A large guardian dog with wide-open eyes and an open mouth at the entrance to Baoan Temple, and a man walking past it

Guardian dog in Baoan Temple
Guardian dog in Baoan Temple

Venturing into Dalongdong, a neighborhood steeped in the nostalgic, old-world charm of historic Taipei, I found myself at the Baoan Temple. This venerable Taoist sanctuary is dedicated to Baosheng Dadi, the god of medicine, and its grounds are perpetually animated by the low, murmuring prayers of those seeking healing and health. Flanking the immediate entrance of the main hall stood a pair of large stone sculptures—sentinels meant to ward off evil, much like the komainu (lion-dogs) found in Japan.

If one traces the lineage of these guardian beasts, the roots reach all the way back to the lions of the ancient Near East. Traveling along the Silk Road, they morphed into the stone lions of China, before eventually crossing the sea to Japan to undergo their own distinct, island evolution. In essence, the figures standing before me were the distant, primordial ancestors of the stony residents guarding the shrines back home.

Yet, despite their distinguished and ancient lineage, these particular ancestors possessed an appearance that was entirely devoid of gravity; in fact, they were delightfully comical. The komainu in Japan tend to lean into the fiercely majestic, staring down visitors with stern, intimidating scowls. These guardians of Baoan, however, looked as though they had just witnessed something utterly, incomprehensibly bizarre. Their eyes were stretched wide into perfect circles of disbelief, and their jaws hung open in matching astonishment.

For sentinels tasked with the monumental duty of preventing cosmic evil from breaching the temple gates, they displayed a lamentable lack of tension. Instead, they wore expressions of such clueless, slack-jawed bewilderment that I couldn't help but feel a mild spark of anxiety for the temple's security. And right past these frantic, visibly unhinged guardians, a local man wearing a simple hat strolled by with casual indifference, shuffling along into the temple as if he didn't have a single care in the world.

Baoan Temple on Google Map
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Apr 2007 STILL LIFE TAIWAN

PHOTO DATA

No

833

Shooting Date

Jan 2007

Posted On

April 9, 2007

Modified On

June 12, 2026

Place

Taipei, Taiwan

Genre

Street Photography

Camera

CANON EOS 1V

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