Kaohsiung’s Famous Ruins 2: Tomato Factory 大湖蕃茄會社

This old building 蕃茄會社, well what’s left of it, in north Kaohsiung was a tomato canning factory during the Japanese Colonial Era. After the war, the factory was left to ruin and mostly ignored. It is still mostly ignored except for a number of weeks from mid-May to Mid-June when a tree at the factory blooms a bright red.

The Phoenix tree, 鳳凰木, Delonix regia, is a tree native to Madagascar but was brought to Taiwan in 1897 by the Japanese military. First to Tainan, but then it spread all over Taiwan.

However, in the last number of years, the old factory has become a very popular spot for Instagrammers, wedding photos, and just all-around photography fans during those few weeks.

I have stopped by a few times over the years. These are pictures from those trips so they seem a little different.

The land is now private property but the owners allow people to come and hang out, take photos all for free. So of course, don’t leave trash, do graffiti, and all those nasty things on the factory grounds.

Over the last Lunar New Year holiday, I stopped by to get some pictures of when the tree isn’t blooming to show what the tree and factory look like most of the year.

Still looks pretty good all year round really.

There is a lot of information on this place in Chinese of course, here, here, and here for example. I haven’t really seen anything in English about it so I figured why not throw up a quick article about it since the tree will be blooming soon.

To find the factory and tree is easy enough just google 蕃茄會社 or here is the address to copy and paste.

No. 360 Section 1, Zhongshan Road, Hunei District, Kaohsiung City, 829

829高雄市湖內區中山路一段360號

Also if you go all this way to Hunei 湖內區, I recommend seeing 太爺蘇家古厝 (old house),海埔教會舊址 (old church), 劉家碾米廠(old rice shop), 文賢戲院 (old theatre) and really just driving around and exploring an often skipped over area of Kaohsiung.