KEELUNG, Taiwan – Visitors to Keelung, a mountainous port city on Taiwan’s north coast, might reasonably think that the white wall at the back of Shi Hui-hua’s breakfast shop is, well, a wall.
Only a few vents suggest there may be something on the other side.
“It’s a air-raid shelter“Shi, 53, said as she waited for the morning rush hour.
“Since we are Keelung people, we know these kinds of places.”
“It’s a space for life,” he added.
“And a space for death.”
Throughout its road and many more to Keelung, which suffered its first foreign attack, by the Dutch, in 1642, the landscape has been cut out for its protection.
The kitchens connect to underground passages that descend deep into the sandstone.
Rusty doors at the ends of the alleys lead into dark jaws filled with war memorabilia and sometimes garbage or bats, or an adjoining altar or restaurant.
There are casesthe 700 anti-aircraft shelters in this city of 360,000 people, leading officials to declare that Keelung has a higher density of places to hide than any other heavily fortified place in Taiwan.
And for a loosely organized group of urban planners, artists and history buffs, Keelung’s air raid shelters have become a canvas for creative urban renewal and civil protection.
Some of these havens have been reconfigured as cultural spaces.
But these underground spaces are not just beautiful relics; even on an autonomous island that China considers lost items it intends to recover vital infrastructure.
Most of the bunkers were set up and built by Japan, which ruled Taiwan from 1895 until the end of World War II, when Keelung was a bombing target.
The shelters around Shi’s shop occupy one of the oldest parts of the city, just below a hilly park that has been modernized with an elevator.
One of your entrances will soon require a short walk through a cave with winding tunnels which, until recently, had been used as a fire brigade shed.
On a recent morning, it felt more like an art gallery or a nightclub.
Strands of lights embraced the damp walls, shining on the green shoots of the plants, the only bursts of color in the subsoil.
Concrete floors were laid with drainage areas on the sides.
Hung Chih-chien, 33, an official from Keelung’s Town Planning Division, said city officials had initially thought about opening the space and turning it into a restaurant, but later decided they didn’t want to ruin the city. original geology.
Keelung shelters are not easy to manage;
actions are rare and access often defines possession.
But the city found documents showing that this bunker was built in the 19th century, towards the end of the Qing dynasty’s rule over Taiwan.
It was one of several tunnels and bunkers built at the time, when China, weakened by famine and rebellion, was struggling to maintain its territory.
In 1884, for example, the French invaded Keelung and held the city for about a year until the imperial commissioner for Taiwan, Liu Ming-ch’uan, expelled the French troops.
Soon after, to better protect Keelung, he commissioned the construction of Taiwan’s first railway tunnel through Mount Shihciouling, a natural barrier that blocks Keelung from Taipei.
The tunnel was opened in 1890 and will reopen, renovated, in a few months.
On a recent tour, Kuo Li-ya, who heads the Keelung Local Government Cultural Heritage Department, explained the complicated restoration effort, which included placing small cameras above the tunnel to measure the strength of the roof.
He said he hoped it would eventually connect to local trails and hiking trails.
“We want people to know the story, to know how this helped protect Keelung,” he said.
Standing in the tunnel, with new bright orange bricks blending with the aged gray stone, he talked about history, but acknowledged that the tunnel could also protect people in other conflicts.
For many in Keelung, past and present threats fade away.
In recent months, China has increased the frequency and intensity of military exercises off the coast of Taiwan.
Xi Jinpingthe Chinese leader also spoke more about unification with Taiwan, reserving the right to use force.
At Pufferfish, a Keelung restaurant overlooking a cavernous air-raid shelter, tourists at half a dozen wooden tables photograph the interior.
But the locals prefer black humor.
“Many people told me that if a war broke out, they would come to my restaurant,” said Miao Hsu-ching, 34, owner of Pufferfish.
“They are sure we will provide food anyway.”
Growing up in Keelung, Miao felt it was a shame that many abandoned bomb shelters were littered and neglected.
For generations, the children of Keelung have frightened each other with stories of their ghosts, killed and murdered soldiers.
“It is important to renovate them and connect them with the surrounding areas,” Miao said.
Wang Chieh, 53, a painter from Keelung, has embraced this mission.
A few years ago, he and 40 or 50 local residents set up four moss-covered blast-proof walls that stand in front of the air raid shelters on one of Keelung’s many hills.
Inspired by the city’s rainy weather and popular beliefs, Wang drew a mural design with widespread ferns and a mythical beast carved on the gate of a famous city temple.
It took six months to complete the white tile paintings.
The explosive walls and bunkers are now a tourist attraction and a symbol of pride.
“Civil society has been the main driver of renewal,” Wang said.
“The younger generation was able to reflect on the past when the older generation played, or even hid, inside.”
To some, the propensity for shelters seems strange. Shi said he saw a snake in the one behind her store, beyond the closet, and he has no intention of entering iteven if the missiles start flying.
He said Keelung’s shelters should be renovated primarily so that young people, whom he called suave, a “strawberry generation”, pay more attention to tensions with China that could force them to fight or hide.
For some of their neighbors, bunkers are a thing of their past.
A few doors from his shop, 91-year-old Wang Huo-hsiang sat in the shop where he made rubber stamps before retiring.
He remembers when the Americans bombed Keelung in 1944 and 1945, remembering the bang, the bang, the bang of the bombs he heard while hiding in a nearby shelter.
At night, he said, he slept in one tunnel, during the day he lived in another.
He was just a kid, in fifth grade, but the memory made him smile.
The shelters had saved him.
“That was the only safe place to be,” he said.
“They were full of people.”
He and his wife then spent the summer nights in the artificial caves, hide from the heat.
They shared a drink and food, talked to friends.
“It was like an air conditioner in there,” he said.
His wife, Wang Chen Shu-mei, was behind him.
She laughed and nodded.
But when asked if they could imagine returning to the shelters in case of another attack, they both frowned. Wang Chen started screaming.
“We are Taiwanese, we have nothing to do with China,” he said.
Then he spoke in a low voice:
“We don’t know when the bombs will arrive. We hope they never arrive. “
c.2022 The New York Times Company
Source: Clarin
