Xiahai City God Temple
Taipei's best-known temple of the Old Man under the Moon, where people pray for love
A fuller guide to this place, built from 5 sources, is written in Traditional Chinese.
Being there
Pray to the matchmaker god and take a red thread, or just stand at the door and watch the queue of hopefuls.
The story
In the summer of 1853 two groups of settlers in Monga fought over the docks. The losers fled north overnight carrying the statue of their City God, started again in Dadaocheng and built this small temple a few years later. What made it famous, more than a century on, wasn't the City God but the matchmaker beside him. People who find a partner here come back with wedding cakes to give thanks.
