There is a story about the origin of the Thirty Man Ancestral Temple. According to an inscription inside the temple, Holland sent warships to invade Magong in 1622. Thirty-six Hujing Island residents boarded a boat and attempted to repulse the invaders, but they were outnumbered, and all had died in battles. Villagers found the defenders’ corpses at two places on the seashore and buried them there. They built a temple to pay tribute to the victims.
An intertidal zone is in front of the temple, in which residents dig for clams when the tide is out. Nearby is a cycling path where visitors can enjoy the seaside scenery and admire “Hi Rat,” a large artwork by the sculptor Hong Yi. The Taiwanese term for dolphins means ‘sea rat’ or ‘sea pig,’ and the word for ‘sea’ sounds like the informal English greeting ‘hi.’ Hence, the blue-and-white porcelain-style sculpture combines the images of a dolphin and a rat. The Chinese character for ‘hi’ appears on one ear, and ‘rat’ is on the other. Penghu attractions, plants, animals, and historic sites are depicted on the body. Next to the sculpture, there’s a circular ground mosaic by the artist Huang Bowei, featuring images of celestial chrysanthemums, cactuses, stone fish traps, and other distinctive Penghu icons.
Another attraction in Houliao is the ‘shigandang’ stone tablet standing in the Weiling Temple courtyard. According to legend, during the Daoguang period of the Qing dynasty, monsters and ghosts were making mischief in the neighboring area. In 1842, the Baosheng Emperor, the god of medicine, enshrined in the Weiling Temple, instructed the people to add the element of “rain” to the four-character idiom meaning "demons and monsters" and inscribe it on a stone tablet to quell the evil spirits. It is a rare example of a dated stone tablet in Penghu.
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23°39'44.67600"N 119°34'11.64000"E