Lukang

With the first month of the lunar year not long gone, Lukang Township is still infused with the atmosphere of the New Year’s festivities. Amongst the red-brick buildings there are countless decorative lanterns in the courtyards and New Year’s couplets pasted on the walls.

Heritage in the details

Lukang’s heritage is manifested in unexpected details. Chen Shih-hsien, owner of the Lushui Caotang bookstore, has been studying the culture and history of Lukang for more than 30 years. He tells us that the couplets written on brand new red paper are not the mass-produced printed products one ordinarily sees. Instead, they are mostly written by home or business owners themselves or by one of Lukang’s famous calligraphers. Moreover, the first characters in each of the two lines of the couplets are customized based on the name of the homeowner or business.

The historic Ding Family residence, located on Zhongshan Road, is a must-see attraction for visitors to Lukang. It embodies the imposing manner and substance of a leading family of scholar-officials.

Chen Shih-hsien tells us that under the Qing Dynasty, Lukang flourished as a river port and trading center. People who got rich doing business there after migrating from Quanzhou on China’s southeast coast began to turn their attention to culture and education. Successor generations actively pursued scholarly achievements and fame, transforming many trading clans into literati families. In the 213 years of Qing rule in Taiwan, the island produced a total of 33 jinshi (persons who passed the highest-level imperial examinations, held at the imperial palace in the capital), “of whom four came from Lukang,” Chen adds. Ding Shouquan (1846–1886), former owner of the Ding Family residence, who got his start in the family business, was one of them.

As jinshi was the highest level one could attain in the imperial examinations, it follows that there must have been quite a few candidates from Lukang who passed the lower-level provincial and metropolitan exams, becoming shengyuan (a.k.a. xiucai) or juren. This shows the high degree of scholarly excellence in Lukang, with many people active in the arts of poetry and calligraphy as well as in business.

Lukang local historian Chen Shih-hsien, owner of the Lushui Caotang bookshop.

At the Lunar New Year, residents and businesses in Lukang put up new spring couplets, many of which use wording that is customized to incorporate the name of the business, the home, or the homeowners.

At the Lunar New Year, residents and businesses in Lukang put up new spring couplets, many of which use wording that is customized to incorporate the name of the business, the home, or the homeowners.

An elegant air of literati

Lin Ming-teh, chairman of the Chinese Folk-Arts Foundation (formerly a professor in the Department of Chinese Literature at National Changhua University of Education, and the university’s vice president), has for many years devoted himself to the study of Changhua, the county where Lukang is located. He recalls how he was once guided by some local people to visit a traditional Quanzhou-style house. Though the residence appeared ordinary from the outside, as soon as he entered he found himself surrounded by deftly inscribed plaques, fine carving, and beautiful timber structural elements. Still ­awestruck by the unforgettable abode, he says: “This kind of place could only have been built by a family that had been wealthy through at least three generations.”

Although few of us have the opportunity to see the inside of private houses, the Ding Family residence, which has long been listed as a county historic site, is open to the public, enabling people to see the glory days of a Lukang family that was prosperous and influential for generations. The Ding mansion, also known as the Jinshi Residence, has a frontage 15 meters broad—as wide as three ordinary family homes—and a depth of 75 meters, so that it covers a total area of more than 1,000 square meters. The layout is known in Chinese as “san kan san luo liang guoshui,” meaning three units wide and three buildings deep, with two courtyards between the buildings.

In Lukang there are many such deep residences with internal courtyards. Chen Shih-hsien explains that two centuries ago the main beams of most buildings were made from China fir imported from across the Taiwan Strait. Because of the limited space available in ships of that era, old buildings generally had a maximum width of five meters. However, because there was no limit on the length of building plots, they often were 70–80 meters deep. At that time, most people used the areas closest to public space as shopfronts, with the interiors being used as warehouses and private homes.

Though severely damaged in the earthquake of September 21, 1999, the Ding Family mansion, which stood unused after the quake, has now been restored. In the surviving structure one can still see the lifestyle of literati from a century ago. Our volunteer guide points out several features, including the threshold, representing discipline and family status; the arrangement of screens along the walls, with calligraphy on the left and paintings on the right; and the floor tiles differentiating public from private space, with the square tiles in women’s quarters symbolizing “halt,” and the diamond-shaped tiles in the central hall indicating “enter.”

In addition, in order to conform to the fengshui rules for yangzhai (residences for living humans), the numbers of steps in staircases, altars to deities, and window lattices, are all odd numbers. A single step represents “one step to heaven,” while a flight of three steps implies “ascending step by step” in one’s career. In the walls there are also round windows, symbolizing “perfect satisfaction” and “wealth”; octagonal windows, representing “the eight trigrams” and “tranquility”; and wavy scroll-shaped windows representing “a great family of scholars”; while bamboo motifs in the windows suggest resiliency, longevity, and heights of achievement, as well as “bamboo letters,” meaning letters from family members reporting that all is well.

The ancestors are still venerated in the Ding Family mansion, revealing how deeply the people of Lukang revere their forebears.

Whether in the number of steps in a flight of stairs, the arrangement of floor tiles, or the shapes of its windows, the Ding Family mansion everywhere contains cultural clues to the family’s status.

Whether in the number of steps in a flight of stairs, the arrangement of floor tiles, or the shapes of its windows, the Ding Family mansion everywhere contains cultural clues to the family’s status.

Whether in the number of steps in a flight of stairs, the arrangement of floor tiles, or the shapes of its windows, the Ding Family mansion everywhere contains cultural clues to the family’s status.

Lukang’s Tianhou Temple, dedicated to Mazu, is always crowded with believers.

In Lukang craft skills, often associated with particular traditions of faith or worship, or with specific communities, are preserved in the lives of ordinary people. Hence the town has been called a precious “living fossil of Minnan craftsmanship.” The photo shows an octagonal caisson ceiling at Longshan Temple.

From prosperity to decline

According to scholarly research, Lukang was originally called “Luzaigang.” There are two main origin stories for the place name: One says that the Babuza indigenous people who were active in the area called this place “Rokau-­­an,” which was pronounced by Hokkien speakers as “Lo̍k-á-káng” (“Luzaigang” in Mandarin), meaning “Deer Harbor.” The other explanation states that the name derives from the large numbers of Formosan sika deer that gathered in meadows by the water. The shorter form, Lo̍k-káng (Lugang, today officially spelled Lukang), also meaning “Deer Harbor,” is first documented in the 1780s.

The rise of the town can be traced back to 1784. Chen Shih-hsien has personally visited Hanjiang in the Quanzhou region of China’s Fujian Province, where there is still a “crossing-over stele” which records the formal establishment of shipping between Lukang and Quanzhou in that year. It is a historic artifact of Lukang’s glory days.

According to historical records, the period from 1785 to 1850 was the most prosperous in Lukang’s history. There were countless shops in the town and merchant ships gathered there in large numbers. Business was booming, and the town grew to be the second largest in Taiwan, after only Tainan. Indeed, at one point during the Qing Dynasty, Lukang’s harbor with all its sailing ships was considered one of the “eight wonders of Changhua.”

However, this prosperity would not last. Because of increasing siltation of the harbor, it became difficult for ships to pass and trade rapidly diminished. During the era of Japanese rule (1895–1945), the north–south railway bypassed Lukang, adding a final nail to the coffin of the town’s decline.

However, looked at from another point of view, the stag­nation in the town’s economic development also turned it, quite accidentally, into a storehouse of cultural heritage.

After immigrants to Lukang became wealthy, they tried to reproduce the lifestyles of well-off people in their place of origin. They brought over many highly skilled artisans from Quanzhou, a number of whom settled in the town. Not only have their skills been passed down to the present day, but the heirs to these skills have flourished.

Lin Ming-teh states frankly: “People in Lukang are conservative, so they have been willing to preserve their family businesses and traditions.” He has worked with the Changhua County Government to make a survey of artisanal crafts in Lukang, which revealed that Lukang has the greatest number of people working in the widest variety of traditional arts and crafts of any town in Changhua. Fields of endeavor include woodworking, religious sculpture, bamboo and rattan, metalwork, paper arts, and embroidery. Because their works are representative of the town and have a unique style of their own, they have been christened “Lukang craftsmanship.”

These arts and crafts often revolve around religious worship, faith, and folk culture, and they are preserved in both temples and private homes.

The fact is that when one strolls through the old streets of ­Lukang, such as Putou Street, Yaolin Street, and Dayou Street, not only can one imagine the past glory days of “town in front, river behind,” with numerous shipping agencies and wharfs, there are still distinctive things left from days gone by to be seen along the winding red brick paths. These include Banbianjing (a historic structure noted for its “halfsided well”), “jar walls” (made using discarded wine jars), shi­gan­dang (stone tablets used to ward off evil spirits), ­Jiuqu (Nine Turns) Lane, and Ai (Narrow) Gate. Meanwhile, the Shiyilou and Yilou heritage buildings, which formerly housed shipping businesses and commercial agents that operated under the banner of Lukang’s Xia Guild, are both still around. Of these, the Yilou was purchased 20 years ago by Li Junde, a native of neighboring Fu­xing Township and founder of the Taichung-based Jiunn Meei Food Company, who refurbished the dilapidated old building at his own expense, a deed much admired among locals.

Zhongshan Street, outside the old business quarter, is a road that was built in the reign of the Qing Dynasty’s Jiaqing Emperor (1796–1820) because the town had become overcrowded. At that time it was known as “Lukang Boulevard.” The road is about one kilometer long, and was once lined with a continuous row of roofed wooden porticos built outside the shopfronts to shelter patrons from the elements, so that it was known as “the street where you cannot see the sky.” Although the porticos were demolished in the Japanese era, this revealed the beautiful building facades behind them. Some of Lukang’s best-known buildings, including the Ding Family mansion and the century-old Yu Jen Jai Bakery, can be found on this street.

Overall, Lukang is not large. The area that best shows off the essence of this small town is a stretch less than a kilo­meter long from the landmark Longshan Temple to Tianhou (Mazu) Temple. At the farthest, it is less than 3 km to Beitou, a former fishing village where the town’s development began. Meanwhile, the heart of the town is less than 500 meters from east to west. Smaller than Tainan, its attractions and shops are all located within walking distance of one another.

Yet however small this historic town may be, it is, as Lin Ming-teh describes it, a precious “living fossil” of Minnan [Southern Fujianese] craftsmanship,” a place with potential as a World Heritage site that deserves to be shared with the world. When you stroll through the old-fashioned streets that have survived because of circumstances, geography, and human factors, you can experience something of the prosperity of days gone by and see centuries of history in one place. 

Though Lukang is small, there are attractions at every turn in this retro Minnan-style community, from “flying eaves” on temples and the serpentine Nine Turns Lane to the old quarter’s Ai Gate, “jar walls” and Half-Sided Well.

Though Lukang is small, there are attractions at every turn in this retro Minnan-style community, from “flying eaves” on temples and the serpentine Nine Turns Lane to the old quarter’s Ai Gate, “jar walls” and Half-Sided Well.

Though Lukang is small, there are attractions at every turn in this retro Minnan-style community, from “flying eaves” on temples and the serpentine Nine Turns Lane to the old quarter’s Ai Gate, “jar walls” and Half-Sided Well.

Though Lukang is small, there are attractions at every turn in this retro Minnan-style community, from “flying eaves” on temples and the serpentine Nine Turns Lane to the old quarter’s Ai Gate, “jar walls” and Half-Sided Well.

Though Lukang is small, there are attractions at every turn in this retro Minnan-style community, from “flying eaves” on temples and the serpentine Nine Turns Lane to the old quarter’s Ai Gate, “jar walls” and Half-Sided Well.

Though Lukang is small, there are attractions at every turn in this retro Minnan-style community, from “flying eaves” on temples and the serpentine Nine Turns Lane to the old quarter’s Ai Gate, “jar walls” and Half-Sided Well.

Though Lukang is small, there are attractions at every turn in this retro Minnan-style community, from “flying eaves” on temples and the serpentine Nine Turns Lane to the old quarter’s Ai Gate, “jar walls” and Half-Sided Well.