I saw this pretty Paifang (arch) the other day and took a photo. I liked how it turned out with the sun just behind it.
I don't know much about these arches--I didn't even know the name for them until I looked it up on Wikipedia just now--but you can see them all over the place in Taiwan. They remind me of Japanese Torii. Japanese torii may or may not have been brought over to Japan with the introduction of Buddhism, but they're actually more commonly associated with Shinto shrines than with Buddhist temples.
There may be a historical connection between Chinese paifang and Japanese torii (or maybe not) but in Taiwan there often is a connection. When the Chinese Nationalists took over Taiwan in 1945, they were just finishing up an 8-year war with Japan. Taiwan had been under Japanese administration as a colony for 50 years at that point and was fairly Nipponified in many ways. The government of the island, like the rest of the empire, had set up Shinto shrines in every neighborhood of the island. As a result, there were also torii all over Taiwan. The Chinese Nationalists--having just fought a war with Japan and having no love for anything Japanese, and also in an effort to Sinicize Taiwan and legitimize their rule--set about dismantling and destroying anything that they deemed to be too Japanese. This included a lot of Shinto shrines and their accompanying torii. However, there are some interesting cases were shrines remained and became Taoist shrines, or where torii remained and had additions attached to them to make them look a little more Chinese so that they could pass as paifang.
That's not to say that this particular arch is one of those. It looks pretty new to me, so I don't think it dates back to the Japanese period. But I thought it was an interesting story nonetheless.
下の写真は鳥居じゃなくて「牌坊」という門だ。牌坊と鳥居は凄く似ているが、直接に繋がっているかどうかははっきりしていない様だ。まずは、日本の鳥居は元々日本にあった物か、仏教と一緒に日本に渡って来た物かは分かっていない。
しかし、台湾の場合は鳥居と牌坊は関係している例もたくさんある。なぜなら、台湾は５０年間日本の植民地で、その間に日本化はかなり進んだ。当時の大日本帝国の他の地域と同じく、全島に地域毎に必ず神社が建てられて、鳥居が付いた神社ももちろん多かった。それで、１９４５年に中華民国の政府が台湾に渡って来て支配した当時、台湾は鳥居だらけな島になっていた。８年間日本と戦争した中華民国はこれを嫌がって、徹底的に台湾を中華化しようとした。（台湾と中国の民族をより近くにして、自分の支配を正当化するという目的ももちろんあった。）そこで日本らしいものは基本的に禁止されて、そういったものを壊したり、形を変えたりしていた。時々鳥居に飾りとかを付けて、牌坊にしたという例もある。
この牌坊は別にそういう一つの例ではないが、私は牌坊を見るとよくこの話が頭に浮かんで来る。
其實每次我看到牌坊，我就想起來以前聽到的事情。在日本有東西叫做「鳥居」（ㄊㄡㄌㄧㄧ）。鳥居很像牌坊，但是不一定跟牌坊有關係。不過，在臺灣有的牌坊原來是鳥居！因為臺灣是日本50年統治的，所以1945年中華民國來統治臺灣時，臺灣曾日化了很多。統治臺灣的日本政府建很多神社（日本的廟）全島到處都有鳥居。把日本看成敵國的中華民國馬上開始讓臺灣人脫日戴華。（<--是我自己想出來的成語。好酷吧。）政府把很多鳥居弄壞了，但是也有一些鳥居改變了之後，就開始當牌坊。我覺得上面的照片，因為看起來太新建，所以應該不是一個這樣的例子。沒關係！還是有趣的話吧？
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