A museum exhibition aiming to revive the sounds of street vendors with carts full of merchandise or snacks which used to be a common throughout Taiwan has opened in Greater Tainan.
The exhibition, titled Taiwan Memories: A Century of Street Hawking, is to run for four months at the National Museum of Taiwan History until Sept. 28.
As quintessential Taiwanese street culture, with vendors conducting business, is rapidly fading away in modern times, museums and institutions are trying to document and preserve the sounds and artifacts of these “old Memories of Taiwan,” the exhibition’s organizers said.
Photo: Tsai Wen-chu, Taipei Times
Visitors can see the various vending carts and assorted merchandise, bamboo baskets, a noodle stand on wheels, as well as a push-cart for selling grass jelly tea.
In the past, street vendors advertised their goods using their voice or amplified speakers.
At the exhibition, ringing sounds can be heard, which vendors used to sell flavored ice sherbets, before the days of Western-style ice cream in Taiwan.
Other street sounds have been provided by Radio Taiwan International, which used to be the government-controlled Central Broadcasting System Radio Station, from its database of decades past.
Museum officials said the music includes a number of classic Taiwanese songs about street vendors, such as Hot Rice Dumpling (燒肉粽) by Kuo Chin-fa (郭金發), and The Traveling Martial Arts Master (流浪拳頭師) by Ku Ta-cheng (郭大誠).
Museum director Lu Li-cheng (呂理政) said the exhibition helps to revive the common memories of the past, links up the daily living experience of the older and the younger generations and connects people through the nation’s cultural history.
“If street vendors are artists in their work, then vending stalls are also works of art. They provide services and sell goods to meet people’s everyday needs, and help people recall personal stories and nostalgic feelings,” Lu said.
“Through the exhibition about street vendors and their hawking sounds, people can take a trip back through time to relive what Taiwan was like in bygone years,” he added.
The museum said it provides direction guides as well as notes in Braille for blind and visually impaired people.
For more information, the museum has an English-content Web site at http://www.nmth.gov.tw/enmain.
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