Sun, Dec 23, 2001 page17

• Envy of the neighborhood

  Although Huko Old Street has been renovated by its residents for its residents in the hope of making the street look as it did 100 years ago, the 21st century has found its way into the area to some residents' dismay

  • By Gavin Phipps / STAFF REPORTER
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  The bottom might have fallen out of the property market, but this doesn't appear to have halted construction of plush modern apartment complexes. It's now almost impossible to avoid any of the large number of television commercials that make newly completed apartment buildings seem almost Utopian.

  While faux-European catch phrases, ubiquitous pictures of happy functional families, string ensembles and semi-nude models lounging poolside may leave certain segments of society pining for the latest in 21st Century abodes, they certainly don't have the residents of Huko Old Street (湖口老街) in Laohuko Township (老湖口村), Hsinchu County, itching to move into modern apartments.

  

  A column of uniform archways is one of the unique architectural features that makes Huko Old Street such a draw for tourists.

  PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

  Instead the folks of Huko Old Street are happy to live in renovated buildings that have stood on the same spot for over a hundred years. Even before renovation began in 1993, residents of the then rundown buildings had no desire to relocate.

  

  Aware of the street's historical noteworthiness, local residents asked the local town council and the Hsinchu County Government to petition the Council for Cultural Affairs for funds to help restore the street to its former self.

  The government agency was forthcoming and footed the bill for a large percentage of the NT$72-million that has been spent on the street since renovation began eight years ago.

  

  Residents of the street, middle, occupy themselves with renovating their homes and business, stopping the for the occasional requisite smoke break.

  The colorful and ornate carvings that once adorned the exteriors of the traditional buildings in days of yore have been painstakingly reproduced down to the smallest detail. The surnames of some the street's historical residents adorn the facades of several of the buildings. Broken columns have been replaced in all of the street's countless archways. And new red brick facades have left the century-old buildings glowing.

  

  While renovators added steel beams for strength, they did ensure that much of the building material used in the restoration was traditional. Measuring roughly 4m in width by 30m in length and with a floor-space of 50 ping, the terraced structures' dividing walls are still made of mud-bricks.

  Take away the modern motorcars parked on the archaic sidewalk and the street's handful of neon signs and the thoroughfare would look much the same as it did when the ancestors of many of the street's present residents lived there.

  

  "Sure it's got a lot better, but even before the renovations we were happy to live here," explains local butcher Chan Yi-yuan (詹益源). "After all, my family has lived here for nearly 100 years. This is my family home. We certainly never had any intention of moving away."

  

  Colorful signs adorning some businesses are a necessity to some and an eyesore to others.

  Photos: George Tsorng, Taipei Times

  Located 7km northeast of Hsinchu City, Huku Old Street is the main thoroughfare of a settlement that has been home to Hakka, Taiwanese and mainlander families for more than 200 years.

  And while residents will readily admit that Huko Old Street's immediate surroundings are nowadays far from picturesque -- the Sun Yat-sen Freeway streaks past less than a stone's throw from their backyards -- it's impossible to find anyone who wants to live somewhere else.

  

  Life is slow-paced on Huko Old Street, whose predominantly elderly residents spend their days chatting with neighbors.

  PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES

  "My brother brought an apartment in Yangmei some years ago and found he couldn't live there," continues the local butcher. "He found it so impersonal that he kept coming back here every weekend just to relax."

  Originally known as Tawoko (大窩口), or Big Cave Mouth due to numerous caves to be found in the surrounding hillsides, the township hasn't always been such a popular place to live. In 1788 the area was used as a burial ground for soldiers who died fighting in the numerous uprisings that took place during the early part of the Qianlong (乾隆) period.

  In 1835 the town was renamed Tahuko (大湖口) for no apparent reason other than a clerical error. Maps and documents concerning the area began turning up with the three characters for Tahuko written on them rather than those for Tawoko.

  "There are several ideas about why the town changed its name. The most probable is that a Chinese official was here making notes and when he asked about the place he simply misunderstood the answer because it was spoken in the local dialect," explains Chen Kun-chian (陳焜全), recently retired schoolteacher and lifelong resident of Laohuko.

  According to Chen, records apropos to the town's size and population during this period of time have been lost, but it remained a small farming town until completion of the railway line connecting Keelung with Hsinchu in 1893.

  Even today, many locals consider this episode the greatest moment in the town's long history. Ironically, it would be the construction of another railway line that would have a reverse effect on the town almost a quarter of a century later.

  Once completed, the railway line and town station that came with it played an important role in the development of Huko Old Street. Running directly in front of the new railway station, the street became the town's fashionable main drag and took the name Hsinjie (新街), or New Street.

  Although the town prospered with its new station and easy access to several of the nation's larger cities, the residents of the town were forced to endure another name change in the late 1800s.

  The town was renamed simply Huko (湖口) in accordance with the laws laid down by the Imperial Japanese army that forbade the use of three-character place names.

  Nearly 26 years after the railway had come to town and Huko had prospered in the Keelung to Hsinchu trade link, the station was closed down.

  The mountains that lay to the south of the town made expansion of the railway network to Taichung using the same stretch of track impossible. In 1929, engineers connected Keelung with Hsinchu at a place called, ironically enough, Hsinhuko (新湖口), or New Huko, 3km north of Huko.

  While far from the oldest and certainly not the first street in Taiwan to be renovated and restored to its former self, the situation Huko Old Street has found itself in is very different from other historical sites.

  "The town is not as old or as picturesque and the houses are not as grand as some others, but there are more traditional buildings all together in Huko Old Street than anywhere else in Taiwan," said Chen.

  Unlike Yinge's Old Pottery Street (鶯歌陶瓷老街) and Sanyi's Woodcarving Street (三義木雕街) Huko Old Street hasn't been renovated with tourism in mind. Instead, the houses that sit in Huko Old Street have been restored by the residents for the residents, and not for the lenses of tourists' cameras.

  Locals are more than happy to chat with tourists, but a vast majority of the residents of the streets 82 residences are not reliant on daytrippers for their livelihoods.

  "We get an awful lot of tourists on the weekends coming to look at our houses. I think it's quite funny when you think about it," laughs the jovial butcher. "I mean it's my home and has been my family's home for generations and people want to come to look at it. There's no souvenirs here, all I've got is pork and rice."

  Tourism is not new to the town, but it has recently become a hotly debated issue among residents of Huko Old Street.

  Located on the side the plush Huko mountain range and with tea fields running along its southern borders, the picturesque town was, from the later part of the 19th century until 1945, a popular spot for Japanese officers.

  Although the street's adult residents didn't mind their Japanese colonial rulers coming to town, the local kids were of a different opinion.

  According to Chen, they didn't particularly enjoy seeing their stomping ground overrun by their pre-teen Japanese peers.

  "The Japanese kids would hang around in the center of the street and when the local kids saw them they'd shout insults and either run after them and fight or have the Japanese kids chase them and fight," recalls the retired schoolteacher with a grin.

  The contention surrounding tourism in the recently restored Huko Old Street is no longer child's play, however. Instead, it is an issue that has left the residents of the street firmly divided.

  On one side sit the street's predominantly elderly long-term residents like Chen. Who, although not averse to exchanging pleasantries with the occasional tourist, have no wish to see their neighborhood transformed into a living museum.

  "Tourism has its place and I can't deny that it makes us very proud that people want to see our homes," states Chen eyeing the streets' handful of gaudy neon signs and shaking his head in silent disdain. "But we live here and have no wish to see our part of town become a tourist center or some glitzy theme park."

  While opposed to turning the street into a tourist-orientated venture, local store owners such as Lin Fang-hsue (林芳雪), proprietor of the street's sole gift store and dofu manufacture, Huang Hsue-wei (黃學緯) are finding it hard to survive without tourism.

  With very few young people now living in the street, the predominately elderly population isn't large enough and doesn't purchase enough goods from the local stores to ensure their survival.

  "I'd like to see more events take place and special places for the children of tourists to enjoy," argues Lin. "Instead [tourists] come here to look at the buildings and then leave as there's nothing else to do. After all the money that's been spent on renovating the street, you'd think that someone would realize that in order to maintain it we need tourists and the money they would send."

  Although Huang is not quite sure how he stands on special events, he is of the opinion that the local council needs to do more to promote the town.

  "I've only been making and selling dofu here for a year, but already I can see that the street needs to promote itself more," explains the 20-something dofu seller. "We live in an area that is special, so why not tell people about it?"

  Whether he likes it or not, town councilor, Luo Mei-yao (羅美瑤) has found himself caught in the middle of the tourism debate. While understanding both sides, the councilor is in unenviable position of trying to run a town that has exhausted its finances and is looking for other ways in which to maintain the town but at the same time maintain its residential nature.

  "We were lucky to receive government subsidies to help us renovate the buildings, and of course I'd like to continue to develop the entire town, but it's impossible," said Luo. "It's a question of cash flow. And ours has run dry."

  With the recent economic downturn making additional government funding impossible, the town's cash-flow problem has become so bad that there isn't enough cash to expand the town's car park to cope with the extra tourist traffic.

  According to Chen, the town's sole parking lot gets so full on any given weekend that tourists park their cars in some pretty daft places.

  "The problem is the parking. As there isn't enough room in the temple parking lot, people have taken to parking in awkward places, causing problems for the people who live here," continues the retired schoolteacher. "And as you can imagine, it can be really annoying, especially when the street is only a few meters wide."

  At present the only place in town geared towards tourism is the museum. With it's exhibition of old farming equipment and an assortment of black and white photos of the street, the museum is located next to the town's church and is far from appealing.

  The peeling paint and the seemingly random manner in which it has been organized, means the Huko Old Street museum is a far cry from the sleek galleries found in other renovated areas of Taiwan such as Yinge and Sanyi. But once again it's a question of cash.

  "Sure we could renovate the museum, but that would mean diverting what little cash we have available from the renovation of the buildings," continues Luo. "We don't want to do this and we are trying to put the local residents first. Sadly, it is going to become more and more difficult to put local sentiment above the capital tourism can generate if the town, and especially the street, are to survive for another century."
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