Tamsui Qingshui Temple
Main Deities
About
The Qingshui Zushi enshrined in Tamsui goes by the most vivid name in Taiwan: the Nose-Dropping Ancestor. Legend says that when disaster approaches, the nose of the statue falls off as a warning. It sounds absurd until you hear a Tamsui local tell it — they are entirely serious, because the story is about the survival of a whole town. Built in 1937, the temple is young by local standards, yet it counts among greater Taipei's four great Zushi temples and Tamsui's four great temples. It sits inside the market lanes off Qingshui Street: turn in from the crowded old street and within a few steps the noise gives way to incense smoke. In Tamsui, the busiest and the stillest are one corner apart.
History
Tamsui Qingshui Temple was built in 1937, late compared with other Zushi temples in Taiwan — but the deity it enshrines had been part of Tamsui life far longer than the building. The story of the falling nose circulated in the neighborhood before there was any temple, and believers took turns hosting the image in private homes until the hall was finished and it finally had a fixed address. That sequence — faith first, temple after — is why this place is bound so tightly to the streets around it. Nobody built a temple and waited for worshippers; people believed for decades, then built the temple together. It is now counted among the four great Zushi temples of greater Taipei, alongside those of Manka, Sanxia, and Ruifang.
Visitor Info
Address
No. 87, Qingshui St, Tamsui District, New Taipei City
Region
Tamsui District, New Taipei City