A heritage site in Taipei that has preserved more than 70 years of history as a brothel, which was opened to the public under the management of the Collective of Sex Workers and Supporters (COSWAS), may have to close down because the new property owner had asked the group to move out of the building.
The Wen Men Building, a two-story building constructed in 1925, mainly served as a brothel for the working class during the Japanese colonial period. It became a legal brothel in 1956 and was a popular place for years until the Taipei City Government outlawed sex work in 1997, COSWAS secretary Wu Jo-ying (吳若瑩) said.
Licensed sex workers were totally banned in 2001, Wu said.
Photo: CNA
Inside the building were small rooms, each featuring a bed with floral-patterned sheets and a small dresser. Pictures of people who used to work in the building still hung on the walls, along with a faded notification paper from the city government in 1978 prohibiting people under the age of 20 from entering the building.
COSWAS, a group that supports licensed sex workers and promotes the legal working rights of women in the sex trade, had rented the first floor of the building for the past 14 years, using it as an office and an educational site for the public to learn about the history of the sex industry.
Although the building has been designated a municipal heritage site by the city’s Department of Culture Affairs in 2006, the new property owner, surnamed Liu (劉), who bought the building last year, filed a lawsuit against the group, asking it to move out.
The Shihlin District Court (士林地方法院) ruled against COSWAS last month, demanding the group vacate the building. The ruling has allowed Liu to proceed with the group’s eviction.
COSWAS and support groups held a press conference in front of the building yesterday morning, calling for the conservation of the cultural heritage site.
Wu said the group suspected that the new owner’s intention is to sell and profit from the transfer of development rights on a heritage site or for urban renewal after buying the land from the Bank of Taiwan.
COSWAS executive director Chung Chun-chu (鍾君竺) said the group had received funding from the Department of Culture Affairs in the past, but it was not informed of the property transfer until it was asked to move out by the new owner.
Wu said the department had neglected its duty by not giving the group pre-emptive rights, as stipulated in the Cultural Heritage Conservation Act (文化資產保存法), to purchase the building to preserve its cultural significance.
Based on the court’s ruling, the eviction can be temporarily halted if the group posts bond in the amount of NT$3.3 million (US$111,486), Wu said, adding that the group was seeking funding from the government as well as from the public.
John Liu (劉可強), a professor at National Taiwan University’s Graduate Institute of Building and Planning, said allowing former workers to narrate the building’s history was important in preserving the cultural meaning of Wen Meng Building.
Since the new Cabinet has said it would promote social justice, it should respect the history of such cultural sites.
“The government should allow cultural diversity in society and should not allow economic growth to take precedence over cultural values,” said Lee Hsiu-chien (李修鑑), a cultural history workshop owner.
COSWAS said it would appeal against the ruling and continue to seek support to keep the last remaining brothel heritage building.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
‘SIGN OF DANGER’: Beijing has never directly named Taiwanese leaders before, so China is saying that its actions are aimed at the DPP, a foundation official said National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) yesterday accused Beijing of spreading propaganda, saying that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) had singled out President William Lai (賴清德) in his meeting with US President Joe Biden when talking about those whose “true nature” seek Taiwanese independence. The Biden-Xi meeting took place on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Peru on Saturday. “If the US cares about maintaining peace across the Taiwan Strait, it is crucial that it sees clearly the true nature of Lai and the ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in seeking Taiwanese independence, handles the Taiwan question with extra
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
RSS