We were on the highway from Kaohsiung to Kenting in Pingtung County at the southern tip of the island, and two of our companions were already groaning over the sudden weather change-they had purchased whole new sets of diving equipment. Not me. I was delighted be cause I was sure that on a rainy day, the newly constructed folk village clustered off the beach would serve up a mood that would arouse the deepest nostalgic sentiment.
We pulled up in front of the porter's lodge, a bungalow only slightly different from the other old houses scattered about in off-the-beaten-track corners of the island. As shields against the sudden downpour, each of us snatched a coat, casually hanging them on our heads. Our photographers had a more difficult time trying to protect their lenses from the rain.
It was not a holiday, and the village was half-deserted. Once in a while, the shadow of a man nicked by, vanishing then in the deep recesses of the village complex. The dead interior air was enlivened only by the clicking of shutters and footsteps. The rain, the moistened stone slabs, the strong contrast of red, blue, and black door panes, above all, the horseback and swallowtail roof ridges printing against the stormy sky reminded me of a moody poem by Cheng Cho-yu:
"I walk by the south bank
of the Yangtze River.
The faces, waiting in the season,
Bloom and bust like the lotus f1ower.
The East Wind fails to come;
Catkins in March fail to fly.
Your heart is a little lonely city,
Or a greenstone street ushering
in the night.
The sound of footsteps is muted;
The spring curtain of March
is not unveiled;
Your heart is a small window,
tightly latched ...."
When Huang Yueh-ming, general manager of this recreation complex, constructed on behalf of the China Youth Corps, received us in his office, we were taken aback to find that instead of sofas and soft drinks, we were served cups of tea as we occupied oblong, bed-like wooden seating, laquered pitch dark from end to end. A tiny table was set in the middle of each bench to hold the tea sets. Dim light sifted feebly into the gloomy room via two S-shaped windows. Yellow lamplight was invoked though it was only 3 p.m. As we hobnobbed, our voices seemed to fade out through the four walls into a long-forgotten history.
"This is no grand antique hotel, but an activity center for young people.... " (It seemed strange to connect the island's modern youth with these old-style buildings.) "At present, we have 99 rooms which can accommodate 423 guests.... Students pay NT$200 (US$5) for a bed in a multiple room.... They earn a 20 percent discount coming in groups....
Since each such apartment is furnished full utilities-air-conditioning, bath, etc., some families prefer to take a room by themselves; they have to pay NT$1,000 (US$25) for a night...."
Somehow smothered by the air of antiquity disseminating from the newly constructed, old-style reception building, we were impatient to inspect the spacious ground to the front, said to be large enough to accommodate at least 200 young people involved in all kinds of activities.
It still drizzled outside. Raindrops gathered on the eaves and dripped once in a while onto our heads and shoulders as we breathed the outer air. It was early October, and in southern Taiwan the mercury could still soar as high as 35°C. Timely rains help drive off the heat nip in the air.
W stepped across the ground to a two-story restaurant. Huang, tapping on the granite paving stones beneath his feet, remarked, "They were shipped here from Kinmen Island." In fact, all the construction materials were specially supplied. More than 2,000 fir trees of all sizes serve as beams and rafters in the buildings and for the dozen two-story-tall wooden pillars, so thick that a man can just get his arms around them. The firs were combed from the mountain regions of Puli. With the cypress wood which serves as door panes and window frames, they underwent three months of preservative treatment in Taichung.
According to Lin Jui-hsiung, manager of the Ching-jen Manufactory, the village's 600,000 flat tiles were the work of a top kiln at Liu-chia, Tainan County, and the more than 70,000 cylinder-shaped tiles were made in Chiayi. Some special rectangular granite paving blocks beneath the memorial archway were imported from Korea. "And the urns which we use as both window elements and trash cans were ordered from Yin-go, a leading ceramic center on this island," said Huang, adding, "The wide ranging search for appropriate construction materials is one of the evidences of the painstaking work involved in this project."
Raising my head to marvel at the curving eaves, I noticed a plastic edge among the roof supports. "It serves to ward off heat," Huang explained. "On top of it are three layers of plywood. It also helps to save energy."
Entering the restaurant, most fans of period kungfu soap opera would find things rather familiar. In fact, it is a stage design come to life. With 30 tables upstairs and 20 downstairs, the restaurant is able to accommodate 400 at a stretch.
After passing through its main gates, a center court, and inner gates, diners are greeted by wood staircases which branch to the left and right after rising to a man's height. Wood railings run up from the left side of the entrance to the right, quartering the second floor as they go, to guard something like a poop deck that overlooks the activities down on the first floor.
In kungfu films, a master fighter simply jumps down from that upper floor to challenge his antagonist. Both parties would sport hair worked into a bun or coil, loose gowns tied with black belts at the waistline, wide-legged pants, and white puttees and cloth shoes. As they fought, tables and chairs would tumble and all the restaurant's clientele dodge away in panic. When the fight was over, the inn owner would steal out to bolt the gates, and then count up his damages.
While I enjoyed my pensive mood, my companions had already ascended to the second floor. They lifted the shutter bolts to let in a flood of sunshine, like a bride stealing a glance at the bridegroom from behind the veils of ancient times. Inside the now vacant restaurant, square tables framed in benches bared virgin woodgrains under the golden rays. We stepped out on winding porch-corridors to bathe in the sunshine. The roof ridges of the complex receded to the seashore like small hills.
At present, the village counts six triangle'" housing complexes, two quadrangles, a study hall, an assembly hall, the restaurant, a janitor's center, a mechanic's center, and a pump room. They are all two-story buildings, with four exceptions. In ancient times, a lady's chamber was often located in an attic-like second story. Such a chamber might be fitted with a surrounding balcony, furnished with benches on its street side to allow the ladies to take a secluded look at Lantern Festival Parades and other folk festivities. The protruding, curving balcony railings connected into the benches in a way that earned the fabulous name mei jen kao (literally, beauty's chair). Sitting on such a chair, we were transported to an older time and space. In ancient times, most of the ladies had their feet bound from childhood to keep them tiny. The staircases leading to the lady's chamber are, accordingly, only about half the standard size. Our own high heels hung in the air as, like would-be Cinderellas, we tried our feet on the steps.
Opposite the restaurant is a study hall which, according to one of our companions, looks more like another Shaolin Temple. Inside are the accoutrements of an old-style private school—Chinese classical desks and chairs lining up across the room. According to Huang, it is also designed to serve as a conference room. One of the side rooms houses an exhibit of ancient appliances and garments, and at one of its ends, stands an old stone mill. We could not help rushing to the ancient mill to try our hand. The mill was much easier to run than we had expected, and the creaking sounds of the mill stones soon pierced the tranquil air, startling into night swallows that were building their nests in the eaves. The main gate to the building is about two-men high. In an attempt to open it, we first unbolted the lower latch, only then to find that it was impossible to unbolt the higher latch. "We have to take failsafe measures against such natural calamities as typhoons," Huang explained.
Everywhere we went, we heard frogs croaking in leagues. In fact, the folk village, which is also the island's newest youth activity center, is nestled at the foot of Frog Rock, one of the scenic highlights of the Hengchun area.
Door of the past serve denizens of the present
The center complex is a result of President (then Premier) Chiang Ching-kuo's policies in 1974. The then president of the CYC, Soong Shih-shuan, decided to house the center in the architecture which best represents Chinese culture.
The whole project was entrusted to Professor Han Pao-teh, an expert on Chinese classical architecture. In the beginning, Prof. Han had the traditional northern-style buildings in mind; they are noted for their grand scope and luxuriant decoration. But since such architecture would have required more than NT$300 million, Prof. Han decided to substitute the less elaborate Southern Fukien style. The landscaping of the activity Center was entrusted to Prof. Tsao Cheng. Finally, after six years of preparation, construction work started in 1981.
The civil engineering work on the new center was contracted to the Ching-jen Manufactory. This firm has long been noted for its successful construction and rehabilitation of classical buildings, such as the Martyr's Shrine in Taichung City, the Confucian Temple in Changhua County, the ceremonial arch of the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei, as well as the Kinmen Pavilion, a gift from Taipei to San Francisco. At present, when it is difficult to find expert hands at old-style construction, the firm boasts a perfectionist work team of old masters in woodwork, bricklaying, stone and woodcarving, and fresco work. Each counts decades of experience in his specialty, and each is a master-artisan. Via their dexterous skills, classical Chinese traditional architecture lives on.
In order to assure architectural design true to history, Prof. Han visited almost all of the really old houses on the island and travelled across to Kinmen Island to inspect the folk arts village there. He researched all kinds of publications and old documents to secure reference materials.
The gravity center of Prof. Han's village is the complex of assembly hall, restaurant, and square. With the addition of residential complexes and winding alleys, a township of South China is reborn.
On an itinerant tour around the village, we came on a total of 17 residential complexes, each flaunting red tile roof, white upper walls, and red lower walls. Variations are designed into the patterns on the gables and the frescoes along the ridges. The main gates of the quadrangle and of the main hall are patterned after the gates of a shrine. Lattice windows and doors are painted in red, blue, and green, gorgeously primitive. Narrow arched doors and full moon gates connect adjoining courtyards, uniquely representative of traditional Chinese architecture. Windows and vent openings are sometimes decorated with bars of bamboo and lattice-work.
The eaves of a veranda, that connects adjoining siderooms, are supported by tou-kong, a system of brackets inserted between the top of a column and a cross-beam. Some of the doorpanes and pillars are purposely made "older" by means of specially prepared Chinese inks and glass paints.
The assembly hall, the restaurant, the study hall, and the quadrangle's veranda are supported by red-painted pillars. In ancient times, only temple pillars were painted red; civilian residences in southern Fukien were painted black and blue. The supports for the pillars are round-bellied boulders. Wood hangings in the doorway are dexterously carved in the shape of pendant lotus flowers and painted in gorgeous patterns.
One of the most painstaking jobs in the village was the accomplishment of the caisson ceilings of the assembly hall. This entire creation is patterned after the Tienho Temple at Lukang. Since ancient times knew no such edifice as a grand assembly hall, it cost Prof. Han a great deal of trouble to create an "authentic" one. He decided on eight-diagram caissons, unique to the temples of ancient times, for the decorative ceilings of the domes. On the domes' four sides, four oblong lots of equal length caisson timbers pile up, one after another, row on row; underneath are fine paintings featuring Confucius, extolling his universal ethics; the deified, red-faced General Kuan Yu of the Three Kingdoms Period, expounding on righteousness; the founder of the Hsia Dynasty, Yu the Great (2276-2177 B.C.), advising honesty and uprightness; and Kou Chien, King of Yueh during the Period of Warring States, learning from his humiliation.
Leading modern painters were commissioned to provide paintings to be hung on the walls.
"An old master in his 70s takes such painstaking jobs all to himself. After the wood shapes were carved in Taichung, he took another month to paint the decorations on them. Old masters then set up transient scaffolds and worked day and night to put the pieces together," Huang ruminated.
According to Huang Yueh-ming, traditional Chinese architecture is redolent with humanistic flavor. He pointed out "bird rests" annexed to the roofs of assembly and study halls as one indication.
The activity center shows no sign of electric wire, tubes, pipes, or such. All utility pipes and wire are in trenches. "You are free to remove the lid, though sometimes you will find even that covered with pebbles," Huang said. To demonstrate, he knelt down to clear away decorative pebbles, until he finally revealed a cement lid.
In addition to the classical outlines of the architecture, the inner decorations and furniture also safekeep the old flavors. But the lighting, air-conditioning, the bathrooms, etc. are all modern facilities. Old architecture and modern appliances meet only in clashing contrast: That is exactly what we feel when we run into a drinking fountain smack-dab beside antique milling gear or guarding the dark corners of beautifully decorated, classical doorpanes.
To encourage students to look to their roots, the CYC named nine of the main halls for the nine most prevalent surnames of the famous one hundred-Chen, Lin, Huang, Chang, Lee, Wang, Wu, Liu, Tsai. For the Chens, it is Yinchuan Hall; for the Lins, Hsiho Hall; for the Huangs, Chianghsia Hall; the Changs, Chingho Hall; the Lees, Lunghsi Hall; the Wangs, Taiyuang Hall; the Wus, Yenling Hall; the Lius, Penchen Hall; and the Tsais, Chiyang Hall. Two lanterns prominently marked with both the surnames and the names of the halls are hung at each main doorway. The origins, changes in residence, and present distributions of each clan are written out on hangings in the main hall, where the public can scrutinize them at random.
Such furniture as tables, chairs, and single beds are made of cypress wood. Specialists were invited to design them according to the traditional "master's wooden armchair," "eight-immortals' table," and "ivory-inlaid bed." Though complicated and luxuriant embellishments are here replaced by much simpler cuts and contours, they still safekeep the old styles. The tea sets, which include large-belly tea pots and tea cups, are fired pottery. In Huang's mind, eventually, male employees in the center will wear kungfu outfits, and the females, Hakka maidens' attire.
Modern facilities in the old-style houses sometimes show, and are sometimes hidden. Sandwiched between two walls are fire hydrants, but on the walls are the necessary switches and buttons to control the electricity. Ventilating ducts are hidden behind lattice windows, but with only two small windows in a room, air-conditioning is necessary, provided, and visible. Huang noted wryly: "I was very sorry that when young visitors from the United States and Canada first stayed here-the end of July- the air-conditioning was not ready for use. They must have suffered a lot." A fluorescent lamp hiding underneath a lamp shade designed in the image of a traditional pendent lamp, is about the only lighting installation in a room.
All the double, triple, or greater multiple rooms have their own bath facilities, which are covered with tiny light-brown glazed tiles from floor to ceiling. The facilities in the folk village are comparable to those in a luxury international-standard hotel.
Since the study hall in the village owes design debts to the Tongjung Study at Ershui, the VIP room in the Lin Family Gardens-and the village's triangle and quadrangle, to the old houses of Kinmen-the entire activity center at Kenting has actually become a sort of showcase for different types of architecture south of Fukien. Many people have now suggested that it take the permanent place of the planned Lukang folk village, which is still in a paper stage.
Huang recalled his own tours of folk villages in South Korea and Australia: "Australia set up a village to reproduce and preserve the conditions of its pioneering gold mining days. The street signs are preserved and so are the pits, and people are free to inspect the pits. Everything on the street—such as bars, banks, smithies, gold ornament shops, and the open stands that sold beers and candies—even a temple dedicated to General Kuan Yu of the Three Kingdoms Period is intact. In the folk village in Korea, visitors can see how ginseng is grown, and traditional Korean restaurants provide all kinds of special foods," Huang elaborated.
Looking into the future, Huang finds a lot still to do. For instance, he would like to offer about a hundred different suits of traditional Chinese garments for both men and women, which would be available to any interested in trying them on. And he expects it will take another year to beautify the grounds by adding flowers, trellises, turf, etc. Also in the plan are the establishment of a camping site, a riding stable, an archery range, a swimming pool, an improved beach, and angling facilities.
In the interests of scholastic research, the center will cooperate with National Sun Yat-sen University in establishing a lab for the study of marine organisms. Aquarium facilities will be set up to display, for the young visitors, tropical fishes, corals, and the like.
Before leaving, we went to the extreme end of the village to marvel at the sunset. The sea kept washing over the now deserted beach. Back in the village, all the lamps had been turned on. The village was as quiet, and peaceful, and storybook Chinese as any ever could be.
On our way to the village entrance, Huang noticed an oxcart wheel which had been rolled by some naughty boys onto a nearby lawn; he stood it up and rolled it back to its post in front of the Yen-ling Hall. As the wheel of time also makes its turns, this village will mature, improving its appearance of age, with age.