Yokohama Kanteibyo横滨中华街关帝庙
- Type
- Overseas Daoist Temples
- Location
- Japan · Kanagawa Prefecture · Naka Ward, Yokohama · 140 Yamashita-cho, within Yokohama Chinatown
- Coordinates
- 35.4423, 139.6442 Map ↗
- First built
- 1862 (small shrine erected)/1871 (formal temple completed) · The present building is the fourth-generation structure, completed on 14 August 1990
Overview
The Yokohama Kanteibyo is the most famous Chinese temple in Japan. In 1862, Chinese merchants living in Japan enshrined a wooden statue of Guandi in a small shrine, and in 1871 they raised funds to build a proper temple, dedicated primarily to Guan Shengdijun in his capacity as guardian deity of commerce. The temple has been destroyed and rebuilt four times: it was burned down successively in the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923, the Great Yokohama Air Raid of 1945, and a fire in 1986; the present, fourth-generation building was completed and consecrated on 14 August 1990, and is a landmark of Yokohama Chinatown. In 2019, during the reconstruction of the adjoining Yokohama Yamate Chinese School, remains of the original first-generation temple were unearthed, now on permanent display. Together with the Yokohama Masobyo, completed in 2006, it forms the "twin temples, north and south" of Chinatown. In nature it is a folk-religion temple operated by the overseas Chinese community, not an institutionalized Daoist order.
Highlights
- A shrine was established in 1862, and a proper temple was built in 1871
- Destroyed and rebuilt four times
- The fourth-generation temple building of 1990
- Remains of the original first-generation temple on display