From Saltern to Pleasure Ground

Lee Wen-huan, co-author of a book on Kaohsiung’s historic Hamaxing area and sole author of another on Yancheng, cuts right to the chase: “The two main commercial areas of Kaohsiung—Hamaxing and Yancheng—were created single-handedly by the Japanese authorities, and the foundation for today’s Kaohsiung was laid during the era of Japanese rule.”

Chiu Cheng-han returned to his hometown out of concern that the beloved Yancheng of his childhood was disappearing.

Created by the Japanese

The Port of Kaohsiung used to be called Takao Harbor, and it made its appearance on the international stage when it was opened to foreign trade as a result of the Treaty of Tianjin of 1858. After the end of the First Sino–Japanese War in 1895, Taiwan became a colony of Japan, and in order to transport major resources such as camphor, sugar, and rice to Japan, top priority was given to railroads and ports. The Western Trunk Railway was built from Northern Taiwan all the way down to Takao Harbor Station (today’s Takao Railway Museum), while the authorities also dredged the harbor and used the spoil for a land reclamation project that created today’s Hamaxing area. “Takao Harbor Station opened to rail traffic in 1900, while the first phase of the land reclamation program was completed in 1905. Thereafter there was steady growth in the volume of trade through Takao Harbor, and in 1907 it surpassed Tai­nan’s Anping Harbor in terms of trade,” says Lee Wen-huan.

The income brought in by the port prompted the Japanese Government-General to rapidly embark on a second phase of harbor construction (1908–1945). Nearby Yancheng was the first choice for construction of wharves, warehouses, and a new commercial district, transforming it into a new-style city neighborhood.

Lee asks us to imagine the past, when early steamships were general cargo carriers that transported exports like grains and granulated sugar packed in gunny sacks. Goods were loaded and unloaded manually by longshoremen, which was very labor-intensive work, and the job opportunities in the port attracted large numbers of migrants into the city. Many came from nearby Penghu, where local fishermen could not put to sea in autumn and winter because of the powerful northeasterly monsoon winds. Initially coming to Takao to work seasonally, over time many of these workers settled permanently.

Seafarers were another important group. Lee relates the following facts: After the first phase of port construction in Kaohsiung was finished in 1912, at least 150 ships per year visited the harbor, each with a crew of around 40–50 men. From 1920 on, at least 600 vessels a year entered the harbor, and their crew members numbered in the tens of thousands. They served as an important driving force for the development of the port area. Lee adds that one should not underestimate the consumer demand from seamen and dock workers: Their pay was high, but they suffered from the pressures of work and the loneliness of life at sea, and after reaching shore would indulge themselves at drinking establishments and other entertainment venues, becoming a major factor in Yancheng’s early commercial development and the particular makeup of its economy.

In Yancheng, built on consumer traffic, small eateries serving fare for ordinary people are an essential part of the scenery. The photo shows milkfish rice noodle soup served in Dagouding Market. Milkfish skin is stuffed with fish paste, making a dish that is much recommended locally for breakfast or lunch.

The age of the sakariba

Most historians have discussed localities’ development from the point of view of economic production, but Lee believes it is more instructive to look at Yancheng from the perspective of consumption.

He cites the definition of a sakariba given by Japanese sociologist Kazuteru Okiura: “A sakariba is a commercial district that combines various economic activities including ‘special professions,’ service industries, and the sale of consumer goods, providing both services and entertainment.”

Lee has combed through historical materials to figure out what the sakariba of Yancheng—with its various aspects including modern foods and ­beverages, ­diverse recreational activities, and wondrous consumer goods—must have looked like. The development of the port drove the growth of the neighborhood’s population, encouraging the emergence of new-style public markets. The main food and beverage street was an indicator of the rise of eating out and recreational dining and drinking, with restaurants and drinking establishments with performance spaces drawing large crowds to the area, so that dining was not merely a matter of filling one’s stomach but was also a cultural event.

In the 1930s, coffee became a popular part of Kao­hsiung lifestyles, and the majority of coffee houses were concentrated in Yancheng, with 21 of them at the peak of this trend. Under Japanese rule there were also four theaters in Yancheng: the Takao, Kinshi, ­Entei, and Showa theaters. The entertainment business drove growth in the local restaurant and fashionable consumer goods sectors. Yancheng also had a building known as the Takao Ginza (today’s International Market) which was a dazzling shopping center. Kaohsiung’s first department store, Yoshii, opened in 1938, and was known as one of Taiwan’s top three department stores of the Japanese era along with Kikumoto in Taipei and Hayashi in Tainan. Sales of consumer goods reached a new peak at that time.

Harking back to the prosperity of those days, Chiu Cheng-han, founder of 3080s Local Style, says: “Yancheng in those days was like today’s Xinyi District in Taipei” (i.e., home to numerous department stores and high fashion).

Lee Wen-huan has combed through historical records to describe how Yancheng was transformed from a salt-making center to Kaohsiung’s premier commercial district.

Shipbreaking antiques shop

The shipbreaking industry had its own brief interlude in Yancheng’s history. Lee Wen-huan remarks that after WWII there were many sunken wrecks in and around the Port of Kaohsiung, and the government permitted private businesses to salvage them and break them up for profit. All kinds of metals, mechanical parts, and waste hardware were sold to various customers, marking the origin of Kao­hsiung’s shipbreaking industry. Later, businesses realized that there was money to be made in breaking up decommissioned ships imported from abroad, and the industry enjoyed more than 20 years of prosperity in the city.

To get a sense of the shipbreaking industry’s heyday, we visit Huang Tao-ming, founder of the Ancient Mariner antique shop on the left bank of the Love River. “I’ve been in this business for more than 50 years,” says Huang. The rarest objects in his collection are marine chronometers and sextants, and he brings out a wooden box containing a chronometer from 1898. “In the past there was no GPS, and when ships were at sea they used chronometers and sextants to check whether they were following the correct course.”

When the shipbreaking industry was at its peak, there were more than 200 companies in this line of work. Most of the reclaimed materials and devices were exported. Besides specialized navigational instruments, Huang points to one precious item after another in his shop: “This is a diving suit and helmet left behind by the Japanese, this is a bin­nacle, and here are a foghorn, searchlight, and engine order telegraph from various countries.”

There are also items reflective of everyday life aboard ship. Huang shows us a mechanical pencil sharpener that is a century old, and remarks that shipboard kitchen utensils sell very well. He points out an automatic player piano in the corner (which is not for sale) and we ask: “Do you have any old phonograph records?” He says, “I do!” He winds up the spring of a clockwork phonograph, and the sounds of “Silent Night” begin to flow out. It brings one back to Yancheng just after WWII and the scene of American soldiers being entertained at the numerous bars in the area.

Artifacts left behind from Kaohsiung’s former shipbreaking industry include many everyday objects used in life at sea, including even a phonograph and shellac records.

Stories of a port

In the 1950s, when the US military was helping to defend Taiwan, US warships often docked at Kaohsiung for resupply and maintenance, and Yancheng became a rest and recreation center for US military personnel. Qixian 3rd Road, which runs straight through Yancheng to the harbor, became known as “Bar Street,” and the area’s restaurants, clothing stores and entertainment venues did a roaring trade.

With the special political and economic circumstances which prevailed in Taiwan at that time, the government tightly controlled foreign exchange and imposed high tariffs on imported products. But it proved impossible to block the entry of goods that people really wanted. With Yancheng located so close to the port, items brought back privately by seamen would quickly turn up for sale there. In those days, if you wanted to find the most fashionable goods, you naturally went to Yancheng.

Chiu Cheng-han, who returned home to Yancheng in 2011, talked with his neighbors and did field research to discover interesting things about the area.

For example, Xinle Street is well known for its jewelry stores, and Chiu found an answer to the question of why they were concentrated in this area near the harbor: “Because this street is located near the port, information circulated more freely here.” In an era when access to information was limited, with boats traveling between Kaohsiung and Hong Kong every day one could get up-to-date news of currency exchange rates and gold prices. Lee Wen-huan adds that back in the day this was a place where seamen would come to obtain foreign currency before leaving port in order to purchase goods overseas to bring back to Taiwan.

As a young woman, Chiu Cheng-han’s grandmother studied hairdressing and bridal wear design in Japan, and when she returned to Taiwan she opened the Zheng-Mei beauty salon and wedding dress store on Wufu 4th Road. At first the shop specialized in cosmetology and ­hairdressing. Chiu says: “Think about who could afford such things back then—it was the bar girls who worked on Bar Street!” In the early days the business stayed afloat by catering to bar girls, but later it came to rely more on Western-style wedding attire. This was because the shop was right across the street from the Kujiang Market, a major center for fashionable goods in Southern Taiwan at that time. When engaged couples were preparing for their weddings, they would come to Xinle Street to buy gold accessories and the traditional “12 gifts,” and their attention would be caught by the wedding gowns on display in Zheng-Mei’s window. As the shop became widely known, many people made special trips from outside of Kaohsiung to rent wedding dresses there.

“You will discover that with the shops there is something like the ‘six degrees of separation’ between individuals: You can always find a connection between them and the port,” says Chiu.

Chiu Cheng-han has transformed his grandmother’s former shop into the 3080s Local Style studio, preserving historical objects in the space while repurposing it to give it new functions and significance in the modern era.

Becoming a maritime city

This dynamism related to the harbor is what caused Chiu to develop a sentimental attachment to this place. When asked why he returned to his hometown, he answers: “At first the reason was very simple—the Yancheng that I liked so much as a child was disappearing.”

In the 1990s his grandmother’s business switched over to exporting products, and the Zheng-Mei shop space was no longer used. Chiu renovated it while preserving the traces of history, and named it 3080s Apartment based on the decades in which his grandmom and he were born—the 1930s and 1980s. It has since been turned into a workshop and renamed 3080s Local Style, and it represents the passing along of the past to later generations.

After returning home, Chiu discovered that Yancheng faced serious problems. Everybody thought that new things were better than the old, and old things were continually disappearing. Moreover, with so many resources being committed to the Pier2 Art Center, the once bustling commercial areas of the past had fewer and fewer visitors.

Chiu got the idea of renovating the Yancheng First Public Retail Market to give this old space a function and significance in this new era. First, he rented a booth in the market and opened the 3080s Market Stall, where he traded in secondhand goods, thereby becoming a member of the market. He then communicated his ideas to the existing businesses there, and his team rented other booths and recruited young traders to move in. As a result, it became possible in this traditional market to have people doing creative cuisine next to a pork stand, selling fried fish-paste dishes and offering a place where customers can sit and enjoy a drink or take a bite of an exotic burrito. This kind of space where people of all ages can come together has attracted the younger generation to this traditional market.

In 2020, Chiu also found suitable space in the Takao Ginza to develop as a fusion venue called House of Takao Ginza, mainly offering accommodations, to experiment with the possibilities of old spaces. Thanks to the impact of the 3080s team, old structures in Yan­cheng are no longer continually being torn down, but instead people are increasingly moving into old spaces to develop creative ideas, and more and more people are willing to visit this venerable city district and get to know the combination of old and new that is Yancheng today.

Does this portrayal arouse your curiosity to visit Yan­cheng? Why not follow Chiu Cheng-han’s suggestion and ride the light rail to the Kaohsiung Music Center, then walk from the Pier2 Art Center into Kaohsiung’s older districts? Or take a boat cruise to enjoy the sights of the port from the water, and stroll along the harborside? You will get to better know this city that has developed around a port, and the intimate connections between the harbor and the daily life of its people.

Sanshan Guowang Temple is a center of faith for the people of Yancheng. It still preserves the tradition of venerating the Lord of the Sun, indicating the temple’s connection with the traditional solar salt industry in the area.

The Kaohsiung Museum of History, located in Yancheng, holds historical artifacts showing the city’s development. It was formerly the Kaohsiung Municipal Hall under Japanese rule and later the Kaohsiung City Hall.

Mrs. Ye’s fabric repair stall on Lainan Street is one of Yancheng’s few remaining “wall stalls.” Invented in response to the massive influx of people into the commercial district, such stalls used sidewalk overhangs and other sundry spaces to do business. You can just imagine how crowded and bustling Yancheng was back in the day.

Transforming the Yancheng First Market into a commercial space that can be enjoyed by people of all ages, Chiu Cheng-han hopes to preserve the memories and interactions associated with shopping at a market.

A diving suit and helmet, a sextant, and a marine chronometer are among the objects on display in Huang Tao-ming’s Ancient Mariner antique shop. It’s like entering a time tunnel where memories of Kaohsiung’s shipbreaking industry are preserved.