Taiwan Today

“Wind in the pocket, wind in the sleeves, wind on the face, and wind at the ear”—in Hsinchu, the noted northern Taiwan “City of Winds,” a breeze is never absent.

The rushing air caresses the fresh, moist rice-noodles, neatly stretched on bamboo drying racks, as Hsinchu’s long-famed mi fen is cured for market. It wafts across the newly painted surfaces of the peculiar “umbrella” lanterns, which will soon radiate ancient light patterns from China’s distant past. It blows through the busy snack stands encircling the ancient Temple of the Hsinchu City God, and there scatters a hubbub of voices—of diners, of cooks, and of steaming cookers.

The breeze blows over dreamlike Ching Tsao (Green Grass) Lake, and distributes circles and circles of ripples across its glossy liquid surface. As it passes through the elegant Mei Garden at National Tsinghua University, the tender petals of the mei blossoms delicately quiver. And finally, embracing Hsinchu’s Science-Based Industrial Park, it adds to the vigorous, bracing atmosphere of flourishing ventures in high technology.

The old and the new almost incongruously coexist, yet, somehow, nourish each other. This is Hsinchu.

The yesteryear architecture of the Hsinchu Railroad Station sends a c1assic message, to visitors, of enduring beauty. Along nearby streets, scattered individuals proceed at leisured pace. The atmosphere is sharply different from that in rushing metropolitan Taipei.

Just a five-minute walk from the station, at the corner of Chung Cheng Road and Tung Men Street, the traditional Chinese shape of the “Ying Hsi (Greeting the Morning Sun),” Eastern Gate rises among contemporary urban structures. Constructed in 1829, it is an element of the now lost Hsinchu city wall. Its elegantly-styled upturned eaves curve towards an eternal sky. Above its opening arch, the Chinese characters Ying Hsi, crafted by a bold hand and incised into the slabstone, are still clearly discernible. Below the modern Tung Men Bridge, nearby, flows the murmuring stream that once served as the ancient city’s moat.

Originally a village site of the aboriginal Taokas tribe, predecessor of today’s Saishet tribe, Hsinchu was originally called Chuchien (a Chinese transliteration of the tribe’s name).

In 1682, in a move to consolidate the defense of Tamsui and Keelung in northern Taiwan, General Cheng Keshuang (the grandson of the famous Koxinga, who liberated Taiwan from Dutch occupation) ordered the Taokas to help transport provisions for his troops. Because military supervision over the tribesmen was overly harsh, they rose against Cheng. This “mutiny” was subsequently put down, and the Taokas fled to the mountains. Later, a Fukienese official, Wang Shih-chieh, volunteered to develop the now abandoned Chuchien area.

Wang’s project was delayed for a while by the fall of China’s Ming Dynasty. Then, in 1691, he was finally able to lead some 180 volunteers to Chuchien to exploit the land, beginning full Han settlement of the area.

In 1723, the seat of the Tamsui Ting (a prefectural district) was established at Chuchien, with jurisdiction over all northern Taiwan. And just ten years later, after encircling bamboos were planted to help protect the growing city, it was formally dubbed Chuchien. Defensive works were added to the bamboo “wall” and then reinforced several times until, in 1829, a brick city wall and four city gates, the Ying Hsi Gate included, were constructed.

Chuchien’s urban dynamism persisted through one and a half centuries. Then in 1875, when the Tamsui Ting was abolished and Taipei was made the new political center for northern Taiwan, Chuchien City, now already called Hsinchu (New Bamboo), gradually lost its luster.

The rise and fall of Hsinchu City found echoes in the vicissitudes of the venerable Cheng and Lin families.

Cheng Yung-hsi, Taiwan’s first chin shih (a successful candidate in the highest imperial civil service examinations), and Lin Chan-mei, the city’s richest citizen, were the men of their hour in historical Hsinchu.

Cheng’s Peikuo Garden, constructed in 1851 outside the city wall, and Lin’s Chien Garden, constructed within the wall in 1849, were respectively known as the Outer Estate and the Inner Estate to the people of Chuchien. With graceful pavilions, towers, and observation verandas and bridges, and their gleaming pools and artificial hills, artistically landscaped with carefully selected flowers, trees, and rocks, the two vast gardens were very popular gathering places for celebrities and literati; at their get-togethers, poetry and wine would flow among the elegantly architected flavors of the gardens.

The glory of the two renowned gardens, however, was as transient as a fleeting cloud, burning for a brief, existential moment in a disappearing sun.

Weary of life, after prolonged illness, and burdened by the family’s involvement in endless, tangled lawsuits, Lin Chan-mei committed suicide at the age of 48. And losing its owner, Chien Garden went to weeds and waste before it was finally torn up, during the Japanese occupation of Taiwan, to make way for a highway.

Today, the exquisite pair of sculpted stone lions that once guarded the gate of the splendid Chien Garden, now mark the entrance to the Hsinchu County Council Hall. And on Hsi Ta Road, through the site where the garden used to be, now stand only a gate, still bearing the calligraphic characters for the garden’s name in Lin Chan-mei’s own handwriting, an old octagonal well, a wall, and some dilapidated old structures-remnant phantoms to stir present day emotions.

Peikuo Garden found no better fate. Following the decline of the Cheng family, the spacious grounds were mostly auctioned off, and only a small plot of ruins remains.

More fortunate than Lin Chan-mei in terms of a “material” posterity, Cheng Yung-hsi is still represented today by an intact grand graveyard, where artistically splendid stone lions, horses, and statues of civil and military officials keep company with the eternally sleeping scholar. Additionally, his official Hsinchu residence and ancestral shrine, on today’s Pei Men Street, are quite well preserved. In 1837, fifteen years after he passed the highest imperial examination, Cheng Yung-his tired of the corrupt atmosphere of official circles and retired to his home. The next year, he began building an imposing, southern-Fukien-styled official residence. Constructed by craftsmen from Kinmen Island, just offshore the southern mainland, the residence is known for its oversized, horseback-shaped gables, which give its roof a gentle curve. A true representative of the Island’s mid-Ching Dynasty official residences, it displays uniquely magnificent aspects, including elegantly sculpted stone and wood decor.

A few of Cheng’s descendants stil1 live here, lending the ancient residence traces of the human spirit within a pervasive air of long abandonment.

To the north of the residence, the Cheng family’s ancestral shrine is fronted by two pairs of stone stands for flagpoles. During the Ching Dynasty, pairs of banners would fly honoring each chu jen (successful candidate at the provincial-level of the imperial examinations). At the shrine today, they still proclaim the glorious heritage of the Cheng family, but only on special occasions, such as memorial ceremonies for ancestors, weddings, or township community meetings. Ordinarily, the shrine is locked up, lonely and quiet.

The several memorial archways dotting the streets of Hsinchu are redolent of ancient emotions. A damaged 1871 stone arch honors the virtuous Madame Chang; three others still firmly fulfill their responsibilities to proclaim auspicious deeds:

In the vicinity of the Temple of the City God, at the entrance to an old street surfaced with paving stones, towers an 1824 memorial gate constructed in bluestone and granite. It honors Madame Yang, virtuous wife of citizen Lin Chih, for “weathering almost unbearably wretched circumstances, without regrets,” adding that, via this “imperial mandate honoring you today, your virtue will be praised throughout the ages.” We can only imagine the hardships borne and fortitude demonstrated by the splendid Madame Yang.

An 1880 stone arch honoring Madame Su, virtuous widow of scholar Wu Kuo-pu and mother of two exemplary sons, is situated in an open, spacious site near the Fu Te Temple on Nan Ya Street. Against a background of limitless sky, the arch appears particularly magnificent.

On the way to Ching Tsao (Green Grass) Lake, a stone gate preserves the memory of Li Hsi-chin, honored for his filial piety. Bereft of his father in childhood, Li treated his widowed mother with utmost concern and respect. And after his family financial situation dramatically improved, due to his own industry and thrift, he added to his reputation by his constant concern and charity for the poor. Erected in the Nan Ya district in 1882, the gate was moved 25 years ago to its present site-an obviously Quieter and more beautiful setting.

A historic receptacle for such sincere traditional custom, Hsinchu, past and present, has not lacked for its extension into religious belief. In fact, within the city’s 104 square kilometers, there are 83 registered temples, plus a number of unregistered small ones.

Among the most renowned of the old structures are the Chang Ho and Tien Ho Temples, also known as the Outer and Inner Matsu Temples; the 200-year-old Chin Shan Temple within the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park; the Wu Sheng Shrine (dedicated mainly to General Kuan Yu, the God of War, and General Yueh Fei, a hero of the Sung Dynasty); the Chu Lien Temple, famous for its inspiration—the unexpected appearance there of a statue of the Kuan Yin Buddha, reputed to have crossed the strait on its own from its original home (one of China’s biggest Buddhist temples, at Puto Mountain in Tinghai County, Chekiang Province); and, last but not least, the prestigious Temple of the City God, established in 1748: Originally an official temple for the local magistrates’ prayer rituals, it is today the island’s largest city-god temple.

Generally, such “city gods” were given official titles in accordance with the status of their home communities; for example, some are really called “county gods.” The Hsinchu City God is held in extraordinarily high respect owing to his “meritorious service” in the year 1891: He was reputedly the source of a divine manifestation which helped defend the city against an attack by bandits. Emperor Kuanghsu particularly honored him, conferring upon him a wooden tablet designating him as a divine “guardian of the nation’s gate.”

At the time of the Lantern Festival (the fifteenth day of the First Moon), fantasy lanterns decorate this temple as splendidly as they do Taipei’s tourist-famed Lungshan Temple. On the seventh full moon of the year, when the Hsinchu City God “goes on a tour of inspection,” a massive parade of pilgrims swarms in from everywhere on the island, especially from the religious centers of Chingshui, Tachia, and Hsinying, since this is a grand occasion for this country’s Buddhist circles.

Even on ordinary days, the temple is heavily peopled with worshippers, year round.

In the center of downtown Hsinchu, fronting the Temple of the City God, forty to fifty snack-stands gather on the square. They have been there ever since the Japanese occupation days. Their most popular food items are surely rice-noodles and meatballs, the city’s long-famed staples.

Hsinchu’s rice-noodles became famous in less-automated times due to the constant winds of the city. Blocked by no topographic obstacles, the monsoons make a long drive into Hsinchu. Since a primary condition for the production of quality rice-noodles, in the old days, was a sustained wind which could complete the drying process within a single day, Hsinchu became a famed noodle-processing center. In less-favored locales, excessive exposure of the moist rice-noodles to poorly circulating air would make them f1imsy, shatter them, and even tint them black. Although modern machine dryers are no less capable in this respect than a good wind, Hsinchu’s naturally air-dried rice-noodles are still particularly favored by the public.

Hsinchu’s equally well-known meatballs (kung won) are characterized by a special texture of crispness and elasticity. The word kung means “tribute”—and indeed, they were once offered to the imperial court. In Taiwanese dialect, kung is also applied to the beating movement used to make the won (meatball).

In addition to rice-noodles and meatballs, Hsinchu’s pastries also enjoy a special fame, especially the Chuchien Cake made by the Hsin Fu Chen Bakery, in front of the Temple of the City God. Made from sugared white gourd, lean and fat pork, the basal portions of scallions, sesame, maltose, flour, etc., Chuchien Cake has a crisp skin and a special sweet-and-salty f1avor. From just the production of Chuchien Cake, the business of Hsin Fu Chen has been expanded to embrace, also, a theater and a recreation park. The popularity of its pastries is a magnetic draw.

In the environs of the snack-square and on Chung Shan Road are three very well-known shops:

Hsin Ya Hsiang is famous for its Foochow-style pork-buns, which are still jocosely called “black-cat buns” —the proprietress, very pretty and coquettish in her youth, was then nicknamed “Black Cat.”

Cheng Chia features leaf-wrapped glutinous rice dumplings deliciously stuffed with egg yolk, pork, mushrooms, chestnuts, dried shrimp, peanuts, etc.

The Shan Tou Beef Shop is celebrated for its uniquely concocted barbecue sauce.

All three have histories of over half a century.

Compared with the present-day status of its famed recipes and foods, Hsinchu’s once equally famous face powders and lanterns are not at all fortunate.

The lingering fragrances pervading the whole of Chu Lien Street (the street of perfumed powders) have literally gone with the Hsinchu wind. Although their major ingredient—a very fine, pure ground marble—is totally free of lead and cannot harm any complexion, Hsinchu’s face powders gradually lost their major markets to exotically advertised modern brands.

But thanks primarily to their special religious functions, Hsinchu’s traditional lanterns are still on the production lines at the workshops of the Chou and Hsieh families near the Chang Ho Temple. Still, their general popularity is not what it once was (FCR, Apr. 1985).

Regardless of the destinies of such business affairs, the Hsinchu selling and facilities remain constantly enchanting and delightful.

Attractive Chung Shan Park, at Pillow Mountain, very near the urban district, offers a meteorological observa­tory, a zoo, a kiddieland, a swimming pool, and a fishing pool (plus the Confucian temple to the east of the park). It is a very popular leisure destination.

For joggers and other earlybirds, the beautiful Mountain of Eighteen Peaks is a very happy favorite. Closed to vehicular traffic from midnight to eight o’clock, its acacia-lined mountain road is dotted every morning with runners and strolling elders, many of the latter swinging bird cages to exercise their inmates, or leading dogs on outings in the fresh morning air.

The Mountain of Eighteen Peaks links to the south with Ku Chi Mountain, a religious site celebrated for its numerous temples, including the Pu Tien Temple, renowned for its 120-foot-tall statue of General Kuan Yu, the God of War.

In the foothills of Ku Chi Mountain, man-made Ching Tsao Lake is a prime recreation site. Constructed in 1956 as an irrigation source for area farmlands, the lake is now better known as a boating facility than a reservoir. The numerous boating parties on its brightly sunlit green waters are, of course, a very cheerful sight. But a contrasting aspect—quiet waters clad in a gauzy morning mist—is equally enchanting. The beauty of Ching Tsao Lake is multifaceted.

On the lakeshore, on the former site of a Japanese-style shrine, now stands the Ling Yin Temple, which is also known as the Shrine of Kung Ming. He was prime minister of the state of Shu during the Three-Kingdom Period, and is historically famed for his great wisdom and foresight. The temple has a peculiarly tranquil and peaceful ambience, and many people choose to preserve here the cinerary caskets of beloved family members.

Striding across the creek by the Ling Ying Temple are sections of the troubled Round-the-Lake Bridge, which was never completed due to land rights problems. It is a strange sight. Each section incorporates only two bridge arches ... and nothingness at both ends.

Reputedly inspired by the romantic “beauty of incompletion” of this bridge, a tragic love story, adapted for a popular song as well as a film, refers to it as the “Phoenix Bridge.”

At the base of the Mountain of Eighteen Peaks spreads the broad campus of National Tsinghua University. The Mei Garden and Cheng Kung Lake, here, are scenic highlights which attract many tourists.

In memory of THU’s very honored former dean, Mei I-chi, the Mei Garden is appropriately planted with four hundred mei trees. Early every spring, countless thousands of mei blossoms dot the gnarled, old twigs, an astonishingly beautiful scene.

Cheng Kung Lake displays a more complicated beauty: Its vast, crystal water surface clearly reflects the inverted images of pavilions, bridges, and small boats, the green trees along its shore, and the changing sky. Pine needles softly surface the paths surrounding the lake. And azaleas flaunt their whites, pinks, and reds, greeting springtime visitors.

Notwithstanding its charming campus vistas, THU was a totally science-oriented school until very recently, when a college of liberal arts was opened.

The successor to Peking’s Tsinghua College, which was founded in the revolutionary year of 1911 for the pur­pose of promoting modern science and technology in China, National Tsinghua University has made a prestigious name for itself in nuclear sci-tech. With the neighboring National Chiaotung University, it is a cradle of ROC scientists, engineers, and technicians.

A continuation of Shanghai’s Nan Yang Public Institute, 91-year-old National Chiaotung University—now the only ROC university without a college of arts-is especially known for its electrical engineering programs. The country’s first self-designed television set, computer, and robot were all products of this school.

To enhance contact and communications between the two neighboring universities, a grand “Mei-Chu Competition” was initiated in 1969—as noted, “Mei” is from the surname of THU’s former dean, Mei I-chi; “Chu (Bamboo)” is from the first name of CTU’s former dean, Ling Chu-ming. Items in the competition include various ball games, relay races, tugs-of-war, bridge, chess, oratory, debate, etc. Striving for victory in the yearly competition has become a spirited tradition at both schools.

Featuring modern facilities, strong programs of cooperative education, excellent faculties and student bodies, and an emphasis on physical training and leisure-time activities, THU and CTU, with most of their students and teachers living on-campus, constitute a special “campus-culture suburb” of Hsinchu.

With the establishment of the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park in 1980 in the general vicinity of the two national universities, the area has forged ahead as the ROC’s most significant hi-tech industrial zone—a Chinese “Silicon Valley” (FCR, Nov. 1984). Obviously, the old “city of winds” has entered a compelling phase of transformation and projects a rather more complicated image than these few pages can fully detail.

But from the old snack square fronting the ancient Temple of the City God to the contemporary offices, labs, and hi-tech plants of its industrial park, Hsinchu City faithfully records the trail of endeavor of the Chinese on an eternally charmed and charming island.

Within its sharp contrast of old and new, what will be Hsinchu’s final configuration in the future? Will it become thoroughly modernized—scientific avant garde—or a better blend or a hopeless clutter of the old and the new? We can only seek the answer in the wind.