Acting Mayor Yeh Chu-lan has described Kaohsiung as "a city with blossoms along her riverbanks." Yeh is also the widow of the late political dissident Cheng Nan-jung, who died fighting against Kuomintang persecution and promoting freedom of speech in Taiwan. The city, she said, has gone through a major shift, including efforts begun by her predecessor Frank Hsieh to clean up Kaohsiung's only river, the Love River.
Just seven years ago, before Hsieh took the reins at the mayor's office, the Love River was little more than a heavily polluted waterway filled with garbage and filthy sludge regarded by most of Kaohsiung's 1.5 million residents as an open sewer. A disorganized jumble of food stalls and fortunetellers jammed both sides of the riverbank, giving the port city a reputation throughout Taiwan as an ecologically unfriendly, industrial town.
"Back in the old days, you did not need to get very close to the Love River to find out how polluted it was," said Lin Guan-wu, a 60-year-old cab driver who moved to Kaohsiung more than 30 years ago. "You could actually smell it from miles away."
"Hsieh deserves all the credit for changing it into a clean river," Lin added, although he admitted that he generally does not get very political.
Cleaning up the river cost an estimated US$450 million, but this was just the first step in providing a better living environment. Yeh and a group of young technocrats came up with a plan to reinvent the city's traditional Lantern Festival. Ho Lan-di, a 32-year-old Internet customer service consultant, was part of that effort, trying to attract tourists from other parts of Taiwan to visit Kaohsiung for the holiday, which takes place right at the end of the lunar New Year. Before long, the festival became the city's biggest annual event, drawing in more than 2 million people and creating business opportunities for local small businesses.
"Kaohsiung is really different now," observed Ho. "Today, there are more cafes and restaurants on the riverbanks where people can relax and have fun."
City Hall has been trying to attract visitors not just from other parts of Taiwan, but from abroad as well. For one thing, it spruced up what used to be the pier used for passenger travel to nearby islands. Pier No. 12, near the mouth of the Love River, was renamed the "Pier of Love," while Pier No. 13, located on the opposite bank, is now called the "Pier of Glory." These days, they are home to cultural activities like the beer and food festival, fashion shows, New Year's fireworks and the aforementioned Lantern Festival.
The local service industry was generally happy with these efforts, although businesses did suffer somewhat due to a decline in the volume of shipping, according to the manager of the Hokkaido Japanese Restaurant, Chen Ren-chong.
"We did not spend a dime on advertising, and we did not need to. All we did was attend the beer and food festival held on the pier," said Chen, whose place is an all-you-can-eat buffet on the riverbank. "We'd like to see more promotional activities on the piers," he added.
The festival was one of the biggest attractions organized by the city's Cultural Bureau, according to bureau head Wang Wen-tsui. She is in charge of planning numerous cultural events throughout the year, including street shows, concerts and exhibitions.
The government may have allocated funds to clean up the river, but it is community groups that help maintain it. Syu Ling-ling is director-general of one such group, and she fought hard against a government plan to build a tunnel underneath the Love River, which she said risked damaging the riverbed. She and her group successfully blocked another motion to build another highway over the river. In opposing these infrastructure projects, Syu and fellow environmentalists founded the Cultural Love River Promotion Association in 1994, and they are still caring for the health of the river.
"Within a couple of years, the city will be even better, given that the Kaohsiung Mass Rapid Transit System will be completed by then," said Ho, who looks forward to the day his city has its own subway system. The KMRT project is only one part of a master plan, however, to get the city ready to host the 2009 World Games. That plan also includes construction of the US$3.5 million Kaohsiung Dome, which will generate 2,000 jobs and seat 15,000. Once complete, the stadium is expected to give the local economy a boost.
"All of us are anticipating another success from the World Games. With our passion, I think we can make it," said the restaurateur Chen, speaking as though he were a spokesman for the city. In a way, perhaps he is.