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| Tainan Train Station |
This blog post is also intended as a special thank to Grace, a Taiwanese friend who was so kind to show me around, and very patient, too. Since Tainan doesn't have an extensive public transport net, Grace picked me up at the train station with her motorcycle, a vehicle that, along with cars, is regarded by locals as indispensable for living comfortably in Tainan. To my great embarrassment, though, I had to admit that I cannot ride a motorcycle. That's why we had to take busses to move around. It was the first time she ever took a bus in Tainan. And now I know why: busses come more or less every half an hour, and service stops early in the evening. No wonder Tainanese snob public transport. Grace had no idea about the routes and about where the bus stop was. We went to the visitors information centre right inside the train station. Anyway, I liked the fact that she also became a tourist like me.
From Taipei to Tainan
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| Street in Tainan |
One curious thing about the HSR to Tainan is that Tainan Main Station and the HSR Station are not located in the same place, and not even close to each other. When I arrived and got out of the station, all around me there was a huge green area, trees and a highway, but nothing that resembled a city. I wondered if that could possibly be Tainan, because it rather looked like countryside. Then my friend called me and I found out that I had to take another train to go to Tainan proper. A very nice guy from the tourist information centre took the trouble to accompany me to Shalun Station (Chinese: 沙崙車站; pinyin: Shālún chēzhàn), which is right in front of the High Speed Rail Station. He also helped me buy the ticket and we had a short talk. In case he ever stumbles upon this blog, I'd like to thank him for his kindness. And for the nice talk in Mandarin, which is always a great thing.
It took me less than two hours to get to Tainan HSR Station from Taipei, but almost one hour to go from Shalun to Tainan Train Station. The distance itself is not big, but I had to wait about 25 minutes for the train to depart. The journey became therefore considerably longer than I had thought.
Tainan Train Station is a very nice Japanese colonial building. A station had already been built in 1900, but in the following years it proved insufficient. It was eventually demolished and in the 1930's the current building was constructed. From the station we took a bus to the oldest part of Tainan, Anping District (Chinese: 安平區; pinyin: Ānpíng Qū) .
Anping and Fort Zeelandia
There are two main bus lines that go through the historic centre of Tainan: number 88, which is red, and number 99, which is blue (see map). We took the blue one, which goes directly from the train station to Anping.
Originally an island separated from Tainan mainland, in the 17th century Anping was chosen by the Dutch East Indian Company as a strategic location for the construction of a fortress, known as Fort Zeelandia in English and Anping Castle (安平古堡) in Chinese. Taiwan was particularly important for the Dutch due to its favourable position. It served as a base for trade between the headquarters of the Dutch maritime empire in the East Indies (Indonesia), South China and Japan. The Dutch soon discovered that Taiwan also had an immense agricultural potential, which they readily exploited. Though Dutch rule in Taiwan lasted only from 1624 to 1634, it had a huge economic impact on the island.
When the Manchu Qing conquerors overthrew the Ming Dynasty in Mainland China, a Fujianese general named Zheng Chenggong, a Ming loyalist, retreated to Taiwan in the hope of reorganizing his forces and reconquering the mainland (an interesting historic parallel to Chiang Kai-shek). The last Ming Emperor had bestowed upon him the title 國姓爺 (Guóxìng Yé: Lord of the Imperial Surname). It is from the erroneous European pronunciation of this title that Westerners derived the name Koxinga, under which Zheng Chenggong is known in Western historiography.
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| Zheng Chenggong (Koxinga) |
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| Museum opposite the fort |
The Fort Zeelandia we see nowadays doesn't have much in common with the fortress one would have seen four hundred years ago. During the Qing reign, the whole complex was abandoned and the only original part which has survived until now is the southern wall. The rest was rebuilt by the Japanese after they conquered Taiwan in 1895. First they built a Japanese-style custom house, then tore it down and built another one in Western style. [note] There are two museums that tell the history of the fort, with a lot of 18th century maps, artefacts and reconstructions of the original buildings.
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| A typical alley close to Fort Zeelandia |
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| Old Western-style house |
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| Fort Zeelandia Tower |
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| A house. Not in a really good shape |
All around Fort Zeelandia there are old streets full of food stands, just like in night markets. In the narrow alleys we discovered some interesting Western-style houses (though I think they were built under the Japanese). There are also several temples, the biggest and most famous of which is the Mazu temple. Mazu (Chinese: 媽祖; pinyin: Māzǔ) is a Sea Goddess that began to be worshipped during the Ming Dynasty. [note] The origin of the strong Mazu cult in Taiwan dates back to the 18th century, when large numbers of immigrants from Southern China came to Taiwan. The journey across the strait was perilous, the ships often overloaded, pilots and sailors who earnt money through the transport of people didn't care much for the lives of their passengers and frequently let them disembark in areas that were too far away from the land so that they drowned (a practice known as "feeding the fish"). [Davison Chapter 4]. Since the risk of death was so high, upon their arrival on the island the migrants established temples to thank Mazu's for having granted them safety at sea.
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Mazu Temple Gate. Unfortunately, there was a huge tent right in front of the Temple so I couldn't take a picture of the facade. |
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| Main altar of the temple |
After visiting Anping we took the bus and went to Shennong Street. It is an narrow, old alley, one of the best preserved and most traditional in Tainan. There are some workshops, cafe's and restaurants. The street is not very long, and at its end stands a temple, called Yuwang. One of the things I've always found interesting in Taiwan is that some ground floor flats are separated from the street only by grillwork or a big window, so that it's possible to look inside. It's almost as if people lived on the street. This lack of privacy doesn't seem to bother them, and it is useful to foreign visitors like me, because I can peep inside and see how such flats look like. Many people set up gigantic Buddhist shrines in the living rooms of their homes, occupying much of the already scarce space. Somehow creepy. In Shennong Street there were some of the biggest "home shrines" I've ever seen.
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| Shennong Street |
Koxinga Shrine
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| Koxinga Shrine |
Delay
Since it was already quite late and we were afraid of missing the last bus, I suggested to go back to Tainan Station and have dinner at a department store nearby. We went to Shin Kong Mitsukoshi (新光三越). Our dinner was nice, but we had to eat quickly, so we couldn't really enjoy it that much.
When we arrived at the station, I said good-bye to Grace and rushed to the platform where the train for Shalun was waiting. The departure of this train was scheduled for 21:45 and that of the High Speed Train to Taipei for 22:25. A little bit tight, but it would be enough. Unfortunately, after a quarter to nine for some reason the train to Shalun was still not moving, and I became increasingly nervous. I started thinking about what I could do if I missed that train, which was the last one I could take. We arrived at 22:15, I ran to the High Speed Rail Station and fortunately I made it. But I still don't see the point in having two different stations for high speed and normal trains.
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I guess the reason there are two different stations for HSR and TRA is that the budget would be much higher and the project would be more difficult to build the HSR station with TRA in downtoen Tainan. That's what I guess, but I do not know if it's the real reason.
Reply@Shan-Hua
Replythanks for your comment. Yes, I guess this might be a reason. Considering that Tainan Station is very old it would probably require a high budget to build a HSR extension. I was simply writing as a foreign tourist, and as a tourist I found it a little bit uncomfortable. But I'm not a city planner, so I don't know how they could have solved the problem.
Also may I recommend the next time you just take the free shuttle bus at the HSR station. They come every 15 minutes and take you to multiple stops in downtown Tainan.
ReplyHSR was built based on economic consideration mostly. The authority intended to set HSR stations at countryside in order to balance the development of cities. The fact is that the stations are designed to get profit, speculated in land, but providing convenient service for passengers. We, Taiwanese, still have been complaining a lot for their services, financial and environmental problems since the day which HSR ran.
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