Southern Taiwan Ride 2015: Taitung City

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January 15th, 2017

Taitung City, the administrative capital of Taitung, was my final destination on a multi-day bicycle tour around southern Taiwan in the summer of 2015. Previously I shared words and photos from every day on the road so this post will act as something of an epilogue. Start at the beginning or read the last chapter to get up to speed—or treat this as a singular post about some of what I saw in an extra day of exploration around the most remote major city on the Taiwanese mainland.

Taitung City skyline from the upper levels of an abandoned commercial center near the old railway station.

Before I begin to describe what I experienced while wandering around town I should take a moment to introduce the geography of the region. Taitung City is situated on the alluvial plains at the southern end of Huādōng Valley (花東縱谷), which marks the meeting point of the Philippine Sea Plate and the Yangtze Plate. The urban core is located slightly inland of a sandy shoreline and mostly to the west of the Beinan River (卑南溪). Unusual for a coastal settlement in Taiwan there is no major harbour, only the diminutive Fùgāng Fishing Port (富岡漁港) to the north of the city proper, not far from the base of the Hǎi’àn Mountain Range (海岸山脈), which runs all along the eastern side of the valley. As with the rest of eastern Taiwan the city is subject to frequent, almost daily earthquakes, as well as the threat of super typhoons in summer and autumn.

A stylish ride in front of what I think might be Bǎotīng Art Center (寶町藝文中心), a cluster of recently renovated Japanese colonial era residences.

I knew almost nothing of the history of the city while I was there so I won’t go into great detail as I haven’t the photos to match a more elaborate text. Suffice to say, Taiwan Indigenous people have lived in Taitung for thousands of years, with the area now occupied by Taitung City traditionally home to members of the Puyuma people (卑南族) and Amis people people (阿美族). Han Chinese settlement in southeastern Taiwan only began in earnest after the establishment of Pi-Lâm Subprefecture (卑南廳) in 1875. The earliest Han settlement in Taitung City proper was named Pó-Song Village (寶桑庄), a Hokkien transliteration of the Amis place name Paposogan (Apapolo in Puyuma), now honored as the name of a seaside art installation. Faint traces of the Qing dynasty era can be found in the naming of streets—Bǎosāng Road (寶桑路), for instance—and at least one old building, but there really isn’t much remaining from pre-Japanese times. A preliminary survey of eastern Taiwan¹ conducted after the Japanese invasion in 1895 revealed that there were only 3,300 Han Chinese residents, less than 10% of the total population of the area. Taitung City underwent explosive growth during the Japanese colonial era but most of what you’ll see around town dates back to the post-war period and KMT authoritarian rule.

Dōnghé Surgical Clinic (東和外科診所), a rare example of a repurposed movie theater from the 1950s. It was formerly known as Tàihé Theater (泰和戲院) and later Hépíng Theater (和平戲院) and closed in the late 1980s.

After waking up from the previous night’s long rest I set out on my bicycle to explore the city like I usually do: without plans or expectations. Nowadays I am somewhat more tuned into useful resources that would help me see more of what makes a place in Taiwan unique—but as of 2015 I was still fumbling around in the dark, following my intuition, and relying on serendipity.

The historic Chinese Association on Zhongzheng Road in Taitung City.

My first discovery of the day was the Taitung Chinese Association (台東中華會館), built during the Japanese colonial era in 1927 as a meeting hall and place of advocacy for ethnic Chinese living outside of China. The association was outlawed in the late 1930s, mostly abandoned after the war, and restored to its current condition in 1986.

Outside of Taitung City’s historic Datong Theater.

Up the stairs to the projection room. Damage from the fire is obvious here.

Film screening at the abandoned theater.

Sneaking through the corridors of the old Datong Theater. This particular hallway runs behind where the screen used to be.

I was still in search of breakfast when I cycled south of the Chinese Association and noticed the hulking outline of an obviously abandoned building at the end of a laneway branching off from the main street. I had my fill of dànbǐng (蛋餅), essentially an egg roll with some filling or another, and saccharine tea, then doubled back. This ruin proved to be the empty shell of the historic Datong Theater (大同戲院), which closed after suffering a fire in 2009.

Looking back from where the screen once was. There’s not much left of the original equipment here.

Stumbling upon Datong Theater has turned out to be a pivotal experience in my sojourn here in Taiwan. Since then I have gone to great lengths to document many of the old theaters scattered around Taiwan, many of them abandoned much like this one. By now I have visited more than 50 vintage theaters around the country—and identified many more through business records, blog postings, and targeted browsing of Google Maps. In hindsight it is amusing to realize that my first theater exploration actually took place the previous day in Dawu—but I didn’t recognize that it was a theater at the time!

Hiking along the ridgeline at Liyushan, a small mountain on the western edge of the downtown core.

The view looking northwest from Carp Mountain, Taitung City, across the alluvial plains toward the Central Mountain Range of Taiwan.

On the west side of the downtown core you’ll find Lǐyúshān (鯉魚山), literally Carp Mountain, a modest hill with a peak elevation only 75 meters above sea level. This might not sound like much but owing to the flatness of the surrounding plains it affords a fantastic view of the city and its environs. As the only mountain of any size near the heart of the city it has been a center of human activity of one kind or another for millennia, with one site producing artifacts around 3,000 years old. There are also much more recent ruins as the KMT built many bunkers and bomb shelters into the mountainside, which was actually off-limits to the public during the martial law era, but I saw none of that while I was there. The only lead I was following on Carp Mountain was a tip about an “abandoned shrine” that someone had mentioned to me.

The gateway to the Taitung Martyr’s Shrine shows some Japanese influence. The KMT regularly built on top of Japanese colonial era Shinto Shrines wherever they were found.

In 1911 the Japanese built the Taitung Shinto Shrine (臺東神社; Japanese: Taitō-jinja) on the eastern flank of Liyushan, the most obvious location for it. Just as predictably the KMT demolished the temple and erected a Chinese Martyr’s Shrine on the same site, part of the much broader state-imposed Sinicization movement in Taiwan. From what I’ve read the stone foundation and stairway are still those of the Shinto Shrine—and the red gateway is the original torii modified to look more Chinese—but the rest is new.

An overgrown monument to the last Qing administrator of Taitung.

One thing that caught my eye as I strolled through the long grass at the base of the mountain was the Hú Tiěhuā Monument (胡鐵花紀念碑), which honours Hú Chuán (胡傳), the last Qing dynasty magistrate of Taitung, who ruled from 1893 to 1895. Hu perished after being recalled to China in the aftermath of the First Sino-Japanese War and might not have merited such a monument were it not for the fact that his son, Hu Shih (胡適), became a highly respected intellectual in the Republic of China before immigrating to America in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. Despite his uneasy relationship with generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, Hu Shih came to Taiwan in 1957 to act as president of Academia Sinica until his death in 1962. My guess is that this cenotaph was erected sometime around then, serving the dual purpose of filial piety (Hu Shih honoring his father) and ROC nationalism (asserting a history of ethnic Chinese control over remote Taitung).

Looking east from Liyushan. Taitung City is mostly flat with few tall buildings. The ocean is off to the right and you can see the southern terminus of the Hai’an Range on the horizon to the left.

Following my brief tour of Liyushan I wandered downhill to the north end of the Taitung Railway Art Village (台東鐵道藝術村), which occupies the grounds of the former Taitung Station (台東舊站), which dates back to 1922 and was in service until 2001. (The more modern Taitung Station, where my journey ends, is located far outside of the downtown core and opened in 1982.) As with a lot of other “art villages” around Taiwan this one offers a motley collection of more or less random stuff. I didn’t stay long—but if you’re interested in reading more about this attraction Taiwanese bloggers have you covered here, here, and here.

An old sign and some lanterns around the former Taitung Station.

Old signs are preserved along the length of the platform.

Engine shop at the former Taitung Station (臺東舊站機關車庫).

Several old trains are rusting away in the Taitung Railway Art Village.

Old shophouses near the former railway station not long after the end of the school day.

Vintage advertisement on the streets of Taitung City.

Departing the old railway station, I went in search of an abandoned entertainment complex similar to the Qiaoyou Building in Changhua City. Such entertainment complexes were commonly built near railway stations during the boom times of the 1970s and 1980s—and since the railway station was closed many years ago I figured there was a good chance any such entertainment complex would have gone out of business. Part of the fun of urban exploration in Taiwan is that you can formulate and test hypotheses like this—so I spent the next ten minutes or so wandering around the station front until encountering a massive building showing the telltale signs of abandonment.

Outside the Fuyou Building, a derelict shopping complex in Taitung City.

The top level of the abandoned department store in the Fuyou Building.

Tiled arches on the north side of the Fuyou Building.

Despite its immense size and close proximity to the old station the Fuyou Building (富有大樓) did not exactly validate my hypothesis. The interior formerly housed a large department store and the upper levels might have been office space. There was no sign of a cinema, no remnants of the sleazy KTVs that typify the late stages of Taiwanese entertainment complexes. Even so, finding a way inside, wandering around, and gaining rooftop access was an enjoyable use of the last light of day. As one of the tallest buildings in the city the view is absolutely worth all the stairs that must be climbed.

Cram school architecture is another strange feature of the urban landscape of Taiwan.

I’m not sure whether these statues are more likely to delight or terrify children entering the grounds of this private school.

This old wooden house in downtown Taitung City probably dates back to Japanese colonial times.

A cake shop named after the popular American president. Little did I know it at the time but the banner overhead advertises a famous local temple event, the bombing of Master Hándān (炸寒單).

After dark I ventured forth from my hotel after showering and taking some time to upload photos—and immediately ran headlong into a raucous temple event of some kind. Now that I am better informed about local culture I can see that this temple venerates Shennong Dadi (神農大帝), God of Agriculture, but at that time I hadn’t a clue. Even without knowing what’s going on it is lots of fun to get lost in the heady, chaotic atmosphere of such events. Taiwanese folk religion prescribes a lively atmosphere, or rènào (熱鬧, which literally means “hot and noisy”), as a means of honoring the gods, hence all the the firecrackers, drummers, gongs, costumes, and so on.

A Taiwanese folk religious event on the streets of Taitung City. This particular temple venerates Shennong, God of Agriculture.

For dinner I cycled around to the south side of town and stopped at Uncle Pete’s Pizza (披薩阿伯). The pizza was good and Pete was real friendly. I am not ordinarily the pizza-and-beer sort of foreigner in Taiwan, preferring instead to sample local specialties, but after a mostly solitary week on the road I suppose I was in the mood for some contact with something approximating my own culture, however fleeting. Looking back I now wish I had taken a spin around the block, for the infamous Taitung White House (白色陋屋) is just around the corner.

Uncle Pete’s Pizza in Taitung City was a welcome refuge after so many days on the road. Good pizza too!

Later on I went to scope out the Taitung Tourist Night Market (台東觀光夜市) but found little of interest there. Perhaps it was an unusually quiet night but it had little of the energy I’m used to from my time living in central and southwestern Taiwan. I did, however, meet a nice American couple, and enjoyed spending some time chatting with them about all things Taiwan over pints of San Miguel at a small bar by the riverside, Texas Jo’s Bar & Diner (德周小館).

Somewhat surprisingly I didn’t find much of interest at the Taitung Tourist Night Market. Maybe it wasn’t a big night.

The following day I decided to put an end to my ride. I had briefly considered forging on to Hualien but had grown weary of so much time alone. My original purpose in riding around the south was to repeat part of the route that I had taken on my complete tour of Taiwan in 2013. That time around I had been outrunning a typhoon and hadn’t been able to stop and see as much as I would like on the segment from Hengchun to Taitung City. With that mission accomplished I was free to do whatever pleased me—and so I rode out to the new Taitung Station, shipped my bicycle back to Taipei, and boarded a train heading back over the mountains to Kaohsiung. By the end of the day I’d be in Taoyuan, ostensibly to spend some time with friends prior to returning home to Canada for the summer.

On the way to the new Taitung Station after a week of touring around southern Taiwan.

Thus ends my account of one week on the roads of southern Taiwan in 2015. I put around 260 kilometers behind me, posted 272 photographs, and shared approximately 20,000 words about the experience—and this is to say nothing of the dozens of other posts spawned from this voyage. It has been an incredible amount of work to complete this project but I am proud to be making some kind of contribution to travel writing about Taiwan in the process. Plenty of what I’ve written about in this series appears nowhere else in English—not online, anyway. After doing so much research to better explain some of what I encountered I am motivated to return for a third tour. Whether I will have the opportunity to do so is uncertain—but at least this series will stand as a testament to what you might witness should you embark upon a similar journey around Taiwan.

The source I cited isn’t clear about the exact extent of the area covered by this survey so I’m assuming it probably corresponded to all or part of modern-day Taitung and Hualien. Whatever the case, the point here is that Han Chinese settlers were a distinct minority around the time Taiwan fell under Japanese rule. ↩

Map

Themes

Shinto Shrines in Taiwan (台灣神社)
Bicycle Touring in Taiwan (台灣自行車旅遊)

Regions

Taitung City (台東市)
Taitung (台東)
Taiwan

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!