Taiwan Today

A major trading hub for generations, Keelung City is stepping up efforts to spotlight its rich maritime heritage and cultural traditions.

In August 2014, a group of young cultural preservation enthusiasts launched a campaign to spruce up a long-abandoned mansion overlooking Keelung City on Taiwan’s northern coast. The building dating to 1931 was formerly the home of Ko Zu-song (許梓桑), a political leader and opinion-maker during Japanese colonial rule (1895-1945). Ko helped shape the development of the prosperous port town, though in recent decades his life and impact had largely been forgotten.

By halting the decline of the structure, the Keelung Youth Front (KYF) hoped to right this wrong, said Chang Ji-ho (張之豪‬), who founded the group the same year. “We wanted to do something concrete to pass down this history to our generation.”

While local cultural specialists had long hoped to spotlight the mansion, an ownership dispute stymied these efforts and precipitated the house’s descent into disrepair. “We asked the various parties to set these issues aside and allow us to help preserve the building,” Chang said. “At the very least, we thought we could clean up the structure and grounds.”

After the campaign proved a hit with locals, the KYF staged the inaugural Ko Zu-song Festival in 2015 featuring guided tours, lectures and performances about the historical figure. The following year, the event was expanded after gaining sponsorship under the Youth Village Cultural Development Project, a Ministry of Culture (MOC) initiative providing technical support and funding of up to NT$1 million (US$33,330) for community programs led by 20- to 45-year-olds.

According to Chang, one of the main goals of the festival is to highlight the city’s distinct historical development. “Bordering Taipei and New Taipei cities, Keelung has a somewhat peripheral cultural role in northern Taiwan and needs to redefine itself by emphasizing its unique identity,” he said.

Signature Celebration

The festival was one of two KYF projects, out of a total 44, to receive funding under the MOC initiative in 2016. The other centered on training young people to serve as tour guides for the city’s most significant cultural event: Keelung Ghost Festival.

Celebrated during the seventh month of the lunar calendar in Taiwan and ethnic Chinese communities around the world, Ghost Festival carries a special significance in the northern coastal hub. The local variation originated in the mid-19th century as a way to ease deadly conflicts between immigrant groups from China over ancestral origins, commercial interests and customs.

Under the terms of a historical truce agreement ending the bloodshed, Keelung’s clan associations take turns organizing the event. “The festival provided a platform to soothe tensions and remember those who lost their lives in the clashes,” Chang said. “In the city, it tops even Lunar New Year in terms of fervor and significance.”

Keelung Ghost Festival was recognized by the MOC in 2008 as part of Taiwan’s intangible cultural heritage. It is also one of 12 major festivals nationwide spotlighted every year by the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of Transportation and Communications. “This 164-year-old event is renowned for its vibrant folk and temple arts, so promoting it is an excellent way to foster pride in Keelung’s heritage,” said Lee Tien-ching (李添慶), acting director of the local government’s Cultural Affairs Bureau (CAB).

Vibrant History

Home to Taiwan’s second largest port, Keelung has been a center of trade for generations. “It has a rich and varied history spanning more than four centuries from the time of the Spanish and Dutch, through the battle for the city during the Sino-French War, and the period of Japanese colonial rule,” Lee said.

The Spanish were the first Western settlers, arriving in Keelung during the 1620s. They set up fortifications in the harbor and at nearby Tamsui in New Taipei before being driven out by the Dutch East India Co. in the 1640s. One of the most tumultuous periods in Keelung’s history occurred in 1884-1885, when the French attempted to conquer Taiwan, then ruled by the Qing court, through the port. Facing superior numbers, the invaders were unable to advance beyond their beachhead and the battle ultimately ended in French withdrawal.

According to one local legend, the name of the city derives from its former title in Holo, also called Taiwanese and the language of the country’s largest ethnic group. That designation, pronounced “Kelang” and literally meaning “rooster cage,” was first used to denote nearby Heping Island, which has a hill said to resemble a bird enclosure, and later came to describe the city as well. Another theory states the name is an abbreviated form of Ketagalan, an indigenous people and the earliest inhabitants of the region.

Promoting key aspects of Keelung’s past, including its status as an early point of contact with Western seafarers during the Age of Discovery, is the goal of a large-scale CAB cultural promotion project launched in 2017. The three-year, NT$866 million (US$28.9 million) initiative seeks to restore major historical sites around the Port of Keelung and Heping. Most of the funding comes from the central government’s Forward-looking Infrastructure Development Program, a comprehensive initiative aimed at upgrading living environments and addressing Taiwan’s key infrastructure needs for the next 30 years.

One of the targets is the location on Heping where Spanish forces built Fort San Salvador in 1626. While little of the fortifications remain, the city plans to conduct an archaeological survey of the area to determine how best to spotlight this facet of Keelung’s past. “The history of this site must be investigated and its story told,” Lee said.

Ocean Education

Befitting its long maritime heritage, Keelung hosts some of Taiwan’s foremost marine education and scientific facilities. The city is home to National Taiwan Ocean University, the Fisheries Research Institute under the Cabinet-level Council of Agriculture, and the National Museum of Marine Science and Technology (NMMST).

Launched in 2014 under the Ministry of Education, the museum is charged with promoting ocean conservation and sustainability. Set amid 50 hectares of coastal grounds featuring several parks and trails, NMMST is housed in a former coal-fired power station built during Japanese colonial rule. Operating from 1939 to 1983, the facility was at one time the largest of its kind in Asia. Much of the original structure has been preserved to highlight this past. Today, it is one of only two power stations-turned-museums in the world alongside London’s Tate Modern.

Wu Jeun-len (吳俊仁‬), director-general of the facility, described it as a jewel set amid the crown of Taiwan’s striking northern coastline. “Our goal is to strengthen people’s connections to the surrounding waters,” he said.

NMMST has emerged as a big tourist draw, with visitor numbers to the museum and its park complex rising 84.3 percent year on year to 2.58 million in 2017. Wu explained that this spike is largely attributed to the integration of two Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA) branch lines.

The 4.2-kilometer Shenao Line reopened in 2014 with stops in the Keelung fishing community of Badouzi, NMMST and New Taipei’s Ruifang District. In the latter location, it connects to the 12.9-km Pingxi Line, one of the TRA’s most popular attractions. These railways, originally constructed during Japanese colonial rule to carry coal, including to the former plant at NMMST, offer visitors a convenient and visually arresting travel route to the museum.

Community Connections

Buoyed by the success of signature ventures like NMMST, local officials are working to highlight some lesser-known cultural centers. These include Mayor’s Mansion, the former mayoral residence and a city-designated historic site built in 1932; the Historical Relics Museum; and Mid-summer Ghost Festival Museum, housed at the Zhupu Altar temple.

Lee said that a major focus of these efforts is encouraging local organizations like schools to make greater use of the facilities. “Ultimately, cultural promotion is about connecting people to the past, present and future of their hometown,” he added.

Community groups such as KYF are similarly striving to cultivate a sense of pride in Keelung’s culture. One of its ongoing projects is the Cinemaging Taiwan filmmaking contest. Open to local youths, the event offers a top prize of NT$50,000 (US$1,670) and other awards for short films and documentaries about the city shot over no more than three days.

“New cultural interpretations begin by recording and re-examining local landscapes and events,” Chang said. “In time, residents and visitors will come to identify more closely with the city, and Keelung will emerge as a first-rate cultural destination.”

Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw