Spanish Takao: the Dominicans, the Rosary and the Treaty Port

Spain was here before

Spanish visitors to Kaohsiung are following an old path. In 1626 northern Taiwan became a Spanish colony, and the next year the island was placed under the Archdiocese of Manila. In 1631 the Dominican friar Jacinto Esquivel built a church in the north. That first mission came to an end, and when the Dominicans came back in 1859, their own history called the work a restoration.

The second time they came to the south, to Takau, the fishing harbour that became Kaohsiung.

Two friars at Takau, May 1859

The opening came with the Treaties of Tianjin in 1858, which lifted the Qing ban on Christian missions. The Dominican vicar in Fujian, Father Ignacio Ortuzar, chose two Spanish priests, Fernando Sáinz (郭德剛) and Ángel Bofurull (洪保律), and sent them with a small group of Chinese Catholic helpers, among them a former seminarian. They sailed from Xiamen (Amoy) in mid-May 1859 and reached Takau a few days later. The Dominican province gives the date as 18 May.

The start was hard. The local magistrate held them for two days. Bofurull fell ill and had left the mission before the end of the year, and Sáinz at one point slept on the beach until Matthew Rooney, an Irish-American trader living in Takau, helped him find lodging. In December 1859 the mission bought a plot in the coastal village of Cianjin, which the friars spelled Chieng-Kim, and put up a thatched house. Chinese Wikipedia gives the price as 62 silver dollars.

From a thatched house to a basilica

The house was rebuilt in adobe as a church of Our Lady around 1860 (one account dates the first chapel to 1861), then again from 1862 in red brick, coral stone and lime. When this church was finished in 1863 a statue of the Virgin of the Rosary arrived from Spain, and the church took the name of the Holy Rosary. In 1861 Father Mariano Antón, the first head of the new Dominican vicariate of Taiwan, built the mission's first residence at Chieng-Kim.

Sáinz spent about ten years in the south. Besides Chieng-Kim he founded missions at Tainan and at Ban-Kim, today's Wanjin in Pingtung, about 30 kilometres east, where he worked among the Makatao. Above the cathedral's main door hangs a plaque reading 奉旨, 'by imperial decree', issued under the Tongzhi Emperor in 1874.

The church you see today was rebuilt from 1929 and finished in 1931, in a mix of Gothic and Romanesque styles. It became a cathedral in 1948, and the Diocese of Kaohsiung was created in 1961 with the Dominican José Cheng as its first bishop. On 22 May 1995 Pope John Paul II made it a minor basilica.

A treaty port grows up around the mission

The friars arrived a few years before Takau formally opened to Western trade. Under the treaties, Takau and Keelung opened in 1863 as outer ports for Anping and Tamsui. A customs house began work in Takau on 5 May 1864, and that November Britain moved its vice-consulate to Takau, making it a full consulate in 1865.

So merchants, consuls and missionaries all arrived within a few years of each other. The British consulate's brick office by the harbour and its residence on the hill date from the late 1870s, and both still stand.

What to see today

The Holy Rosary Cathedral stands at 151 Wufu 3rd Road, beside the Love River. The address is in Lingya District, right on the boundary with Cianjin, and locals still call it the Cianjin Catholic Church (前金天主堂). It is a short walk west of Central Park MRT station. Inside, the Rosary statue brought from Spain stands on the high altar, and the imperial plaque is over the entrance. It is a working church with daily Mass, so visit quietly outside service times. Locally it is best known for its Christmas Eve celebrations.

In May 2008 the diocese opened its celebrations for 150 years of evangelisation with a Dominican priest playing Sáinz, arriving by boat in the port.

From the cathedral, cross the river to the Kaohsiung Museum of History in the old city hall, or take the MRT to Hamasen and walk up to the former British consulate. If you have a car or a free day, the Wanjin basilica in Pingtung, made a minor basilica in 1984, completes the story of Sáinz's mission. It lies outside this guide's area.

Where to eat nearby

Four of the places in this guide are within about 15 minutes' walk of the cathedral. Across the river in a Yancheng alley, Gang Yuan Beef Noodles is known above all for its pork knuckle noodles tossed in sauce. On the cathedral's side of the river, Niu Lao Da serves hot pot with fresh beef brought from Tainan each day and a light broth of beef bones, vegetables and fruit. Order the stir-fried beef as well.

For something smaller, Caizong Li has made peanut rice dumplings in bamboo leaf from scratch every day for more than 60 years. Eat the first one plain, then add the sauce and ground peanuts, and have a bowl of miso soup alongside. If you are visiting in the morning, Cianjin Braised Pork Rice has served breakfast since 1959: braised pork over rice with crisp milkfish floss, and a fried duck egg to break over the top if you like.