Fast-forward to now. Trees and flowers line each side of the canal, people row boats on the water, and lovers stroll on canal-side paths. Fancy new apartments command premium rents because the canal has become one of the top places in town for people to gather.
Welcome to the new Tainan. When Hsu Tain-tsair became mayor six years ago, he set out to recreate Tainan as Taiwan's Kyoto, a city that embraced cultural heritage and modern style. Hsu accomplished this feat through a combination of initiatives. He launched an urban redevelopment plan to create leisure spaces for citizens, he worked to preserve Tainan's environment and wildlife, and, most of all, Hsu wanted to put Tainan back into the limelight.
"Out of more than 200 cities on both sides of Taiwan Strait, Tainan is rated as No. 2 for social environment and No. 6 for public services," claimed Hsu, a U.S.-trained economist and Tainan native. He also expressed his wish to "show a different side of Tainan instead of its usual image of tranquility."
Far from tranquil, Tainan has a past bustling with trade. In 1624, the Dutch East India Company came to Anping harbor and built Fort Zeelandia and Fort Provintia, now called Anping Castle and Chihkan Tower.
Then came the Ming dynasty general Koxinga, better known in Taiwan as Jheng Cheng-gong. After the Ching dynasty took power in China, he fled to Taiwan with his troops. He and his men expelled the Dutch occupation force in April 1661.
Koxinga died soon after his victory, less than a year after his arrival in Taiwan. His son, Jheng Jing, built Taiwan's first Confucius temple and first school in Tainan in 1665. Both are classic symbols of Han Chinese culture. The wooden tablet engraved with "The first school in Taiwan" in Chinese characters still stands at the gate of the Confucian Temple, a testament to Taiwan's early cultural development.
In 1875, the Ching court built a shrine in honor of Koxinga. The next year, the Eternal Golden Castle was completed as a defense against foreign aggressors. Nevertheless, the city was attacked by the French fleet in the Sino-French war of 1884, and the Japanese colonial army in 1895. By this time, however, Tainan had begun to lose its glamour as the Ching court added another prefecture in Taipei in 1875, and then made Taiwan an independent province in 1885.
The colonial past left the city with a huge collection of ancient architecture. "Nowhere else can someone visit so many historic sites in one city like in Tainan," said retired businesswoman Angela Yang, who is now an English-speaking volunteer guide at the Tainan City Cultural Bureau.
With Kaohsiung's industrialization in the 1960s and '70s and Taipei entrenched as the political and commercial center since the Japanese occupation in 1895, urban development of the ancient capital of Tainan was neglected during the ROC period.
Hsu had a different vision. Tainan did not have to be just a great city in the past; it could be a great city now.
As an economist, Hsu traveled and lived in many locales, such as the United States and Europe. From those experiences, he learned the importance of utilizing water, the lifeline of a city. In order to forge a better Tainan, a sound urban development plan had to include a canal revival project.
For years, sewage from homes would sluice into the 5-kilometer-long Tainan Canal. The government responded by installing new sewage pipes to redirect the flow of waste away from the canal. To repair the existing stench, the government brought in machinery to dredge out the sludge.
The first phase of canal restoration was completed in 2004. "It was a great project," said Yang, 53, who was born and raised in Tainan. "Now Tainan has more than just history, it also has a new life." The 80-year-old canal, built during the Japanese occupation, is now the waterway for the annual dragon boat race.
The government prevented the waste problem from recurring by rezoning the area around the canal from agricultural to residential. Developers were given an incentive to develop a residential area near the canal when the government sold off public land at reasonable prices.
Thanks to these measures, the canal area underwent a facelift. The government relandscaped the area and created pedestrian paths. Colorful lights were erected to provide a festive atmosphere for visitors.
Another new tourist attraction is the Lin Mo-niang Park, built in 2004 about 15-20 minutes west of downtown Tainan. The mayor felt the park needed a statue, so he approached electronics billionaire Hsu Wen-lung, a Tainan native son, and asked him to donate a statue to the park. Hsu accepted the offer and handled the matter through his Chi Mei Culture Foundation.
According to Yang Ming-sheng, Hsu's secretary, Hsu commissioned an artist in Fujian to build a statue of Lin Mo-niang, better known as Matsu, the fishermen's and seafarers' deity. The 16-meter-tall Matsu now stands in Lin Mo-niang Park, overlooking Anping Harbor.
One of the best sights in Tainan are the murals on Hai-an Road, where artists frequently gather and show their work. The road started as an old commercial development. When the area failed to attract enough businesses, the development was abandoned and demolished.
Not everything was destroyed, thanks to efforts of residents to preserve some of the development. There were enough walls left standing for a group of eight artists to convert the remaining buildings into an exhibition space. Some works were painted directly on the walls like murals, others were made on canvas and hung on the walls. Some works were available for purchase. More and more artists moved in, and the Art Street project grew until Hai-an Road became a mecca for tourists, thus raising the Tainan art community's profile to the mainstream.
Hsu Tain-tsair concentrated on the environment as well as infrastructure. To promote eco-tourism, the city government revitalized Sihcao, a huge wetland where Koxinga and his troops fought the Dutch, to the western side of the city.
Sihcao is an important natural habitat in Taiwan, as it is a breeding area for birds and other wildlife. Wetlands provide nourishment to animals and plants that have high adaptability and productivity. Mangrove forests, fiddler crabs, mudskippers and seawater tilapias are the major forms of life in the area, according to the Tainan City government Web site.
The Mangrove Protection Association of Tainan City, a local conservation group, lobbied the government to help preserve the wetlands. Their efforts were rewarded when the city government zoned the area as the Tainan City Sihcao Wildlife Reserve in 1994.
Schools often take students to Sihcao on field trips, even from nearby counties such as Chiayi and Kaohsiung. Sihcao is an ideal location to observe wildlife. The fish, shrimp and shellfish in the wetlands are a rich source of food for birds. More than 200 species of wild birds inhabit Sihcao, including 20 endangered species. As a natural habitat for so many animals, the wetlands have tremendous ecological value.
The old Tainan was a living museum, frozen in time. After such a glorious history, it seemed as if Tainan's best years were far behind as Taipei and Kaohsiung took center stage. Through the guidance of its energetic government, the city shook back to life, reinventing itself as the boomtown of southern Taiwan. Tainan now has much more to offer to travelers and residents alike.
Coorection: In the Page 4 article titled "Golden Horse 2006 Challenging and Controversial" in our Dec. 15, 2006 issue, we mistakenly reported that censors removed 25 scenes from the film "Shortbus." The film was screened without cuts or changes. We apologize for the mistake.