Okay, the title is a bit of clickbait. I live here and I’m happy. Yangmei is a rather unremarkable town between Taoyuan and Hsinchu, home to many Hakka people. That’s why you can see buildings from different eras all around. It’s Taiwan: a country caught between its past, a certain shabbiness, and cutting-edge modernity. Here are a few impressions.
The old gives way to the new – good or bad?
Many old neighborhoods in Taiwan have to make way for modern high-rise buildings. This is not a special settlement, but the houses are from different decades and reflect Taiwan’s development. Somehow it’s embarrassing, but also sad.
Interestingly, some Taipei locals were surprised by an earlier Facebook post.
(Urn or storage jar?)
(An old wooden door in the house right next to it, along with wooden furnishings that are probably much older.)
(These are likely the remnants of a newer community right behind it.) And now, the view across the generations:
Textile factory
I’ve been driving this road almost daily for 10 years and never noticed it: probably a textile factory. Okay, what’s so special? It’s a reminder of the time when Taiwan was the cheap producer. I met a few weeks later an old resident nearby. He said that the company used to manufacture curtains. It has been closed for a long time. The owner belonged to the Cheng family. The area now belongs to the city. The Cheng family is an old-established family that used to own a lot of land in Yangmei. Today, they are still involved in some land disputes.
Inside, it’s bigger than expected.
The roof has collapsed, and the stairs are quite shaky; nature has taken over. As always, the banyan trees are taking over.
But you can still find the old machines.
Have the people lost 50 years?
Next to the modern YiRen Hospital, there is a settlement that seems to have skipped 50 years of time. It’s easy to imagine how people used to live there.
(Copyright Claudius Petzold)
