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.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
THUGGISH BEHAVIOR: Encouraging people to report independence supporters is another intimidation tactic that threatens cross-strait peace, the state department said China setting up an online system for reporting “Taiwanese independence” advocates is an “irresponsible and reprehensible” act, a US government spokesperson said on Friday. “China’s call for private individuals to report on alleged ‘persecution or suppression’ by supposed ‘Taiwan independence henchmen and accomplices’ is irresponsible and reprehensible,” an unnamed US Department of State spokesperson told the Central News Agency in an e-mail. The move is part of Beijing’s “intimidation campaign” against Taiwan and its supporters, and is “threatening free speech around the world, destabilizing the Indo-Pacific region, and deliberately eroding the cross-strait status quo,” the spokesperson said. The Chinese Communist Party’s “threats