The 1001 Nights of Hsinkang--Tracing the Roots of a Harbor Town

One morning, the old gentleman Tsai Wan-chu, 86 years of age, came to the house in the street behind Feng Tian Temple, where Liao Chia-chan and Yen Hsin-chu live for the time being. He in-formed this husband and wife team who collected the photos in the exhibition "Impressions of Hsinkang" that, "I saw my teacher Tseng Chu." When he couldn't describe exactly which picture had held his teacher's image, the couple went with Mr. Tsai back to the exhibition hall to precisely identify it.

The last day of the exhibition was also a public holiday, and the show was particularly crowded. The old man stood in front of a school group picture from the early period of the Japanese occupation that captured the appearance of a time long ago. He pointed to the image of a youth at the edge of the photo and said, "That is my teacher Mr. Tseng."

Almost every day during the week-long exhibition a different story was discovered in each photograph.

Seventy-six-year-old Feng Ah-piao heard her neighbors say that her grandmother's photo was in an exhibition, and she quickly rushed there to see if it was true. She gazed at her beautiful granny who loved her dearly in her youth, and bowed in respect to the portrait.

The tale begins two hundred years ago with a great flood that visited the old Penkang River (now known as the Peikang River). An ancient village situated along the river was completely inundated, and the inhabitants were forced to flee, some moving north, others moving south. This is how Hsinkang (which literally means "new harbor") came into being.

The tale continues thirteen years ago when the small town physician Chen Ching-huang parted on amicable terms with his wife and returned to his home village of Hsinkang to set up practice. Five years later, he was moved by a performance by the famous modern dance director Lin Huai-min, who also hails from Hsinkang. Chen established the "Hsinkang Foundation of Culture and Education." And with the warm-hearted participation of the local townsfolk, it has continued to this day. Recently the village members gathered together to display their story, from the days of old Penkang to the Hsinkang of today. The story is still in progress....

An elderly lady who had once moved away to escape Japanese rule, passing from Japan to mainland China, had been out of contact with her home town for the last fifty years. Only recently had she returned. She discovered a picture of herself crouched in the first row of a photograph from the end of the Ching Dynasty or the beginning of the Japanese occupation, taken of her entire family to commemorate her grandfather's birthday. She was speaking with her sisters, who had come along as well, of the many events of the past. The teacher Yang Chien-ho was helping out at the exhibition and recalled that her mother-in-law seemed to have worked as a servant in that household. In recent years her mother-in-law had often reminisced about the young girls from that family who were about the same age as she. Yang chien-ho approached them and asked if they had any recollection of "Ah Yu." As it turned out, they were in fact the former young playmates of his mother-in-law. She quickly called her husband and had him drive his mother to the exhibition.

Ah Yu, who by then was 78, asked Ah Chih, 75, "Do you still remember? One year we went to a feast at a temple festival together. We happened on some quicksand and nearly died together on the very same day!" That day the little girls had gotten their clothes all filthy, and they did not dare to go to the feast. They went back along the road by which they came, stuffing themselves on some mangos they bought and returning home. Fearing that they would be scolded, they decided not to mention the incident to any grown-ups. This event from the past became their present-day secret that they shared together with laughter.

Before the war, she followed her husband into the interior of mainland China. This year 75-year-old Lin Chiung-chu returned for the first time to Taiwan after living on the mainland for 51 years. She is the granddaughter of the Ching dynasty civil servant Lin Wei-chao. Looking at a picture taken more than 60 years ago when she was only 10 years old, she said: "Just being able to return to Taiwan made me very happy. It's an added blessing to come back to my home town and see pictures of myself and so many o

Ninety year old postman Lin Tsai had covered a beat five kilometers in circumference during the era of Japanese occupation; he delivered the mail 365 days a year without rest, at the same time helping the townsfolk to read their letters or to pay their bills. He knew everyone in the area he served. Of the children in those days that followed behind him in play, "Many have already died." Seeing a picture of himself at the age of 18, Lin exclaimed at the passing of time.

A middle-aged lady espied a picture from the 1950s in which her grandmother posed with her children. She pulled the picture down, wiped it clean, and began to bow down to it with clasped hands, in the manner of worshipping the deceased. Said she, "I'm not in the photo, but my grandmother, who loved me so dearly, is."

There are old stories and new. The more recent the photo, the brighter the color and the fresher the story, as well.

One picture shows an old man collecting discarded pieces of junk. Outsiders would say he looks just like anyone else, but everyone in Hsinkang knows that he is Chen Tsuo who can be seen in every lane collecting garbage to be recycled. At 78 years of age, he gathers old things made of copper and tin, not to support himself but to care for some old people who have no one else to look after them, who work under him gathering things. Even more legendary is the fact that when he was already well on in age, he decided to learn photography. For his 70th birthday, he asked his sons and daughters not to give him gifts of money, but to give him a camera instead. He has more than 10 professional-quality cameras, which he uses to take pictures in his leisure time.

The teacher of a chidren's evening activity class brought her young students to the exhibition. When they all gazed at a special photograph of children, they laughingly exclaimed, "It's Chen Chen-ying. It's Chen Chen-ying!"

One person's story, the memories of a family...this tale of 1001 nights linked together to form the story of every person in Hsinkang and also the 300 year history of the town itself.

The people of Hsinkang laughingly say that Liao Chia-chan should find his success in Chiayi. [His first name "Chia" is the same one found in the county name "Chiayi," and his second name "Chan" means "success."] And they say that Yen Hsin-chu is the pearl of Hsinkang. [Her first name "Hsin" is the same as in "Hsinkang," and "Chu" means "pearl."] All this good laughter shows how much commitment the couple has placed in the project "Impressions of Hsinkang" and how much the townsfolk love them. （photo by Vincent Chang）

In the exhibition hall, when Yen Hsin-chu was taking photos, Liao Chia-chan cradled his one-year-old daughter Keng-yueh in one arm and with the other held hands with four-year-old son Tang-tang. This couple who for many years worked for a magazine, three years ago moved from Taipei to establish themselves in Puli. Last year, they dedicated themselves to this event, the wife taking pictures and the husband writing the text.

At the end of September last year, the Hsinkang Foundation of Culture and Education, which handles the Chiayi performances of the National Festival of Culture and Arts, decided to tell the story of the changes from old Penkang to Hsinkang with old pictures. After the direction was decided upon, "What we worried about most was that we might not be able to find enough pictures of a high enough quality to properly express the 300 year history of Hsinkang." No one, including Chairman of the Board Chen Chin-huang and Administrator Liao Chia-chan, knew how it would turn out, The problem lay in the common custom of ancient villages that when old people passed away their families would cremate them, along with all their household goods. No one was sure how many precious photographs had already passed into ashes this way.

Through the foundation's publications, passing out handouts in schools and by word of mouth from volunteer workers and townsfolk, news of the hunt for old photos began to spread throughout Hsinkang. One photo, two photos, one album, two albums... "Every day there was a new surprise," Liao Chia-chan explains. The pictures far exceeded their initial estimates, both in quantity and in quality.

Li Wen-you, the second-generation manager of the township's oldest photo shop, Far East Photos, contributed some memorial portraits that his father and he took of major events. "Anything old can find a market among collectors! Things that happened in the past, once they are past, are gone. If someone doesn't take a picture of them, then the next generation won't get to see them," explains Li Wen-you. His father photographed the former Assistant Director of the Examination Yuan, Lin Chin-sheng, in 1951 being elected the first county commissioner of Chiayi. He photographed a number of old streets and buildings before they were torn down. He also visually recorded the "Province-wide Tour Guide Lady Singing Contest," held when the Feng Tian Temple completed its drum and bell pavilions. Lin Ying-ming, chairman of the Song Recital Society which meets in the park to sing in the mornings, provided many pictures from his home. He also found a batch of school pictures from the Japanese occupation era in the house of Tsai Yu-chun, who sings together with him. The dentist Lin Chin-tien did not provide any pictures, but he asked the patients in his clinic if they had any photos and in this way found one of Ho Shih-you, the village chief of the Japanese era. He also dug up a pile of public records from that time.

Wile on the one hand openly leading the search in public, Liao Chia-chan also actively visited many important families. For example, the Lin family, which has lived in Hsinkang since the end of the Ching dynasty -- including Lin Wei-chao, his grandson Lin Chin-shen and great-grandson Lin Huai-min--have naturally kept numerous photos concerning the whole of Hsinkang.

"In three months, we collected over one thousand photographs. A third of them came from direct inquiries, and two thirds of them were delivered without solicitation," Yen Hsin-chu remarks on the warm participation of the village locals. Because of this, they were confronted with a huge stack of pictures which they could not possibly use. Still, they happily stored them away. The old photos seemed like a cache of sweet potatoes, lying together in a row.

If Liao Chia-chan found some part of some pictures difficult to understand, he carried a slide projector to the site where the photos were taken, and asked the villagers to help explain them. One photo from the Japanese era showed a big sumo contest, all the naked muscle men displaying their physiques like brass statues. "That one seems to be my father. Let me go get my aunt to look at it." In this way one villager eventually gathered most of his family. In front of the projection screen the images, and the memories, slowly came forth....

Although the exhibition is over, the story still continues. "The teacher just brought over two more albums of old photos," says the foundation secretary You Li-li to Liao Chia-chan. Currently, the foundation is busy organizing the photos and information from the exhibition, in preparation for a book to be published by the end of the year.

"I'm quite certain that old photos of this kind can still be found in every place in Taiwan," Liao Chia-chan expresses confidently. He believes that in all the other villages and townships there is the same kind of rich pictorial history and information among the people, waiting for someone to dig it up.

From Feng Tien Temple to Hsinkang jelly, from Lin Wei-chao to Lin Huai-min, from Teng Yun Study Center to the Hsinkang Foundation of Culture and Education, the folks of Hsinkang have many reasons to feel proud, and here is one more: this volume of pictures that they themselves produced by their collective energy.

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"Is he the one?"

Wu Sa-hung, head of the Anho village near Hsinkang and his brothers, after inspecting photographs twice, still could not identify which person was their father. Finally, they asked the 76-year-old matron Kuo Shui-ching to come look. She scrutinized the photos for a long time, and at last pointed with her finger to an able-bodied man, wearing a plate-shaped hat, officiating a sumo contest in the Fanpo Village (now called Anho), saying, "That's him!"

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Seventy-six-year-old Feng Ah-piao heard her neighbors say that her grandmother's photo was in an exhibition, and she quickly rushed there to see if it was true. She gazed at her beautiful granny who loved her dearly in her youth, and bowed in respect to the portrait.

p.124

Before the war, she followed her husband into the interior of mainland China. This year 75-year-old Lin Chiung-chu returned for the first time to Taiwan after living on the mainland for 51 years.

She is the granddaughter of the Ching dynasty civil servant Lin Wei-chao. Looking at a picture taken more than 60 years ago when she was only 10 years old, she said: "Just being able to return to Taiwan made me very happy. It's an added blessing to come back to my home town and see pictures of myself and so many old friends and relatives."

p.125

The people of Hsinkang laughingly say that Liao Chia-chan should find his success in Chiayi. [His first name "Chia" is the same one found in the county name "Chiayi," and his second name "Chan" means "success."] And they say that Yen Hsin-chu is the pearl of Hsinkang. [Her first name "Hsin" is the same as in "Hsinkang," and "Chu" means "pearl."] All this good laughter shows how much commitment the couple has placed in the project "Impressions of Hsinkang" and how much the townsfolk love them. (photo by Vincent Chang)