Tainan also retains a less tangible form of history – it remains a stronghold of traditional Chinese culture. While the larger cities of Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taichung have been transformed by the economic growth of the past two decades, Tainan has maintained much of its down-home hospitality. Neighbors know each other by name. Even young people greet each other the traditional way, “Have you eaten?” Customs concerning marriage, family hierarchy, and religion are firmly intact.
But lately a sense of frustration has set in. Tainan's residents are weary of seeing their labor-intensive industries. decline and of watching their sons and daughters leave for high-tech jobs in bigger cities. Revitalization has become a much-touted concept among city business and political leaders, and the city is now preparing to launch its first large-scale development projects.
Many other Taiwan towns have already made this transition, not always with good results. Century-old temples and traditional Chinese-style homes have been demolished, and wildlife habitats have been cleared in the rush to build high-rises, factories, and freeways. These cities have lost their character, becoming indistinguishable from any other sprawling metropolis. Although residents appear upbeat about the coming urban development, some historians, environmentalists, and preservationists are dubious about whether Tainan can avoid the fate of other modern cities.
After four and a half hours at full speed, the southbound train from Taipei pulls into the station at Taiwan's oldest city, As soon as the two visitors step onto the platform, they must slow their footsteps to meld with the crowds shuffling toward the exit. They know they are no longer in a fast-paced metropolis.
It is as if they have accidentally, stepped into a different time period. This is Taiwan's fourth largest city, but Tainan seems too quiet to be on the threshold of the year 2000 – it is as if the whole place is taking a siesta. The sidewalks are nearly empty, and only occasionally does a bicycle, motorcycle, or car pass by. Three yellow taxis are lined up outside the train station, the drivers leaning lazily against their doors. The scene is a far cry from rush-hour in Taipei, when motorcyclists have to snake between an army of honking cars.
Tainan's architecture is also of another era, Take the train station. Built of wood, the simple, single-story structure is one of the island's few remaining railway stations built during the Japanese occupation (1895-1941). Many of the three-story buildings surrounding the station also date back to that period, Their elegant, ornate facades are characteristic of the rococo architectural style popular in Japan at that time.
Even the people look different. Fashions tend toward the traditional preference for loud, contrasting patterns and bright colors, especially rep. Hair styles lag several years behind those of Taipei. Here, woman favor complicated braids, multiple bows and clips, and lots of hair spray. And no one carries a cellular phone on the streets, while many Taipei businesspeople consider them as essential as their shoes. Who would believe that Tainan was once the island's most sonhisticated, prosperous, and modern city?
The glory days of the 17th and 18th centuries left Tainan with a great wealth of historical sites, most of which are taken for granted. Here, vendors and customers crowd the entrance to Kuang An Temple, built in 1723.
Tainan began its rise to fame in 1662 when the famed Ming dynasty loyalist Koxinga overthrew the Dutch, after thirty-eight years of occupation, He and his offspring established their government in Tainan. In 1684, the Ching dynasty government conquered Taiwan and again named Tainan its capital. The city thrived throughout the 1700s and much of the 1800s. Huang Chiu-yueh (黃秋月), a professor of architecture at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan, estimates the city's population stood at 45,000 by the start of the eighteenth century. “Meanwhile, less than three thousand people lived in what is now Kaohsiung,” she says. “While Tainan was the political, cultural, and economic center of Taiwan, Taichung, Kaohsiung, and Taipei were still agricultural backwaters.” But today, Tainan's total population is 690,000, far smaller than Greater Taipei's approximately 5 million people, Kaohsiung's 1.4 million, and Taichung's 1.2 million.
The heyday of Tainan ended in 1885, when Taiwan formally became a province of China under the Ching dynasty and the provincial capital was moved to the central coastal city of Taichung (and later to Taipei). In 1895, the Japanese took control of Taiwan, and began focusing most of their colonial efforts on Kaohsiung, which was to serve as a military base for their planned expansion into Asia and the South Pacific. “By the time Taiwan was returned to China in 1945,” says Huang, “Tainan had lost its ability to compete with Taipei, Kaohsiung, and Taichung.”
Tainan remains a major city, but its golden era is long gone. Nevertheless, the city's legacy has left it with a large number of historical temples traditional residential and government buildings, monuments, and artifacts. Highlights include the remains of Anping Fort, or Fort Zeelandia, which was built in 1624 as the Dutch settlers' first government office; Taiwan's earliest Confucian Temple, built in 1665; and Chihkan Tower (1653), called Fort Providentia by the Dutch. Even the island's first named street, Yenping Street, still runs through the Anping district of Tainan, although modern buildings have now been erected along much of it. Altogether, Tainan has fifty-two of the two hundred sites now officially recognized by the central government as national historical treasures.
The town also retains many Unlisted artifacts and historical buildings. Exploring the winding alleys that snake between buildings off the main streets provides a real sense of history, since many of them are so narrow it is difficult for two people to pass. Visitors who take the time to stroll down these passageways are likely to discover a dilapidated two-story wooden home dating from the Ching dynasty, or a Japanese-style house surrounded by a wall covered with a mixture of glutinous rice, sugar syrup, clay, and crushed oyster shells – a popular building material a century ago. According to Pan Yuan-shih (潘元石), curator of the Chi Mei Art Institute in Tainan, these passages link together like a maze, forming a kind of neighborhood security system. “In the old days, the alleys helped protect local residents,” he says, “Roving bandits easily got lost in them.”
In addition to its historical sites, Tainan retains much of the traditional Taiwanese culture and lifestyle that has disappeared from larger cities. People are warmer and friendlier, the pace is slower, and Chinese customs are followed more closely . And local pride is strong. Many residents refer to their hometown affectionately as “Phoenix City,” comparing Tainan to the auspicious figure which appears in Chinese mythology. The nickname is believed to come from the city's many phoenix trees, a tropical tree with brilliant orange flowers, or from the old shape of the city resembled that of a fling bird.
Traditional handicrafts such as calligraphy carving on bamboo are more difficult to find in Taipei. But open-air craft shops are still thriving in Tainan.
One element of Tainan culture sought out by visitors is the wide variety of traditional Taiwanese cuisine. The old city is the undisputed capital of Taiwan hsiao chih (小吃), snack foods sold by street vendors. During the day, vendors gather with their food carts near the old temples, which traditionally served as town social and commercial centers. The outdoor dining continues in the evening as well, especially at the square along Hsiaopei Street, where throngs of snack vendors congregate, attracting hundreds of customers each night.
There are at least twenty famous Tainan-style snack foods. For breakfast, the local specialty is milkfish congee, a kind of rice porridge cooked with oysters and fish and seasoned with minced celery. The best known Tainan snack is tan-tzu (担仔) noodles, a noodle soup cooked with stewed pork and topped with shrimp, eggs, or meatballs. It is believed to have originated Fujian province. Almost every street in the city seems to feature a shop or vendor claiming to offer the only authentic tan-tzu noodles.
Visitors are not the only ones who appreciate Tainan's culinary skills. Stopping by a snack vendor after work is an integral part of daily life. Most city residents-take great pride in the local cuisine, claiming their snack foods are the best in Taiwan-even better than Taipei, which likes to boast the world's best Chinese food. “Sure, I can find traditional Taiwanese hsiao chih in Taipei, but somehow, they don't taste the same – to tell you the truth, they are pretty awful,” says Kao I-ping (高宜平), a 26-year-old Tainan-born mechanical engineer. Kao's family recently moved back to Tainan after several years in Taipei. “Sometimes I really think people in Taipei have no taste in food,” he adds.
Despite their strong local pride, Tainan residents have become weary of the city's long-time image as an aId capital known only for its historical sites and traditional foods: For decades, they have watched other larger cities along the west coast grow and prosper, while their economy remained stagnant. The city continues to depend largely on labor intensive industries such as textiles, plastics, machine parts, and agriculture. During the 1970s and 1980s, as in other Taiwan cities, Tainan's economy flourished. But during the last decade, labor costs increased islandwide and fewer people were willing to take blue-collar jobs, forcing many Tainan factories specializing in OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to move to Mainland China or Southeast Asia.
One major factor in the labor shortage is a change in work ethics. Tainan has felt the impact of employment trends elsewhere. Rather than toiling in a field or factory, local youth, like their Taipei peers, prefer to work in a modern environment such as the new artsy Chinese teahouse, European-style cafes, and huge, garish KTV (karaoke) parlors that have sprung up in recent years. Today's young 4 people are also reluctant to carry on long-time family businesses. For this reason, many of Tainan's hundred-year-old family snaps are being forced to close down or radically change their management and business style.
The lack of modern industries has caused a brain drain. Many young people who study in Taipei, Kaohsiung, or Taichung end up staying in the bigger cities to work after graduation. “There is no future in Tainan,” says Kao I-ping. He points to high-tech industries as an example. “You really have to head north to find a decent computer job,” he says.
The city is also often overlooked by the media, with coverage focusing on the three major cities. “Taiwan's three TV stations rarely report on Tainan,” says Mayor Shih Chih-ming (施治明). “People in Taipei don't know what we are doing here. If this continues, the distance between Tainan and other cities will be even greater in the future.”
Revitalization of the city has become a major concern. In last December's mayoral elections, Shih won on a platform that promised to “make Tainan into a city that combines culture, high technology, and a modern lifestyle” and to “make the old capital rise again, like a phoenix.”
But Tainan faces serious obstacles to development. The city's transportation system, for example. is sorely underdeveloped. Local industries rely on just two highways to link them to neighboring towns. “During rush hour the traffic on those highways is always very slow and chaotic,” says Chung Chung-hsien (鍾忠賢), director of the Business Management Department of the Tainan city government. “This definitely makes it harder to get the labor and materials our industries need. For this reason, many companies refuse to set up in Tainan.
Many of Tainan's old buildings, such as this traditional home, are not protected as national treasures. Most property owners would rather rebuild than be saddled with a historical site.
Tainan's port facilities also limit economic development. Anping Harbor, formerly the island's most important trade port, has not been used for shipping in nearly a century. Since the late 1940s, the harbor has served as a small-scale fishing port because it is too shallow for larger fishing vessels. But plans are also under way to boost the fishing industry. The central government plans to dredge end expand the harbor to accommodate deep-sea fishing vessels.
The most ambitious project proposed is a city government plan to build a high-tech industrial park in the agricultural district of Annan, which covers two-thirds of city lands. “The goal is to develop high-tech, zero-pollution industries, mainly computer-oriented in the park,” says Mayor Shih. “When it is completed, the park will become the high-tech center for southern Taiwan and will create 300,000 jobs.” The location is considered ideal since Annan's farming industry has declined markedly and the area has long been considered a wasteland. Neighboring farmers support the plan, speculating that land prices will soar after the park is built.
But the plan has met with strong opposition from environmentalists. It calls for building the industrial park on the Ssutsao wetlands, an area now home to an estimated 150 species of birds. More than a dozen of these are on the verge of extinction. The most threatened is the black-faced spoonbill, a species with an estimated population under four hundred worldwide. Half of their population migrates to Annan each winter.
Ever since the plan was made public, the Tainan Wild Bird Society and other environmental associations have been lobbying the city government to set aside 450 hectares as a wild bird park. After initially agreeing to reserve that amount, in January the government agreed to save only 300 hectares of,wetlands, plus an additional fifty hectares in northern Ssutsao for another of the area's threatened species, the black-winged spilt.
Environmentalists are aghast at the decision. They believe the park will preserve too little of the Wildlife habitat. “First-the soil, then the plants, then the water will be ruined, and finally the birds will have no place to go,” says Kuo Tung-hui (郭東揮), director of the Tainan Wild Bird-Society. He argues that the park will inevitably destroy the habitat and that the wetlands simply should not have been chosen as the project site. “If you go to Tainan, you'll find that Annan is not the only place where you can build an industrial park,” he says. “There are so many deserted factories in Tainan. Why does the government have to ruin an extremely rare natural habitat?”
In fact, Kuo does not think the high-tech industrial park should be built at all. “Taiwan is so small,” he says. “We already have Hsin-chu Science-Based Industrial Park, [in northwest Taiwan]. Why do we need another one? Also, do we really have the people to operate it? Who can guarantee that it won't end up like many of the wasted, industrial zones in Taiwan due to lack of planning? Oftentimes the government just isn't far-sighted enough. Do we' have to wait until it is too late?”
But Lin Chung-hsiung (林忠雄), director of the city government's Public Works Department, argues that the industrial park has been planned so as not to overlap with existing facilities. “While the Hsinchu Science-Based Industrial Park will continue with scientific research and development,” he says, “Tainan plans to focus its industrial park on high-tech production, such as making computers and computer-related products. There should be no overlap between the two.”
Another concern, as Tainan prepares for development, is the worsening state of its historical sites and artifacts. The city has already lost many of its cultural buildings in the name of modernization. Under the Japanese, many century-old homes and buildings were leveled to construct roads. In more recent years, even when historical buildings were not demolished, the method of preservation was often less than optimal.
Many historical sites are near collapse after decades or even centuries of neglect. City officials say they know many sites desperately need restoration, but money is tight. “The law concerning the preservation,of historical sites was enacted only three years ago,” says Lin Sen-jung (林森榮), director of the city government's Public Affairs Department. “It is impossible for the central government, to come up with enough money to care for all two hundred national treasures on the island.” According to Lin, the city government appropriated NT$690 million (US$25.5 million) to restore twenty-eight of the fifty-two historical sites in Tainan between 1990 and 1996. Already, NT$150 million (US$5.5 million) from this fund has been spent on restoring Tainan's Confucian Temple.
Another obstacle is the lack of regulations on compensation for private owners of valuable old properties. “Sometimes, property holders demand an incredible amount of money for compensation since there are no standards,” Lin says. He points to Chieh Kuan Pavilion, one of Tainan's four eighteenth-century stone archways. Lin says it took considerable time and effort to convince local residents to let the government demolish the adjacent buildings so that visitors could view the archway.
In some cases, property owners or occupants do not want their building listed as a national historical treasure. “Often, when we try to preserve historical sites, we forget the feelings of the users,” says Ho Pei-fu (何培夫), an associate professor in National Cheng Kung University's History Department. “Many people have little respect for the privacy of others. They think they have the right to barge into any building that is a listed national treasure.” Other owners simply want to replace their buildings with modern ones. Says Lin Sen-jung, “This is quite understandable in the face of modernization, especially since the concept of preservation is new in Taiwan.”
Tunnel through time—The entrance to Yi Tsai Chin Cheng, the Eternal Fortress, was built in 1975 by the French. Like the rest of Tainan's fifty-odd national historical sites, tourists to this fort will find no tours and only limited printed information.
Preservation also requires qualified folk artists. As an example of what can go wrong, Ho Pei-fu points to seventeenth-century Kaiyuan Temple, which features a sculpture of the God of Evil standing above representations of the four vices. Showing a slide of the original depiction of the voice of lust, which features a woman victim, Ho explains that the female character has been greatly altered by a modem touch-up: “Originally portrayed as a victim, her expression was sorrowful and full of pain. Look at her now. My goodness! With those upturned lips and lively eyebrows, she looks happy, doesn't she? It's as if she enjoys being victimized.”
Lin says his biggest problem is that he and only one other staff member are responsible for managing the city's historical treasures, “Three people have left the position because the job is so stressful,” he says. “ I have to constantly encourage the current one to stay.”
Tainan's tourism industry depends heavily on its historical sites, and visitor numbers will not grow unless more user friendly facilities are provided. Few of the sites have tour guides, and none is equipped with slide shows or recorded tours. Even the printed information available to the public is scant. “Preparing materials for tourists isn't very difficult,” Ho Pei-fu says. “The question is whether we have people with the right mindset.”
Already, Tainan's tourist sites lag far behind those elsewhere in Taiwan. While its most popular destination, Anping Fort, attracted 247,000 visitors in 1992, the Encore Garden amusement park in Taichung attracted more than a million. The fort ranks,only thirty-fifth among the island's top forty-five tourist spots according to the Tourism Bureau. And visitors who do come to Tainao are spending less time and money. Increasingly, the city is serving as a stopover for people traveling between Kaohsiung and Taichung or Taipei. “Oftentimes they drop by, use the restrooms, tuck in a few bowls of tan-tzu noodles, and off they go,” says Mayor Shih.
Do local people realize the importance of their historical sites? Many academics and historians believe they do not. Because the snack vendors often gather near the site, they bring crowds that contribute to the demise of the old buildings Families picnic on temple steps, grease and smoke from the flaming woks coat the buildings with grime. Even viewing the buildings can be difficult, as the clutter of vendors and their wares often overflows into the site itself.
Tsai Ming-shan (蔡銘山), a graphic designer in Tainan, says there is much talk of preservation, but little action. “Some privat groups are interested, but for some reason they all want to work on their own,” he says. “As a result, their impact is very limited. What we need is a group of people who are sincere and who have the knowledge and ability to manage our cultural sites. Right now I don't see such a group in Tainan.” Even those responsible for promoting preservation are not always serious about it. One Tainan city government PR officer actually encourages reporters to cover the city's cultural assets less. “People in Tainan don't really care about them,” he reasons. “Although they are surrounded by historical sites, they know little about them.”
But some Tainan natives are frustrated by such views. Tsai Ming-shan stresses that cultural artifacts are what makes Tainan different from other cities. "Without the historical sites, we have nothing else to feel proud of," he says. "Tainan would just be like any other city, with no style, no color of its own." ▪
Will It Also Happen in Modernizing Tainan?
Taipei's North Gate, completed in 1882, was one of five gates in the city wall surrounding a fort that commanded the prefecture of Taipei. The fort, walls, and one gate were demolished during the Japanese occupation. Of the remaining gates, only the North Gate retains its original appearance—but its historical importance did not deter city planners in 1979 from building two highway ramps a meter from its edge. Recently, ground settling has moved one ramp only four centimeters away. It remains to be seen if urban development in Tainan will exhibit greater respect for historical and cultural sites. ▪