Members of the Huang clan on Tuesday celebrated the completion of a decade-long project to renovate their historic estate, the Huang Clan Family Mansion (黃家古厝) in Kaohsiung’s Linyuan District (林園).
Huang Wen-nan (黃文男), president of the Association for the Maintenance of the Huang Clan’s Family Mansion, declared the historic structure open to visitors, saying that the association hopes the mansion would contribute to tourism in Kaohsiung.
About 500 people attended the ceremony as they gathered in the mansion’s rice-threshing ground, which is the second-largest such area in a traditional compound in Taiwan, and performed traditional rituals of tomb-sweeping and ancestor veneration.
Photo: Hung Chen-hung, Taipei Times
The estate, built in 1834 by a branch of the Huang clan known as “the Huangs from Jiangxia with 10,000 households,” (江夏萬戶黃) was listed as a historical site by the Ministry of Culture 10 years ago, and works to repair typhoon and termite damage began the same year.
Budget allocation for the residence’s renovation was divided among the Ministry of Culture, the Kaohsiung City Government and the clan, with the ministry shouldering 70 percent of the costs, the city government 20 percent and the Huangs 10 percent.
The clan, a large and prominent family to which many of Taiwan’s township mayors and county councilors can trace their origins, quickly raised funds by calling on its members for money the traditional method of apportioning each household in accordance to its number of adult males.
Huang Wen-ming (黃文明), eight-term village warden in Fushan (富山) in Taitung’s Beinan Township (卑南), said he brought his family to the event because he felt an urge to visit his father’s childhood home and to connect with his kin.
His recollection of the estate from his childhood is hazy, but he plans on visiting the compound regularly, he added.
Huang Chun-cheng (黃俊成), who was born in the residence, said he donated his mother’s dowry from 80 years ago — a set of antique wooden furniture — to the mansion for display.
“The building’s interior has changed, but the renovated exterior looks precisely as I remember it. It brings back memories,” Huang Chung-cheng said.
Huang Chien-chun (黃健君) said that according to his research, the clan migrated from China in 1737, the second year of Emperor Qianlong’s reign during the Qin Dynasty, and the mansion was built in the traditional layout of typical clan compounds in Zhangzhou in China’s Fujian Province.
The protrusion on the roof known as the “ridged swallowtail” indicates that at least one member of the clan had attained the prestigious rank of Jinshih (進士) in imperial examinations, Huang Chien-chun said.
The 5 hectares of the estate had remained mostly unchanged and the tomb of the fourth-generation patriarch that laid outside the estate is 300 years old, he added.
Some clan members continue to reside in Linyuan, including Huang Chao-cheng (黃兆呈) and Huang Shun-cheng (黃順成), who were respectively a former Linyuan Township mayor and a former Kaohsiung county councilor, from before Kaohsiung’s administrative upgrade.
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