Long the stuff of folklore and the source of ghost stories among Taipei residents, the spooky environs of the Xinhai Tunnel (辛亥隧道) topped a recent online poll of the “Top Ten Haunted Sites” in Taiwan.
Yam.com, which conducted the poll last month, said it received votes from 120,000 netizens. The results were released earlier this week, just a few days ahead of the start of Ghost Month on Wednesday.
A Yam.com official said that the tunnel’s western entrance is next to Taipei Municipal Second Funeral Parlor on Xinhai Road, a number of fatal accidents have occurred in or near the tunnel, and several large public and private cemeteries are located in the mountains behind the tunnel, all of which help give the area an eerie feeling.
There are also urban legends about motorists seeing ghostly figures when driving through the tunnel late at night.
Another road, the Taipei-Yilan Highway, or Provincial Highway No. 9, came in at No. 2 on the list.
The winding mountain road, which has many hairpin turns, runs from New Taipei City’s (新北市) Sindian District (新店) to Yilan County.
It has been the scene of scores of fatal accidents over the years and victims’ families are known to toss ghost money along the route to assure a peaceful rest for the departed.
Coming in at No. 3 is the Chinese Culture University’s Daren Hall, which houses the arts and foreign languages departments.
There is a popular rumor about students that the building’s elevator is haunted because it sometimes takes people to “B1,” a non-existent floor.
However, one alumnus said the rumor is the result of a prank.
“Some students wanted to play a joke and put a ‘B1’ sign on the elevator’s button panel as a Halloween prank. They were just trying to have some fun by scaring people,” the graduate said.
The university did not comment on the poll.
Two “haunted houses” made the list, one in Singjhong Village (興中) in Chiayi County’s Mingsyong Township (民雄) and one in Keelung.
Singjhong Village head Yao Feng-chung (姚鋒鍾) said there were tales about the Mingsyong house many years ago, but most locals just regard it as an ordinary old house.
Keelung residents who live close to the old house belonging to the Lin clan on the list also say there is nothing scary about the building, it just looks a bit old.
The Katoli Circus, an abandoned amusement park in Greater Taichung’s Dakeng District (大坑) was also a top vote-getter.
It is considered the most famous haunted site in central Taiwan and is a popular place for late-night visits by young people.
The dilapidated building in Greater Tainan that once housed the Singlin Hospital, its doors and windows now padlocked, made the list, as did the Xining Public Housing complex in Taipei.
One Xining resident, surnamed Yu (余), who has lived there since he was a child, said there was nothing scary about it.
“It takes about seven years to be able to get an apartment in a public housing project in Taipei. There are not enough places for humans to live around here, let alone ghosts,” he said.
Also on the list were a temple in Greater Kaohsiung and an apartment building near Baishawan (白沙灣) in New Taipei City.
A Yam.com spokesperson said the poll was “just for fun.”
“We always have a healthy respect for the powers of the supernatural world. The sites chosen for the poll came from recommendations and reporting by bloggers, the media and netizens. The poll is not meant to denigrate any of these places,” the spokesperson said.
Additional reporting by Lin Liang-sheng, Ling Yi-chang and Lai Hsiao-tung
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS