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In places inhabited by Han Chinese, walled towns and cities have long
been symbols of civilization and imperial authority. A few centuries ago
in China, a major settlement without a wall was almost unthinkable. The
Chinese character cheng (城), it is often pointed out, can mean either
"city" or "city wall." Taiwan before the Japanese occupation was no
exception to this phenomenon, and fascinating remnants of the walls
which once surrounded Taipei, Tainan and other places still exist.
Tainan was Taiwan's administrative capital from the island's
incorporation into the Qing Empire in 1684 up until 1885. Because of its
political importance – not to mention the wealth that could be
plundered – many of the rebel armies which ravaged Taiwan during the
18th and 19th centuries tried to seize the city. Zhu Yi-gui (朱一貴) and
his followers were the only ones to succeed, in part because the
settlement at that time lacked a defensive wall. It took the Qing
authorities two months to recapture Taiwanfu (台灣府), as Tainan was then
known. Four years later, in 1725, the city's first wall was built–a
simple wooden barrier reinforced with thorny bamboo.
Lin Shuang-wen (林爽文) and his partisans were unable to overrun
Tainan, but their 1787-1788 uprising – the bloodiest in Taiwan's
history – showed wood or bamboo defenses were ineffective. Consequently,
Tainan's wall was upgraded in 1788-91. The new structure was 5.76m high,
6.4m wide at the base, and 8,064m long. To see the mix of materials
used–river stones, slabs of granite, bricks and soil–there is no better
place to go than the campus of National Cheng Kung University (國立成功大學,
NCKU), where two short yet original segments of wall flank the Little West Gate (小西門).
This stretch of wall survived because it formed one side of an
Imperial Japanese Army barracks. The relic has been in a sorry state for
years, but a renovation effort was launched at the beginning of 2013.
The Little West Gate was reassembled at NCKU in 1970, having
originally stood near what is now the intersection of Ximen Road Section
1 and Fuqian Road (西門路一段府前路口), about 2km away. Ximen Road means "West
Gate Road." Less than 20m from the Little West Gate's current location
is where the Little East Gate (小東門) stood between 1725 and 1916, when
the Japanese colonial authorities finished demolishing almost all of
Tainan's walls, five of the original eight gates and five of the six
gates in the outer walls. The latter had been added in 1835-36 as the
city sprawled both inland and toward the Taiwan Strait...
The rest of this article can be read on the Culture.tw website. The photo above shows part of Hengchun's town wall.
When Charlies Liu quit his civil service job with the Kaohsiung
City Government and returned to the place where he grew up so he could
be with his ailing mother, he did not think he would soon be embarking
on a new career in the tourism industry, and that within a decade he
would have hosted visitors from more than 40 countries.
In November 2003, on land that has belonged to his family for
more than 80 years, Liu opened Small Swiss Homestay, a lodging
establishment with four rooms and mountain views. Located in a
tea-growing district in Chiayi County, southern Taiwan, not far from
Alishan National Forest Recreation Area, Small Swiss Homestay is in many
ways a typical minsu, as bed-and-breakfast (B&B) establishments are known in Chinese.
Over the past decade, Taiwan’s tourism industry has transformed
significantly. Perhaps few of the changes have enhanced the travel
experience more than the proliferation of minsu. In these small
lodges, guests can stay in a family-run establishment and enjoy a blend
of informal hospitality, local knowledge and natural scenery that few
hotels can match. Liu, for instance, takes many of his guests to
Fenqihu, a nearby town famous for its quaint character, and Yushan
National Park, where they can see Taiwan’s highest peak.
Until December 2001, when the Regulations for the Management of Home Stay Facilities were issued, minsu
existed without a legal framework. The regulations define “a home stay
facility” as “a lodging facility run as a family sideline business,
using the spare rooms of a self-used residence to provide tourists with a
rural living experience.”
In practice, while many homestay businesses
match these criteria closely, quite a number are purpose-built
accommodations that provide the family’s main source of income. Most of
these latter establishments are fairly modest, though, and retain the
personalized service of a family-run business. The rules state that such
operations should have “no more than five guest rooms, with a total
floor area of no more than 150 square meters,” although local
governments can authorize up to 15 rooms for homestays with “specific
tourism features” such as those located on a tourist farm or in a remote
area.
To be licensed, a B&B must satisfy fire safety rules and
undergo inspections that check, among other things, whether each “guest
room and bathroom [has] adequate ventilation and ... sufficient light,”
according to the website of the Tourism Bureau under the Ministry of
Transportation and Communications. Operators must purchase insurance,
and cannot be individuals with convictions for drug, firearm-related,
sexual or other serious criminal offenses.
Since the regulations came into force, the number of fully
licensed establishments has been growing nonstop. According to
statistics issued by the Tourism Bureau, new minsu registered with the authorities at a rate of more than one per day between 2004 and 2008.
“At the end of September 2012, the national total of legal B&Bs
was 3,619,” says Chen Yu-chuan, director of the bureau’s Hotel
Inspection and Supervision Center. This central government unit oversees
Taiwan’s homestay industry, but local governments are responsible for
day-to-day enforcement. “City and county governments do from time to
time, in accordance with the provisions, carry out inspections of
B&Bs,” Chen says, adding that violations, such as a lack of
firefighting equipment, are dealt with as dictated by the law.
“The Tourism Bureau offers operators of legal B&Bs guidance
so they can upgrade their services. The bureau has also held many
business management classes, and granted money to local governments and
industry associations so they can organize workshops,” Chen says...
The entire article, which appears in the February edition of Taiwan Review, can be read online.
