WEBVTT

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[music]

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[music]

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The Independent Acquisition Project is made possible
by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

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[music]

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And by the subscribers of TV 12.

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[music]

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Growing up Chinese in America
was like growing up fat.

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I was often reminded of
being a little different.

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I never did figure out how to handle it,

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but because everybody
told me I was Chinese,

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I often try to imagine, China.
I thought of it

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as a faraway place. Somehow
different, yet very ordered.

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Carved out with intricate
alleys and curving markets.

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[music]

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I thought of Chinese as being
solemn with years of history,

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still and refined and rather suppressed.

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[music]

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In my imagination,

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I strolled up and down the
mystic mountains of China.

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Most of all, I formed an image of China
as a culture with rhythm and strength.

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So when I grew up,

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I decided to seek the goals of my childhood on
the Island of Taiwan, where so many Chinese

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had gone before me.

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[sil.]

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When I first arrived in Taipei, I was confronted
with the jumble of sights and sounds.

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People, buses, and motorcycles everywhere.

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[sil.]

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Signs and billboards covered
every available surface.

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Advertising night schools, (inaudible),
all kinds of household products.

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There were confusing spaces,

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where old met new, abruptly.

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Instead of harmony, I
discovered contradictions.

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[sil.]

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[music]

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So I sought the China I had imagined than the
countryside, where more traditional way of life

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could still be found. Taiwan has a
population of 19 million people

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less than 30% remain in
farming, but among them,

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the traditional relationship between
people, house, and man, still survives.

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Every farm is a self-sufficient world.

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Home and place of work are united.
Chinese farm houses

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are built around courtyards. Horizontal
rows of rooms are flanked by wings,

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forming an enclosure. The wings can be
extended as the needs of the clan grow.

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The house is laid out
along the central axis.

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The ceremonial hall, the heart of the
house is in the middle of the last row.

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The doorways also located along
the central axis, allow outsiders

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to enter in different stages.
The courtyard is a transition

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between the outer world and inner
intimacy between indoors and outdoors.

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[music]

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This courtyard house belongs to a clan named
Lao(ph) who live in a rural town south of Taipei.

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Until the early 1900s, the
house was made of straw,

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then everybody pitched in to build
the house with bricks and tiles.

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When industrialization in Taiwan began around 20 years ago,
members of the family began to disperse throughout the island.

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These days about 50 people
live in the family home.

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But on the day, I visited,

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the Laos(ph) were holding a sacrifice to mark the
first day of Autumn. Hundreds came from Taipei

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and cities all over the island.

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They burned paper outside the house
for the souls of their ancestors

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with a characteristic mixture of reference
and everyday matter of factness.

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A temple sized tripod with incense

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and sacrificial offerings were placed outside the
ceremonial hall, directly in front of the altar

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with the ancestor tablets.

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[music]

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After offering incense to
the gods individually,

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the whole clan gathered across
from the ceremonial hall

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and the courtyard was transformed
into a church or chapel.

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The Leos(ph) or Hakka people, whose ancestors
emigrated from southern China in 1755.

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On this day, \"The Master of Ceremonies\"
reported to the ancestors,

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on the prosperity of their descendants.
Now 2,000 strong

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and spread throughout Taiwan representing
every profession, class, and age.

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Carved from the ancestors tablets,

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were the names of the all the names
in old families and so immigration.

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Hanging on the wall next to the altar where portraits
of the original founders of this branch of Leos(ph),

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the grandmother and grandfather, who had
made the journey across the seas to Taiwan.

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These were not my ancestors,

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but they unexpectedly showed me
the unifying force of tradition.

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Shifting easily from the
Sacred to the every day,

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most people left quickly after the ceremonies
were over. Packing up their offerings

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to take home for their own consumption.

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[music]

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They departed to return
to their homes in Taipei

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and other parts of the island,
most only return on holidays

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and special occasions.

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[music]

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In a setting originally intended for
extended families, most of the people left,

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seem to be old people and children.
One member in his 50s,

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who lives in Taipei, but has become the
main organizer of family activities,

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explains why he maintains such close ties.

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[music]

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A year ago, the Laozi erected a
family mausoleum behind the house.

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Inside, on a memorial plaque covering a wall, there is a
square left, for each member of the present generation,

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who wishes to be buried in the old
family home. To this generation,

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the family home is a resting place
after death more than in life.

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The changes in Taiwanese
society in the last 20 years

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have made it necessary for people to leave
their roots. The courtyard house today,

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stands as a reminder of house
with the tradition passes.

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[music]

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As I continued my search, I
discovered the Jiang Family,

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who live on the green mountains in a suburb
of Taipei. Five generations of the family

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have lived and grown in this old
home, but as Taiwan’s economy

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took off in the late 1960s, the 50
or 60 odd members of the Jiang clan

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gradually moved away to nearby
Taipei and more modern dwellings.

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The old family home began
to fall into disrepair.

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[music]

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Outside forces have even changed the orientation
of the house. A public road was built

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a few years ago and people now enter
the Jiang house from the back.

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The house borders, a major public university and a
land was purchased not long ago by the government,

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and rented back to the Jiangs.

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Do the clan of the house is symbolized
most poignantly by the ceremonial hall?

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It has been neglected because there were
so few family members in residence.

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[music]

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However, 73-year-old Mr. Jiang, the
patriarch of the family has moved back.

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In his earlier days, he
lived and worked in a city

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returning only on weekends. Now he has moved back, so
that he can tend his prizewinning orchids every day.

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[music]

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In the natural darkness of the old house, I could
still trace elements of its traditional design,

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panes of glass in a roof to let in light.

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Doors in the hallways between wings have sliding
wooden bolts. Chinese houses and furniture

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have always been constructed along
this principle of interlocking joints,

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fitting together without a single nail.

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[music]

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Old canopy beds are still in use,
form in a room within a room,

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with cabinets for toiletries,
mirrors, and decorative panels.

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In the kitchen is a wood field stove, large
enough to cook food for many mouths.

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Running water hooked up to a nearby spring

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and an electric rice cooker and
gas stove, more convenient,

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now that there are only a
few people in each meal.

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Images of the Jiang’s ancestors hang on the
wall of the room next to the ceremonial hall

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since the hall is in disuse. Mr.
Jiang’s grandmother on the right

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and his father and mother to the left,
are part of the 180 years of history

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their clan has claimed to, since their
immigration to Taiwan from the China mainland.

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But the Jiang Family line
will not continue in this.

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Mr. Jiang explains why.

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[non-English narration]

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Age old skills are no longer handed
down from generation to generation.

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[sil.]

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The courtyard house was designed
for a different tempo of life.

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For better or worse, that way of life
is passing away with this generation.

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[music]

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[sil.]

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The breakdown of the traditional way
of life has created oppressing need

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for suitable housing for a city population.

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The mass-produce western style apartments
and office buildings which fill the city

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are response to just such a need.

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[music]

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From the early 1950s,

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a certain pattern for apartments
has been repeated all over Taipei.

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[music]

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One Sunday, a friend took me to visit his
uncle’s home, a middle-class dwelling

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that was constructed in 1982, and is already the
second or third generation of the original prototype.

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I discovered that modern Chinese

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have had to adapt their habits to
these western style apartments.

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Joy in this junctions result, as
custom attempts to adapt to form.

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[sil.]

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Mr. Gao is a retired army man, who came to
Taiwan with the nationalist government in 1949.

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He says that he prefers the
courtyard house of the past.

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The living room is clearly the most important room,
but it isn’t the spiritual and physical center

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that the ceremonial hall was. No
matter how carefully decorated it is.

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The altar gets placed in the corner

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with the most center like feeling. By
seeming coincidence, in most homes

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it seems to be placed in
competition with the television.

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Even the objects on the altar
show that this is a new age,

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the ancestor tablet is still present, but light
bulbs in red shades have replaced candles

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and the offering cups of
water are made of plastic.

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Steel bars over windows are for the
protection of residents against burglary,

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but in case of fire, escape is impossible.

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The display cabinets are another focal point,
stacked to foreign liquors in fancy bottles,

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priced photos and teacups,
mementos, and gifts.

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The objects on the shelf, arrange
like the people in the apartments.

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[sil.]

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Traditional houses had no formal bathrooms or
kitchens. Many Chinese still separate these areas

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by wearing a different
set of sandals in each.

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[music]

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Modern Chinese kitchens still
have a mid makeshift look.

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[music]

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[sil.]

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With no courtyard or fields to play in, the
children often play indoors, passing their time

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with new kinds of activities.

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[music]

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The closest residents get to nature
is tending plants on the balcony

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or the rooftop. It is if the court yard
has been moved to the roof or balcony.

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[music]

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Traditional Chinese architecture form is the result of
thousands of years of human interaction with the environment.

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Variations depended on the
character of the land and customs,

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but always evolve from people’s living
habits, not being living around.

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[music]

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In this past 30 years in Taiwan have seen changes
of a magnitude previously unexperienced in history.

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In a situation where the demand for
urban housing exceeded the supply,

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architects did not adapt
patterns from the west,

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to conditions in Taiwan.

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Block apartments and office building
sprung up as the nation modernized.

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People learn to use every side of their
box houses to make it fit their needs.

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[music]

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Human beings will always find a way to
survive in any kind of environment,

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but as I learn more about Taiwan’s contemporary
urban housing, it occurs to me that

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unthinkingly an entirely different
kind of culture is emerging

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from this new pattern of housing.

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After I’ve understood the passing
of Taiwan’s architecture,

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from traditional to modern, I was less
disappointed in demise of my childhood dreams.

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In fact, I found that the
Chinese have displayed

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both, strength and ingenuity in
adapting to these new circumstances.

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In my heart of hearts, I
still secretly harbor

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romantic images of China.
Perhaps, the past always glows

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with the (inaudible) of another age, but it
is the present that has to pull of immediacy.

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The Chinese cannot return to the
traditional courtyard house of your,

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but they must try to regain
a housing that will breathe

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as they breathe and grow as they grow.

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[music]

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The broadcast of the proceeding independent production was
made possible by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

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And by the subscribers of TV 12.