The Lanterns’ Entry into the Scenery of One Old Street: Uniting Residents and Lighting up Suburb-Business Culture

There are a lot of old streets in Taiwan. The concept of “oldness” is the only one applied for marketing promotion. In addition, most old houses on these old streets are set up in the same cultural-creativity style, a style of cultural youth.  Hence, there are no unique characteristics to differentiate them.  However, the reason why the streets are old is due to the accumulation of various cultures and stories.  Therefore, an essential task for old street revitalization is to find ways to call up the memories of old streets and to see its features. 

Shennog St. used to be named Beishi Street because it was located in the north of Beishi Harbor. The residents on this street named the channel “Beishi Harbor” whereas those living on the Nanshi Street located in the south of the channel named it as “Nanshi Harbor”. The name dispute between residents in these two neighborhoods had lasted for 300 years. When people visit Shennong St., they have to follow the custom and call the channel “Beishi Harbor”. This channel was the trading center of the five-channel suburb business in Ching Dynasty. The Five-channel prosperous economy was the reason why Tainan City was ranked as the Top 1 in Ching Dynasty. Hence, during those days, the status of Beishi St. was comparable to Wall St. in New York. One street one channel or channel and street together as one was the feature of space development in this area.  When the channels silted up, they then became sewers. As time went by and space changed, Shennong St. was gradually forgotten. However, the precious cultural value of houses built right between street (front) and harbor (back) is eventually rediscovered due to an old-house refurbishing plan in 1999. In addition, the massive visitors also made it an overwhelmingly popular spot. A lot of people attended the traditional palace lantern exhibition held in this old street neighborhood during lunar New Year from 2012 to 2015. Therefore, its popularity attracted investors of one-hundred-dollar vending machines and claw machines to enter this community. The old street got lost in its direction.  The media criticized this phenomenon ruthlessly in 2018:

Has Shennong St. in Tainan been dead? A teacher sighs: the claw machines are just like eutrophication of river (China Times News, May 18)

Claw machines invade the holy land of old-house culture. He posted an article to mourn the death of Shennong St. (Apple Daily, May 30)

Is the old street with a history of 300-year suburb business culture really dead? 

The team of culture-based local revitalization and promotion - Tainan City vs. Yuejin project and the Tainan Cultural Association did not want the 300-year-old street culture to vanish. They decided to start with retrieving the atmosphere of old street living. First, they reorganized the lantern exhibition and set up a self-learning course on painting Shennong St. lanterns.  In this course, they invited residents in this neighborhood to discuss how to decorate household lanterns with students.  At first, the residents missed the previous association-organized exhibition in which everything was totally handled by the association. The residents didn’t understand why they have to participate in this exhibition and share partial cost at the same time. Furthermore, they did not know what the joint Nantai team wanted to do and even doubted if this team could be trustworthy. All these doubts and questions led to the result that there were only 11 households participating in this event.  There were 30 students taking the self-learning course to work with the residents to paint the Dog-year lanterns. The lanterns of Dog-Year Lantern Exhibition were sparsely displayed in this old street neighborhood. However, the colorful lanterns made this monochromatic old street alive. Unexpectedly, the lanterns in front of the team office became a popular IG or Facebook post spot. Thus, the chair next to the front door of the joint team office was broken due to being overused by visitors.  Besides, even when the exhibition was over, the lanterns were still hung up high for the whole year since the participating residents were reluctant to remove them. The lanterns thus became the focus in this community during the whole dog year. The effects of lantern exhibition gradually became amplified. Those who didn’t participate in this exhibition were expecting to join the Pig-year exhibition whereas those who did participate started to think about how to decorate their Pig-year lanterns and even proposed an activity of riddle guessing. Hence, the Pig-year lantern exhibition was held next, followed by the Rat-year one. The number of participants grows every year. In the Recent Rat-year exhibition, overall, there are 51 households, 116 students and 80,000 exhibition visitors.

The exhibition venue also expands from the very beginning block between No. 49 and No. 95 to No. 150 and the Temple of Medicine King at the end of street, and furthermore, even to the Beishi Harbor remains and Siluodian of Nanhe Harbor.  Furthermore, even after the exhibition was over, the forgotten beef alley, which was used to connect the channel, still remained as a popular Facebook post spot.  Besides, this alley also becomes a location for wedding photographers to take wedding photos.  In 2019, one Japanese magazine, “PEN”, used the end of Shennong St. as its cover. Besides, one Thailand travel show, “TA DAI MA”, broadcasted lots of shots about the lanterns of Shennong Street.  In addition, it was on the recommendation list in the June Oversea Special, “getting to know the past and the new in tours of the southern Taiwan”, of JCB “PREMIUM” magazine, in 2020.  This magazine took the outlook of Shin Artwork, No. 53 to 55, as the cover.  The bright and colorful lanterns together with old houses are eye-catching.  The lanterns are very essential in shaping the atmosphere of the old Shennong Street.  They also let this street get international attention.

The lantern exhibition can attract so many visitors and let so many residents participate in this event.  It means that people have to see the precious suburb-business culture of Shennong St. through the lantern exhibition.  The ships on the lanterns in the side alley led exhibition visitors to walk into the Beishi remains.  Then, they can see the busy shipping on the channel through the lanterns.  The various Chinese medicine materials were the main goods shipped in the Beishi harbor.  This is why the Temple of Medicine King was built at the end of this street.  The team used medicine riddles to explain the close relationship between the channel and Chinese medicine materials through the riddle guessing game at the temple.  The structure of front-street and back-harbor (a house between the street and the harbor) made every household in this neighborhood have its own dock.  The visitors could experience the unique atmosphere of suburb business in the old street houses through riddle guessing.  To coordinate with the lantern exhibition, some related activities are also launched, such as street games designed by students in the “Old-Street Cultural Creativity and Revitalization” course, AR experience of Shennong Street, and the QR-code house-guiding tour which was designed by the self-learning courses.

One lantern exhibition unites the residents and bonds the students and the residents to decorate this old street together.  Therefore, people can see the stories of Beishi Harbor and BeiShi Street everywhere in this neighborhood.  It’s the lanterns which enter into the scenery of one old street.  People will have their own judgment on whether Shennong St. has been dead.