Beitou Public Bathhouse (Beitou Hot Spring Museum)

The Beitou Hot Spring area, located in northern Taipei, has been one of Taiwan's most important hot spring districts since its development during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945). The centrepiece of the district is the former Hokutō Public Bathhouse (北投公共浴場), constructed between 1911 and 1913 by the colonial government of Taipei Prefecture, modelled after the Izuyama hot spring resort in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. At the time of its completion it was described as the largest and most lavish public bathhouse of its day — it is often called the largest in East Asia — featuring an elegant Edwardian-style red brick and wooden weatherboard exterior.

The military connection to Beitou dates to the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05, when the Imperial Japanese Army established a military convalescent hospital (陸軍療養院) in the area to treat soldiers wounded in the campaigns in Manchuria and the Liaodong Peninsula. Injured troops were transported from the front lines to Beitou to recuperate in the therapeutic hot spring waters. Throughout the colonial period, the hot spring district served as a rest and recreation facility for military officers, colonial government officials, and wealthy merchants.

During the Second World War, Beitou's role intensified. Hot spring hotels and inns in the area were requisitioned for military use, serving as rest facilities for soldiers on leave and convalescent centres for the wounded. Most notably, one inn — the Kazan Ryokan, now the Beitou Museum, not the public bathhouse itself — is said to have received kamikaze (特攻隊) pilots, who would have their last meal on the tatami-matted second floor before departing on their final missions. Some accounts also associate the Beitou area with comfort stations (慰安所) established to serve military personnel — a dark chapter in the wartime history of the district.

After Japan's surrender in August 1945 and the handover of Taiwan to the Republic of China, the bathhouse building went through several transformations, serving as a police station, a Kuomintang party office, and a local government reception hall. Without proper maintenance, the sulfurous hot spring vapours gradually corroded the structure, and by the 1980s it had been largely abandoned. In 1994, teachers and students from a local elementary school discovered the dilapidated building and launched a grassroots preservation campaign. Their efforts succeeded, and in February 1997 the building was designated a Class 3 Historic Site. A comprehensive restoration was completed in March 1998, and the Beitou Hot Spring Museum officially opened on 31 October 1998.

Today the museum preserves the original Roman-style great bath on the first floor and the Japanese tatami hall on the second floor, while exhibiting the history of hot spring culture, local geology, and the colonial-era heritage of the Beitou district. It stands as both a cultural landmark and a reminder of the complex layers of history — from therapeutic retreat to military facility — that characterise Taiwan's Japanese colonial legacy.