A Taiwanese vintage artifact museum has been established in Tainan by the owner of Chu Hsin Chu (筑馨居), a restaurant recognized in the Michelin Guide’s Bib Gourmand selection.
Chou Jung-tang (周榮棠), who is also president of the Tainan B&B Cultural Development Association and known to locals as “Uncle Brave” (勇伯), is a chef known for his expertise in traditional Taiwanese cuisine.
A passionate collector of antiques, Chou founded the Chu Hsin Chu Taiwanese Vintage Artifact Museum to showcase his personal collection, with each item telling a story of everyday Taiwanese life.
Photo: Wang Mei-hsiu, Taipei Times
Chou said he began to replace modern furniture with traditional Taiwanese furniture and decorations when the trend of revamping old buildings into bed-and-breakfast places emerged 15 years ago, adding that he bought whatever he could obtain and filled his house with it.
The museum was set up to showcase the lives of ordinary people in Taiwan, he said.
An array of artifacts that had been stored in a warehouse were arranged into displays, allowing visitors to feel as though they have stepped into a time capsule, Chou said.
Sugar jars, old-style shop signs, traditional Chinese medicine cabinets, the “ding-a-ling” sound of tofu pudding pushcarts and children’s folk percussion instruments all evoke the sounds and sights of Taiwan’s old days, he said.
Chou commissioned wood artist Liu Chin-wen (劉進文), who won First Prize in the traditional craftsmanship category of the Tainan Fine Arts Exhibition last year, to carve the museum’s signboard using bishop wood and boxwood, a traditional carpentry technique distinctive to the city.
At the museum entrance, beside the hand-carved signboard, stands a traditional “ba-pu” ice cream pushcart that still jingles when a NT$10 coin is inserted.
Inside the museum, visitors are greeted by tens of thousands of Taiwanese vintage items displayed throughout the space, including an array of traditional pushcarts once used by tofu pudding vendors, grocers, soy sauce makers and maltose sellers from all walks of life.
Chou said he often gave such pushcarts to local communities for use at markets and cultural events.
Other exhibits include an old-style double-door television set, as well as a television that is a “first-generation” television in Taiwan and can only be tuned to TTV Main Channel, the first television channel operating in Taiwan.
Hanging on one wall is a collection of bronze ice cream scoops, numbered from 7 to 40 by size. The No. 40 scoop, larger than an adult’s fist, is extremely rare, Chou said.
Another exhibit is a “singing” drawer that produces musical tones when opened. The mechanism once served as an early form of burglar alarm, a common household safeguard among older generations, he said.
Other highlights include kiln-fired ceramics produced at the historic Thirteen Kilns site in Tainan’s Gueiren District (歸仁), and a mural signed by artist Chen Tsang (陳滄) in 1930, salvaged shortly before the demolition of an old building, he said.
The museum is open for reservation, Chou said, adding that he hopes visitors would experience the everyday life of old Taiwan and connect with the stories of earlier generations.
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