Laomei Elementary School

Laomei elementary school is located in Laomei village, Shimen District of New Taipei city in Taiwan. The word “Laomei” is derived from the name of Ketagalan Vavui tribe. The tribe was reportedly relocated to this place due to the pressure from Han encroachment. The term of Laomei is the transliteration from Aborigines “Babuy”; a pronunciation very close to “Laomei”; it means “Wild Boar” in Indonesian language. Thus it can be seen this place was the early fishing and hunting area for Keelung and Jinbaoli people.

In April 1900, Governor-General’s Office approved to establish 「Laomei Public School」in 芝蘭三堡, which school districts includes 8th district, 7th district and 5th district of Hu Wei Office. The school starts teaching in May at the same year, the first principal was 二之方岩次郎. The teaching and administrative staff was 3 members at the initial stage. There were 50 new students for one class. This new school building was completed in 1902. After that, since Small Keelung Village belonged to Laomei school district intends to set up a new one school. Considering this area is developing quickly, the governor made the decision to abolish Laomei Public School in March 31, 1911(Meiji 44), instead to set up Small Keelung Public school (now it is called as Sanzhi Elementary School) on April 1 at the same year, Laomei branch school is also established at the same time. It was meant that Laomei Public School was transferred to the branch school of Small Keelung Public School.



Due to the reorganization of local regions in June 1921, Laomei branch school became an independent school, and still called as Laomei Public School. Alilao branch school(now it is called as Qianhua Elementary School) of Jinbaoli Public School changed to 「Alilao branch school of Laomei Public School」.



In 1941, the Pacific War broke out, in order to win the support from Taiwanese people; Japanese government announced that all the public schools changed to national schools. Therefore, Laomei Public School changed its name to 「Laomei National School」. Japan finally surrendered in 1945. After Taiwan’s restoration, Mr. Lu Chuan qia was the first principal to replace former Japanese principal 上野慶之.