Yu Kwok-shun believes cultural development requires vision and devotion. (Photo: June Tsai)
By June Tsai
The Chiayi Market Fair drew throngs of families and individuals May 29 with its organic produce, local crafts and exhibition of old locomotives. Held once a month outside a defunct thermal power plant built in 1913, the fair is the brainchild of Yu Kwok-shun, founder of Hoanya Bookstore.
Yu named his bookstore after the Hoanya, an indigenous plains tribe that once inhabited the central coast area of Taiwan. He calls the shop “the most socially active bookstore south of the Zhuoshui River”—Taiwan’s longest waterway and a symbol of the inequalities between the advanced north and the grassroots south.
His choice of the name and characterization of his store say much about the ambition of the energetic and patient Yu.
Yu opened the bookshop in downtown Chiayi in November 1999, when he was 22. Books on literature, history, indigenous cultures, nature and the environment fill the shelves in the 30-square-meter space, along with products by aboriginal artisans, CDs and pamphlets on various social issues. Regular seminars, live music and film screenings bring people from throughout southern Taiwan to share ideas on current events.
Readers do not come here to look for bestsellers. And Yu, the only staff member, is often out taking part in demonstrations or promoting environmental and preservationist causes.
According to Yu, about a decade ago Chiayi jumped on the national bandwagon of urban renewal. Old houses and facilities were in danger of being replaced by new construction and road broadening. This prompted him to ask if such projects necessarily entail destroying old buildings. Can development and cultural heritage not go hand in hand in a city with 300 years of history?
Yu was among the first concerned locals to intervene in the development proposal that would have demolished the old Chiayi Prison, the only surviving Japanese-era (1895-1945) penitentiary in Taiwan, with its famous winged radial design.
The centrally located prison fell into disuse in 2000, and the municipal government intended to sell it. “Before any deal was done, my friends and I worked hard to persuade officials and city councilors to let us try and revive the space for public use and see how people would respond to it,” Yu said.
They negotiated with borough wardens and talked to local residents, while rallying nongovernmental organizations to start a series of historic and field studies related to the prison.
Prison administrators gave a tentative nod to their revival proposal, which was backed by scholars, artists and local businesses. The preservation endeavor crystallized into a successful art festival in 2002, with exhibitions, performances, prison tours, painting competitions and a market fair attracting thousands of visitors. The activity changed local people’s impressions of the prison and aroused their interest in its revival as a museum.
With sponsorship from the National Youth Commission and Chiayi Prison, in 2004 Hoanya began to organize summer camps for students from around the country to experience prison culture and learn about penal history. They proved to be very popular, and the Ministry of Justice then decided to help create the prison museum, and renovation got under way.
Hoanya has since been involved in several cultural heritage preservation initiatives, but not all were successful. “We failed to prevent the demolition of other Japanese-era public buildings, such as the former Revenue Office and old City Hall,” Yu said.
But when Yu decided to buy the Yushan Hostel, next to Beimen Train Station, the jumping off point for Taiwan’s world-renowned narrow-gauge Alishan Forest Railway, even his friends were surprised. Built in 1950 and named after Taiwan’s highest peak, the hostel served for several decades as bargain accommodation for fruit and vegetable vendors commuting between the mountains and the city before it went out of business in 2007.
“I wanted to rescue this place, with its close historic links to the forest railway,” Yu said. He also envisioned turning it into another base for social activism.
Without a concrete idea on how to proceed, he first rented the building. “It was in really bad condition at the time,” Yu said. He convinced friends and local woodworkers to supply money and technical know-how for its renovation, which was completed in eight months. Yushan reopened in August 2009.
The first floor is a cafe serving fair trade coffee, tea and organic food products. Wooden stairs lead to rooms and a common area on the second floor. Within a year, the lodging had become a backpackers’ favorite.
Members of the Hoanya Cultural Association, which Yu founded in 2008 to integrate local civic movements, run the place. Customers are drawn to the hostel via the Internet and Taiwan’s NGO networks.
“We preserve the old while sharing latest environmental ideas and practices, and people like it,” said Chang Szu-hsien, current Yushan manager.
“The revival work, we hope, can also serve as an example to the public, showing how cultural ideas can create economic value without anyone having to throw in big bucks,” she said.
Through such efforts HCA has gradually become a cultural centerpiece in Chiayi, engaging a growing number of people from all walks of life in the transformation of the city into a much sought-after destination for in-depth tours.
Yu believes that cultural preservation and development takes continuous effort by different people to bear fruit. “People in Taiwan have a penchant for gala festivals, which like fireworks create one burst of light and then are over.”
Celebrations for the nation’s centennial are a case in point, he said. “The centenary is good to spark creativity. But so far, there are more one-off events than reflections on our history and long-running projects with a trajectory into the future.
“Our vision should be directed toward the next 100 years,” he said, “allowing any cultural program to continue without interruption due to administrative personnel changes or partisan concerns.” The lack of real vision and continuity in the government’s cultural policies has alienated civic organizations and individual cultural workers, he added.
There has been some improvement over the past decade, however. “People have become more aware of the importance of culture, and this has incidentally benefited tourism,” Yu said.
Hoanya still has other agendas to pursue, such as creating a platform for debate on the future of the fragile but precious Alishan Forest Railway, subject to frequent damage from torrential rains and typhoons.
“Anyone is welcome to drop by the Yushan Hostel and share opinions with us over a cup of fair trade coffee,” Yu said.
This article first appeared in the online Taiwan Today June 3.
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