The Kaohsiung County Sugar Plant used to be a vibrant community with its own distinctive look and feel, where people raised families in a pleasant environment bequeathed to them by Japanese colonizers. But that was way back when. Does it have a future as anything other than a subject for nostalgic reminiscence--and a source of surprisingly tasty shaved ice desserts?
The Audi picks up speed along the northbound highway, heading away from Kaohsiung Airport. Clouds left over from the morning's showers make the weather overcast. Traffic is light. Soon the car has left suburbia behind and is speeding along a dead straight road flanked with orderly rows of coconut trees.
Shih Jui-chang, the driver, is in expansive mood. His passenger sits in silence, content to let him enthuse while she enjoys the tranquillity of the landscape, a stream of lush greenery unreeling beyond the windshield. Then the view changes with dramatic suddenness. Fields of sugar cane stretch to the horizon, and the acrid smell of smoke fills the car. Shih senses the unspoken question. "Before farmers can harvest the cane, they have to strip off the leaves," he explains. "They burn them. That's what you can smell. By the way, this is Chiaotou. We locals call it Kio-a-thau, though. That's Southern Fujian dialect, of course. Chiaotou in Mandarin. Kio-a-thau sounds friendlier, softer. Well, to us, anyway."
Shih is a physical education teacher at Lunghua High School in Kaohsiung. He is a native of Chiaotou, where he has lived for most of his fifty years. Six years ago, he helped found the Kio-a-thau Cultural Society, with a view to preserving the local culture. Shih, who recently retired as a two-term director of the society, continues to promote cultural conservation by giving talks in which he shares his experience with others. But the price of such dedication, coupled with a modicum of fame, can be high: He is frequently asked to give guided tours of Chiaotou, since he knows the place inside out.
The silver Audi slows enough to turn into a narrow lane leading to a railroad crossing. Beyond that stands the entrance to the Kaohsiung County Sugar Plant. There is nobody about. "Through that gate used to be the administrative offices," Shih says. "But they've been empty since the plant was closed last year. Inside, there's a beautiful bronze statue of Kuanyin [in Buddhism, the Goddess of Mercy], said to have been brought here from Japan to protect the plant during the period of Japanese occupation. There's another Kuanyin in a Buddhist temple in Nara, in Japan. They say it looks exactly the same."
His visitor was unaware of the statue, but she has done her homework and already knows a lot about this place. In 2001, the Kaohsiung County Sugar Plant will celebrate its centennial. It was built by the colonial government of Japan (1895-1945), and eventually became Taiwan's first large-scale sugar plant. But the archives show that farmers were harvesting locally grown cane more than three hundred years before the arrival of the Japanese. Between 1624 and 1662 the Dutch controlled the island, and even then sugar was a major export to many countries, including Japan, which even then accounted for a large part of the trade.
In 1662 the Dutch were expelled, and Taiwan came under Chinese rule for the first time. Nothing fazed, the locals went right on harvesting sugar cane. By the beginning of the twentieth century, Taiwan had more than a thousand sugar farms, most of them concentrated in the south. When the Japanese arrived, they brought with them advanced ideas about how to make the best use of the island's rich resources. Many new sugar plants equipped with modern technology and staffed by efficient managers were built throughout Taiwan. Chiaotou's was the first.
Sugar quickly became the most important agricultural product and source of income for Japan. The records show that 90 percent of Taiwan's sugar was shipped to Japan during the fifty-year occupation. In 1945, the Japanese left Taiwan, and one year later the Kuomintang set up the Taiwan Sugar Co. (TSC). This new state enterprise took over the entire sugar industry that had once been dominated by four Japanese sugar conglomerates. Its assets included forty-two plants, forty-nine refineries, and all the employees.
The 1950s were the golden age. Sugar exports became the ROC's main source of foreign currency, and in its heyday TSC's export profits accounted for 70 percent of the island's influx of foreign exchange. But then came the 1960s, and much of Taiwan's work force was transferred to industrial development projects, causing a gradual decline in sugar production and many other agricultural activities as well. TSC had to cope with huge challenges. Labor costs rose, and international sugar prices fluctuated. Eventually it was decided that the company should run down its principal business, look for new sources of income, and transform itself into a commercial private enterprise. The plants were shut down one after another, beginning in 1993, and more than five thousand employees have since been laid off.
Kaohsiung County Sugar Plant's operations ceased in 1999, although some farmers in Chiaotou continue to grow cane for the island's few remaining plants to process. A year before it closed down, this plant was designated a historic county relic, the only one to earn such an accolade. From political, economic, and cultural perspectives, it symbolizes one of Taiwan's most important periods of growth.
The car enters the factory grounds and turns sharply into a wooded area. Nothing has prepared his guest for this transition. It is like stumbling into a secret garden. There are so many trees, so tall and so old. After such a long drive, everything suddenly feels refreshing: the abundant foliage, the cool breeze, above all, the trees. The shrill sound of cicadas fills the air, but even so, this is a place of peace.
The tour guide parks in front of the first house they come across, which looks dilapidated and forlorn. A slip of paper is posted on the door, warning people not to enter. "We're now in the old staff residential area," Shih says. "This is the office of the Kio-a-thau Cultural Society. Last week's typhoon did so much damage that we had to close it down. Come, I'll show you the inside." He unlocks the door.
Big drops of water cling to the ceiling, always seemingly on the point of falling, never quite doing so. The office is empty, except for a few sticks of office furniture. In one corner are a dozen or so framed black-and-white photos, looking rather pitiful. The images have become blurred and tarnished from age, but it is just possible to interpret them. One shows the plant before the arrival of asphalt roads; another is of sugar cane on an oxcart about to be weighed; yet another shows sugar being transported on trolleys.
Shih explains that this has been the society's center for several years. "The county government and TSC let us use it for free," he says. "We've got a tremendous amount of space here, enough for concerts, movie shows, painting exhibitions, even our summer camp activities for children." For the plant has now become a classroom offering multiple educational opportunities to children and adults. Local painters have exhibited artworks depicting various aspects of the place. There are also regular tours of historic sites, especially the Japanese colonial-style buildings, and the society arranges demonstrations of how sugar was produced.
Outside, the sky turns a darker shade of gray. A slow drizzle begins. Shih escorts his guest along the bosky path, murmuring the names of the various trees and flowers they pass. Each roadway in the network has a name. All of them contain the Chinese character for sugar.
There are approximately four hundred different kinds of plants in the compound. Some of the trees are more than a hundred years old. About fifty species of birds can be found there, as well as various reptiles, insects, and mammals. "The whole area makes a terrific classroom for kids to learn about nature and ecology," Shih says. "We organize a summer camp for children every year, and far more sign up than we have places for."
Shih jogs here every day. It was in the course of one such run that he came across some local musicians, whom he promptly invited to play in a concert organized by the cultural society. "I didn't even know there were any musicians living in Chiaotou," he confesses. "Then one afternoon, while I was out jogging, I heard someone playing the flute. So I followed the sound of the music to its source, and it turned out that the flautist belonged to a group of music-lovers who get together regularly to play."
The site is dotted with numerous isolated and abandoned office buildings, hidden in the woods or lurking behind walls of weeds. There are air-raid shelters, left over from World War II, covered with dense layers of moss. The former living quarters of the plant's employees consist of traditional Japanese wooden houses, once beautiful but now no longer. Most of them are the worse for wear. Only a few are still occupied by the families of former employees, who for various reasons have refused to fall in with the county government's plans to relocate them.
One house, tucked away in a corner, does not look quite as rundown as the others. Somebody is evidently taking care of the little garden in the front yard, as well as the house. Shih says it has become a popular background for wedding photos.
Suddenly a smiling face swims into view, topped by the kind of conical bamboo hat worn by Taiwanese farmers when it rains. This is Chang Cheng-yu , a retired TSC employee, who now sells beverages that he brews from indigenous natural ingredients. He offers a cup of his mulberry iced tea. "I've been living here for more than twenty years," he says. "I moved here from Nantou, and my kids all grew up here." Is this a good place to live? He looks away. "I guess it's okay," he says at last, when the silence is threatening to become embarrassing. "I mean, it isn't a great place to live, because the houses are old and moldy, but, you know...there are worse places."
In the old days, the sugar plant was a magnet for people like Chang. It offered jobs, security. They raised their families here, slowly forgetting their hometowns. "I'm a second-generation resident," Shih says. "My father was the plant's civil engineer. He moved here from Tainan County with my mother when he was barely twenty. That was during the Japanese time. I was born in the plant and grew up here. After I graduated, I found a teaching job in Kaohsiung and decided to move back here to live with my folks. Chiaotou has become my hometown and the hometown of my two grown-up children."
A peculiarity of Chiaotou is that its population of 40,000 is creeping upward, despite the closure of the sugar plant last year. Shih explains: "The newcomers are mostly attracted by the cheap housing. If they can't afford a place in Kaohsiung, they can live here and commute. It's less than thirty minutes to the city. Take me, for example--I teach in the city, but I live here."
The drizzle continues without any prospect of a respite. Shih moves on with his guest. Eventually they arrive at the innermost part, the core, of the plant: Hsingtang Elementary School, with a wondrous view of the north-south Central Range, seemingly so close. "This school was built during the Japanese occupation to educate the children of plant employees," Shih says. "My father and his four kids--my three elder brothers and me--all went to this school. Now anyone can send their children here."
They begin to retrace their footsteps, pausing before a group of colonial-style houses. Pop music blares loud enough to wake the dead. Several of the dwellings have been knocked together to make a convenience store. In a little square outside, people are enjoying the fresh cool breeze while they chat over a bowl of the ice dessert for which this store is famous locally. (Almost every sugar plant in Taiwan sold its own distinct kind of ice dessert, because the essential ingredient--sugar--was so easily available.)
Hsu Wu-hsiung, the store's manager, is proud of the fact that his store has been making this flavorsome, yeast-and-sugar-based confection since the 1950s. Even today, it costs a mere NT$25 (80 cents). "Couples and families with children often come here in the afternoon when the weather's fine," he says. They'll take their bowls of shaved ice with them while they stroll around the plant. People drive from quite a long way away to buy our products. I tell you, when they come here, they buy by the dozen."
Hsu offers dessert, on the house. It tastes like peanut-flavored crushed ice with red beans and is pretty good. Shih and the manager, seeing the look of guarded surprise on the visitor's face, burst out laughing. Shih remarks that the locals do not regard "the ice thing" as any big deal. They come here only when they have guests from out of town.
Next stop is the barbershop next door. Head barber Tseng Chi has been working here for half a century. Now seventy-six and obviously in excellent health, he still rides his motorcycle to work every morning and claims to be the oldest barber still exercising his trade in Taiwan. "Over the past fifty years, I've had many customers from a single family: father, son, and grandson," he says, speaking with a strong southern Taiwanese accent. "Shih has been my customer since he was born. His father came first, then he brought Shih with him, then Shih brought his son with him." Tseng laughs heartily, and Shih joins in.
Not surprisingly, the number of Tseng Chi's customers has decreased drastically since the closure of the plant. "Some of my old customers still come here to have their hair cut, even though they've moved away," he says. "They're used to me, I suppose. Besides, it's much cheaper here, about NT$50 [US$1.60] cheaper."
The main north-south railway runs through the compound. Many other tracks, narrow-gauge and almost buried in weeds, flank the main line. These once carried goods and staff on the plant's trolleys. "When I was little, my father liked to bring me along when he rode the trolleys," Shih recalls. "We kids would often play here. We'd walk along one rail, as if it were a tightrope, to find out who had the best balance."
For Shih Jui-chang, this was not just a place to produce sugar, it was a living community with a unique "feel" and distinctive culture. "In those days, plant employees and their families formed a cohesive community called Hsingtang Village" he recalls, and his voice is sad. "Everyone knew everyone. There were Taiwanese and mainlander families. It was just like one big family. The children had a good education and were well taken care of."
Shih and his friends in the cultural society have plans for the plant. "There are so many things we can do," he says. "It has so much to offer. Take the trolleys for instance--wouldn't it be great if we could do a tour of the plant on trolleys? We could probably make money out of it. A lot of the people we've spoken to are interested in investing."
But plans like that need the support of both TSC and the authorities, and Shih is exasperated by the county government's indifference. "Ever since the place was designated a historic relic, nothing's been done." He gestures wearily at the factory's re mains. "It just lies there. Why can't we make it into a theme park, rich with culture, history and nature? Why can't its beauty be enjoyed by more people from places outside the Kaohsiung area?"
The sun is setting. A woman and her little girl bicycle past. They wave to Shih, who waves back and smiles. "The locals like to take their kids to play in the plant, normally in the afternoon and before sunset, when the weather's cooler," he murmurs.
What will the girl on the bike make of this place when she grows up? Will she think of it as a wonderland, or just some old place for some old people to reminisce about? Who knows? But as the guest turns away, she feels that one day she would like to know. She would.
Winnie Chang is a freelance writer based in Taipei.
Copyright (c) 2000 by Winnie Chang.