Standing amidst the dilapidated buildings of the old Chiaotou Sugar Plant (橋頭糖廠), former employees recalled its past glory. "Sugar was the leading industry in Taiwan for decades. In the 1950s and 1960s, sugar was Taiwan's number one export, earning 74 percent of Taiwan's foreign currency revenues," said Chen Ming-fa (陳明發), once an executive at the plant. In 1998, Kaohsiung County government declared the old factory and its grounds a heritage site.
Although it was a bright and warm Saturday morning, the complex was virtually abandoned. The roughly 1,200-hectare field on Hsintang Road in Kaohsiung County's Chiaotou township (橋頭鄉) was host to a only a handful of elderly joggers, who all seemed to know each other. All were from Hsintang village (興糖村), which two years ago was incorporated into the neighboring village of Chiaonan (橋南村) because its population had declined to a mere 200 households.
Chen was one of a handful of former employees to remain in the nearby village of Hsintang (興糖村), which literally means "promoting sugar," after the sugar business fell on hard times in the 1980s and closed up shop for good in 1999.
If Kaohsiung City Government's Department of Rapid Transit (KMRT, 高雄市政府捷運工程局) has its way, this remnant of Taiwan's industrial history will soon become a station on the area's proposed rapid transit line. Two centuries-old camphor trees will be moved out of the way. And the complex's air-raid shelter, dormitory and temple, which date back to the mid-20th century, will be torn down.
In planning a station on a heritage site, the KMRT has unwittingly sparked a debate which pits it and many local residents against those interested in preserving the old sugar factory as a testimony of Taiwan's unique heritage.
The planned R22A station is to be the second-to-last stop on the northern end of the system's red line which crosses Kaohsiung, connecting Hsiaogang Airport and Kangshan Township. The KMRT claims the stop will bring jobs and revive sleepy Chiaotou township once it is completed at the end of 2006.
Not everyone is enthusiastic.
The Kio A Thau Culture Society (橋仔頭文史協會) launched a petition against the route's crossing the old sugar plant in late November, and gathered nearly 1,000 signatures in southern Taiwan. But the petition, first sent to the KMRT and then to the Executive Yuan in late January, did not achieve the desired effect. In protest, the society built tree houses in the two camphor trees to prevent them from being transplanted.
Industrail heritage
Set up by the Japanese in 1901, Chiaotou Sugar Plant was the first modern sugar mill in Taiwan. State-of-the-art sugar manufacturing technology from Japan sparked a boom for the industry.
"We admit that a KMRT stop would help develop Chiaotou village economically, but the route does not have to run directly through the plant," said Chiang Yiao-hsian (蔣耀賢), chief executive of the Kio A Thau Culture Society in a interview that took place in one of the plant's former dorms.
"Every KMRT station is to be surround by parking lots and wide roads. Setting up a station inside the complex will affect not only the location of the planned station but a much larger portion of the heritage site as well," Chiang said.
Facing the sugar factory on the other side of the proposed KMRT line is a traditional market and an old neighborhood. Construction there would have a negative affect on property values, so "pressure from the residents will force the parking lots and other facilities for the proposed station to be built on the heritage site," Chiang predicted. "The plant doesn't protest. People do."
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