When I returned from my trip to Peru, I enthusiastically showed a picture of Agua Calientes, a serene, little town nestled at the foot of Machu Picchu to my boss. He left me perplexed when he exclaimed, “Oh my God, what a dump!” Then I realized that he was utterly appalled by the cheap steel structures which the Taiwanese eyes have been trained to automatically crop out of sight. I wonder what he would say about the streets of Taiwan, a supposedly developed country.
IMF ranks Taiwan as one of the most advanced economies in Asia, with high purchasing power parity and a poverty rate impressively low at 1.5% as of 2012. Yet, for a pretty rich girl, Taiwan sure doesn’t dress like it.
Exposed electrical chords, and streaky concrete or tiled façades decorated with blindingly colorful neon signs on the corner of every visual frame, adorn Taiwan’s poorly planned cities. If you manage to escape the chaos of the cities into the mountains, you are likely to be immediately confronted by makeshift structures of metal sheets and plastic, or Chinese-opera style gazebos painted in a red I cannot describe except with the word menstrual. My personal all time favorite man-made atrocity is the bamboo railings commonly spotted on hikes or country roads. They are thick, they’re concrete, and they’re painted as bamboos. Considering the light and shadow depicted by a combination of spring green and forest green, one simply cannot say that an effort has not been made to convince people that they were real bamboos, oddly attached to wood (also concrete).
Taiwan’s Architectural History
The most self-evident truth about Taiwan’s architecture is that its cultural heritage is confused. When the Japanese arrived in Taiwan in the late 1800s, they proceeded to rid Taiwan of its Han heritage by dismantling Qing era structures such as the Taipei city west gate, and only abolished the plan to tear down the other four gates due to strong protests. The Japanese began their plan of modernizing Taiwan, which included building railways, public clinics, and schools. The colonial government intended to model Taichung after Kyoto due to the similarity of their river embankments. Now, those who have been to both Kyoto and Taichung would struggle to spot their resemblance though, and that’s because before Kyoto could happen, the KMT arrival happened.
The Chinese Nationalists (KMT) originally intended only to make a quick pit stop in Taiwan before marching on to recapture the Chinese mainland. Thus,extensive development of the island was not penciled in on their agenda. As the pit stop turned into a permanent stay, the new rulers of Taiwan were forced to reevaluate how they should redecorate their new home, which in the KMT’s eyes, reeked of Japanese imperialism.
Anti-Japanese sentiments of the Chinese Nationalist army led to mass destruction of Shinto temples, and later on, replacement of train stations and iconic buildings. Moreover, along with guns, troops and corruption, the Chinese officials brought nostalgia for China with them. It was decided that buildings in Taiwan should embody classical, proper, Chinese elements. Yenping Shrine in Tainan (延平郡王祠), for example, was altered from its original Minnan style to resemble northern Chinese structures. From the 1970s onward, mass reproduction of buildings with minimal planning or regulation, along with the liberal usage of cheap building materials, planted the seed of the rusty cityscape we see today. Iconic baroque architecture that the Japanese had favored had been replaced with the cost-efficient industrial look the Chinese preferred.
From Chiayi..
To Keelung…
No Material Excuse
Concrete, steel, and plastic have been the favorite building materials during Taiwan’s economic and construction boom, for their durability and low costs. Due to Taiwan’s geographic location in the sub-tropical climate zone, typhoons, earthquakes, humidity, and frequent rain need to be taken into consideration in construction. This common defense of shoddy buildings, however, unfortunately does not quite hold water. Are prices and durability alone sufficient in explaining the wall-to-wall bathroom tiles that grace the façades of Taiwan’s buildings? The omnipresent metal sheds that can be spotted from the middle of a rice field, to the almost unaffordably expensive residential areas in the capital? Not quite.
What country, other than Taiwan, just can’t get enough of industrial building materials? The answer might surprise you.
Iceland.
Corrugated steel and iron have been used for building construction in Iceland since the 1800s because they are known to endure the harsh climate while requiring low maintainence. No one goes to Iceland just to admire their industrial architecture, but their houses are certainly easier on the eyes than some of the metal shacks found in Taiwan.
Taiwan is also not the only country that uses tiles on the outside of buildings. Portugal is famous for using patterned azulejos outside of churches, ordinary houses, schools, and bars. The technique of using tiles on walls in the region started in Seville, Spain in the 13th century, but the original usage dates back to 4000 BC in Egypt. These tiles are not only durable but also uniquely beautiful. They were often glazed in a single color then cut into geometric shapes to form decorative patterns on buildings. The Romans, the Greeks, Persia, China, India, Syria, Turkey, Tunisia, to name a few, embraced this enduring material and further built on the art of tiles. It is important to clear their name. By “their” I meant the tiles. Tiles are wonderful. Tiles are blameless.
Redemption and Takeaway
The issue at hand, in 2016, is not the lack of resources nor material practicality. The issue is, inherently, an underdeveloped sense of style and taste. Taiwan need not be like Portugal, Iceland, or Japan. In fact, the word taste has little to do with imitation. It does, however, imply sewing high standards of beauty and creativity together with rigorous discipline.
There is still a glimmer of hope for Taiwan. Take a 7-11 in Tainan, for example. The appearance of this unassuming storefront is designed rather tastefully (I would do away with the giant protruding 7-11 sign, but that’s perhaps asking too much too fast). The fact that the materials and height of the building are chosen with the surrounding in consideration is a huge step toward a clean, harmonious streetscape.
Many decrepit, long forgotten Japanese and traditional houses and temples have also been restored all across Taiwan. Other than the Chiayi Shinto Shrine which now houses Chiayi City’s archives, and Huwei’s former Japanese official dormitories now converted into the Yunlin Story House, new life has been breathed into Liang House in Taipei which now serves as a civic center. Dihua Street in Dadaocheng, Taipei, has also recently experienced an exuberant revitalization effort led by cultural activists such as Jou Yi-cheng along with local artists and small businesses.
The movement had already begun, but the struggle is still very real every day. Beyond the persistent crime of callous negligence disguised as cost-effiency or practicality-on a-large-scale, people also encourage poor taste by ignoring the pervasive unsightliness. At the end of the day, the issue of urban planning and nation building extends beyond heritage preservation. It’s about cultural legacy, or what the people in their 20s, 30s, or 40s today will leave behind for generations to come. As a relatively recently developed economy, a period of poor taste and corner cutting is excusable, but at some point, excuses will run dryer than the cement of the botched patching job around this sewage cap.
(Feature photo of Chiayi in the Japanese era)
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Well-written and informative! I’m an aspiring Urban Planner myself, and have often been a bit bewildered by Taipei’s 雙臉 nature of beauty and tacky ugliness. I’d love to contribute towards the de-uglisization one day!
This is absolutely fantastic! I will be sharing and discussing it widely for a long time. Love the perspective. Love the final sentence. Love Taiwan!
This was a wonderful read. I hope this could be translated into Chinese and the locals would catch on to this.
Yes, me too!
Here is the Chinese version> http://www.ketagalanmedia.com/2016/02/15/formosa-the-ugly-cn/
非常感謝!! I hope it contains some of the same beautifully vivid imagery and readable tone as the English version! With any luck, it will become a popular topic of discussion in Taiwan. I’ll do my part.
Great article. My sentiments exactly after 13 years here in TW observing the ugliness and disregard for the appearance of most of its buildings, its sight pollution.
I think people are aware of this, but I heard a lot of the excuses mentioned here: cost, weather, etc. I noticed that many places being built in the past ten years, or so, have been getting better.
This is a terrific article. Great job, I agree at the heart it’s a lack of care for the “essense” of most things, a superficial exploration of a topic without understanding the underlying principles. You can see it from everything from education, architecture and pop culture in general.
Decent piece, though Aguas Calientes is a bizarre example. A serene little town? Maybe it’s changed since I was there, but the Taiwanese 老闆’s assessment seems to concur with the general view of the place. Great location but the bulk of it is pretty much an artificial settlement that has sprung up for the sole purpose of fleecing tourists! In a strange way, I think it’s actually more comparable to small-town/village Taiwanese tourist destinations such as 內彎 and 南莊 that have been overdeveloped and lost their character.
It’s all about perception and I think that may be the point of using Aguas Calientes. It seems a perfect example. Visitors may flock to Neiwan, Wulai, Pingxi/Shifen, and a multitude of comparable locations in Taiwan that appear virtually identical to Aguas Calientes and some see the natural beauty of the surroundings and the quaint traditional atmosphere, while others see only haphazard capital development. The same is true for the country at large. Some come to Taiwan and fall in love with safe, active lifestyles and friendly, generous locals and others run away quickly, complaining about industrial pollution, corruption, and frustrating, awkward experiences. I’ve had my own, clever high school students wonder why Taiwan is still considered a “developing” country when we have low crime, high life expectancy, access to education, democracy, etc. Indeed, Taiwan is a spectacular place to live for most, including myself. And yet I still can not accept what I perceive to be dangerous and impolite driving habits, a relentless cacophony of rpm, fireworks, and celebration/mourning, and drafty, uncomfortable living spaces.
From the outside looking in, the uncropped image of Taiwan may appear no different from the “dump” that Aguas Calientes was to the laoban’s eyes and to yours. But, given a look at the mixed history of Taiwan, it’s easier to forgive the “lack of style.” Nonetheless, as Taiwan moves forward as an independent nation, we hope that it will no longer have an excuse for so many pervasive eyesores . I hope this article will be an important catalyst in that change.
All valid points, well-made but I’m not really sure how they relate to what I wrote. I don’t consider those photos in the least similar, nor do I consider the ramshackle constructions in AC akin to what one would find in the touristy destinations we’ve mentioned (they’re much closer to the hovels one finds in cities in taiwan). I was comparing the overtouristed nature of the places (still, admittedly, worlds apart as one is never subjected to the hard-sell harassment in Taiwan).
I think I can safely say that my reasons for saying Aguas Calientes (the generic name says it all – they have em all over Latin America) is not an attractive spot, disregarding it’s setting, are not the same as Laoban’s.
As (almost) anyone who has been there would attest, “serene liitle town” is about as inappropriate a description as imaginable! A comparison with, say, some of the more dilapidated dry pack stone constructions in and around Cusco would have been far more apposite. Many Taiwanese would call these lovely old buildings dumps in the same way they can’t see the charm of rustic sanheyuan.
Hi James, Thanks for the input! I went to Agua Calientes in 2008. It was definitely overrun by tourists going to Machu Picchu. I did, however, find it serene and beautiful in its own way. If you venture outside of the main commercial area, you see people leaving their doors open, kids playing in the soccer field, dogs napping, whatnot. It was my impression and I cannot speak for all. However, the mention of AC is not to draw comparison between Taipei and AC as cities. It is to pinpoint the reaction of my boss (who was American) to steel structures in that specific picture that I showed him (included in the article), which I did not find particularly unusual. Hopefully that clears things up.
Ah, the penny’s finally dropped! Gotcha.
The clauses “he was utterly appalled by the cheap steel structures which the Taiwanese eyes …” bamboozled me. That really made it sound like it was a Taiwanese boss (at least to me!)
Anyway, nice work. Expressed succintly what not a few people feel about this issue.
A great article and very well written. I hope it has some influence.
Very nice piece, great work. One thing that continues to bother me is that the new developments, while addressing the main issues you discuss, do so in an unimaginative way. All the new developments, particularly housing, look all the same. There’s probably a lot behind the scenes that’s driving this (huge developers), but this is a critical juncture in how Taiwan will shape it’s look of the future. At this point I fear only the details will change, and we’ll still be complaining in 30 years.
It’s the inside that counts: substance over style. Underneath that sheet-metal roof is an A-Ma who would welcome you to a friendly chat over oolong and binlang.
Maybe it’s because I’m a dude, but the rustic nature of some parts of Taipei (Tienmu and Peitou, mostly) doesn’t bother me at all. It gives character, especially in contrast with the pristine natural scenery. Kind of hearkens back to simpler times.
You can’t expect all of Taipei to look like Neo-Tokyo, nor can you force any countryside to become Spirited Away. It’s in line with my impression of Taiwanese society’s attitudes: Take it for what it is, nothing more and nothing less. It’s very secure with itself and doesn’t need to be shamed into looking pretty.
A favorite tactic of Qiangguoren is to put down Taiwan by saying how undeveloped it is, and they would point to exactly what was written in the article, comparing Taipei to a po-dunk inland village. Well guess what? I’ve been to the mega-metropolises of Shanghai and Chengdu, as well as Chinese Redneckistan, i.e. the parts that civilization either forgot or abandoned. They simply don’t compare to the soul of any given part of Taiwan.
A young child version of me visiting Taiwan gagged at many of these problems, but the current me pushing 30 has come to appreciate these flaws.
Or to put it in tl;dr: Not the prettiest face, but the nicest personality (as well as, more crassly, a much better lay).
Fascinating. I always joked Taipei looks exactly like what it is, a gigantic refugee camp made permanent. So much of Taiwan is crappy International Style architecture. Not sure if you’re familiar with Mohammad Atta, one of the masterminds of the 9/11 attacks. He was an architecture student before he was radicalized. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/dispatches/features/2009/the_architect_of_911/what_can_we_learn_about_mohamed_atta_from_his_work_as_a_student_of_urban_planning.html
Thx for your article. I linked it in my Facebook page which i started to try to see if I can do something to make a change-
https://www.facebook.com/pg/Free-Taipei-2018-1891785784463724/posts/?ref=page_internal