For all the economic sucess stories of Taiwan, there are also many failure. One spectacular failure is the space village on Taiwan's north coast. And like all great failures, it's surrounded by myths and stirs the imagination. What were these people thinking? Were they genius, ahead of their time?
Construction started sometime around 1980 but was stopped due to the construction company going bankrupt. Originally, the houses were meant for Taipei high fliers as a weekend retreat. Nothing happened for a number of years but then worked atarted again. This time for a leisure complex.
Mystery surrounds the reasons for stopping a second time and this is where the myths of San Zhi Space Village creep in. One version, says that some workers died whilst working and that the other workers refused to continuing, fearing ghosts. Another story, says that work stopped due to the discovery of many human bones. In this story, it's unclear whether the bodies where from a WWII Japanese mass grave or from the Spanish, when they briefly occupied parts of the north coast.
This time, the work stopped permanantly and the development has gradually deteriorated into its present state.
Travelling from Dan Shui towards Keelung, the village is just before San Zhi village. It's easy to spot, the space pods come in many bright colours and stick out from the usual blocky Taiwanese buildings.
It's an eerie and fantascinating experience to wander around. The entrance is through a hole in the bizarre main gate, a theme park Chinese dragon inspired gate. After entering, it just gets wilder.
The size of the village seems bigger once you're inside. There's also a dried up swimming pool and slide tower, built to resemble a rock cliff. Some of the buildings are in a perilous state, whilst others seem safe-ish to wander into. Only when you're inside, do you realise that some of the buildings are build over seawater.
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