AT A GLANCE
Why go?
Tucked down a quiet lane off Wenhua Road in Chiayi's West District, Taishi Fu is the city's only temple dedicated primarily to Lu Ban (鲁班公) — the Wondrous Sacred Master, patron saint of carpenters, joiners, builders and every trade that shapes wood. Its very existence is a thread back to the days when Chiayi was the bustling timber hub of the Alishan forest railway.↗↗↗
For local craftspeople this is a working shrine, not just a sightseeing stop: generations of furniture makers, house builders and painters have come here to pray for steady hands, safe sites and sharp tools. Visitors come for something rarer — a small, living window into Taiwan's artisan culture and the folk religion that still surrounds it.↗↗
A temple born from the Alishan timber boom
The story begins in 1952, when Chiayi was one of the most important collection and distribution centres for the logging of the Alishan forests. Whole livelihoods depended on timber, and dozens of related trades — wood carving, furniture, construction, lacquer and paint — thrived in the city. To honour the ancestor-deity of the wood trade and to seek his protection over their work, ten senior craftsmen carved a golden effigy of Lu Ban and took turns keeping it in their homes under a rotating 'furnace-master' system (爐主會).