From Takow to Kaohsiung

Ren-ai District (仁愛區), Keelung City

Ren-ai (仁愛, “Benevolence [and] Love”: two of the Confucian “eight virtues” {see Bade 八德}) is the smallest district of Keelung (基隆) and home to the tourist / gourmet mecca of the Temple Entrance Nightmarket (廟口夜市: Mdn. Miaokou Yeshi).

Ren-ai is clearly a Chinese name and dates from after retrocession in 1945 once the Japanese (who primarily follow Shinto and Buddhist beliefs) had been defeated in WWII and replaced by the KMT-led ROC government.

What existed before that is less clear, however.

i) Abe Akiyoshi (安倍明義), since his research was published in 1938 (台灣地名研究; Studies on Taiwan's Place Names), naturally makes no mention of this area, though he has numerous listings for Keelung, including some that today belong to New Taipei City, such as Ruifang, Jinshan and Sandiaojiao.

ii) Wikipedia states that downtown Keelung had four areas during Japanese era: 八尺門 (Mdn. Bachimen; "8ft Gate"), 白米甕 (Mdn. Baimiweng; "White Rice Urn"). 田寮港 (Mdn. Tianliaogang; "Field Office Harbor"), and 石牌街 (Mdn. Shipai Jie; "Stone Marker Machi*"). After retrocession, these became, respectively, 中正 (Mdn. Zhongzheng, referring to Chiang Kai-shek), 中山 (Mdn. Zhongshan, referring to Sun Yat-sen), 信義 (Mdn. Xinyi, another pair of Confucian virtues), and 仁愛 (Ren-ai) districts.

This last, 石牌 (Mdn. Shipai; "Stone Marker") Town / District, which was renamed as Ren-ai District, presumably indicated, like many other similar names around Taiwan (see.Shipai MRT, Taipei City), that it was originally on the boundary between areas designated for Han-Chinese & assimilated Aborigines and those for unassimilated Aborigines, though there is no specific record of such a stone or boundary.

iii) Tsai Pei-hui et al. (蔡培慧等) in 台灣的舊地名 (Taiwan's Old Place Names; 2004) have a similar list of: 基隆街 (Mdn. Jilong Jie; "Keelung Machi"), 田寮港庄 (Mdn. Tianliaogang Zhuang; "Field Office Harbor Sho**"), 石硬港庄 (Mdn. Shiyinggang Zhuang; "Stone Hard Harbor Village") and 獅球嶺庄 (Mdn. Shiqiuling Zhuang; "Lion Ball Ridge Village") from the Qing dynasty and early Japanese period. In 1931 these changed into eight different names, before coalescing into the postwar Ren-ai District,



[MC: Clearly this entry needs further research and editing.]

* 街 was a unit of local government administration during the Period of Japanese Rule. Pronounced machi (the same as its rural equivalent 町) it was used for city districts. In Mandarin it is pronounced jie and means "street".

** 庄 sho was another unit of local government administration, smaller than a 街, but larger than a 社 sha "community / tribe", hence translated here roughly as "village".



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