Maroc - TAIWANTODAY.TW - Taiwan Review - 01/Jul 00:00

Old and New

Taiwan’s oldest city celebrates its 400th anniversary. On a Saturday night in February in front of the International Conference Center Tainan, President Lai Ching-te (賴清德), the southern Taiwan city’s former mayor, and incumbent Huang Wei-che (黃偉哲) attended the premiere of “1624.” The Ministry of Culture-sponsored Taiwanese opera was named for the year that the Dutch East India Company claimed land in Tainan’s coastal Anping District and started construction of Fort Zeelandia. Actors portrayed Dutch, Indigenous Siraya, Han Chinese and Japanese characters to an audience of 30,000. The 150-minute show ended with all the performers chorusing: “The new ‘we’ has been formed, full of living energy and eternal vibration. We are Taiwan!”   Visitors to Tainan’s Taijiang National Park take a boat trip through Sicao Wetlands’ red mangrove trees. (Photo by Jimmy Lin) Taiwanese opera was a fitting medium for this celebration of the 400th anniversary of Taiwan’s oldest city. “It’s a great honor to have this historic milestone during my mayoral term,” said Huang. “I appreciate the opportunity to work with my team and citizens to look at our legacy and lead the city to an even brighter future.” In 2010 Tainan City and County merged and joined the ranks of special municipalities like Taipei and Kaohsiung Cities in the north and south, respectively. The mayor said that the upgrade was due not only to increased population and effective infrastructure, but also to recognition of the area’s history and culture.   The elaborately decorated Puji Temple is one of many shrines in Tainan. (Photo by Pang Chia-shan) Looking to both history and the future, Huang highlighted the importance of cherishing local traditions and memories, accelerating innovation and envisioning a smart future. “We’re a city both old and new, cultural and technological, and these diverse qualities coexist harmoniously,” he said. As an example he cited the over 1,600 government-registered local temples—the largest number of folk religion facilities in the country—and the production of the world’s most advanced semiconductor chips at Tainan’s Southern Taiwan Science Park. Entertaining Capital   Tainan’s National Museum of Taiwan Literature is housed in the city’s renovated Japanese colonial administration office. (Photo by Pang Chia-shan) “The year 1624 marked a starting point for Tainan, one that connected it to an international trade network and gave it a role in the Age of Exploration,” Huang said. During the yearlong celebrations of its 400th anniversary, the city is hosting multiple large-scale national events. The first was the Taiwan Lantern Festival in February and March, which took place in Anping and near Taiwan High Speed Rail’s (THSR) Tainan Station. It will be followed by Creative Expo Taiwan and Taiwan Design Expo in August and October, respectively.   Running concurrently at Lunar New Year, Taiwan International Orchid Show and the Taiwan Lantern Festival herald the start of a busy year for the city. (Courtesy of Taiwan Orchid Growers Association) The lantern festival, first staged in 1990, is organized annually by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications’ Tourism Administration in collaboration with a host city or county government as part of Lunar New Year festivities. Lantern installations near THSR’s Tainan Station won gold and platinum prizes in the conceptual design category from International Awards Associate Inc. for combining traditional and modern lighting technology. The nightly spectacle, held concurrently with the annual Taiwan International Orchid Show and World Orchid Conference, attracted an estimated 15.2 million visits and generated more than NT$24.7 billion (US$762.3 million) in tourism revenue, according to the city government’s Tourism and Travel Bureau.   Tainan is widely recognized for its food, including beef soup (above) and brown sugar pastries, stamped with designs in red. (Photos by Pang Chia-shan) Launching a city-produced guidebook on eateries in Tainan’s 37 districts this January, Mayor Huang described Tainan’s food culture as reflecting the varied topography of the mountains, plains and seas it was produced in, with each mouthful redolent of the land’s richness. Further attesting to the high quality of local ingredients and the skill of cooks and chefs, there were 61 Michelin-listed restaurants and cafes in the city as of May this year. Tainan’s multifaceted appeal and landmarks have attracted attention from international media. U.K. magazine National Geographic Traveller noted the quadricentennial as a reason to visit the city and placed it on “The Cool List 2024” for its wealth of architectural influences, from Dutch to Chinese and Japanese. CNN Travel also picked Tainan as one of the 24 best places for travelers in 2024, observing that the city has surpassed Taipei in the past two years to reach the highest hotel occupancy rate in the country. The travel website recognized Tainan’s culinary prowess and named it the street food capital of Taiwan for dishes like beef soup and oyster omelets. Other attractions cited included the natural landscape, salt farms, temples and museums. Sustainable Solutions Tainan gained notice ahead of the momentous anniversary as well, entering Booking.com’s list of the top 10 sustainable tourism destinations in 2023. Praised for thriving traditional culture and natural beauty in scenic spots like Taijiang National Park, the former capital was also recognized for commitment to implementing green energy solutions. It has installed solar arrays that create enough energy for more than one million homes a year, and 93 percent of municipal schools’ roofs have solar panels to help meet campus electricity needs including air conditioning.   A solar array mounted over commercial fishing ponds in Tainan’s coastal Beimen District supplies electricity to a Google data center. (Courtesy of TCG) Solar power currently generates 3.1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year in Tainan, outperforming all other municipalities and counties in the country. In 2019, Google announced its first renewable energy project in Asia: a data center in the central county of Changhua powered by a solar farm in Tainan. The 128-megawatt capacity facility is mounted over commercial fishing ponds in the coastal Beimen District and also supplies electricity to companies like computer memory producer Micron Technology, Inc. In the hot southern climate, water is in high demand, and Tainan has increased the supply of reclaimed water to its science park by a volume of over 10 million tons a year. According to Huang, these utility initiatives are a major factor in high-tech companies’ choice of the park for a production base, as the world’s largest contract chip manufacturer, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., and many other influential enterprises have joined the RE100 global corporate energy initiative, under which member businesses promise full reliance on green energy sources by 2050.   Founded by philanthropist Shi Wen-long, the purpose-built Chimei Museum boasts a world-class collection of Western art and musical instruments. (Photo by Kent Chuang) Alongside celebrated relics of Tainan’s rich past, modern infrastructure is gaining ground. To balance public transport and urban development, a metro system is in the planning phase, and an underground rail project to replace the current route around Tainan’s main train station is scheduled for completion in 2026. Upgrades in the household sewage system are also underway, with coverage across the city rising around 10 percent over the past six years and the most populous Yongkang District scheduled to reach 80 percent in three years’ time. “We’re building a healthier, more sustainable and more prosperous metropolis,” Huang said. “As the country’s oldest city, Tainan was the epitome of urban Taiwan in the 17th century and will be so again.” In his inaugural speech May 20, Lai made special mention of Tainan’s continued link to globalization, 400 years after its founding. “As we stand here in Taiwan, we must all demonstrate confidence and set a new course for the world, so that the world can embrace a new Taiwan,” the president said.   Write to Pat Gao at cjkao@mofa.gov.tw