Skip to main content

Taipei Before and Now - Hengyang Road from the Qing Dynasty to the Present

At first sight Hengyang Road (衡陽路) doesn't seem to be a particularly interesting street. You are indeed unlikely to even notice it, immersed as it is in the jungle of buildings and roads in Taipei Main Station area. However, the appearance is deceptive. In fact, Hengyang Road is a fascinating example of all the changes and upheavals Taipei has gone through over the last two hundred years. 

In the late Qing era, Hengyang Road was known as "Stone Memorial Archway Street" (石坊街) because of the memorial arch that stood there. In the picture below, you can see the arch, whose name was Commonweal Memorial Arch (急公好義坊). At the end of the road, you can still see the West Gate (Ximen), which was demolished by the Japanese in 1905. The picture also shows the structure of typical Qing Dynasty streets of Taipei, with the simple two-storey buildings and the tile roofs. 



The Commonweal Memorial Arch was built on the 13th year of the reign of the Guangxu Emperor (1887) to commemorate Hong Tengyun (洪騰雲). Hong was an immigrant from Quanzhou Prefecture in Fujian Province. He came to Taiwan as a 13-year-old boy in 1824, following his father, a merchant who settled down in Bangka (or Mengjia, 艋舺) and became wealthy thanks to his thriving business with Quanzhou and Xiamen. 

He and his son were known for their social engagement. In 1880 Hong Tengyun donated a sum of money to Taipei so as to build an examination hall (考棚) in the northeastern part of Taipei Walled City (close to present-day Taipei Main Station). In 1887, the Governor of Taiwan Liu Mingchuan petitioned the Guangxu Emperor to allow him to build a Memorial Arch in honour of Hong Tengyun. 

The Commonweal Memorial Arch still exists, but it is now in a different place. When the Japanese built the Taipei Park (now 228 Peace Park) in 1908, they moved the memorial arch next to one of the park's entrances. 

In the Japanese era, the street was called "Sakaimachi Street".

Hengyang Road in the Japanese era, as viewed from one of Taipei Park's exits
The same location today

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Living in Taiwan: Seven Reasons Why It's Good to Be Here

Chinese New Year can be a pretty boring time for a foreigner. All of my friends were celebrating with their families, and since I have no family here, nor have I a girlfriend whose family I could join, I had nothing special to do. Shops and cafes were closed - apart from big chains like McDonald's or Starbucks, which were overcrowded anyway. So I had a lot of time to think.
On Saturday evening I went out to buy my dinner. While I was walking around, I heard the voices of the people inside their homes, the sounds of their New Year celebrations. Then I suddenly asked myself: "What on earth are you doing here? Why are you still in Taiwan?" 
Before I came to Taiwan, some Taiwanese friends of mine had recommended me their country, highly prasing it and going so far as to say that Taiwan is a "paradise for foreigners" (bear in mind that when I say foreigners I mean 'Westerners'). 
"It's easy for foreigners to find a job," they argued. "Taiwane…
30 comments
Read more

7 Reasons Why Hong Kong Is A Great Place To Live

In 2013 I wrote a post about 7 reasons why it's good to live in Taiwan based on my one-year experience in the country. Now I would like to talk about another place which I love, and which I have perhaps loved more than any other: Hong Kong.
When I was growing up in a small town in Southern Italy, I knew very little about Hong Kong. As a child I remember watching the handover ceremony in 1997, yet at that time I did not really understand much about what was going on. That is my first, vague memory of Hong Kong.
Years later, when I was in my early twenties, I watched a short documentary about Hong Kong on Italian television. I was captivated by the energy and modernity of that exotic metropolis. I thought that some day I would like to visit it. However, it was not on my list of priorities. I wanted to go to Japan, mainland China, South Korea, far more than I wished to go to Hong Kong.
In late 2011 I decided to go to Taiwan because of a girl I had met in Germany. While I was there, …
Post a Comment
Read more

Back To Blogging, Finally

A few months ago I deactivated this blog because I wasn't happy about it. Over the years I had been writing too many posts about news and politics, and I felt that this was no longer the kind of personal blog I wanted to create at the beginning: a place for me to share my thoughts and experiences about my life in Taiwan, Hong Kong and other parts of East Asia.
Post a Comment
Read more