Former Fudingkin Japanese Military Cemetery

The Fudingkin Japanese Military Cemetery (覆鼎金日本軍人墓地) occupied a significant section of the larger Fudingkin Public Cemetery (覆鼎金公墓), situated at the junction of Sanmin, Niaosong, and Renwu districts in Kaohsiung, Taiwan. The cemetery's history as a burial ground dates to the Qing dynasty, but it was during the Japanese colonial period (1895–1945) that it developed into a major organized necropolis.

WARTIME EXPANSION AND JAPANESE MILITARY BURIALS

During the early decades of Japanese rule, most deceased Japanese residents and military personnel in the Kaohsiung (Takao) area were interred at the Taoziyuan (桃子園) and Qianfengwei (前峯尾) communal cemeteries near Zuoying (左營). However, when WWII erupted and the Imperial Japanese Navy designated Zuoying as a major military port for southern operations, the existing cemeteries near the naval facilities had to be cleared. Graves, cremation facilities, funeral halls, and even a Jizo Bodhisattva statue (地藏菩薩) were mass-relocated to Fudingkin, transforming it into a large organized cemetery with a substantial Japanese section. The relocated Jizo statue, originally established during the colonial period at the Zuoying Taoziyuan Cemetery, was moved to Fudingkin in 1939 during the naval base construction.

The Japanese section held the graves of Japanese residents and military personnel of the Takao area. Notable burials included Sugimoto Otokichi (杉本音吉, 1873–1928), a prominent Japanese businessman in colonial Kaohsiung, and Otsubo Yoichi (大坪與一, 1865–1932), a shipping entrepreneur whose large Japanese-style tomb, built in 1934 at the Qianfengwei cemetery in Zuoying, was moved to Fudingkin in 1942.

POST-WAR FATE AND JAPANESE REMAINS COLLECTION

Following Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945, a wave of anti-Japanese sentiment swept Taiwan. Many unattended Japanese graves were vandalized or destroyed by local residents. Japanese remains were scattered and neglected throughout southern Taiwan. In 1957, the Japanese embassy in Taipei began collaborating with the ROC government to systematically locate and collect these displaced remains.

Three central repositories were established across Taiwan: Beitou Zhonghe Zen Temple (北投中和禪寺) in the north, Taichung Baojue Temple (台中寶覺寺) in central Taiwan, and the Sugimoto Otokichi tomb at Fudingkin in the south. The spacious Sugimoto family tomb was converted into the "Southern Region Japanese Remains Repository" (南部地區日本人遺骨安置所), housing the collected bones of Japanese nationals from across southern Taiwan. This arrangement reflected a pragmatic solution to the sensitive post-colonial question of how to handle the remains of the former colonizer's dead.

CONVERSION TO PARKLAND (2015–2020)

By the time of its closure to new burials in 1985, the Fudingkin Cemetery had accumulated approximately 16,000 graves representing an extraordinary cross-section of Taiwan's multicultural history — Buddhist, Islamic, Catholic, Japanese, Western, mainland Chinese, and indigenous Taiwanese burials all coexisted within its grounds. On January 13, 2015, the Kaohsiung City Government announced the conversion of the entire cemetery to public parkland. The relocation program was executed in five phases from 2015 to 2020, with formal exhumation beginning in February 2017. The site has been transformed into Shuanghu Forest Park (雙湖森林公園).

HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE

The Fudingkin Japanese Military Cemetery represents a layered history of colonialism, war, decolonization, and urban transformation in southern Taiwan. Its evolution — from Qing-era burial ground, through Japanese colonial military cemetery, to post-war remains repository, and finally modern urban park — mirrors the broader trajectory of Kaohsiung's development and Taiwan's complex relationship with its Japanese colonial past.