The opening of a general store may not ordinarily warrant a mention in the newspaper, but the Treasure Hive, which opened its doors to the public at Treasure Hill last Sunday is part juice bar, part performance space, part soup kitchen, part grocery store, part local pub.
But it's mostly the latest chapter in the half-century saga that has seen Treasure Hill go from an anti-aircraft installation to an art installation.
"It's great to see somebody doing something here that is going to stay and to see this area revitalizing," said Yeh Wei-li (
PHOTO: DAVID MOMPHARD, TAIPEI TIMES
Treasure Hill got its start when the soldiers of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) came to Taiwan.
The area was fortified and designed to protect the city's southwestern side from a Communist air attack. The soldiers stationed there built homes next to the guns they manned and married local girls.
By the time the guns were eventually removed, the area had become home and the soldiers stayed. Now there are ongoing plans to turn several of Treasure Hill's dilapidated structures into facilities that will host an artist-in-residence program.
Treasure Hive, located at the front of the community by a bicycle path that runs along much of the Danshui River, could be considered the first of the structures in the new artist community. Its proprietor, Mina Chin (覃敏怡), says she'll host weekly music performances on the lawn adjacent the store, will serve up a soup of the day, and plans to offer a variety of staple goods which she'll deliver to elderly locals.
The Treasure Hive is at 3, Alley 16, Ln 230, Dingzhou Rd, Sec. 3, Taipei (
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated