蔡英文總統小時候老家

June 13th, 2015

Tsai Ing-wen’s childhood home in the village of Fenggang.

One of the more unexpected finds on my recent bicycle tour through the deep south of Taiwan was the childhood home of Tsai Ing-wen 蔡英文 (pinyin: Cài Yīngwén), current chairman of the Democratic Progressive Party and presidential contender in the upcoming 2016 general election. I was vaguely aware that she was born in Fangshan in Pingtung, the southernmost county in the nation, but hadn’t known any more than that prior to taking a short detour through the old fishing village of Fēnggǎng (楓港), founded in 1765. Imagine my surprise when I saw a small sign on the main road through town that directed me to Chairman Tsai Ing-wen Historic Home (蔡英文主席古厝)!

When I arrived the courtyard was initially littered with trash. Several locals noticed my arrival and one quickly went to fetch a broom and clean up. I made what little conversation I could manage, not even knowing if my Mandarin was understood, and we all laughed about the absurdity of some random white guy on a bike riding over and taking an active interest in such an obscure place.

Anyhow, there you have it: the childhood home of the woman who might be the next president of Taiwan. And if that’s the case they’re going to have to get a new sign!

Update: Tsai is Taiwan’s president-elect and, just as I predicted, her childhood home is already in the news!

Map

Series: Southern Taiwan Ride 2015

This series chronicles a multi-day bicycle trip around the deep south of Taiwan, specifically from Tainan to Taitung in June 2015. Along the way I visited many places in Kaohsiung and especially Pingtung. A lot of what I saw and experienced hasn’t been written about in English very much so I’ve taken some extra time to provide background information to better contextualize what’s in the many photographs in this series. Altogether this is a complete trip journal clocking in at around 20,000 words from start to finish!