Saturday, September 4, 2021

Kaohsiung's Dashe (大社) and an aborted trip to the Maolin and Duona scenic area

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The Huang family compound in Dashe


Before the coronavirus outbreak in Taiwan, work took me to southern Taiwan quite often. Since I have lots of friends down south, this has given me the opportunity to head in some unexpected directions.

On my last trip, I met up with a friend who lives in Dashe (大社), a compact town north of Kaohsiung City. Like a lot of less commonly explored towns, Dashe offers a fair amount of historic architecture that you'll mostly have to yourself, and perhaps a few locals. A lot of this architecture consists of beautiful old farmhouses, which tend to still be privately owned (and occupied). That's great, although there's a downside: it can be difficult to actually get a look.

The nearest MRT station is Metropolitan Park, although it's surprisingly possible to take a bus there from HSR Zuoying Station. The R60B heads in that direction, but there are other options: Google Maps can show you how without much problem. 

I was lucky to have car access, however. Our plan for the day was to drive up to Maolin 茂林 and Duona 多納, and take advantage of the dry, sunny weather to hike up to the Lovers' Waterfall at Maolin and the gorge and suspension bridge at Duona. The area is mainly Rukai Indigenous, and there's also good food to be had up there. Duona's mountain views and traditional stacked slate houses draw tourists, which means stone slab barbecue, coffeeshops, millet wine, fig jelly (愛玉 -- the area is famous for it) and maqaw (馬告, a citrusy-flavored peppercorn-like seasoning used in Indigenous cuisine). 

Well, we did make it to Duona, but we ended up not doing anything else on our itinerary except barbecue and coffee, so this isn't a blog post about a trip to the mountains. However, the best possible overview of the area can be found in Richard Saunders' Taiwan 101 travel guide

How did we get so far off track? It's not a very interesting story, but I will tell you at the end. Our first diversion was my friend's hometown itself. It turns out that Dashe is far more interesting than it seems! The town is absolutely bursting with old houses in various states of repair. Some are fairly unadorned three-sided farmhouses (三合院) that have survived into the 21st century, but some are truly noteworthy.

We spent a morning driving around looking at these old houses before heading for the hills, and still didn't manage to visit every one. 

Let's start with the Wu family (巫家), whose ancestral hall and family home are along Minsheng Road 民生路. The ancestral hall is open to the public during the day and is located at #2, Lane 43 (the lane is really just a concrete lot). It's on Google Maps as the Taisha Old House Witch House (大社巫厝古宅) but there's no "witch" involved; that's just a weird translation of the Wu surname, which uses a less common character. 

Much of this hall was torn down and replaced with newer buildings, but the central three courtyards remain. According to local blogs, the original hall was so massive that it was called the "thousand gates", because it...had a lot of gates. Apparently the 'servants' would cry every night at the thought of shutting all of them, and each one had a distinctive latch. 

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The ancestral hall is notable for its use of wood imported from Fujian, with high-quality carving work, now mostly blackened with age. It's typical of Zhangzhou-style houses because it is one. 

The style of the arches and gables made me think this hall was older than most, perhaps late 18th or early 19th century (in comparison, most still-standing historic homes seem to be from the mid-19th century). I asked a guy hanging out nearby -- he may have been there in some sort of official ancestral hall capacity but as usual, it's hard to tell -- who said it was about 200 years old, and the Wu family has been in Dashe for as long as anyone can remember. 

Me: "So, 1820s?"

Him: "No, earlier than that. Maybe 300 years."

So I Googled it: the hall was built in 1803. 

I'm not a Qing-era architecture expert, just a very good guesser who has seen a lot of old houses. 

Further down Minsheng Road, at #109, is another Wu family mansion. This one can't be visited so easily. The Wu house is a private residence, and is maintained well enough that someone certainly stays or visits part time. The gate was locked when we stopped by, but it's possible to peer in a bit through the lattices on the brick wall.  These two heritage buildings are close enough that I suspect the entire stretch between them had once been the Wu family compound and farm. It might still be, but with newer -- and uglier -- buildings. 


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And there are a few other interesting old buildings around here in various states of picturesque decay: 


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Not far from here, a few more old farmhouses can be found on or near Minsheng Road. The Ni Family House (大社倪厝古宅 on Google) is in a lane just before you reach Lane 131. Blogs say it was "completed in 1950", but that the family built it in a traditional style. That's certainly evident. The large-and-small red brick pattern. Similar to the construction style of Longshan Temple in Taipei, the bricks themselves are hollow or filled with dirt, and take on an attractive golden red color in the late afternoon. The lower half of the building is made of decorated cement in a geometric pattern, which is the only clue that this is a mid-century house rather than something much older.

If you're curious, the various roof arches one can find on older buildings are said to represent the five elements. The smooth rounded curve of the Ni Family Mansion arches apparently represents "gold". Narrower, tall arches represent "wood", an arch with two waves one each side is "water", the spiky style often seen in Matsu Island architecture is "fire" and the flat-topped kind are "earth". There are also some interesting design features, including a carved "fu" (富) over a drainage canal and an interesting patio.

How do I know all this? There's a book about it, in addition to just reading the blogs of Taiwanese old house buffs. There's always someone who's been there before if you just Google it. You can find the book at The Taiwan Store (台灣个店) in a lane off Xinsheng South Road in Taipei. 

There's another set of old brick buildings nearby, as well. They're laid out in a row, and certainly not farmhouses.

A few more of these houses dot Minsheng Road as you continue, but they don't have any other notable features. It's worth taking a look, however, if you're wandering down this way. Many are still inhabited, so be careful to be respectful of private property and not trespass uninvited. An easy way to find these in general is to key up the satellite version of Google Maps and look for orange roofs laid out in the three-sided farmhouse shape, but not all will be notable enough to visit, and others may not be accessible.

Downtown, we stopped at Biyun Temple (碧雲宮) at the intersection of Sanmin Road 三民路, Guangming Street 光明街 and Cuiping Road 翠屏路. 

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The temple itself is on the 2nd floor of a market area, accessible via elevator or stairs. The lanes around here have some interesting old architecture too.

While the decor screams "mid-century" -- I'd date the pebble-tile steps and terrazzo floors at the 1950s or '60s  --  this is a renovation. According to my friend, the temple itself is much older, from the Qing dynasty. You can get a pleasant view of the street from here, including some of the Japanese-era buildings at this intersection. The temple itself isn't particularly noteworthy beyond the vintage flooring, but you can make a wish here. The wishing plaques hang attractively along an elevated corridor overlooking the town. 

The Japanese-era buildings here have facades worth a moment of your time to admire, but unfortunately there are no period interiors to explore. One houses a shoe store and pharmacy: I asked the shoe store owner if she knew anything about the building, but she was merely renting the space and had nothing to share. Another building houses a fruit stand, and another was locked up tight when I passed through.


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In a lane off Cuiping Road, there is a gorgeous old house that my friend called a "secret garden" because it's not visible from the street, but absolutely stunning inside. Apparently it's blocked by another building, and you have to cut across a private yard to get there. She opined that the owners might not want it "discovered", but I've got news for them: it has been.

My friend didn't know quite where it was, however, and we never did find it. I came across these blog posts later. 

The Hsu Family House (許家古厝)was built in 1910 and was the home of Hsu Chuan-hsing, a director of the Dashe Peasants' Association (not sure how else to translate that). The tilework alone makes it worth doing what this blogger says is necessary: trespassing across private property. Apparently the Majolica tiles aren't the only attraction, the scrolls, brick carvings and Kochi pottery (a traditional Taiwanese art form) were all done by Chang Chiao, the father of Chang Decheng, a famous shadow puppet artist. Chang Chiao himself was a talented artist who did much of the work around Dashe, although a great deal of it has been demolished.

This blog offers a more precise address, though I can't figure out on Google Maps where exactly it's supposed to be. Next time. 

Our final stop was another family shrine, this time for the Huangs. They were (and probably are) quite rich, as there's a local saying that the Huang family didn't need to pass through anyone else's land to reach Guanyin Mountain. (Guanyin Mountain itself has some lovely easy hiking trails, a weekend market, a 'chaste widow' arch and a small park at the base, and is also worth a visit.)

We didn't get to see the whole house as we really were trying to get up to the mountains, but the shrine is open to all. The house, however, has a set of flagpole stones, a preserved sedan chair, some beautiful brick carving, claywork and plaques which may be the work of Chang Chiao, and I'll be returning to try to check it out. One plaque indicates that the shrine was likely built in "the fourth year of Taisho", which would have been 1916.

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The shrine itself is mostly cement work, with some lovely cyan-colored window frames and grilles.


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Across the street, there's a car wash with a funky retro cafe kiosk that reminds me of a hamburger.


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By then it was getting close to lunchtime and we hadn't even left Dashe, so we hit the road. In the end, we didn't do any hiking, not only because it was too hot by the time we hit Maolin, but because we foolishly tried to get there with Google Maps, which sent us into a dusty quarry road full of cement trucks somewhere outside of Meinong, where the river widens. We even had to stop to wash off the windshield! Once we got to Maolin and had lunch the locals laughed at us -- never use Google Maps to get to the mountains, it has no idea what the best routes are. 


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That is quite true.

However, please enjoy photos from the mountain drive we did manage to take, including the swimming hole where we hung out for awhile as the hiking just wasn't working out, and a young girl where we stopped for an early dinner who kept "stealing" things from the table, including my phone and sunglasses (not really stealing, she was just playing games). 

As these were taken when Taiwan was still wracked with drought, the mountains look a little dry and sad. I'm sure they've recovered by now.


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Thursday, September 2, 2021

No, Taiwan is not China because the ROC still technically exists

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The exact face I make when someone says "but under the ROC constitution Taiwan claims China!" 


It's been wonderful this past month to mostly avoid blogging about current affairs. When I get into one of these moods, I find it easier to dive into history, address a long-standing issue in Taiwan-related discourse, or just do travel blogging or book reviews. After a book review and two travel posts with history tie-ins, I think it's finally Long-Standing Issue time.

Often in Taiwan-focused online discourse, I come across a very specific type of viewpoint: if Taiwan wants to be seen as independent from China so badly, they should simply change their name from the 'Republic of China', or but Taiwan is a part of China according to their own constitution, they still claim the PRC! or my favorite (found on Twitter): Taiwan doesn't want to be invaded by China, they want to be China -- they still think they're the real China! 

Let's skip the part where we dissect how people who say these things seem to only be aware of Taiwan's post-1945 history, and literally nothing before that (in some cases they have an extremely biased/blinkered view of what the Qing colonial era was like). We'll skip as well any deeper discussion of whether these commenters are sincere. It seems likely that some are, in that they appear to be real people and not sock accounts. Sometimes, however, the wording of these arguments is eerily similar enough that it's hard to tell what's being repeated because the commenter saw it elsewhere, and what is the product of disseminating specific talking points through intentional disinformation campaigns. 

Instead, I want to go straight to why this entire perspective is misinformed at best, intentionally anti-Taiwan at worst. There's nothing particularly new here that Taiwan nerds won't already know; this is essentially me being lazy. Now, the next time I see it (and there will certainly be a next time), I'll just link this. And now you can too!

Below, I've broken down the (bad) points I've come across and why they're wrong. Variations exist, but they all seem to point back to these main categories of argumentation.


“Under the Republic of China constitution, Taiwan still claims ‘the mainland’” 

On a very technical level, this is true. But on a practical and even official level, it’s not. Or at least, it’s a lot more complicated than “the ROC government claims all of China”. 

Otherwise, how would you explain the fact that both Lee Teng-hui and Tsai Ing-wen have clearly stated that relations between Taiwan and China are state-to-state — two separate national governments — rather than two governments that claim the exact same territory?

Let's explore that a little.

The Constitution of the Republic of China does, indeed, include this article: 

The territory of the Republic of China according to its existing national boundaries shall not be altered except by resolution of the National Assembly.

Additional articles to the constitution from the early 1990s denoted the difference between the “free area” (what the government actually controls — effectively admitting that the Republic of China does not control the PRC’s territory) and “the mainland area”, and clarified that only citizens of the “free area” (what we generally consider to be Taiwan) can vote for and be represented by the national government. This is the main reason why Taiwan can have a government that accurately represents it, without having to engage in some farcical game of “who represents Hunan? How about Zhejiang? Gansu?” when nobody seriously thinks that the Republic of China governs these places.

I’m no constitutional scholar, but it stands to reason that this admission that the Republic of China doesn’t actually control ‘the mainland’ is the constitutional basis for statements by President Lee in the 1990s.

This article is extremely biased to the point of affecting the quality of the scholarship, but it offers up a real quote from Lee and a taste of how angry China chose to be:

According to the transcript released by Taipei, Lee said that since 1991, when the ROC Constitution was amended, cross-strait relations had been defined as "state-to-state," or at least "a special state-to-state relationship." Cross-strait relations, he maintained, shall not be internal relations of "one China," in which it is a legal government vs. a rebel regime, or a central government vs. a local one. Lee's controversial statement, not even known beforehand by Su Chi, Chairman of Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), sent shock waves to Washington as well as Beijing. [Note: Su Chi is the same guy who fabricated the "1992 Consensus" well after 1992]. 
For Beijing, Lee Teng-hui's "two-state" theory was identical to the claims by Taiwan independence forces, that treated Taiwan and the mainland as two separate states. Lee had completely abandoned the unification guidelines of 1991, not even paying lip service to the one-China principle. The spokesman of the State Council's Taiwan Affairs Office criticized Lee for playing with fire....In Beijing's eyes, Lee had made an open and giant step towards independence. The "state-to-state relation" theory went beyond the limit of "creative ambiguity" around the one-China principle and represented a major shift towards de jure independence. 

Often forgotten is this: Tsai Ing-wen, now the President of Taiwan, wasn't just influenced by Lee's shift, she helped craft it

Back in the 1990s, as a law professor, Tsai gave Lee's government legal advice on the island's diplomatic relationship with Beijing, playing a key role in forming Lee's "two-state" policy that depicted Taiwan and mainland China as different countries.

There was a strong bond between the two. Lee saw Tsai as a disciple, while the current president considered her mentor as the defender of democracy on the island.

Tsai herself has said much the same thing:

“We don’t have a need to declare ourselves an independent state,” Tsai told the BBC. “We are an independent country already and we call ourselves the Republic of China, Taiwan.

I've said before that Tsai's approach to governance shows that she's read The Art of War by Lee Teng-hui. Well, perhaps it's even more accurate to say that she helped Lee write the book. 

People tend to overlook this now (especially when it’s convenient to forget when one is making a unificationist, anti-Taiwan argument), but Lee’s policy shift was groundbreaking. In effect, it ended the illusion that the “Republic of China on Taiwan” controlled or had any practical claim to what we commonly conceive of as “China”. 

Now, if the constitution directly prohibited such a claim, both Lee’s and Tsai’s statements would have created constitutional crises. They didn’t, which means there is room in the constitution to accommodate such policies. Therefore, the idea that ‘official boundaries of the Republic of China’ don’t necessarily match up with what the Republic of China actually claims is at least possible, in the sense that it’s constitutionally viable.
 
If it weren’t, elections in Taiwan as they exist today would not be possible. They are. Therefore, well, if “p” then “q”, right? And I may not be a legal scholar, but you know who is? Madame President Dr. Tsai Ing-wen. She would know what interpretations of the constitution are possible, and would know to act within them.

So you can’t accurately state that the government of Taiwan “claims” all of China, because it doesn’t. It hasn’t since the 1990s, and that’s only been reinforced by the current administration.


“Taiwan still thinks it’s the real China”

No, it doesn’t. Taiwan is a representative democracy, which means that there would need to be some sort of national consensus among citizens for Taiwan to ‘think’ of itself as anything. Arguably that's always the case, but when it comes to Taiwan, we have reasonable mechanisms for determining what the people think. If you'd like to argue against this axiom, please feel free to be the jerk who thinks people -- even those within a self-governing entity -- aren't allowed to decide how they identify. But don't expect much sympathy: how would you feel if someone told you how you had to define yourself?

For Taiwan to “think it’s the real China”, therefore, most Taiwanese would have to agree that Taiwan is the real China, and that they are therefore Chinese in some sense (whether that’s cultural, historical, political or ethnic — many of these being social constructs and not hard-and-fast categories). 

But they don’t. Most Taiwanese identify as solely Taiwanese, a point that has been well-documented since 2008. Though there have been some dips, that number has mostly grown. Among those who identify as both Taiwanese and Chinese, the data suggest Taiwanese identity is prioritized. These aren’t narrow majorities either. Although of course people in any country will hold a variety of opinions, the numbers here are strong enough to suggest a consensus. 

What’s more, most Taiwanese want to participate in international events as ‘Taiwan’, and there is essentially no support for immediate unification. Even the tiny number who identify as ‘solely Chinese’ doesn’t rise above the margin of error, and roughly corresponds to the number of Taiwanese citizens who actually were born in China. 

Some like to point to support for the ‘status quo’ as Taiwan wavering on whether or not it’s independent from China. It’s true that people tend to support the status quo, but remember, the status quo effectively is de facto independence: it means people want to avoid starting a war over what Taiwan already has, not that they actually think unification is a desirable future outcome. The way things are now, Taiwan governs itself, and a good number of Taiwanese no longer see unification as inevitable. Even articles that obscure support for independence or make it sound like a bad thing admit this:

It’s noteworthy that an impressive majority – almost 75 percent – continue to believe that Taiwan is already an independent country called the Republic of China....For the first time, a plurality of respondents (47.5 percent) now believe that Taiwan independence is more likely than unification.

It's worth noting -- with the usual caveats about poll reliability and pollster bias -- that the percentage of Taiwanese who favor eventual independence is very close to the percentage that want to "decide later", and higher than the number who want to "maintain the status quo forever".

This simply means that there is little to no support for unification, but quite a bit of support for Taiwan continuing to govern itself, while expressing a desire to live in peace. That is, not start a war for formally recognized independence when Taiwan already has most of the practical benefits of it. When Taiwanese say they're against changes that China would choose to be provoked by, it's likely (but not always) the threat of war that they're reacting against. Even those who don't mind the name are aware that "the Republic of China" is never going to "re-take the Mainland."

It means there is a national consensus: Taiwanese identity is not only a thing, it's the sole identity of the vast majority in Taiwan, and that unification is not desired. However, peace is. Therefore, continued self-governance while keeping the peace is what you're really showing when you say Taiwanese "prefer the status quo".

In what universe does such a national consensus on Taiwan translate into thinking Taiwan is the ‘real China’?


“If Taiwan wants to be considered separate from China, it should simply change its name and constitution.”

Given everything above, it is willfully disingenuous to pretend that Taiwan hasn’t changed these things because it doesn’t want to. 

So why do the name and constitution persist? Why did President Tsai say “Taiwan is an independent country, and its name is the Republic of China” rather than just “Taiwan is an independent country”? That’s clearly what she thinks, and given the consensus that Taiwanese is a distinct identity from Chinese, and the majority identity in Taiwan, the next steps should be obvious.

Some of it comes from Taiwanese who do want to retain some aspect of Chinese identity. Okay, well, I maintain a culturally and historically Armenian identity, yet that doesn’t make me any less American. Through that lens, I can understand the impulse. There is a subgroup of independence supporters who want an independent Taiwan but to retain links to Chinese culture and history, and it’s not my inclination (or job, or lane) to argue against this. 

But mostly, it comes from China. The name remains because there is still fear that changing it would be seen as a ‘declaration of independence’ leading to immediate war. The same is true for the constitution. 

It doesn’t really matter if this is true or not: enough people believe it to create a voting bloc opposed to anything that could be seen as provocative towards China. That voting bloc will be used and courted by opposition politicians. I’m not inclined to see the KMT as a bigger threat than China — at this point they’re basically a puppet of China, and I’m more worried about the puppet master than their marionette — but we need to contend with the fact that they will chase these votes.

But who drives that fear? China. Who intentionally sows discord? China. Who stokes fears of war? China. Who decides what the “tension level” is in the Taiwan Strait? China. Who decides to be ‘provoked’? China. 

So why can’t Taiwan just change its name to Taiwan if it doesn’t consider itself part of China?

Well…China.

Think about it: do you honestly believe that if the threat from China disappeared tomorrow, that Taiwan would (after perhaps a small domestic scuffle) want to continue to claim to be "the real China" and keep those parts of the constitution as-is? You know it wouldn't.

Don’t blame Taiwan for this.


"But Taiwan has agreed that it's a part of China as it accepted the Republic of China system!"

If you want to make this argument, please provide references as to when exactly the Taiwanese people were asked if they'd like to host the Republic of China. Chiang Kai-shek made his appeal at Cairo, not to Taiwan. Then, he showed up and didn't exactly ask if his government was welcome. It's true that at the time many Taiwanese did welcome the KMT. It's hard to know how many of the celebrants were sincere and how many were made to go wave a flag, but we can safely assume that there were some of each. Then, the KMT did a horrible job and the people quite rightly protested this. Sure, after decades of brutality and mass murder and forced cultural and linguistic imperialism towards "Chineseness", Taiwan finally forced the KMT to accept democratization and had Lee Teng-hui as a helping hand in the establishment -- eventually, anyway. 

But while Taiwan got democracy, the people have never gotten the chance to decide whether they wanted to keep the Republic of China structure under which that democracy exists. What's more, every major decision made regarding Taiwan's status was made when the dictatorship was still in place. Leaving the UN and other reactions to the loss of formal recognition, refusing to participate in the Olympics as Taiwan, even the meetings in 1992 that did not lead to a consensus were all done by a dictatorship from China ruling the country under Martial Law while incarcerating, disappearing or executing anyone who objected.

If you think any of this was a "choice" of the Taiwanese people when it was done long before they were allowed to vote for their national leaders, read a book.

Even now, when you see people wavering on Taiwan/China issues, it's almost always due to the threat of war. If you want to know what people really think, ask them what they'd prefer if they could have it without China dropping bombs on them.


“Taiwan may as well accept that it’s part of China, because Taiwanese won’t really fight if China invades.”

Here’s the thing: everybody thinks they know what they’d do in the thick of war, or a national disaster. I like to think that if the PLA came a-knockin’, I’d stay and fight. This is my home, after all. But we can only guess at how we’d act, and there’s no concrete way to ‘prove’ people would fight or surrender without inducing the actual situation. Not even I can say with 100% certainty what I would do, only what I intend.

The best we have are polls asking the question now, to find out what people think they’d do. And the polls are clear: a comfortable majority of Taiwanese say they are willing to fight for Taiwan. (The Diplomat link above paints a slightly grimmer picture, and I'm curious about the disparity, but still there are people who say they're willing to fight.)

This also fits my anecdotal observations: the general consensus I’ve seen is that people will do just about anything to keep the peace if that’s possible, but there is a point where you do have to stand and fight, if the other side forces your hand.

As I see it, if this is the best data we have, the burden of proof is on those who don’t think Taiwanese would stand firm, if they want to make that argument. The polls show they would. If you want to say the data are wrong, prove it

Otherwise, sit down. What Taiwanese say about their intentions is more important than your opinion. 

Whether or not such polls can accurately predict what people would do if a real war broke out, the fact is that some people will fight. Perhaps it’s impossible to say what percentage, but we know it won’t be zero. Without support, those people would be slaughtered. 

Therefore, anyone who thinks that in this situation a massacre can be avoided — that a straight-up crime against humanity can be stopped — by convincing all Taiwanese to surrender without a fight is dreaming. It will never play out that way, so any discussion of the nightmare scenario of invasion must contend with this. Otherwise, it can be dismissed as either hopelessly naive, or actively and disingenuously anti-Taiwan.

Phew. I think that's it, but if there's a common argument along these lines that you think I've missed, by all means speak up and I'll add it if it can be supported.

Quick update: I quite liked this comment on Twitter: 



The whole thread is worth reading, but this is the point I wanted to include. It makes sense: the Queen of England exists for symbolic/historical reasons, and it would be a problem if she actually tried to run the government. Everybody knows this. 

But imagine if there was a large, hostile country just off the coast of England who insisted that England pretend the Queen of England was the true head of government -- not some symbolic relic -- rather than the Prime Minister and Parliament, and failing to keep up the pretense would be grounds for invasion. And there was a small but vocal minority of English people who actually believed it, enough that supporters of this country threatening England could point to them and say it's actually all England's fault even when most people know the whole thing is a farce.

Weird, right? 

Well, that's pretty much the position that Taiwan is in vis-a-vis the ROC and China.

Tuesday, August 24, 2021

Xishu Old Street and Sikunshen (Tainan)

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I'm going to present this post more as a photo essay, because I don't have much specifically to say about each picture. But, I wanted to write about these older areas of southern Tainan that are often overlooked: Xishu Old Street 喜樹老街 and nearby Sikunshen 四鯤鯓. Both of these areas are old settlements, and most likely fishing villages given their proximity to the coast. 

It's worth noting that thanks to a highway and a seawall, you can't actually see the ocean from either now, but it is there. Either of these might make a fine diversion or extra stop on a day trip to the beach down here. I haven't actually been to the beach, so I can't say if it's any good.

For awhile, local governments in Taiwan were keen to promote "old streets" -- streets mostly full of Japanese-era architecture that either once served as the downtown or high street of a city, or were otherwise left intact. You can find them all over the place, with the most famous examples being Daxi (Taoyuan County) and Sanxia (New Taipei). Others exist but none top the architecture of those two. They filled up with very similar businesses selling retro-style toys, balms and oils, wooden massage, backscratching and pressure-point implements, various sweet and savory snacks (preserved fruit is popular), food vendors and little souvenirs. Sprinkle in a few restaurants, snack vendors selling whatever the town is 'famous' for and perhaps a cafe, and you have a classic 'old street'. I've also explored some quieter ones, such as Hukou Old Street in Hsinchu County, which is quite difficult to get to.

People still go to these, and I don't mind popping through if I'm in the town; they can be nice if they're not too crowded. 

Some old streets, however, don't quite make it: take Xishu Old Street (喜樹老街) outside Tainan city, for example. This area is very close to the Gold Coast beach area, and not conveniently located for transport. There is a parking lot, and the Bus #1 comes down here from central Tainan, but it doesn't come very often. The bus stop is on Xishu Road (喜樹路). Just outside the old village area there are some convenience stores, and Google says there are restaurants around, though none were open when we passed through.

What's interesting about this area isn't how bustling it is, because it isn't. Rather, it's more like an atmospheric residential backstreet which reveal a few past attempts at being renovated for tourism, surrounded by a nearly abandoned village of crumbling brick houses.

In the photos you'll see quite a few original Majolica tiles (meaning these houses are probably from the Japanese era, as the tiles became popular in Taiwan after they started coming in from Japan) and some original painting, all of it fading and rotting in the elements. While I'd love to see these houses preserved or renovated just as they are, the fact is most of them are so far gone that they're unlivable now. So, the next best thing would be to try and rescue the art to be found here, through in situ preservation if possible -- but perhaps dismantling if not. While the look of beautifully painted wooden walls deteriorating over the decades is poetic and melancholy, I'd rather see this work saved somehow.

Notable points include an area that seems to have been a renovated performance space (though there was nothing going on while we were there), a few abandoned historic houses such as the 鄭家古厝 (the Zheng family home), and what seems to have been the original purveyor of those bags and purses in Taiwan that are shaped and printed to look exactly like fish (though they were not open when we visited). There is also a lot of cat-themed decoration: according to one signboard, the area used to be full of street cats. They'd played an important role in controlling the mouse population when people lived here. Then over time the people mostly left, but the cats stayed. Then, eventually, the cats left too.  

A very short drive north along the coast, you'll find Sikunshen (四鯤鯓). This village is a bit more, well...inhabited than Xishu, and very atmospheric to walk around. The town still seems to have a lot of connections to the shellfish business, especially oysters, and as it's still inhabited, the cats are still around.

There's not a lot to do, but it's fairly easy to park at Longshan Temple (龍山寺), or the Bus #6 will take you here. It's not even that hard to transfer between the #1 and the #6 -- you have to do a little backtracking, but it's possible -- if you've decided to spend the day in the area, though it will take longer than driving. 

Sikunshen has more crumbling brick architecture, a few interestingly-decorated renovated houses, and a very large old well. If any local aunties or uncles are around, they might fetch you a bucket to draw water from it, if you want. 

The signboard by the well notes that there were actually two large wells in this area, one on each side of Longshan Temple. Because of this, they were considered the 'eyes' of the dragon-like sea creature -- hence this well's name: 龍目 (Longmu or Dragon Eyes). The water here was apparently especially sweet ad plentiful, though frankly all signs next to historic well say that, trust me. Nobody's ever like "yeah this was our old well, the water was gross and tasted bad". It's always something more like "we dubbed this well 'Eternal Sweet Water' for the sustenance it gave the community!"

In any case, municipal water was installed in 1968.

The name of the village is notable, as well. If you read my post on Luermen (鹿耳門), you'll know that much of what is now Tainan used to be a wide, shallow bay called the Taijiang Inland Sea. Cordoning this bay off from the Taiwan Strait were a series of sandbars that peeked out of the water at regular intervals which looked, taken together, like humps on the back of a massive sea monster or whale (鯤鯓), which is how the area gets its name. Although the geography has changed quite a bit in the past few centuries, these bits of the sea creature's back were numbered. Sikunshen was, of course, the fourth one. 

Anyway, enough of me talking: enjoy some photos. 


Xishu Old Street


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Sikunshen

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