Taiwan Religious Culture Map

In the 25th year of Emperor Qianlong's reign in the Qing era (1760 CE), brothers You Shih-hen (dates of birth and death unknown) and You Shih-pa (? - 1798 CE), 11th generation members of the You clan, crossed the ocean from Fujian's Zhao'an County to Taiwan. In the 8th year of Emperor Jiaqing's reign (1803 CE), You Shih-pa's wife, originally surnamed Li (also known as Wen-Chin Ma, which means ""gentle and devoted mother""; dates of birth and death unknown), relocated to Yilan with 8 families in the clan, where they cultivated multiple plots of land throughout the reigns of Emperor Jiaqing and Daoguang Emperor, eventually settling in the Zhuangliu area. The You Family Ancestral Temple was built in memory of ancestors that crossed the ocean to settle in Taiwan and cultivate the land, but it also served another purpose. As a result of the family's relocation, only a few generations of the clan lived in the area, making familial unity imperative to the family's prosperity. Building an ancestral temple based on blood relations made it easier to bring the family together and strengthen family businesses. As one of the few remaining ancestral temples in Yilan, the temple is worth chronicling and preserving for its historical, local, and artistic significance, as well as for its cultural value of passing on the Zhao'an dialect of the Hakka language.