Temple Cinema

H and I were wandering around one of the larger night markets in Taipei searching for yummy stuff to eat. H wanted to eat boiled green onion squid with wasabi near a temple. When we got there, we found that a movie was playing courtesy of the temple management.

We ordered our food and sat down in front of the screen, a makeshift affair made out of a long white sheet stretched in front of a building across the street from the temple. They were playing a movie titled "彰化脫褲莊" (Take off pants village in Chuang-hua). A little explanation is in order here. H said that the movie was about a village in the township of Chuang-hua where people had to take of their pants in order to cross a stream to reach it. This flick was made in the '80s and pretty silly.

The interesting point of this was the fact that the temple was playing this movie in this throng of people at the night market, most of whom weren't even paying attention. They had two huge movie projectors spinning film reels. Apparently, in the past, this was the most common way for people to see movies. A local temple would hold a movie night using carbon-arc projectors and huge sheets of linen as screens.

When I was here in Taiwan ten years ago, I would occasionally encounter at least one "movie night" at a temple every month. Most of the time they would play older, locally made movies, but every so often you'd see a modern Hollywood film playing. These local "temple theaters" are becoming more of a rarity. That night at the night market, only a seated audience of about ten people were seriously watching the movie, most of them being elderly folks. Time and technology march on and unfortunately, these temple cinemas are quickly fading into memory.