Tourists pour into the Shilin Night Market, enjoying the bustle and excitement of a weekend evening.
The relative calm of a Thai restaurant’s courtyard stands in marked contrast to the frenetic buzz of the night market. Twenty-some young artisans are busy setting up a small creative and cultural market of their own. Craftspeople specializing in handmade items man “stalls” in this island of quiet, located off Dadong Road near the eastern edge of the night market, and are more than happy to tell passersby all about their wares.
The market is surprisingly far off the beaten path, hidden deep inside the house. It seems an odd spot for a commercial venture, but the organizers chose it specifically to raise the profile of the old home in which it sits.
One hundred years old and three stories tall, the building was once the home of Guo Kunmu, head of the Banqiao branch of Chang Hwa Bank during the Japanese colonial era. Guo Kunmu’s son, Guo Xiucong, was an even more prominent figure, a well known Shilin surgeon and social activist.
The Guo family home was built using a combination of Japanese versions of German construction methods, and Southern Min building techniques. The building still retains its Japanese-era yellow brick exterior wall, and its rooms feature brickwork of a sort rarely seen in Taiwan. In an indication of the owner’s attention to decorative detail, most of the home’s windows have Japanese-style wooden frames, while many of its interior doorways are framed in Gothic-style pillars.
The Guo family abandoned the house during the political unrest that followed World War II. The house remained largely neglected until a restaurateur renovated it a few years ago. He turned it into a combination restaurant and creative/cultural exhibition space, while also preserving much of its original spirit. In fact, the renovated building qualified for the Taipei City Urban Regeneration Office’s 2015 Old Building, New Life Awards competition.
Huang Fei-lin, a fan of the “slow city” movement, noticed how well the home’s unusual mix of features complemented each other. Recalling his first encounter with the old residence’s layout, he says, “When you walk in, the first thing you see is the restaurant. You then pass through the front courtyard to the interior courtyard. I visited similar spaces on a trip I took to Quanzhou in mainland China with Han Liangluo to shoot a documentary.”
Huang, who used to work in the media, loves unearthing the old cultures of cities and believes Taipei’s historic Dadaocheng and Bang-kah (Monga) neighborhoods are on par with the many older Japanese cities he has explored. He began looking into the Guo house’s history immediately after visiting it. “I found an old photo of Guo Xiucong and his mother standing on the third-floor balcony, looking out at the large piece of farmland in front of their home. The balcony remains virtually unchanged today, but the farmland has long since been developed into the densely packed shops of the night market. The transformation is incredibly thought-provoking.” Huang decided that very evening that he wanted to do something to make more people aware of the place.
Huang had first learned of the home from Chen Wen-wei, a friend with a similar interest in history. Chen says, “Our interest in digging into the lives of people from the past probably makes us a little weird.” A senior at National Taipei University of Education (NTUE), Chen first got into researching old buildings through a class assignment. Once he discovered the Guo house, he thought he and Huang might be able to do something with it. They founded Suki Lane, a cultural brand, with no capital at all, and began planning a local cultural renaissance.
Shilin was home to many garment makers 30 or 40 years ago during the heyday of Taiwan’s textiles industry. Nowadays, there are none. “We think these old streets and this old house are a lot like the famous Shilin night-market snack ‘little bun in big bun.’ For all that their stories appear to form a whole ‘bun’ on the outside, they’re filled with fragments of history.” The two gained an understanding of Shilin’s transformation, then in late 2014 began thinking about revitalizing the area by bringing in young people with a similar interest in “hand-woven” stories.
Chen Wen-wei has been managing his own brand, “Moo Than Love,” and organizing creative markets since his first year of university. His experience had brought him into contact with many other creative individuals, so he sent out an appeal to his peers and designed a website to spread the word online.
They held their first market on March 14, 2015, filling the century-old house with young people. “The market was informative, not just commercial. The craftspeople present didn’t say much, and were able to choose their customers. Everyone just focused on doing what they wanted, which made for very pure creations.” Chen explains that the market’s participants operate stalls more as an expression of their own values than to make money. They are dedicated to their crafts, aiming to create products imbued with their presence both inside and out.
They are hidden dragons of a sort. A-de, a 16-year-old high-school student, sketches beautiful postcards depicting scenes of old Taiwan with a ballpoint pen. The woman who operates Happy Time photographs patrons with an old wooden camera, her idea being to use traditional film to capture memorable emotions. M.S. Rose creates Lolita-style accessories that draw other fans of the style to the market. Meanwhile, students from NTUE’s Urban Lab distribute a journal called Brick and personally explain its underlying philosophy to readers.
The Suki Lane market only selects vendors and products with a clear philosophy, meaning that each product has a story behind it.
“The market was just an initial idea. We have since moved on to arranging cultural and art-oriented performances and exhibitions.” Huang says that they invited a Chinese orchestra to play on the second floor, which created a family-banquet atmosphere and suited the old building well; they organized an arts exhibition involving robots, which voiced the thoughts and feelings of society’s disadvantaged; and they arranged for YoKaTa, a singer-songwriter whose lyrics focus on Beitou, to perform. So far, shows by student groups have proved the most popular.
Suki Lane also arranges occasional hands-on classes that enable different arts organizations to interact across disciplines to achieve deeper cultural exchanges.
Since Huang believes that urban tourism is best done on foot, they also began working with Taipei Walking Tour in late October 2015. They plan to build on the Guo home’s allure with a history-oriented guided tour that extends into the surrounding area. Huang says, “In the future, there will be creative and cultural corridors running across new and old Shilin, from Zhishanyan, Tianmu, and the Taipei side of Yangmingshan all the way down to Shezi. If the area’s history isn’t recorded soon, it will be lost.”
Huang and Chen argue that old streets and alleys inspire profound feelings, and that visiting them enables people to re-encounter wonderful things long lost. But they also joke that they’re just a couple of silly intellectual poseurs trying to encourage like-minded friends to spread the word about the area’s history, and to promote a market with an “old soul.”
The restaurateur who renovated the century-old home preserved many original elements while also incorporating modern design concepts.
The restaurateur who renovated the century-old home preserved many original elements while also incorporating modern design concepts.
What does “creative and cultural” mean? Huang Fei-lin (left) and Chen Wen-wei (right) say it involves applying multidisciplinary techniques to things you like, to create products that make life more interesting.
Suki Lane plans to extend its creative and cultural market to all of Shilin’s old district. In the photo, M.S. Rose sells her Lolita-style accessories from a stand near the National Science Education Center.
Sixteen-year-old A-de sketches scenes of old Taiwan with a ballpoint pen, creating surprisingly detailed and lifelike images.
The mottled three-story Guo townhouse occasionally hosts performances, lectures, and art exhibitions, creating an air of cultural renaissance on the old street.
With its “family” atmosphere and “old-soul” vendors, Suki Lane is bringing the old-town dream to life.
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