Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Wu Yi-chen (吳宜臻), along with several Hakka activists, yesterday urged the Miaoli County Government to halt a project to build a tourist information center outside the planned high-speed rail station in Houlong Township (後龍), saying that its chosen architectural style has no cultural connection to Hakkas living in Miaoli.
In order to leave an impression of Hakka culture on travelers arriving at the station, the county government plans to build a tourist information center in front of the station in the tulou style (土樓) — a traditional fortress-like communal residence found in mountainous regions in the southern parts of China’s Fujian Province.
While tulou architecture is not uniquely Hakka, the architectural style is considered Hakka by many, since most remaining tulou are found in Hakka villages.
Photo courtesy of Chien Hung-wei
However, for Hakkas in Taiwan, the architectural style is as foreign as it is to many non-Hakkas.
“Chinese tulou have no cultural or historical connection to Taiwanese Hakkas, [a tulou in Miaoli] is like something that fell from the sky — it doesn’t belong to Taiwan or Miaoli,” Ceng Nian-you [曾年有], a Miaoli-based Hakka culture and history researcher, told a press conference at the Legislative Yuan in Taipei yesterday. “We have our own culture in Miaoli, why is the county government not using local cultural elements for the tourist information center?”
He said that for local Hakkas, the traditional residential building is a huofang (夥房) — literally “communal house” in Hakka — which has a square layout, with a courtyard in the middle for agricultural activities such as sun-drying rice or vegetables, or for banquets, and a hall for religious use.
“I don’t understand why the county government had to tear down century-old kilns that once stood on the site of the high-speed rail development, and replace them with something that has no local connection,” Ceng added.
Chern Ban (陳板), a visiting professor at National Taiwan University of Arts and a Hakka from Miaoli, said that there are no tulou buildings in Taiwan due to its unique society and culture, and there is no need to build one now.
“Tulou in Fujian were built for security reasons, and when Hakkas moved to Taiwan, they didn’t feel the need to build any, because, on one hand, they didn’t feel threatened, and on the other hand, the humid climate and frequent earthquakes do not suit earth buildings,” Chern said.
Ayu Huang (黃連煜), a Hakka musician from Miaoli, said that while all Hakkas may share something in common, each Hakka community has unique elements.
“Hakkas in Fujian build tulou, but most of the Hakkas in Miaoli trace their ancestry to China’s Guangdong Province, so tulou are not only unfamiliar to us, but also would have been to our ancestors,” he said. “As a musician, I would be concerned if the Miaoli County Government imported traditional Hakka music from China and called it local music.”
Wu added that if Miaoli County Commissioner Liu Cheng-hung (劉政鴻), who has come under severe criticism over his handling of controversial demolitions in Dapu Borough (大埔) last week, cares enough about Hakka culture, he should read research by the Hakka Affairs Council. This found that there are no tulou in Taiwan, and confirmed that the most representative Hakka architecture in Taiwan is the huofang.
“If he doesn’t know what a huofang looks like, he should go to Hakka villages in the county and he would easily spot some,” Wu said.
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
‘SOMETHING SPECIAL’: Donald Trump vowed to reward his supporters, while President William Lai said he was confident the Taiwan-US partnership would continue Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the US early yesterday morning, an extraordinary comeback for a former president who was convicted of felony charges and survived two assassination attempts. With a win in Wisconsin, Trump cleared the 270 electoral votes needed to clinch the presidency. As of press time last night, The Associated Press had Trump on 277 electoral college votes to 224 for US Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party’s nominee, with Alaska, Arizona, Maine, Michigan and Nevada yet to finalize results. He had 71,289,216 votes nationwide, or 51 percent, while Harris had 66,360,324 (47.5 percent). “We’ve been through so
RSS