Department of Cultural Affairs

Happy Birthday Taipei! Celebrating the Life of a Fine-Looking Lady
Beginnings—A Time Capsule
To give you your nomenclature bearings, the character "tai" (台) is short for "Taiwan" (台灣), the character "pei/bei" (北) means "north." Yes, there is a "Taiwan south" (Tainan; 台南) and "Taiwan east" (Taitung/Taidong; 台東). Today's big city sits in a basin that just four hundred years ago, when Han Chinese pioneers began their mass migration across the Taiwan Strait, was waterlogged and sopping wet. The settlers drained many areas for farming, while the increased silt-flow because of clearing done high up on the basin's waterways much hastened the process of raising land levels and drying the basin out.
The flatlands-dwelling Ketagalan (凱達格蘭) native people were the area's original inhabitants—honored today in the name of the broad avenue that runs to the front entrance of the Presidential Building (總統府). They were slowly displaced by Chinese who started flowing into the basin in droves starting in the early 1700s. By the 1880s "Taiwan north" had usurped Tainan as the island's center of wealth and commerce, centered on tea and camphor exports, and it was decided to recognize this by moving government authority here—leading to the city's formal birthday in 1884.
Another factor in the move was that China's Qing imperial court was focusing greater attention on the north because of its strategic naval and military importance. It was known the Japanese had their eye on the island (as did the Western powers), and this was the closest spot to Nippon and thus the likely spot for expected invasion. In addition, in this era of coal power—directly related to naval power—all knew Taiwan possessed significant deposits in the north.
The Walled City
In 1884 a large Chinese-style walled government complex was completed, more or less between the basin's two most important towns, Wanhua (萬華) and Dadaocheng (大稻埕). Because the two were fierce rivals the government could not be placed in either, for the "rejected" would surely be much put out. The new walled city was called Taipei Fu Cheng (台北府城), literally "Taipei Capital Walled City." The complex was rectangular in shape, the walls running where Zhongxiao West Road (忠孝西路), Zhongshan South Road (中山南路), Aiguo West Road (愛國西路), and Zhonghua Road (中華路) today run.
History Nugget: Four of the five original gates remain, including the North Gate (北門) with its original appearance. To facilitate traffic they are the centerpieces of busy traffic circles. Originally the walled city faced south, using correct fengshui (風水), protective high mountains—Yangmingshan (陽明山)—behind, slow-flowing qi (氣)-smoothing river—the Xindian (新店)—before. However, respecting commercial flow, things were flipped, the North Gate becoming the main gate, facing—check it—directly at the peak of Yangmingshan's Mt. Qixing (七星山; Mt. Seven Star), the area's highest.
In 1885 Liu Ming-chuan (劉銘傳), well-known reforming mandarin, was appointed first governor when Taiwan was elevated to provincial status. He made Taipei the capital, and got to work as soon as he unpacked his bags, setting up the Xinshi (New City) Development Co. to broaden old streets and build new ones, and to construct schools, examination centers, temples, and factories/residences to attract international traders—all accomplished with orderly planning. Liu also electrified Taipei with, what else, electricity, turning on lights on major arteries and official buildings in 1889—the first place in China to enjoy this business-enhancing pleasure.
The governor also built a railroad from the northeast port of Keelung (基隆) through Taipei, the section to Hsinchu (新竹) completed a few years after jealous rivals were successful in getting him recalled to the mainland in 1891. Today, in 2-28 Memorial Peace Park (二二八和平公園), visitors can admire one of the original locomotives that plied these rails outside the Taiwan Museum. Such comprehensive modernizing development was the first such witnessed in China.
History Nugget: The tracks were from a line built near Shanghai by Westerners, then bought and ripped out by suspicious government authorities, who thought that area's fengshui was being sliced through as though with a knife, especially since many graves had been dug up in the building.
Taipei was on the verge of explosive growth into a modern city at the beginning of the 20th century. Nevertheless, changes of a different, more fateful sort were soon to befall it, along with the rest of the island.
Japanese Colonial Period
In 1894~5 China was humbled in the Sino-Japanese War. The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed; and China tossed Taiwan to the Japanese in an effort to appease and keep them off the mainland. On June 7th, 1895, the imperial Japanese military paraded through Taipei's North Gate; Taiwan was now a Japanese colony. Because of its economic prosperity and proximity to Japan, Taipei was chosen as the colonial administrative capital.
Immediately, "Taiwan north"—the name was kept—underwent a major facelift in a series of reconstructive projects. Crowded old districts were torn down, replaced with wide thoroughfares (as in Europe, the point was to enable both better sanitation and easier troop movements) and awe-inspiring public architecture. Many of these European-style creations still stand today, their classical Greek/Roman/Gothic/Baroque/Renaissance-style facades bringing much beauty and splendor.
Among these are the Governor-General's Office (today's Presidential Building), Governor-General's Residence (Taipei Guest House), Supreme Court, Control Yuan, National Taiwan University including the original NTU Hospital, Taiwan Museum, Zhongshan Hall, Red Theater (originally a marketplace), and the old Railway Administration Building. To add to the city's green they also set up Taipei New Park (台北新公園), today's 2-28 Memorial Peace Park. (See our Japanese architecture tour/quiz elsewhere this issue.)
History Nugget: Zhongshan Road was laid out across countryside direct to where the Grand Hotel (圓山飯店) today stands. In colonial days a grand Shinto shrine stood here, dominating the basin.
The Japanese, eager to impress the world in its first colonizing effort as part of its self-perceived manifest destiny, imported the most advanced techniques in railroad construction, water management and public sanitation/hygiene, and public education, profoundly changing the people's lifestyle.
In 1920, Taipei boasted a population of just over 176,000, six times more than when the Japanese first set up shop. It surged to 401,000 in 1944. The city's territory had also expanded outward from the old Wanhua, Dadaocheng, and Chengnei (Inner City; 城內) core, concomitant with an ever-accelerating increase in its political, economic, and cultural power.
In the Modern World
Taiwan was turned over to the ROC government in August 1945, at the close of WW II and Japan's defeat. In 1949 the central government arrived, led by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), after defeat by the Communists in, as of then, Red China. Taipei was selected as the "temporary" national capital. A tremendous influx of military and public-service personnel ensued—perhaps two million in total. The city's population swelled to the bursting point, reaching 1,000,000 in 1963; the Japanese had laid out the city with 600,000 souls in mind.
In the post-war years Taipei, as capital, maintained close political, military, and economic relations with the USA. The most vivid physical expression of this intimacy was the establishment of the American Consulate—today's Taipei Film House. The American sector stretched from here, on Zhongshan North Road, Sec. 2, all the way up to Tianmu District (天母區), with a military base spanning both sides where Taipei Fine Arts Museum (台北美術館) and Zhongshan Stadium (中山足球場) today stand, and the residences of US military and government personnel forming the core of Tianmu, which still today sports a noticeably Western ambiance.
Over the intervening decades Taipei has been the political, financial, and economic powerhouse behind Taiwan's "economic miracle." One can find "MIT" (Made in Taiwan) products in almost every corner of the globe. During this economic explosion people from all areas of the island have flocked to "Taiwan north," changing the face and texture of the city and adding to the lively city culture.
History Nugget: Pedicabs were still used as a primary form of transport in the mid-60s. In 1967 the city's embrace was expanded almost fourfold, from the original 70 sq. km. to 272 sq. km., adding Neihu, Shilin, Tianmu, etc. The city was made a special municipality, with an appointed mayor equal in rank to the provincial governor.
By 1992 the city harbored 2.73 million people (today about the same), meaning 10,000 residents for every square kilometer, among the highest concentration of humanity in existence. Efficient physical infrastructure and transportation systems are key to ensuring the quality of life; and work in this area has been non-stop in recent decades.
The results speak for themselves, but we'll speak on their behalf here. Recent development has been concentrated in but not exclusive to the eastern sector, extending along Zhongxiao East Road with the Xinyi District (信義區) now the core. Up until the late 1970s the eastern limits of the basin remained largely empty of humans, meaning much lower development costs than in already developed areas. Among the many impressive new landmarks created are the Taipei City Council building, Taipei City Hall, the World Trade Center, and the Grand Hyatt.
Recent History Nugget: With almost three million people, and one million vehicles on its streets, all contained within a limited space embraced by mountains, the only direction for Taipei's physical growth has been—up. Tens of thousands of residential and office high-rises have gone up. Taipei 101, or the Taipei Financial Center, is the cr?me de la cr?me. Just completed, standing high above all else in the Xinyi District, when formally opened late this year it will be the world's tallest building.
Actually, perhaps the above is not entirely correct. Taipei is not just going up; it is tunneling feverishly underground too. Its spic-‘n'-span, spanking-new MRT (mass rapid transit) system is mostly under the streets, whisking one million folk to and fro each day and greatly relieving above-ground traffic stress. Not long ago the difference between "as the crow flies" and "as the human travels" was immense in the basin. No more. The advantages of using the MRT system have been immeasurably heightened with long underground malls in the Taipei Main Station and Pacific SOGO areas.
Make a Wish!
The birthday girl's face keeps changing, but her soul remains the same, an unmatched synthesis of the new and the warmth-giving traditional. A walk west-east along Zhongxiao Road is essentially a walk along the lady's timeline. As Taipei enters the age of globalization, striving to become a connected "Cyber City" and "City of Culture," come celebrate the lady's 120th and her many accomplishments, a well-lived life only just beginning.