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COMMUNITY COMPASS: PROFILE: A morning with the unofficial US envoy to Keelung

“I think it’s very important that wherever you live you understand the origins of the place; that’s [my] primary motivation.” — Jeff Miller

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Mention Keelung to many people and it immediately conjures up images of a dull, rainy and rather uninspiring place with tightly packed, crowded streets. The city often gets a bum rap.

To American Jeff Miller, however, Keelung and its environs are a veritable treasure trove of historical wonder.

Miller, a former American Institute in Taiwan employee who first arrived in Taiwan as a student, has lived here for most of the past two decades. He made the move to Keelung around 10 years ago to escape the smelly rivers, MRT construction work and pollution that typified 1990s Taipei.

Keelung offered something new, Miller said, with its “hills, valleys and the ocean.”

It also presented plenty of opportunities to explore the city’s history and what he likes to call the “clashes of culture” that played out here over the centuries.

Formerly the largest and for a long time the most important port in Taiwan, Keelung has seen its fair share of “cultural clashes” through the years as traders, invaders, settlers and colonists arrived from various locations around the world with vastly different objectives in mind.

Miller’s sense of curiosity and his thirst for history developed as a young boy, he said, while cycling back roads and exploring a derelict former railroad town near his home in Metamora, Michigan.

“I think it’s very important that wherever you live you understand the origins of the place; that’s the primary motivation,” he said.

And it is clear that he has put this philosophy into practice in the decade since he arrived in Keelung.

Just a few hours in the company of Miller is an eye-opening experience. He guides you around the city pointing out interesting sites that most people wouldn’t give a second look, all the time explaining the history and significance of each location with an enthusiasm that is infectious.

The first destination on our whistle-stop tour (I spent a half day exploring Keelung with Miller early last month) was the French Cemetery on Chungcheng Road, Erhshawan (二沙灣). This peaceful, shady spot was built just after the turn of the 20th century to rehouse the remains of the approximately 600 French soldiers who died, many from disease, during the Sino-French War (1884-1885).

Here Miller explained how the French tried to take Taiwan to use as a bargaining chip against the Qing emperor for control of Vietnam. Particularly well-versed about this conflict, he then told how the Chinese troops defending nearby hills would take note of French burials because their generals provided a cash reward for each head of a French soldier.

So after a burial the soldiers would come down at night, dig up the body, take the head and collect the reward.

Next stop was Peace Island (和平島), where a sudden right turn took us away from the crowds hankering for seafood into what looked like a long-forgotten park. A short climb up a steep path revealed a small, well-hidden Aboriginal community and Sheliao East Fort (社寮東砲台), a Japanese-era gun battery placement overlooking the entrance to the harbor that Miller explained was built to defend Taiwan at the height of Japan’s anti-Russian paranoia in the early 20th century.

Veer down another trail and the island is home to some amazing rock formations to rival the best that Yeliou (野柳) has to offer.

After a few more hours touring other sites along the northeast coast road, it was clear that Miller knew practically every nook and cranny of this region like the back of his hand.

Not just a fount of knowledge, Miller is also fiercely passionate about his adopted home, as several staffers from the Keelung City Cultural Affairs Bureau we encountered at one of our stops found out.

They had no choice but to listen as Miller spent five minutes telling them in fluent Chinese his views on how they should develop the city’s historic spots to preserve their significance while making them more attractive to tourists.

Miller is not only passionate about Keelung. He is familiar with many other regions of Taiwan and as part of his work compiles travel guides for companies — his handiwork can be seen in Chunghwa Telecom’s English telephone directory, for example.

Not surprisingly, his depth of knowledge often puts locals to shame. When taking Taiwanese friends around Keelung and the east coast, he said: “People are always surprised, they say hao diulian (好丟臉, “how embarrassing”), this waiguoren (外國人) knows more about Keelung than me and I’ve lived here my whole life.’”

“That just reflects the Taiwanese focus on the here and now,” he laughed. “History is less important than what’s in front of me.”

Spending a morning with Miller is an education and makes one realize there is a lot more to Keelung than meets the eye.

If just a few more visitors were to run into the city’s unofficial US ambassador, maybe the encounter could dispel its damp and dreary image and help them appreciate Keelung’s historical value as well as the many other things it has to offer.

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