Since it was built as a small shrine back when Taiwan's early Han Chinese settlers had just crossed the strait, the Paoankung Temple has been expanded and renovated many times over the course of 200 years, in step with its growing congregation. As one of Taipei's big three Qing-era temples, it has been designated by the Ministry of the Interior as a Class II Monument. There is nothing unusual about an old temple having a make-over, it's just that not only has Paoankung paid for its repairs itself by using the money left in its contribution boxes, but it has also invited "foreign monks" to hold an international symposium on restoration and to return the temple's murals to their former glory. And in Taiwan, these are firsts.

By mid-June Taiwan's dog days have arrived, but the worshippers at the Paoankung Temple are hustling and bustling. It is just a few weeks before the joint high school entrance exams, and many parents have come to ask the gods for help; others are in the wing of the temple praying to Chusheng Niangniang, the goddess of fertility and childbirth.

As the hour nears noon, the temple's eastern wall is flooded with sunlight, and a group of people are craning their necks to look at two foreigners who are up on scaffolding working on one of the temple's murals. Occasionally tourists who pass by on the street take a curious look at the proceedings. They point to the two "big noses" or even take photographs to commemorate the occasion.

Restoring the splendor of Lu Wen-lung

This is the site of an international symposium on restoration. Having examined the temple for a week, four professional restorers from Australia are sharing with the public their findings and speaking about their past experiences in the field. Mural restoration is the morning's topic, and focus shifts to protection against moisture in the afternoon. Besides books-and-paper discussions in a meeting room, they also go out and give actual demonstrations of their work on the temple. Many restorers are in attendance, as are engineers and just plain lovers of old things.

The murals on the four walls of the temple were repainted more than 20 years ago by the master painter Fan Li-shui, who was regarded as a "national treasure." Exposed day after day to soot and smoke, sun and wind, the paintings have grown dark and indistinct and are starting to flake at the bottom. Repairing these will take several months; it's no small project.

Amid the swirling incense and throbbing heat, people's clothes are sticking to their sweaty backs. Electric fans set off to one side provide a bit of relief, but they are actually in place to prevent chemical poisoning. Helen Weidenhofer sprinkles water on the surface of a mural with cotton gauze and then uses a chemical agent to remove the grime. Off to one side, Chris Payne is sticking in place bits of the mural that were hanging off. Yesterday he strained his back up on the scaffolding, but he is much better today, after a session with a massage therapist the temple asked to come by. "Two days ago when we were cleaning up, a line of termites crawled by right in front of us." When these words escape his lips, everyone bursts into laughter.

Moisture is what causes the murals to flake and is also what attracts the insects. Can these mural-repairing experts from Australia really restore the luster to "The Eight Brave Men of Chuhsien Battle Lu Wen-lung"? There is a steady stream of worshippers coming and going, keeping the incense at the temple eternally burning, but Paoankung is speckled with age and starting to come apart. Can they restore its old appearance?

From small shrine to temple complex

In the old Taipei neighborhood of Talungtung just follow meandering Hami Street, and it will take you to the old Paoankung temple. The principal deity here is the god of medicine, Paosheng Tati, who is otherwise known as the Great Emperor Paosheng. Along with Lungshan and Tzushih, Paoankung is one of Taipei's big three Qing-era temples. Once you're through the temple gate, incense smoke is everywhere, winding its way upwards to the never-ending incantation of chants. Behind the front hall is a rear hall where offerings are presented to the deity, and to either side of these are a bell tower and a drum tower and east and west side halls. Combined these structures form a perfect 跌 (the Chinese character for "return"). Only large and magnificent temple complexes can acquire such a layout. It is a testimony to the respect given to Paosheng Tati, whose medical knowledge earned him many titles from ancient emperors.

The first settlers in the Talungtung area of Taipei came from Tongan in Fujian Province, and they choose the name Paoankung (protecting peace palace), with the idea of "protecting" (pao) the people of Tongan. Legend has it that in 1742, devotees obtained the blessing of the Great Emperor Paosheng in his main temple in Fujian and then went to build a small wooden shrine for the deity in the wilderness of Taiwan. Later, because his divine manifestations were so many, a new larger temple was built on the site of the old small one in 1805. The building materials and craftsmen were all brought across from the mainland; it was one big construction project. The current restoration is of work originally performed then.

Major renovations of the temple were carried out in 1868 and in 1917 to repair damage caused by natural disasters and human calamity. Back then master craftsmen led two teams, which stirred up artistic competition and led to great variation in the styles of stone and wood carving, painting and calligraphy. In 1949, after the ROC government fled the mainland for Taiwan, more than 200 families of military personnel set up their homes here. For 18 years the gates to the temple were never closed yet worshippers stopped coming. It was only after diligent efforts by the temple committee that the families were relocated, their residences torn down, and the temple returned to its original state.

Is only magnificence proper?

Nearly eight decades have passed since 1917. Pillars and beams of the temple have grown worm eaten, and tiles have fallen from the roof of Three Rivers Hall. It is said, "A temple should undergo major rebuilding every fifty years," and so major work began on Paoankung last year. But unlike in years past, when this would often mean building new structures, only repairs and restoration are now allowed since the building is a Class II Monument. And unlike most restorations of listed buildings in Taiwan, which are government funded, the temple has completely paid its own way and is calmly proceeding with repairs in a prudent fashion.

The renovation project has been divided into four phases: Phase one is repairing the exterior of the temple, and indeed work on the east and west side halls and Three Rivers Hall started at the end of last year. Phase two calls for repairs in the main hall and inner court, of which the restoration of the murals is just one part. Phase three is renovation of the back hall and the east and west side halls, and phase four is renovation of the surrounding area. It is predicted that the whole job will require at least four to six years to complete and will cost at least NT$100 million.

Many temples in Taiwan started as small shrines. As the temples expanded, earlier buildings were torn down-to disappear without a trace. Traditional bricks and roof tiles have given way to reinforced concrete and modern ceramic tiles-or even glass walls. But there's no need to go into other temples here. Paoankung itself has repeatedly fallen into poor condition and been repaired-evolving from a small wooden structure providing scant protection from the elements to today's magnificent temple complex. Its growth is related to the traditional Chinese conception of "removing the old and installing the new." The tradition in China has been that when someone enters the civil service or strikes it rich or moves into a new house, a major renovation and refurbishing is called for. When a temple gets ample contributions or worshippers are willing to foot the bill to show thanks to the deity for answering their prayers, new building is often embarked upon in the belief that only the newest and most magnificent appearance will impart the proper air of dignity and show the deity proper respect.

To raze or not to raze?

The prevailing Western conception that renovation should mean restoration came rather suddenly to Taiwan and has yet to take hold. Since the Cultural Assets Preservation Law was passed in 1982, those responsible for listed buildings have often shown little enthusiasm for the law. Some have protested when their buildings were listed; others have moved to tear down a building before it got listed.

For instance, last July a temple committee voted to tear down Taiwan's oldest operatic stage, the Hsiehtien Old Drama Stage in Chiaohsi of Ilan County, despite fervent pleas for its preservation. Recently, the case of the Tzushih Temple in Sanhsia has been in the news a lot. While the situation has improved there, twice the board of directors voted not to hold to deceased painter Li Mei-shu's original plan, wanting to surround the main hall with railings and stone carvings from the mainland. In comparison, why was there no protest when Paoankung was listed, and why were its directors willing to restore the temple spending its own funds? For the key to these answers we have to return to the principal people involved.

The temple's operating committee doesn't have any major disagreements about the importance of restoration. The dragon pillar in the Main Hall is a Qing dynasty relic, the murals on the four sides of the walkway are the works of a master painter, and the carved and painted beams and couplets found throughout the temple are all part of an historical legacy. "We want to restore Paoankung like a work of art," says Liao Wu-chih, the temple's general director. Having majored in art, he treasures every brick and tile of the temple.

And the truth is that the temple already occupies more than 3000 square meters. Some ten years ago a multi-storied library behind the temple was added, as were two new halls (the Linghsiaopao Hall and the Dahsiungpao Hall) so that worshippers can pay reverence at the temple to Confucius and Buddha as well as its original Taoists deities. In 1990, the government appointed an architect to make a plan for restoring the temple, but then all sorts of problems started to arise.

Good things should be repaired slowly

Ever since the passage of the Cultural Assets Preservation Law, nearly one-third of listed buildings have been "restored" to often distinctly modern appearances. If they haven't been flat-out razed, they've had their walls covered over with new paint, the cracks in their walls filled in with cement, their old bricks pulled out and replaced with new bricks. . . . The end result is that many people say in shame that "the repairs have done more damage than all those decades of wear and tear." Since there is little flexibility in government restorations, leaving those responsible for the listed buildings with almost no control over the process, the temple decided to save itself, and offered to do the restoration using its own money.

Their spirit moved various scholars to form a "restoration consulting committee." These include Hsia Shou-chiu, a professor of architecture and city planning at National Taiwan University; Hsueh Chin, the director of architecture at the provincial Bureau of Housing and Urban Development, and Hsu Ming-fu, a professor of architecture at National Cheng Kung University. Control over the actual restoration work was given to Hsu Yu-chien, an assistant professor of architecture at Hua Fan College of Humanities and Technology. Liao Wu-chih, however, stresses that all the proper legal procedures were followed, and the planning documents were submitted to the city government bureaus for inspection and approval before work began. "But we had complete authority over the process that followed." Because they weren't required to go through the government to invite bids and give out contracts for the work, there were no constraints on time or budget. It was possible to return to the traditional method of giving orders to the craftsmen and asking the contractors to provide their own materials. The craftsmen who worked on the large wooden objects could be different from those who worked on the small wooden objects or stonework, and wages could be paid by the day. If design changes were called for, there would be no need to choose between stopping construction to seek a higher budget or doing hasty, slipshod work.

The search for longevity

Some people think that the temple had so much of its own money from worshippers' contributions that it was no big deal for it to come up with NT$100 million for a careful restoration. Yet the truth is that the board of directors hesitated at first. Some directors questioned if it was really necessary to spend so much money on a restoration. Liao Wu-chih forcefully argued that it was. He cited the problem of humidity: "If the basic problem isn't solved, future repairs will still be needed even if all the damaged materials are replaced. Wouldn't it be cheaper in the long run to get to the root of the problem now?" Many experts have supported the temple's methods and intentions as regards this renovation. Wang Chen-hua, head of the Techien Academy and a traditional Chinese architect-scholar himself, praises the temple's directors for taking the long view and holding to the ideal of "repairing good things slowly." "Rushing to finish work on time" and "working for quick success" are historical buildings' greatest nemeses, akin to killing a hen to eat its eggs. Chen Chi-nan, the assistant director of the Council for Cultural Planning and Development, believes that temples belong to local communities and should be given authority over their own renovations; laws designating certain procedures for listed buildings can't help but impinge upon this authority. Nevertheless, he believes that the source of the problem lies in the question of taste: "Temples in Taiwan are continually being degraded and are becoming tackier and tackier." They used to buy good materials and hire good craftsmen. Now, for the sake of quick construction, too many temples are using ceramic tiles over reinforced concrete. Yet he lauds the directors of the Paoankung temple for striving to transform the temple without erasing its historical legacy, and for steering the temple's focus toward culture and charity. The renovation marks just one of their efforts in this direction.

Must a renovation seek to restore a building's original appearance? Chen Chi-nan answers not necessarily. He holds that renovations are creative processes in themselves that can reveal modern people's wisdom and imagination, and perhaps can bring a result that is better than the past. "It's just that experience proves that modern contractors' aesthetic sensibilities and artistic skills are not the equal of their predecessors, and that they change things for the uglier. And so we would rather just restore the old appearance."

Wang Chen-hua is of the same mind. He says the traditional idea that called for replacing the old assumes certain preconditions: "In the pre-Republican era, craftsmen had a master-apprentice tradition. Their training was based on traditional aesthetics and so their styles would not diverge too far. But Taiwan is no longer a traditional society, and there are great differences in aesthetic styles, and so it seems best to just let old buildings keep their original appearances, and renovate the old in the old style." He notes that in the early Republican era Liang Ssu-cheng already proposed, "Protecting old structures should be done to extend their lives and not to replace the old with the new."

General designer Hsu Yu-chien can quite understand why believers would want to expand a temple in a magnificent style, but he reminds people of the importance of prudence when making a renovation. "We are but guests who should help to pass along exquisite works of art for our children and grandchildren." He stresses that "Paoan-kung is a living temple" with great vitality. Its lion dancing troupe is one of the best in Taipei. It has an activity center for old folks, the Linsheng Gardens, the next street over. The neighborhood once had a flourishing cultural tradition. What with the Confucius Temple and the old teacher's academy, during the rule of the Tongzhi emperor (1862-1874) in the Qing dynasty, it was described thus: "Here 10 steps will take you to someone who has passed the local civil service exams, 100 steps to someone who has passed the provincial exams." Now the temple sponsors its own art classes and other cultural activities: "There is still a lot of room for the temple to grow in this regard." Currently, the Taipei Metropolitan Development Bureau has two plans-"A Cultural Strolling Area" and "Public Art"-that separately focus on the area around the Paoankung, hoping that revamping the appearance of the streets will give new life to this old district and restore its former glory.

Here they build, there they pray

Under the direction of Hsu Yu-chen, a protective metal structure was built around and above the Three Rivers Hall and the side halls as phase one of the renovation began. At the end of last year, work began on the roof. "Back when the temple was built, all of the temple's wood, stone, bricks and tiles were brought over from mainland China, and today we still look back there for building materials," says Hsu, citing the granite from Quanzhou used for replacing the floor and the fir wood from mountains near Fuzhou used for the beams and pillars. Yet they are still unsatisfied with the swallow bricks that they had made to order in Jinjiang, and want to go over to the mainland to find a more suitable factory.

What do the temple's worshippers feel about all this stacking of tiles and laying of bricks, about all the banging and knocking of the renovation process? They have a very close relationship with the temple and are the principal source of its funds. On the first day of a lunar month, visitors to the temple are particularly numerous. Women devotees are chanting in the Main Hall, as workers over on the side are jack-hammering to bits the terrazzo floor, which is to be replaced with porous granite. One Taoist priest asks the general director, "If you want to rip up the floor, shouldn't you first get permission from the Great Emperor Paosheng?" Two people are busy lighting sticks of incense and asking for the god's wisdom. The noise from the construction is quite deafening, yet the pious believers pay it no heed. An old woman sitting beside the steps to the main hall is asked if the renovation has caused any inconvenience, and she shakes her head, saying that it's no problem: "If the temple is broken then it has got to be fixed." She says that she is almost 90 years old and has been coming to the temple to pray for 50 years. "The Great Emperor Paosheng has great spiritual powers to help people," she says smiling.

The service desk at the temple gate has different boxes for contributions: "Medical Lantern," "Success Lantern" and even one for the "Renovation Fund." A Mr. Chiang, who lives nearby, says he doesn't especially make contributions to repair the temple, but lets the temple do with his contributions "as it sees fit." Liao Wu-chih says, "worshippers have asked, 'Three Rivers Hall has been covered for so long, why hasn't work begun?' But in the temple's quarterly bulletin we always state the progress we've made in the renovation. Though we don't actively solicit contributions, last year the Renovation Fund got NT$6-7 million. Everyone thought of contributing as doing good works."

Honored (and expensive) guests

As for the huge expense spent in this phase of the renovation project to invite experts from Australia, that too has caused an uproar. Why did they have to get a group of experts from Australia? Liao Wu-chih believes that it was an opportunity presented by fate: Last year Bruce Pottman, the principal architect for the South Australian government's artifact preservation unit, came to Taiwan to serve as a consultant for the restoration of Tihua Street. As it happened, work was just beginning on the temple's own renovation, and Pottman was invited to inspect the temple's problems with moisture. He took some fragments of the mural that had fallen off back to Australia to have them inspected by experts. And that's how it came to be that Australians are working on the murals now.

Chief designer Hsu Yu-chien stresses that they have only come to make an initial inspection as regards restoring the murals and combatting moisture, and they will draw up an estimate and discuss it with the temple. True renovation requires long-term consideration. Still, just so four people could come to Taiwan for two weeks, the temple spent NT$700,000. These "valued guests" really didn't come cheap-but how they drew people's attention! During the week after the symposium, media came for interviews and photos every day.

In order to find the root cause of the moisture, the Australian contractor Dieter Schadlich even went so far as to examine the materials used in the deities' niche in the main hall. He first drilled some small holes in the wall, and then used an instrument to examine inside the wall itself. As expected, mud walls are behind the bricks, and they hold a lot of moisture. It's no mystery then why the murals were flaking off.

Many people were delighted that foreign experts were invited to offer their opinions "on the state of the temple's health," holding that this research symposium not only lifted the discussion from the academic to the practical, but also provided a chance to introduce foreign restoration skills and concepts.

Prudent repairs vs. ersatz antiquities

Hsueh Chin, the head of the architecture office for the provincial Bureau of Housing and Urban Development, believes that paintings and moisture control are the weakest links in domestic restoration work. "It's not just that skills are weak-there isn't even a grasp of basic concepts." In Taiwan restorers rarely even consider protection against moisture as a basic part of any job. Even high-rises a few years old sprout leaks all over as walls become covered with water spots. "The historical Lin Family Garden in Panchiao was repaired just a decade ago. New wood was installed, and walls were given new coats of paint, but now the wood has already started to rot and they've got to start all over again. The key is that they didn't guard against moisture," Hsueh says.

When restoring paintings most renovators in Taiwan just rub off the old work and then paint whatever they want. Few craftsmen are willing to take care to restore the original work. "They don't respect the legacy of previous generations," Hsueh says. "It's that old artist's attitude that 'the other guy's work is never as good as your own.'" For murals and other features that involve the outer appearance of a building, such as carvings, beams, windows and other painted parts, Wang Chen-hua holds that unless the craftsmen really understand what they are doing, it's better to do nothing, because once new paint is applied the temple's old aura is lost. "The worst is to renovate an historical building only to create a fake antique," he stresses.

As for the bits of the Paoankung's murals that have flaked off, Hsu Yu-chien advocates using local craftsmen to add bits of color. Pan Li-shui may have already passed away, but his son Pan Yueh-hsiung is still alive. "He worked painting many temples with his father. He ought to be very familiar with what paints and painting techniques to use. This knowledge also represents a kind of legacy."

Not what the doctor ordered?

But there are skeptics, who wonder if murals painted by Pan Li-shui in 1973 are really all that valuable. Can they really be considered historically significant? Might not making such a big deal about cleaning them and restoring their original appearance be overdoing it? A research report recently published by Hsu Ming-fu, a professor at National Cheng Kung University, points out that of all the murals that Art Heritage Award Winner Pan Li-shui painted in Taiwan's temples, the nine murals at the Paoankung Temple best represent his work. Using ink, he painted in a very impressionistic style. "Hua Mu-lan Takes Her Father's Place in the Draft" and "Zhong Kui Gives away His Sister at Her Wedding" are spiritually moving works that are quite different from the clean style usually employed in architectural painting. And though he may have referred to previous works, his brushwork transformed them into something new. Hence, they have a high value.

Han Pao-te, who heads the preparatory office to set up the Tainan National College of the Arts, has written that Australia is a country with only a century of history, whose restorers' skills cannot compare with those of Italy and other ancient European countries. "The fact that they became a hot news topic just shows how childish our own restoration efforts are."

The argument that a country's age bears a direct relationship to its restorers' skills may be open to question. Still, in regard to this transplantation of experience, architect Chen Yi-tzung has another technical question: "Chinese murals were traditionally painted with pigments made out of such things as minerals and tung oil, which make them very different from the oil-based paints used in the West. The techniques used to apply the paints were also different. Could asking Western experts' advice be pulling them out of their area of specialty? He feels that if foreign experts must be invited, then perhaps Taiwan should look to Japan, whose painting traditions are closely related to China's. Japan has much experience in protecting relics and has developed a lot of cutting-edge technology in the field.

The Australian experts didn't consider using the original oils, for fear that in 50 to 100 years time the paint might be hard to get off. Their decision also involved such questions as how the new paints will fade and whether they will fade at the same rate as the original paint. Restoration technology is constantly changing, and so Weidenhofer holds, "There's nothing that won't change over time. The renovations we are doing now won't last forever, and our followers will perhaps criticize us for doing such a poor job of it!" And so they've got to consider making it easy for people in the future to undo what they are doing today. In restoring something of the past, one doesn't want to remove the possibility that people in the future will continue to make their own repairs. In this light, restoration of relics is not only a case of traditional objects meeting modern technology, it's even more a philosophy about time: In protecting the legacy of our ancestors, we can't forget that what we do today will become tomorrow's history.

Summer here and winter there

Whether or not the restoration techniques of one culture are suitable for restoring the relics of another, the attitudes toward their work shown by the Australian experts have already taught us a lesson about patience.

Before they even landed in Taiwan, Weidenhofer and Payne, who work for Artlab Australia, Down Under's biggest restoration center, had already conducted tests on fragments Pottman had brought them, determining the composition of the paints used in the mural and finding suitable detergents. Still, they were very careful here, spending two weeks to repair just one wall of murals. In comparison to the water and soap that temples in Taiwan frequently use to clean their murals, this sort of slow and painstaking approach is extraordinary. Yet for Weidenhofer it's simply the way it's done: "A restoration isn't successful unless other people can't tell that it has been restored." She says that the first job in restoring old buildings is to protect them from further damage, the second is to find the cause of the damage and fix it, and the third is to teach so that others can protect the buildings in the future.

This is the first time they have tackled a Chinese temple, with its beam carvings and murals. It was quite an eye-opener for them. With so little time they haven't come to any definite conclusions about it, but have just felt a kind of "culture shock." This time the main technical challenge was one of climate: Taiwan's wet, sub-tropical climate differs vastly from the alternately humid and dry, cold and hot climate of southern Australia. But at least it has continual moisture, which doesn't do as much damage as punctuated moisture.

An outdoor classroom

Besides temple restoration, the temple also plans to take advantage of the Australians' visit to hold an "Outdoor Classroom for Historical Preservation." In addition to the foreign experts, they will invite traditional craftsmen and interested young people to attend. The goal is to create a new model for restoration work in Taiwan. Hsu Yu-chien points out that for future reference the entire restoration process is being recorded in writing, with photographs and videos. The temple plans to work with schools to cultivate restoration personnel and promote the establishment of restoration departments.

"Restoring relics should be done the way old folk go about exercising or taking medicine-slowly. They can't be treated like young kids and given the quick fix." Hsueh Chin, a department chief at the provincial Bureau of Housing and Urban Development, makes this comparison between old people and old buildings: The elderly like to eat rice porridge and will get sick if they eat steak. For an old building, you've got to use old materials such as lime and not just patch things up with cement like most renovators now do.

Amid the burning incense and crowds at Paoankung, people tend to their own affairs: The worshippers worship and the restorers restore. Today there appear a bunch of "little tourists"-students from the nearby Talung Elementary School out on a school trip. These tykes look with bright wide eyes at the incense smoke swirling around the carved pillars and beams and at the protective structure over Three Rivers Hall. What impression will this visit leave in their young minds? Perhaps the pious believers aren't really that concerned about how the temple will look after the restoration. Perhaps any work to preserve the legacy of our predecessors is worthwhile. Isn't there a Chinese expression that goes, "Sincere prayers are answered"?

The Great Emperor Paosheng is smiling.

[Picture Caption]

The main hall of the Paoankung Temple after a major renovation in 1917.(courtesy of the Paoankung Temple)

(left) Paoankung isn't just a place for religious worship. It also functions as a community center. Across the street it has an activity center for the elderly, the Linsheng ("near saint") Gardens, which takes its name from its proximity to the Confucius Temple. Here old folk come by to rest and meet with friends.(right) Worshippers, who come to pray and make offerings, say that Paosheng Tati has great spiritual powers. Their contributions have provided the financial support that has allowed the temple to pay for its own renovation.

Major repairs are being carried out at the temple during this renovation. Phase one focuses largely on the front hall. A protective structure was already in place last year.

General designer Hsu Yu-chien (left) led the experts onto the roof of Three Rivers Hall to pull off tiles. (photo by Wang Yung-chin)

(left) Australian contractor Dieter Schadlich uses an instrument to examine the materials in the idols' niche. He discovered that the walls are made of mud inside, which explains the high level of moisture. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang) (right) The terrazzo flooring of Paoankung's inner court is going to be ripped up and replaced with granite from Quanzhou. Granite is preferred because it "breathes."

"The Eight Brave Men of Chuhsien Battle Lu Wen-lung" regains its luster at the hands of professional Australian restorers. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)

Chris Payne carefully puts this fallen bit of paint back in its original position on the wall. (photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang)

Elementary school students visit Paoankung on a class trip. What impression will the temple make on their young minds?

（left） Paoankung isn't just a place for religious worship. It also functions as a community center. Across the street it has an activity center for the elderly, the Linsheng （"near saint"） Gardens, which takes its name from its proximity to the Confucius Temple. Here old folk come by to rest and meet with friends.

（right） Worshippers, who come to pray and make offerings, say that Paosheng Tati has great spiritual powers. Their contributions have provided the financial support that has allowed the temple to pay for its own renovation.

Major repairs are being carried out at the temple during this renovation. Phase one focuses largely on the front hall. A protective structure was already in place last year.

General designer Hsu Yu-chien （left） led the experts onto the roof of Three Rivers Hall to pull off tiles. （photo by Wang Yung-chin）

（left） Australian contractor Dieter Schadlich uses an instrument to examine the materials in the idols' niche. He discovered that the walls are made of mud inside, which explains the high level of moisture. （photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang）

（right） The terrazzo flooring of Paoankung's inner court is going to be ripped up and replaced with granite from Quanzhou. Granite is preferred because it "breathes.".

"The Eight Brave Men of Chuhsien Battle Lu Wen-lung" regains its luster at the hands of professional Australian restorers. （photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang）

Chris Payne carefully puts this fallen bit of paint back in its original position on the wall. （photo by Hsueh Chi-kuang）

Elementary school students visit Paoankung on a class trip. What impression will the temple make on their young minds?