Tainan - a Chinese city that celebrates its Japanese colonial past
Museum displays in Taiwan's oldest city marking social and economic advances under the Japanese would be unthinkable in other places Japan once ruled - but Tainan is different, writes Mark O'Neill. Photos by Antony Dickson
As Kumiko Nakagawa walks through the front door of the department store, four staff members bow and say in unison " ". "It feels just like home," says the tourist, with a smile.
However, we are not in Japan, but close to the centre of Tainan, in the southwest of Taiwan, in what used to be the Hayashi department store. When it first opened, in 1932, its five storeys made the store the tallest building in the city and it was the only one with a lift. It was the shop of choice for the rich and powerful.
In June 2015, the building reopened after a restoration that had taken three years and cost NT$80 million (HK$19 million), with the fittings, floorboards and wooden panelling recreated in the style of the 1930s. It no longer sells global brands but handmade clothing, jewellery, tableware and other items created by local designers, as well as traditional desserts. The building's rooftop Shinto shrine has been restored and the restaurant offers "Showa spaghetti", an ordinary dish named after an extraordinary character: the wartime emperor.
Unlike North and South Korea, and Manchuria, Taiwan treasures aspects of its colonisation by Japan, which lasted 50 years (1895-1945), and has turned them to commercial use. Many buildings of the Japanese period have been preserved. A short walk from the former department store is another; the National Museum of Taiwan Literature is housed in what used to be the city government building, which is 100 years old this year.
