This southern city, one of Taiwan's earliest settlements, is the place to get familiar with the island's traditional culture and historical background.

This southern city, one of Taiwan's earliest settlements, is the place to get familiar with the island's traditional culture and historical background. By Brent Hannon Want to get rich? Find a husband? Cure a disease? There are temples in Tainan for all these purposes, and more. And if you don't have any paper money to offer to the gods, never mind -- you can burn a paper credit card. This is Tainan, where a rich past blends easily with the 21st century. Tainan was the capital of Taiwan for 200 years, from the Ming Dynasty until 1887. Because it was founded long before cars were invented, Tainan is a compact city, and most public places are within walking distance of each other. After the capital moved to Taipei, Tainan evolved into a commercial city, but without the wholesale rapid development that typified the Taipei area. As a result, the old city retains much of its traditional character, and most of its major sites are conveniently close together. Our guide through the old capital is Lilly Pi, who was once teased by her friends for majoring in history. A history major wouldn't be able to find a job, they said. But as it turns out, Tainan is the perfect place for a historian. Lilly created a three-hour walking tour of Tainan, combining her love of history with her family tradition of hospitality -- the Pi family operates the Asia Hotel, located just a block from where the tour begins. Tainan's peaceful alleys and quiet lanes ring with Lilly's energetic footsteps. She's anxious to show as much as possible. Along the way, she points out every detail -- a beautiful old library, a courtyard where five concubines hanged themselves, a manhole cover that was the first well in Tainan. The temples are located in an area of about 10 or 12 square blocks. Our tour will take us through temples that correspond to the Chinese circle of life, from birth to Judgment Day and beyond. The first stop is Kailung Temple. This one is for teenagers -- girls crawl three times under a wooden table to find a husband, and boys crawl under the table in the hope of earning a larger paycheck. Every "double-seven"day (July 7 on the Chinese calendar) the place comes alive, because the Kailung Temple's patron saint is the youngest of seven daughters, a seamstress who according to legend married a farm boy. The couple was so deeply in love that they stopped doing their farming and their sewing. Their parents punished them by allowing them to meet just once a year, on double-seven day. Inside the temple are the seven sisters, all deities, sprouting bright oranges of prosperity from their heads. Next up is the sprawling estate of Old Tainan's richest family. Inside the walled compound, the grounds have an air of gentle decay. The green pond filled with placid carp, the slate-roofed pagoda, and the generous gardens all speak eloquently of a bygone era. Lilly fears this gentle scene will fall victim to progress. "This will be gone in 20 years,"she predicts. "There's no money for repairs."

 Next we're on our way through Fortuneteller's Lane to Great Matsu Temple, or Ta Tien Hou Gong, built about 350 years ago. The spacious halls are nearly deserted. We admire the deep smoke-stained wood on the temple ceiling, and the colorful frescos on the walls. The steps are of worn granite, and the carved tablets and plaques date from the Kanghsi period (1662 to 1722). The long, slow years and good craftsmanship give the temple a feeling of character and a patina of gentle age.

Great Matsu Temple is home to a Taoist deity who acts like Cupid. This is the place for beauty -- a bit of incense ash behind the ears and women become more attractive; a dab on the throat and men become eloquent and confident. Single boys and girls will take a red thread from the temple and put it in their pocket. When the thread disappears, it means the god of love is at work.

One of the highlights of a walking tour of Tainan is the abundance of snacks. "Near a temple, there is always food,"says Lilly, as we emerge into a busy lane, filled with food stalls, outside the temple. We sit down to a bowl of Danzi noodles, the most famous food in Tainan. Danzi noodles were invented in 1895 by a local fisherman named Hung Yu-tou, as a way to stretch food supplies through the slack fishing season. The noodles are made one bowl at a time. Fresh noodles and bean sprouts are placed in a bamboo cup, boiled briefly, and transferred to a hot bowl. Then the shopkeeper adds the signature toppings: a touch of cilantro, a spoonful of pork sauce, some shrimp broth, vinegar and garlic, two small shrimp, and voila! The best bowl of noodles in existence, for just NT$50 (less than US$1.50).

Like most good southern inventions, Danzi noodles have made their way up the island to the capital. Elsewhere in Taiwan, they're called Tainan noodles, and big food companies even make a canned version of the meat sauce. But nobody can match the original flavor, says Lilly.

Craft shops are everywhere in Tainan, and like the food stalls, they congregate in the vicinity of temples. Near Matsu temple, we check out a paper lantern maker. These intricate lanterns, colorful to the point of gaudiness, have won numerous national awards. Each lantern takes 15 days to create, and the labor is reflected in the price -- they cost about NT$30,000 (US$875) per lantern.

Now we venture back into the lanes and byways of old Tainan, and emerge at Tientan, or Heaven Temple, where the faithful go to change their luck. Lots of people, apparently, need divine intervention -- the temple is thronged with devotees praying and burning offerings of incense and spirit money. Here, a priest is waving a bundle of burning joss sticks over a hopeful visitor, chanting and creating huge clouds of smoke. At the end, exorcising the bad luck, the priest holds the incense to the devotee's open mouth. Trance states, exorcisms, and other ceremonies are common. "This temple is always a show, but without actors, " says Lilly

Incidentally, you don't have to actually show up at the temple for a change of luck. This is Taiwan, and this is the 21st century. You can send over an item of clothing, and change your luck while you shop or eat lunch. The fee for a quick luck change is NT$150.

We emerge from Tientan and once again are greeted by food. This time, we are treated to glutinous rice dumplings filled with pork and bamboo shoots. The steaming hot treats are crunchy and sticky, sweet and savory at the same time. Strolling off, fortified, we exit the sunlit streets and enter dim, eerie Tungyueh Tien, or East Mountain Temple (although Lilly simply calls it "hell temple". Here, the living are charged up to NT$200,000 (over US$5,800) to rescue their parents from hell. People pay it, Lilly assures us, and one look at the gruesome depictions of hell that cover the walls in Tungyueh Tien shows why.

The air in East Mountain Temple is thick with smoke from the burning money and incense. If that weren't enough, entire elaborate paper and wood houses are fed to the hungry furnaces, to provide the hell-bound with some earthly comforts. The hell temple's third hall is a contrast to the others -- a brilliant, bright red-and-gold room filled with people eating, laughing, and drinking tea. By now, like Pavlov's famous dogs, we emerge from the temple looking for the food. Opposite the eerie East Mountain Temple is a stall that serves "Commissioner Hat Cakes,"a fantastic sweet snack that rivals any Western ice cream or cheesecake. The vendor is a man as august as Tainan itself and seemingly almost as old. He puts rice flour into a wooden cone, and adds either sweet roasted sesame seeds, or sweet roasted peanuts. The cones are steamed, and the flour gells into a sticky, tasty dessert. I eat at least three or four of the hat cakes, maybe more. But who's counting? They cost only NT$10 each.

The hat cakes get their name from their conical shape, said to resemble the hats of Qing Dynasty officials. They were used during military campaigns in past centuries, because they keep for several days. "After three days, they get more chewy and more delicious,"says Lilly. We eat these as we follow Lilly down a path hung with red paper lanterns. These lanterns lead us to the Madame Lin Shui temple, where women can change the sex of a baby. "This is not so popular anymore,"she says. "It has been replaced by science."It wasn't always this way. The temple was once a busy, anxious place where women were desperate to have male children. If they didn't, their husbands would find second and third wives, causing more than a little trouble in the household.

Lastly, we come to the sinister Chenghuang Temple, or City God Temple, the place of final judgment. Overhead, in stern Chinese characters, reads the inscription er lai le, or "finally, you have come."This is the residence of the demons named General Fan and General Hsieh, also called Mr. Seven and Mr. Eight, who lurk in the doorway with hooks and whips, ready to drag unwilling souls to their final judgment.

The temple features a giant abacus of polished wood, which is forever at work adding up the deeds of the departed. "After five in the evening, no one dares go there,"says Lilly. "You can hear the abacus counting."After seeing the ghastly depictions of hell, I can only hope my good deeds far outnumber my bad.

Aside from its abundance of temples, Tainan has other historical sites that are worth a look. Most of these have to do with its origins as a Dutch trading post and the first capital of Taiwan. The Old Fort of Anping and the Eternal Castle are located close together, just a short taxi ride from the city center. The Old Fort of Anping is where Taiwan's modern history began. The Dutch built this stronghold beginning in 1624, and called it Fort Zeelandia. Most of the original fort is gone, although pieces of the original red-brick wall are still visible, with elegant banyan roots growing down the sides. The old fort is no longer on the seashore -- the water has receded a kilometer or so to the west -- but visitors can climb to the top of the observation tower to view the sunset, and watch the ever-present fishing boats.

Despite its high-flying name, the Eternal Castle was really just a small square fort with high walls and a moat, built by the French in 1875. Today it is a pleasant park, with just a few pieces of the original fort still visible, most notably one of the original gates, which stands like a silent witness to a bygone era. The cannon that now guard the fort are replicas, made in 1975, of the English originals.

There are temples in this seaside district as well, as there are all over Tainan. By the end of the tour, we've seen just five of they city's 154 registered temples. This gives some idea of the city's richness, and its compact, comfortable size. Yet even in this bastion of history and culture, progress and tradition are often at odds. Count Lilly Pi among those on the side of tradition. "I hate to see all these old stories disappearing, "she says. "I don't want people to forget."

Note: Lilly Pi (Tel. 0935585687) and the staff of the Asia Hotel (06-22261710) provide Tainan walking tours by appointment. The cost is NT$500 per person for groups of three or more.