關西

Dong'An Bridge (東安古橋)

Social Media has the power to turn obscure, little-known places into an overnight hotspots - I’ve blogged a few times recently about how social media trends have transformed places like Jinmian Mountain and Water Buffalo Valley (which were once not very well-known by the general public) into tourist hotspots overnight thanks to the power of social media and a news media that more or less just looks to what’s happening online for its nightly news.

Today’s post is yet another one of these “instagrammable” hotspots and is one that I’ve likely passed by a hundred times, yet never actually realized that it existed until it became one of these ‘insta-spots’

Thanks to Instagram though, I’ve found yet another leftover remnant of the Japanese Colonial Era and while it isn’t a building like some of the other places I’ve been searching for, it is quite a nice place to take photos. 

The current version of Guanxi Township’s (關西鎮) Dong-An Bridge (東安古橋) is a beautiful stone arched bridge that dates back to 1933 (昭和8年) and has survived over eight decades thanks to the superb construction techniques and design brought to Taiwan from Japan.

The stone bridge that we see today replaced the original wooden version named “Cai-Feng Bridge” (彩鳳橋) which was constructed only a few years earlier. The original bridge had to be torn down after six years of use due to structural issues that were caused by Taiwan’s humidity, the rainy season and frequent earthquakes and typhoons.

Upon completion, the new bridge served as an important connection between the downtown area of Guanxi Village with the Dong’An (東安) suburb across the river as well as the mountains nearby which made transporting fresh produce and timber into the business areas of the town much more convenient.

Guanxi Village, which was known as Kansai (關西街) during the Japanese Colonial-Era is most well known for its production of a medicinal herb of the mint family known as Chinese Mesona (仙草) which is quite popular in Asia. The herb, which is most commonly referred to as “Grass Jelly” in Taiwan helped to bring riches to the Guanxi area. With the help of modern production techniques, and of course the new bridge, the small village became known as the ‘Grass Jelly Capital of Taiwan’ and still contributes to over 80% of Taiwan’s Grass Jelly production today.

Design

Dong’An Bridge is classified as a stone arch bridge, which is a type of bridge design that has been popular around the world for well over three-thousand years.

The bridge has five different arches that allow water from the river below to flow freely while at the same time allowing weight to be freely distributed between each of the five abutments as well as the support structure on either side of the bridge.

Japanese engineers are well-versed in the construction of arched bridges of this variety and as was the case with the beautiful wooden Kintai Bridge (錦帯橋) in Japan, the engineers who constructed the Dong’An bridge were also sure to protect it from floods by controlling the flow of water through the river which could overflow during a typhoon of Taiwan’s rainy season.

Recent Popularity

There are a few different factors that went into adding to the popularity of the bridge over recent years. The first is that the the Guanxi village government recently completed a beautiful recreation park known as the Niulanhe Riverside Park (牛欄河親水公園) that the bridge is now a part of.

The park is a popular space for local people to spend time with their families as well as for exercising and is also a spot where you will often find local artists and musicians putting on live performances.

The next factor and the one that likely started the whole Instagram thing is that the bridge was featured in a scene in the hit 2015 movie, “Our Times” (我的少女時代) - a cute movie that I had initially avoided watching, but eventually succumbed to and enjoyed while doing research for this blog.

Since then, the bridge has become not only a popular place for locals to pass by while doing their exercises or visiting the park, but also an attraction for people coming out of town who want to get some photos of the historic structure.

If you find yourself in the Guanxi area, it is quite easy to stop by this bridge and you need very little time to check it out. There is actually quite of bit of history to check out in the small village of Guanxi, so if you are in the area you might also want to consider checking out some of the old Japanese-era buildings, the Old Street, Chau-Yin Temple and some of the amazing Hakka restaurants in the town area.

Overall a quick walk around the downtown won’t take you very long, so you won’t need a lot of time to visit, but if you’re like myself and you’re interested in history, then a walk around the village will be one where you’re able to learn quite a bit while also sampling not only some great Hakka food but also the cuisines of South East Asians who have made the small village their own.


Map / Location

 

Abandoned Kiln (磚窯 - 歷史遺跡)

This post is a result of a combination of some long-time curiosity and my friend Alexander Synaptic rubbing off on me. I'm not very experienced with urban exploration, but hanging out with Alexander and listening to his stories has sparked an interest in the hobby. I've found that the more I learn about urban exploration the more I discover that the willingness to go into places (where you might not always be welcome) is similar to the courage that a successful street photographer needs.

It isn't easy walking up to a complete stranger on the street and taking their photo - Likewise with urban exploration you have to be willing to put yourself in a situation that brings you into unknown places and sometimes places where no one really expects you to be walking around. There is a level of respect however that both a street photographer and an urban explorer share with their subjects and that respect is typically shown with the stories that are told in the aftermath.

With street photography I feel like I've found that courage and even through I try to be stealth-like most of the time, I often still walk up to people, smile and point my camera in their face when something strikes me as interesting. Urban exploration on the other hand isn't as easy and in most cases with the kind of abandoned places people are quite suspicious as to why you want to check things out.

Today's exploration is an abandoned brick kiln (磚窯) found on a small road between Taoyuan's Longtan village (龍潭鄉) and Hsinchu's Guanxi township (關西鎮). I have been driving down this road for years (on my drives to Neiwan) and have noticed this place each and every time I have passed by, but until now never really thought to jump over the little fence in front of it and check it out.

Kilns of this variety were quite common in Taiwan several decades ago and helped to fuel the rapid development of the nation. If you're not sure what a kiln is, they are basically a thermally enclosed room that act like an oven. The insulation in the room helps to create temperatures that are sufficient for hardening or drying of clay objects and making them into bricks, pottery, tiles and other ceramics.

Despite a few wood-fire kilns of this variety still being active in the country (some just for show) most have been abandoned or replaced with more environmentally friendly versions which use natural gas and are able to produce bricks on a much larger scale.

There isn't much information available online about these particular kilns of which there are three. I've spent a lot of time searching the web, searching archives and searching PTT (a popular forum used in Taiwan) to figure out when they were closed, how long they were in operation and who owned them but not much of that information is available online, so I can't really tell you much. What info I could find online however is that the soil in the area is naturally sulphurous and was thus ideal for the brick-making process. This is why you can see three kilns in such a relatively close area. 

The kilns are from separate companies named "Pacific" (太平洋), "Jianfu" (建富) and "Sanhe" (三合) which built them around year 60 on the Republic of China calendar (1971). They were built as Hoffmann Kilns (霍夫曼窯), a style introduced to Taiwan during the Japanese colonial period and are more popularly referred to here as "Bagua Kilns" (八卦窯) due to their resemblance to the Taoist "Eight Trigram" (八卦).  Hoffmann kilns typically have a long tunnel, a main furnace and several different pits to make the bricks. The roof trusses make it seem like an octagon and that is probably where the resemblance comes up. 

Huatan Hoffmann Kiln (花壇八卦窯) in Changhua, Taiwan (彰化) 

These particular kilns were set up in that area when the Taoyuan sewer system was being constructed and were quite popular because the earth in that area was especially suited for brick-making. Information as to when the kilns were decommissioned or how long they were in operation isn't available online so it is hard to say with any degree of certainty how long they have been abandoned. 

Reference: 磚窯(歷史遺跡) 仁安里第六鄰一帶的土質屬黃棕土,非常適合製造磚瓦。民國六十 年代初,有太平洋、建富、三合等多家磚窯。其中三合磚窯原是由內湖 搬至仁安里,這些窯屬於所謂的「八卦窯」,專門生產建築用的紅磚。所 謂「八卦窯」是一種類似隧道一般的窯洞,所不同的是窯內牆壁修飾成 八個斜坡面,看上去是八角型。他的最大特點是可以循環燒製磚胚,所 以產量比傳統的窯大很多。(Link /Pg. 47)

What I can tell you is what is still surviving today - The kilns sit alone in a large empty field near a Taipower generating station (龍潭變電所) off in the distance on one side and the popular Leofoo Village Amusement Park (六福村) on the other. There are three different kilns which were run by three different companies - one is close to the road, another is a short walk through a field while the third is a short drive from those two. There is also an abandoned building in between them that looks like it could have been a former office building. Unfortunately nothing was left inside the building to identify what actually went on while the place was in business.

The kilns are somewhat similar in the fact that they have very tall (and well preserved) smoke stacks that rise out of what (from a distance) looks like a large mound of dirt. When you get close enough you'll notice that those mounds of dirt have been overrun with shrubbery and that in certain areas there are bricks popping out. There are several entrances to each of the kilns and on the inside there are several different furnace areas where they would have made the bricks. The inside of the kiln closest to the road seems like it has become a popular place for locals to dump some of their garbage making it a bit difficult and uninteresting to shoot.

Like a lot of abandoned places there are guard dogs on the grounds and they kind of prevented me from exploring too much. A group of five or six fully grown Taiwanese dogs aren't the type you want to mess with especially when you're on their territory. The funny thing about the dogs though is that when they had no idea I was around I saw them playing in the tall grass with each other and they looked like they were having a great time pouncing around. 

As far as urban exploration goes, I'm not sure how this rates compared to what Alexander does, but there very little information available about these kilns available online in Chinese and none in English, so this is my contribution to their memory. The field they are in is really large by Taiwanese standards and it seems like a perfect location to build some dreary high rise apartments. I'm not sure how much longer they'll be around so if you're in the area check them out!

If you know any further information about the kilns or have any questions or comments, don't be shy. Comment below or contact me through the 'contact' section below.


Snow in Taiwan?

Snow in Taiwan? Seriously? I thought I left Canada for a sub-tropical country! What's with this flaky white stuff falling from the sky? 

The temperature fell to four degrees celsius in northern Taiwan over the weekend. The drop was caused by a cold air mass that has resulted in the lowest temperatures that the nation has felt in well over 44 years and the second coldest in recorded history.

Low temperature is typical during winter in Taiwan's high mountain areas, but not in ground level areas and places under an altitude of 400 meters which tend to be warmer. Winter months in the north of the country tend to be a bit colder than in the south, but the record-low temperatures brought on by this cold front have been felt even in the south where a lot of cities are below the Tropic of Cancer and are supposed to be far more temperate. 

The problem with such low temperatures is that buildings in Taiwan aren't constructed for weather like this and houses are neither constructed with insulation nor a system of central heating - houses therefore basically become refrigerators that have people living inside.

The sad thing about this is that despite Taiwan being a highly developed country, people die of hypothermia and cardiac diseases caused by the drop in temperature and this weekend has seen quite a few deaths related to the weather. 

Steam rising up from a waterfall with snow on the trees. 

The forecast for the weekend called for snow and people all over the country felt excited that they would be able to see it for the first time. Snow is common in Taiwan's high mountain regions, but people who aren't mountain climbers have a hard time seeing the flaky white stuff without making their way to a mountain-top. With the knowledge that snow was likely to appear over the weekend, quite a few people made plans to get out and see this once in a lifetime event which caused quite a few traffic jams around the country's narrow mountain roads.

When I woke up and checked Facebook on Sunday, my newsfeed was full of people reporting that it was actually snowing in low-lying areas making this an extremely rare occasion for the people of Taiwan. People were really excited and that excitement was all over social media. 

Places like Taipei's Yang Ming Mountain (陽明山), Taoyuan's Lala Mountain (拉拉山) and Yilan's Taiping Mountain (太平山) were loaded with traffic and people were busy playing in the up to 20cm of snow making snowmen and throwing snowballs. 

For me, I have to admit that I enjoyed seeing snow again for the first time in over a decade. I tried to escape the harsh Canadian winters by coming to Taiwan, but considering I've been removed from that for so long, I actually felt content seeing something so familiar.

The experience was a lot like when I was an undergrad in university. Whenever the first snowfall of the year happened, all of the Taiwanese international students would make their way to a field to play in the snow. Canadians get a bit tired of snow and our long winters but its interesting to see that even adults get really excited by this kind of thing in Taiwan.

I hope all my friends in Taiwan stayed warm over the weekend. The cold front looks like it won't last much longer and it will be back to 17-20 degrees later this week!