Taipei 1960s

A lovely photo of Taipei in the 1960s today….

Taipei – City of Displacements

Whenever I’ve wanted to have some fun with Xinhua journalists doing profile pieces this is my little recipe – they always insist on asking your university (not too difficult) and your age (always provokes a slight reaction!!), and then what’s your favourite Chinese city? – my answer has always been Taipei – the number of times this answer has been printed? Zero. Anyway, I still maintain that Taipei is my favourite Chinese city for all the reasons you’d expect but the literature on the city is precious little as most, even quite seasoned China Hands, rarely if ever go there – which is a shame.

Anyway, perhaps Joseph Allen’s Taipei: City of Displacements resolves some of those errors by being an entire book about that great city. I hope so…and here’s the details…

This cultural study of public space examines the cityscape of Taipei, Taiwan, in rich descriptive prose. Contemplating a series of seemingly banal subjects – maps, public art, parks – Joseph Allen peels back layers of obscured history to reveal forces that caused cultural objects to be celebrated, despised, destroyed, or transformed as Taipei experienced successive regime changes and waves of displacement. In this thoughtful stroll through the city, we learn to look beyond surface ephemera, moving from the general to the particular, to see sociocultural phenomena in their historical and contemporary contexts.

Joseph R. Allen is professor of Chinese literature and cultural studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

“Through the prism of Taipei’s development, Allen masterfully covers many aspects of visual culture in Taiwan during the past century. The book details cultural debates with insight and draws on many visual forms. Taipei is bound to become a prime source on Taiwan culture.” – Yomi Braester, author of Painting the City Red: Chinese Cinema and the Urban Contract

The Old Taipei Bus Station

Taipei’s modern bus station is adjacent to the city’s main railway station. The railway station has passed through a number of incarnations:

Here’s Taipei station as it looked between 1907 and the 1940s, a classic railway station as found in most Japanese occupied territories and Japan itself, when it was replaced with this structure…

This eventually gave way to the current station which has no architectural merit whatsoever, except that it is slightly more interesting than the modern bus terminus.

Anyway, close by the new bus station and train station is a parking garage that I believe is the old Taipei bus station – can’t confirm as sadly bus stations are never catalogued or photographed as thoroughly as railway stations. Anyway, here the building now being used as a parking lot:

Coming Down Alert – Taipei’s 1950s Aifu Road Bungalows Falling into Disrepair

I posted in February 2010 on the lovely former US military bungalows up on top of Yangmingshan near the Chinese Culture University in Taipei. They are lovely structures, many with great views of the city and surrounding hills and redolent of the 1950s. Some are lived in and in a good state of repair – they look cosy with fireplaces and chimneys. However, a growing number of them seem to be falling empty and into disrepair, the glass in their windows gone, gardens overgrown, interiors gutted and often open to the elements. This indicates that someone wants them to eventually be cleared for new development. I am not sure, but I think the land the bungalows are on is controlled by the Chinese Cultural University. I asked a couple of local real estate places (these bungalows are easy to repair and would make great writers retreats!) but nobody seemed to know who the owners were or the likely fate of the properties. Anyway, here’s a bunch of pictures of the bungalows slowly falling apart.

Xinhai 100 – In Taipei ‘100’ is Most Definitely the Only Number Around

No doubt about it 100 is the magic number in Taiwan this year – 100 years of Xinhai, 100 years of the Republic of China in one form or another.

Taipei is full of signage and ads with something other to with the hundredth anniversary. Government bodies of course, the police and military but also companies jumping on the Xinhai bandwagon and even the subway system celebrating the opening of over 100 kilometres of track. 100 is truly the magic number.

No surprise really that Taiwan is making a big deal of the anniversary, but I am a little surprised that I’ve seen next to nothing about it anywhere in China yet. I have visits in the next couple of months to two cradles of the Republic, Nanking and Wuhan, who should be doing something. Or perhaps we’ll hear more about Xinhai towards the second half of the year though I suspect that the powers that be in Peking just simply haven’t been able to fix a line on the anniversary so they’re falling back to the default position of ignoring it entirely. We shall see. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, expect more ‘100’ references as we approach October and the Double Ten.

the cops are at it…

with various themes…

the school board

the subway system…

and plenty of corporates too.

…and a Couple of More Taipei Facade Refurbishments

The previous post on the restoration of the facades and properties along Taipei’s historic Dihua Street may not be a solo project. I’m not au fait enough with Taipei city politics I’m afraid but, during a recent trip at Chinese New Year to the city, it did seem to me that rather a lot of facades of great buildings were getting a bit of a polish and clean, as well as a restoration to ensure their longer term health. If that’s the case, then hats of to the local pols. If it’s just a coincidence then hopefully it’s one that’ll keep right on happening!!

Here’s two examples:

First up a building that sits prominently on the junction of Chang’an West Road and Tian Shui Road (not that far from Dihua Street discussed yesterday actually). It appears to be getting a restoration and looks great.

Second, and under wraps, the excellent Taipei main Post Office Building which I’ve blogged about before as one of the best European style post offices outside of Shanghai’s International Post Office down on Suzhou Creek (see here for more on the Taipei PO). Not sure how extensive the restoration is at the Post Office, it’s next to a major elevated highway so a good scrub and brush up alone will do wonders.

By the way, here’s what the Taipei Main Post Office looked like last summer before the sheets went up over it….

Taipei’s Dihua Street Restoration Progressing

Dihua Street is one of Taipei’s more interesting thoroughfares dating back to the mid-nineteenth century, though traces have been found that date back to the 1600s and the Dutch occupation  of Formosa. It certainly contrasts with much of central Taipei which was developed slightly later and still betrays its Japanese influences. Pretty much since then it has been an area specialising in the sale of traditional products – medicines, teas, cloth, herbs and spices etc. The name Dihua was given to the street in 1949 in reference to Urumqi. Dihua is one of a network of pre-1949 streets in the area. The Taipei City Government has been renovating many of the building facades along the street (the phenomenon of ‘facadicide’ is sadly no stranger to Taipei’s older streets). Work is still ongoing but plenty of them look good now.

I’m sorry but I can’t help but wish that such a programme of facade refurbishment had occurred along Shanghai’s Wujiang Road  rather than the wholesale destruction that took place – think how great the old Love Lane could have looked.

Well done Taipei city authorities; shame on Shanghai…I think though the example of Dihua Street is worth studying for those who persist on telling me that streets like Wujiang Road in Shanghai are all slums and fit only to to be bulldozed.

Two views along Dihua Street showing how much better the building facades are now looking

A Dihua Street facade being worked on – brick and concrete cleaned before windows reinstalled and then the traditional shop space below can be re-coccupied

One building covered up where work is underway

A particularly Dihua Street shop house yet to be finished

Taipei’s Huashan 1914 Creative Park

As a contrast to the evictions of artists at Weihai Road and the destruction of buildings (some occupied by artists) on Moganshan Road in Shanghai (not to mention the spiteful and repeated Ai Wei Wei studio brouhahas) it’s nice to see an artistic area blossoming – however, in Taipei…

I first visited the Huashan 1914 Creative Park back last summer, and briefly blogged about it, noting that it was just getting started, had only had the first tenants moved in, wasn’t that well known yet but looked likely to be interesting. The day I visited it was pouring with summer rains (i.e. sheeting it down) and so the place looked a bit drab and depopulated – in truth nobody much was there and anyone who was had smartly found a cafe to hide in (of which there are several nice ones and no Starcrap or any of that chain balls so far).

Visiting again last weekend – a busy Chinese New Year weekend with a late burst of glorious sunshine – things have changed. The Park has expanded with more independent restaurants, bars and cafes as well as a good new bookshop and several craft shops. A bit of street theatre pulled in the crowds while there were queues for the exhibitions in the lovely large spaces that used to the brewery’s freight depots – I’ll do a separate post on the small National Palace Museum annex for new media art established at Huashan 1914 later.

Coming from the mainland this was all rather nice, free and easy and seemingly all just of happening in the old brewery complex (originally built in 1914). What struck me most of course, coming from the PRC to the ROC, was the total absense of anyone in a uniform – no square badges hassling migrant workers, nobody snatching bicycles away from people, nobody guarding all the exits and entrances, blowing whistles or generally exhibiting the infamous mainland ‘Little Napoleon’ tendancy. Just folk out for a stroll on a weekend and taking in a bit of art and culture mixed with a little commerce without all the panic attendant on art colonies on the mainland or the tasteless ‘lifestyle’ mania of horrors such as Xintiandi. See – it’s really not that difficult comrades! Just, as the kids say, ‘chill’.

Here’s their web site for details of what’s there and what’s happening – click here

The complex from across the street

nicely shaded lanes through the old brewery complex with shops, studios, cafes etc

spaces for revolving performances, installations, sculpture etc

there’s a film festival apparently planned too