Changhua County’s Pusin Township (埔心) ancestral homeowners have applied to the Council of Hakka Affairs for the area to be considered a “Hakka Cultural Village” in hopes of preserving the cultural and historical relevance of the village.
Project manager Wu Meng-chuan (吳夢娟) said the township is the largest settlement of Fulao people and has many buildings that were the ancestral residences of prominent families in the area, such as the Huang (黃), Chang (張) and Tu (涂) families.
Fulao people is a term used describing people of Hakka origin who have through local influence or intermarriage come to adopt the Hoklo language and culture.
Photo: Chen Kuan-pei, Taipei Times
They are considered Hakka by the council.
The project has been allocated NT$5 million (US$154,364) to repurpose or breathe new life into the old buildings, Wu said.
The project was reportedly submitted by the Huang family, descendants of Huang Yao-nan (黃耀南) who in 1894 passed the penultimate level of the Qing Empire’s imperial examinations, Wu said.
Huang was reportedly the last “official” martial juren (舉人) prior to the ceding to Japan by the Qing Empire due to the Shimonoseki Treaty (馬關條約), which was the result of the First Sino-Japanese War in 1895.
The juren, like their peers selected from the central examinations that were absorbed into the imperial court, were also appointed to governmental posts throughout the Qing Empire, though their posts were military in nature.
The Huang residence is a Sanheyuan complex in a classic Minnan architectural style and carries the original plaque gifted to Huang bearing the words, wu kuei (武魁) written by Emperor Guangxu (光緒), Wu said.
Huang’s descendant Huang Ta-hsiung (黃達雄) said that while the family gathers at the ancestral residence on Tomb Sweeping Day every year and are proud of their heritage, the family was also at a loss over how to maintain the building, as no one lives there.
The family already lost Huang Yao-nan’s burial site to construction projects, due to a lack of knowledge about heritage conservation, but were able to find many of the relics at the burial site, the family said.
To avoid the same mistake, the family have decided to establish a “Hakka Cultural Village” to revitalize the ancestral residence, Huang Ta-hsiung said, adding that the biggest problem is that different branches of the family own different parts of the 6,789m2 plot of land.
The family’s worship and administration committee is to hold a meeting soon to address the matter, Huang Ta-hsiung said.
Pusin Township Mayor Chang Cheng-yu (張乘瑜) said that with professional maintenance, the residential complex would be better preserved, adding that as the Huang residence often hosted Hakka ceremonies, its designation as a cultural village would not affect the daily lives of township residents.
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