“Many things have changed since my ancestors started this small snack-food store almost a hundred and twenty years ago,” says Lin Pi-hsiu (林碧繡), one of the fourth-generation owners of Yung Tai Hsing Preserved Fruits Store. “I even had to change our wrapping paper. It used to have an old print of Anping Fort, but the original structure no longer exists and kids today wouldn't even recognize it if I hadn't changed the design to match its current appearance.”
The wrapping paper may have changed, but the family business has not. It is on the same site, is run by the same family, and its products are made with the same traditional recipes. The shop is on historic Yenping Street in Tainan's western section of Anping, near the site of Taiwan's earliest fort, then called Fort Zeelandia, built by the Dutch from 1624 to 1634.
In the early days, Yenping Street was part of what was known as “the First Street of Taiwan” because it was in this vicinity that Cheng Cheng-kung (better known in the West as Koxinga) and his followers landed in 1661. Still loyal to the Ming dynasty, Koxinga and his followers, most of them remnants of the Ming forces fighting a losing battle against the forces of the new Manchu rulers of China, retreated to Taiwan in hopes of restoring the Ming dynasty. Koxinga also brought scholars, artists, and artisans, and they helped Tainan – then known as Anping, or Calm Peace – become the first place in Taiwan to prosper financially and culturally.
But the early days of glory have all but faded away. The meandering 300-meter-long old section of the street, fronted by facing rows of decaying two-story buildings, looks shabby. This part of the street is actually less than two meters wide . A customer having a shampoo in the beauty parlor across the street from Yung Tai Hsing can order a package of dried mangoes just by shouting from her chair.
How did the store get started? According to family tradition, it all began with Lin Pi-hsiu's great granduncle, whose father was sent to Taiwan from Zhejiang province as a government official not long before the Ming dynasty fell to the Manchus in 1644. The uncle was a picky eater, and since the island was so isolated, he started making his own snack foods, including rice cakes, dried melon seeds, and preserved fruits. After friends and neighbors tasted the results, they started placing orders. “People at that time were living hand to mouth; they didn't have extra money for snacks,” Lin says. “But l guess my great granduncle really made good snack foods because the business grew big enough for the family to make a living out of it.”
When the store passed down to Lin's father, the family narrowed its product line, focusing on preserved fruits. Almost all of the great granduncle's recipes have survived, and later generations have added a few new ones as well. The family also uses the original production techniques.
Lin herself was already processing fruits as a teenager and helped manage the store after graduating from high school. Now forty, she boasts more than twenty years of experience in the family business. “We don't have any secret techniques,” she says. “It's just the traditional way of production plus family recipes.” This means using only natural preservatives and coloring. And instead of machine drying, the family still takes full advantage of the sun. They say sun-drying adds vitamin D and gives their products a smoother taste.
The method for making preserved mangoes is typical of the preservation process. After the mango skin is peeled off, the flesh is sliced into thick strips and dried in the sun. When thoroughly dried, the strips are packed into large pottery urns and pressed hard to squeeze out the air. After a layer of sugar is put on top, the urn is tightly sealed: The mango strips then go through a fermentation process that takes approximately a year. They can be stored for years in the large urns. When needed, the family takes out a portion of the fruit for final processing. At this stage: they add malt sugar, a little water, and spices – mostly Chinese herbs, such as appetite – enticing licorice and fragrant cinnamon sticks. “Our family produces healthy, handmade preserved fruits, and I intend to keep it that way,” Lin says. “I've never thought of breaking from tradition and switching to machine and mass production.”
Yung Tai Hsing sells primarily in bulk. There is no fancy packaging, no production and expiration dates. They offer a total of forty flavors: roughly a dozen each for mangoes, prunes, and plums, and several others for olives, star fruit (carambola), and mulberries. “Each flavor has its loyal admirers,” Lin says. “In winter, many customers buy seedless sweet-and-sour prunes to stuff inside cherry tomatoes. They're especially tasty after eating a hot-pot meal. Other than this, I really can't say what our customers ,like best. Taste is avery individual matter.” Indeed. And Yung Tai Hsing has a successful individualistic style that has lasted a century.
History and the stars at his fingertips – Wei Mao-hsiung consults several of his reference works for a customer.
On another street just as narrow as Yengping Street, but in the central part of the city near the Grand Matsu Temple, lies another old shop, the Wei Ti Pi Date – Choosing Clinic. Now run by sixth-generation heir Wei Mao-hsiung (魏茂雄), whose ancestors came from Fujian province, the service was established almost 150 years ago. Wei limits, his practice to assisting with happy occasions: casting horoscopes for betrothed couples to see if they are well-matched, choosing auspicious dates for weddings, selecting the best dates for c-section births, and suggesting the best names for newborn babies.
“I don't deal with sad occasions,” Wei says: “Geomancy is a complicated philosophy and includes such things as choosing dates for funerals and places for burials. But my grandfather stopped doing this because he detested how some practitioners took advantage of people. He didn't want to be associated with them and soil his reputation. He decided to limit his practice to happy occasions, and we were only taught about this part.”
Unlike many businessmen in Tainan, Lin Ying-Iung can boast that his son, Who is already making regular tea-buying trips to Mainland China, will take over the family business.
Wei excuses himself for a short time and turns to a pregnant woman waiting quietly on a nearby chair. She has come for advice on selecting the best time for a Caesarean delivery. According to her ultrasound exam, she is going to have twins, and both are boys. Her due date is in three weeks. Wei opens two primary reference books – an almanac and a lunar calendar – and starts jotting down notes. After a few minutes, he suggests several dates and hours for the delivery, and explains the advantages of each .
If the babies can be born between seven and nine in the morning of, say, April 10, their horoscope indicates that they would have literary strengths, which would give them a better opportunity of becoming govern!gent officials or scholars when they grow up. Born at another hour, the babies would be more predisposed toward military accomplishments, meaning they might become military or police officers. The first-time rnother opts for the latter alternative, and Wei takes out a sheet of red writing paper and writes down the lucky hours with a Chinese brush. The whole consultation takes half an hour, for which he receives NT$800(US$30).
Wei, now in his fifties, learned his skills from his father, starting when very young. He had to study and memorize many reference books in the field. He also watched his father closely in order to learn the basics. “It's a step-by-step learning process, and it takes lots of time,” Wei says. The primary textbooks are the annual Farmers' Almanac (an astrological yearbook grounded on the twenty-four lunar periods), the Book of Changes (I Ching), and other general reference works used over the centuries by historians and astrologers to choose auspicious days for particular events.
The consultation service is also a conveyer of cultural continuity. Traditionally, there are 286 taboos for a bride and seven for a groom. To help them avoid bad luck, the date-choosing,consultant has to know the zodiac signs for the couple as well as both sets of parents, since certain zodiac animals cannot appear in another's wedding at certain times. This and other customs make selecting the best marriage date, a complex matter.
With more than twenty years in the field, Wei thinks the service is still very much needed in modern society. “Business is certainly not worse than before,” Wei says. “Many people still come for consultations. We can offer advice on scheduling events so they won't go against the heavenly hours and spoil things.”
The shop is full of items passed down from generation to generation. Wei regularly consults the reference books used by his grandfather and great grandfather. Some of them are in their own handwriting, others are lithographic editions they bought. All of them, despite having yellow, are well-maintained. Only the first few pages of each show excessive wear and tear. The shop's original signboard still hangs out front. Worms had chewed up some of the lower edge, but a couple of years ago, Wei had a carpenter repair the sign and cover it with preservative. It now displays newly painted golden characters on glistening black wood. The God of the Sun, in a shrine at one side of the shop, is also inherited from Wei's ancestors. The wooden statue was carved on the mainland and brought here some 150 years ago by the store's founder. Each year the family makes special flower, fruit, and other offerings on the god's birthday, which falls on the nineteenth day of the third lunar month, to ask for his blessing and spiritual help in choosing good dates for clients.
Wei--also maintains one other old habit of his profession: unlike other date-choosing practitioners who fill in ready-to-use preprinted forms, he writes only on plain red paper with a traditional brush pen, using black ink he grinds from an ink stick. It is one more way to hold on firmly to family tradition.
More relaxed relations across the Taiwan Straits have made it possible for Chin Te Chun to add a sideline – selling teapots made in Mainland China. The stainless steel bead chains, seen here hanging from the,shelves, are used to hold pots and lids together.
While maintaining family tradition is very important, it is even more important to pass it on to the next generation. Lin Ying-lung (林應龍) of Chin Te Chun Tea Shop has not-only inherited the family business, he is lucky enough to be able to hand it down to his only son who, unlike many Tainan youths, has taken great interest in the family business.
The tea shop has been located On an old street in the central part of Tainan for 126 years. “In 1868, my ancestor came from Yongchuen county in Fujian province,” – Lin says. “It was a mountainous area, and the residents were either tea farmers, tea' traders, or both. So when he came here, it was natural for him to become a tea trader. His first shop was set up near the harbor, and he also opened a hotel because traders, ship crews, immigrants all stopped here looking for places to stay.”
When the Japanese took over Taiwan, the Lins had to close down their hotel business because of strict controls, but the tea business continued to flourish. “Tea was a luxury item at that time, sold mostly to older people from the mainland or the Japanese,” Lin says. “But selling tea required a license, which eliminated competition and secured the business.” In those days, the Lips bought partially processed tea from local farmers, mainly from Ilan in northeastern Taiwan because the quality of the tea there was similar to that in Wuyi, the most famous tea production place in Fujian province.
When World War II came to Taiwan, the shop was destroyed by Allied bombing. But after the Japanese, surrender, the Lins rebuilt their business on the same site. Lin took over at twenty-two,fight after finishing military service. “I inherited ,my father's connections with tea growers in Ilan and steadily built up my own network in other areas,” he says. “Nowadays, I buy tea from all over Taiwan.” He also grows jasmine and sweet osmanthus on the family farm in Hsinhua, Tainan county. These flowers can be added to certain teas, and since the quantity is not too great, I can do all the harvesting and the processing myself.
The family insists on processing tea the traditional way. Most of fheir customers prefer semi-fermented tea. This tea first goes through an initial fermenting process, then several shaping and baking steps. Sometimes flowers or other kinds of tea are added.
Nowadays, Lin's son, Lin Yueh-yang (林岳陽), is in charge of most of the baking. “It's totally manual – no machines are used,” the younger Lin says. The family piles charcoal in a pit, gets it burning evenly, then puts large, round bamboo trays of leaves above the fire and constantly stirs the leaves by hand. “Using soft charcoal makes a better tea, one that also produces more tea per leaf when brewed than tea that is baked by electric machines. Besides, charcoal-baked tea is easier on the stomach,” Lin says.
The store has also begun selling tea pots and other accessories. Father and son run the store and have redesigned the shop's interior together. The tea pots, cups, tea trays ,and other items are displayed in wooden cases along one wall; the various types of tea are displayed on the opposite wall. Tea containers small and large are neatly shelved and labeled with red paper. The tea names are adopted from old documents that name tea after places, persons, and legends. Larger quantities of tea are also stored in big urns lined up beside the shop's counter.
Lin Yueh-yang has married a mainland resident from Yunnan province and spends approximately six months a year, there. He is now a tea trader, just like his ancestors. As a result, the shop is importing tea from the mainland, such as the recently popular Pu-er tea from Yunnan. Family tradition not only lives, part of it has also been recovered.
Tools of the family trade – These old balance scales, used by the shop's earlier generations, have been replaced by digital computer scales.
In Chang Ching-ken's (張清根) opinion, family tradition is important, but it is also wise to revise it to fit current trends. This guarantees profits as well as business survival. Chang is the fourth-generation owner of Chin I Cheng Silversmith Shop. At first, Chang focused on silversmithing, like all his ancestors in the century-old shop. But in the-mid-1970s he switched to goldsmithing because customer preferences were shifting to gold jewelry and accessories.
In the past, silver was used for much more than jewelry. When a baby was born, it would receive traditional “head-to-toe” gifts: a silver-decorated infant hat, and silver pendant, bracelets, and anklets. When children reached sixteen, considered the age of adulthood, girls would be given a silver comb, hair clip, and hair pin as gifts; boys would get a portrait of their guardian god mounted in a flat silver pendant. Silver also played an important role at weddings. Brides would wear silver hair ornaments, necklaces, bracelets, and rings, and some families would hang next to the bed a silver plate with carvings of mandarin ducks – a traditional symbol of marital bliss. The bride's dowry would also include silver toiletry kits (cup, hand mirror, and other items) and silver chopsticks.
Chang's great grandfather was the first to become a silversmith, and the shop was opened by his grandfather. “My grandfather was one of the three best-known silversmiths in Tainan during the Japanese colonial period, and his shop was one of the biggest,” Chang says proudly.
Traditionally, the sons in the family would be taught silversmithing. They learned all the basic techniques: weaving silver threads into knots and other decorations, shaping silver in molds, and decorative carving. Chang's father was the first to add on skills. He started working with gold after World War II When the ban on gold trading was lifted. “So I was trained in both silver and gold crafting,” Chang says. “But it took me quite a while to adjust to dealing with the qualities of a different metal.”
In the sixties, when Chang was still working with his father, now seventy-eight and retired, they expanded their product line to include sculptured decorative items such as silver rafts and small country scenes with rivers, trees, water buffalo, and farmers. These items, which were especially popular with American servicemen stationed in Taiwan at the time, were sold to souvenir shops and other retail stores. To keep up with demand, the family employed ren silversmiths. The table-top sculptures were painstakingly crafted of pure silver. “But business went bad when the servicemen left in the late seventies,” Chang says. “We had to stop manufacturing these high-cost items.” Not long afterward, the family also switched to crafting gold jewelry.
Chin I Cheng is now primarily a wholesale jeweler. The shop purchases gold bars, blocks, and nuggets from importers and local miners, then sends the material to contracted goldsmiths for designing and crafting. “We are now focusing on fashionable gold jewelry – our young customers especially like it,” Chang says. The nature of the work has changed considerably from the old days. “I can no longer do what my ancestors did – craft jewelry and sell it to customers,” Chang says. “I only play the role of a middleman between craftsmen and retailers. Division of work is the trend.”
Chang, now fifty-eight, is planning to retire soon. Both his sons are trained gold-smiths, and he has sent them to study business administration in the United States. His eldest son, twenty-eight, has just finished a two-year college program, in Arizona, and his younger son, twenty-six, is working on an MBA. Chang does not just want the business to,survive. “By adding new management ideas to this hundred-year-old shop, it can still grow,” he says. Chang is passing on more to his sons than a shop, signboards, work tables, and scales. His legacy is also a attitude that will help the shop survive another hundred years.