TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — At the 2024 Taiwan Lantern Festival in Tainan, a lantern display honoring one of Taiwan’s most famous ghosts, Chen Shouniang (陳守娘), has gained attention.

The work on display at the High-Speed Rail Lantern Area was made by Taiwan’s Xian Tai Workshop. While many festivalgoers enjoyed the display, some have criticized the work and other displays for their "ghastly aesthetics."

The artist behind the work depicting Chen Shouniang, known as Master Chou (周), shared a post on social media about the importance of the legend and history behind Chen Shouniang. He also said that it was no less than the spirit of Chen Shouniang herself, who requested he complete the work and share it with the public, per UDN.



“We feared it would be too controversial, and were ready to give up on the project. But we were under a lot of pressure. Chen Shouniang insisted that it be completed,” Chou said on social media.

Chen Shouniang was a real person who lived during the reign of Qing Emperor Daoguang (1820-1850) in Tainan, called Fucheng City at the time. Chen was said to be an especially beautiful woman. She married very young and was happy for a time, but she suffered the death of her husband after only a year of marriage.

To remain pure and honor her husband’s memory as a widow, she vowed not to remarry or take another lover. However, her beauty caught the eye of a government official.

The official offered her mother-in-law and sister-in-law large sums of money to arrange a private meeting between himself and Chen, where he forced himself upon her. Chen refused to submit to the official and forcefully rejected his advances. This led to a violent conflict between Chen and her mother-in-law, who wanted to be rid of her.

The story goes that Chen was beaten and tortured for several days before she died at the hands of her mother-in-law and sister-in-law. After her death, they tried to ruin her reputation by distorting the facts of her relationship with the government official, by claiming that she killed herself out of shame for breaking her vow to honor her deceased husband.

However, the truth was revealed at her funeral, when her spirit upended her coffin allowing her brother to discover the wounds caused by her wicked mother-in-law. This marked the beginning of Chen Shouniang’s haunting to seek vengeance on those who had wronged her. Her targets included her in-laws and government officials complicit in defaming her.

Over the years, Chen Shouniang came to embody the spirit of a woman wrongfully scorned. Her tale is also a powerful symbol of the rigid expectations for women in many traditional cultures.

The display in daylight. (CNA photo)

In the decades following her death, her legend grew to include various other gods of Taiwanese folk religion. Locals frightened by her haunting and horrible anger were said to implore other gods and spirits for help in bargaining with the vengeful Chen Shouniang. Eventually, one account goes that Chen made a satisfactory deal with Guanyin, which would allow her to be honored as a deity representing virtues of chastity and filial piety.

Since the origin of her story in the mid-1800s, local governments have honored her spirit. However, at one point, in the later Qing Dynasty, a small temple dedicated to Chen Shouniang was destroyed by the government for allegedly promoting superstition. This event marked the beginning of a second era of Chen’s haunting in Tainan, which was allegedly stopped when her memorial tablet was placed in Tainan's Confucius Temple.

Since then, local people have respected Chen’s reputation as one of Taiwan’s most powerful female ghosts. Over the years, some local people have even adopted her as a deity that they worship directly.

In early 2023, Chou went to inspect Chen Shouniang’s memorial tablet at Tainan's Confucius Temple. After finding that it had become damaged over the years, Chou contacted the Tainan city government on behalf of Chen and asked that funds be committed to refurbishing it.

The city responded to the request, declaring that the city attaches great importance to the preservation of Tainan’s cultural heritage. Master Chou, in his Facebook post, also mentioned that there are efforts underway to help fund the construction of a proper temple in Tainan dedicated to Chen Shouniang.

Given Chen Shouniang’s importance to Tainan’s traditions and folklore, she is being honored with a lantern display at the Taiwan Lantern Festival this year, which is being held at two locations in Tainan until March 10.