Xinglin General Hospital (杏林綜合醫院)

Xìnglín General Hospital (杏林綜合醫院) is perhaps the most famous ruin in downtown Tainan, Taiwan. It opened for business in 1975 as the largest and most modern hospital in this part of the city and catered to the burgeoning middle class during the boom times of the Taiwan Economic Miracle. In 1993 the hospital was ordered to shut down after being plagued by a number of scandals involving fraudulent records, medical malpractice, and allegations of wrongful death. Ongoing legal battles and fragmented ownership have left the building abandoned and neglected since then.

Much like the so-called Minxiong Ghost House, this hospital is widely rumored to be haunted. In fact, it regularly appears on lists of spooky places in Taiwan¹ and has been featured on national television. It eventually became the subject of two feature-length horror films: Hospital (杏林醫院), released in more than 70 theaters nation-wide on the last day of 2020, and Strange Frequencies: Taiwan Killer Hospital, a Filipino found footage film released in 2024. This fame and notoriety has made it next to impossible to separate fact from fiction, especially through the smoky lens of machine translation. As such, this entry in my catalog of abandoned places in Taiwan will be rather light on history for a change.

One thing I appreciate about urban exploration in Taiwan is the often pristine condition of the ruins. Urban exploration culture in Taiwan is typically respectful of the state of abandonment and most people tend to abide by the axiom “take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints”. Not so in this hospital, which has seen countless visitors in the decades since it was abandoned. No doubt teenagers and university students regularly dare one another to enter the “haunted house”, particularly at night, and more recently streamers and other content creators have made regular use of the space².

I was interested in finding many of the artifacts visible in previously published explorations³, particularly the operating room equipment, but the building was almost completely gutted by the time I visited in 2014. Almost anything not nailed down had already been stripped away and sold for scrap. At least I found a tube of the original blackface toothpaste I’ve heard so much about since first visiting East Asia!

Eventually I worked up a little courage to descend into the basement in search of the morgue. There wasn’t much left to see in this partly flooded underworld but it was still a bit of a thrill to creep along the dark corridors, pointing my torch this way and that. Alas, there were no blood-curdling screams, no spooky apparitions. What gives? Maybe I need to return by night.

Despite the rather anti-climatic exploration it was still interesting to scope out this famous old hospital in downtown Tainan. It is remarkable to ponder the second life this building has enjoyed, particularly in the 2020s, as it became the backdrop for horror films and no shortage of content creators seeking to juice engagement. Don’t expect much should you visit these days; even in 2014 the site was little more than a hollow shell, but at least the scale of the building remains impressive, and it makes for some decent photos here and there.

Warning: this location is abandoned, hazardous, or otherwise neglected and may be unsafe and even dangerous! Exercise appropriate precautions when visiting.

警告：此處已廢棄或長期無人管理，可能存在潛在危險。造訪時請務必提高警覺，並做好相關安全防護措施。