Access to Zheng Chenggong Memorial Museum
Access to Hirado City
Sightseeing Spots in the Area
Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) Branch Mausoleum
In 1962, when a ceremony was held in Hirado to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Zheng Chenggong’s passing, his spirit was divided and sent from the Koxinga Temple in Tainan, Taiwan, to be enshrined in Maruyama Park on a hill overlooking the beach with the ‘Birth Stone’ his mother allegedly leaned on when she gave birth. In April 2024, as part of the celebratory projects to commemorate the 400th anniversary of his birth and as a measure to deal with deterioration, a new building was constructed on the site of the residence where Zheng Chenggong was born and raised.
Jitanseki (Birth Stone)
It is said that Zheng Chenggong’s mother suddenly went into labor when she came to Senrigahama beach to pick seashells and leaned on this stone when she gave birth to him.
The Birthplace Memorial Stone of Zheng Chenggong
In praise of Zheng Chenggong’s great achievement, Matsuura Hiromu, the 35th lord of the Matsuura Clan, commissioned Asakawa Zenan, a Confucian scholar in Kyoto, to publish the biography of Zheng Chenggong (which resulted in a book of about 5,000 characters). They attempted to inscribe the text into a memorial stone, but a suitable stone could not be found. Eventually, after the death of Asakawa Zenan, Hayama Gaiken, one of the retainers of the Hirado Clan, was instructed to erect the memorial stone in 1852 with a reduced wordcount.
Matsuura Historical Museum
The museum building was built in 1893 as a mansion of the Matsuura Family and opened as a historical museum in 1955. As the Matsuura Family, which was the master clan of Hirado, dominated the area for about 650 years, a lot of valuable historical materials have been preserved. One section of the museum exhibits materials related to Zheng Chenggong.
Zheng Chenggong stone statue
Nanan City in Fujian Province, China, is where Zheng Chenggong, the Japanese-Chinese mixed heritage hero born in Hirado, spent his childhood. The city became a sister city to Hirado in 1995 and they have continued exchanges ever since. This statue was donated by Nanan City in 2013 as a symbol of this relationship, coinciding with the opening of the Zheng Chenggong Memorial museum.
Zheng Chenggong bronze statue
This bronze statue was gifted to Hirado in November 2017 as a token of friendship by the Tainan City Government, the Zheng Chenggong Ancestral Temple in Tainan, and Mr. Ye Fengjie. (Installed at Hirado Port Exchange Plaza)
