the Japanese colonial period. But this wasn’t the final resting place for these skeletal remains. Did you know that the Tíng-lāi-poo-tsng (頂內埔庄) was actually the site of National Taiwan University?

In 1928, the Taihoku Imperial University (National Taiwan University) campus was originally situated in the Government-General’s Advanced Academy of Agronomy and Forestry (高等農林學校), but was continuously expanding northwards, buying land and constructing new sites along the way. National Taiwan University built two rows of buildings, famously known as the “13 groovy brick school buildings.” During the middle period of Japanese colonial rule, Taihoku City began to develop and expand exponentially, stretching down to the southeastern corner where Chanchu Mountain (蟾蜍山) is located. As a result, public cemeteries posed a difficult problem to the colonial authorities’ urban planning.

Finally, in 1940, the authorities decided to buy a large swath of land in La̍k-tiunn-lê (六張犁; Liuzhangli) for a public cemetery. All grave sites were consequently relocated to La̍k-tiunn-lê, solving the problem once and for all. The public cemetery at La̍k-tiunn-lê was also large enough to cater to the needs of Taihoku City’s future residents. Indeed, this is how the current public cemetery at Liuzhangli came to be. Today, the public cemetery at Liuzhangli is well occupied by grave sites that were relocated due to Taipei’s needs and history of development.

Now that we have traced the relocation trajectories of the grave sites in question, let’s review our aforementioned list of public cemeteries built alongside public infrastructure. Using the historical geographic information system (GIS), I have confirmed which schools in Taipei were once sites of public cemeteries. Though not exact, the list below should not be too far off. As for those Taipei schools not listed, you can now breathe a sigh of relief. It could also be that I haven’t done my research thoroughly enough!

Tuā-lông-pōng Public Cemetery, now the location of Municipal Lanzhouguomin Junior High School
Tuā-tiū-tiânn Public Cemetery, located at the southwest intersection of Chang'an West Road and Chongqing North Road
Gû-poo-tsng Public Cemetery, now the location of the Taipei Film House
Nâ-kháu-tsng Public Cemetery, now the location of the Taipei City Hakka Cultural park
Tsiàu-an-tshù Public Cemetery (now the location of Tianjin Street)
Lîng-áp-kháu Public Cemetery, now the location of Mandarin Experimental Elementary School, near the Jianguo High School
Sin-khí-ke Public Cemetery, the area that extends west from present-day Red House to the edge of Ximen Elementary School and NTU Hospital’s Bei-hu Branch
Sann-pang-kiô Public Cemetery, now Knagle Park and Linsen Park. This cemetery was designated specifically for Japanese people
Tíng-lāi-poo Public Cemetery, located next to present-day Taiwan University of Science and Technology and National Taiwan University Experimental Farm