Global Futures in East Asia: Youth, Nation, and the New Economy in Uncertain Times (Contemporary Issues in Asia and Pacific) (11 page)

Blueprint
on the Streets

In descriptions of New Kujiang appearing in promotional material and in the popular media,
global connectivity
and
youthfulness
are key words. The shopping street is a “young people’s paradise” where one can find “the latest fashion . . . from different countries” (Chung 2004: 75–77). It has become a “synonym for fashion in Southern Taiwan” where there is “zero time difference (
ling shicha
) with Hong Kong, Tokyo, and [South] Korea” (Liu and Ho 2004: 39). But its transnational claims go beyond contemporary commodities and fashion trends. The shopping district’s name came from an earlier marketplace first established by the Japanese colonizers in the 1930s that later became known for trade in imported goods during the Cold War period. In tracing New Kujiang’s history to a colonial marketplace and celebrating its present status as an internationalized space for consumption, this narrative articulates the city’s colonial legacy with the island’s global future. It is a reminder of Taiwan’s position as a “link and crossroads” where different geopolitical forces overlap (Manthorpe 2005, 23), and it provides an assurance that, despite the danger of getting swept over by these forces, Kaohsiung can build on this global connectivity to aspire to become a world-class city.

In 1864, the Tientsin Treaty designated the fishing port of Dagou in Southwest Taiwan as one of China’s “treaty ports” opened to foreign trade and residence.
4
While these treaty ports brought the island into more intense contact with foreign markets, it was not until Taiwan was ceded to Japan following the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 that the island was thoroughly made over for commercial purpose. A transportation network was constructed to link towns and cities and to allow access from trading ports to the hinterland (Knapp 2007). This provided the foundation for further economic development and integration into international markets. Taiwan became a provider of raw materials for Japan’s economy, a market for Japanese products, and a wartime industrial base for the empire (Lamley 2007). In the hands of the Japanese colonizer, Dagou began its transformation into the modern city of Kaohsiung. Its deepwater port made it a prime location to transport resources in and out of the island. Planning for the construction of a new downtown was sketched out in the 1920s, and subsequent projects to expand the city made it a model of Japanese urban planning and transportation development in Taiwan.
5
The outbreak of World War II further
pressed
the Japanese government to turn the city into a base for its advance to the south. As it became a gateway to the world in the Japanese empire’s economic and political geography, the foundation of today’s Kaohsiung was laid out. Wide roads set out on flat terrain in a geometric pattern characterized the city and granted it the kind of rational appearance and accessibility that define modern urban planning (Scott 1999). After its defeat in World War II, the Japanese left Taiwan and the Chinese Nationalist (Kuomintang, or KMT) government took control of the island. Losing the civil war against the Chinese Communist Party forced the KMT and its followers to relocate to Taiwan. With the financial and, later, military aid from the United States, it began to reconstruct the local economy and consolidate its rule as the Republic of China.
6
Tight state planning coupled with land reforms and an educated labor force allowed Taiwan to develop rapidly into a strong economic presence in East Asia. Taiwan’s strong economic growth beginning in the mid-1960s and up through the 1980s was lauded as a “miracle” and a model success story for other developing countries. In the new regime’s export-oriented economic design, Kaohsiung continued to be a transportation base, and it grew into an industrial center. With a population of 1.7 million, Kaohsiung is now the second largest city in Taiwan, second only to the capital city of Taipei, and its harbor is one of the largest container ports in the world.
7

Cold War politics brought more than American military presence to Kaohsiung. During the Korean War (1950–1953), the United States sent military advisors to assist in the training of Taiwanese armed forces and established bases and residences in all major military bases in Taiwan. The island also served as a vacationing spot and a midway station for American troops during the Vietnam War (1959–1975). In Kaohsiung’s waterfront Yancheng District, a marketplace by the name of Kujiang (pronounced
horie
in Japanese), originally established during the Japanese colonial period, began to flourish in the 1950s. Located near an American military base, it became a place where soldiers, sailors, and local merchants traded goods.
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Part black market and part legitimate business, Kujiang became known for the itinerate traders who “ran a solo gang” (
pao danbang
) by shuttling between Taiwan and elsewhere to bring in shipped goods (
shuihuo
, literally “water cargo”).
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Associations with Japanese colonial history, adventurous traders, American soldiers, and the abundance of foreign goods all gave Kujiang a cosmopolitan character and an indomitable spirit associated with entrepreneurial initiative.
This good fortune, however, was short lived. A number of events soon brought about Kujiang’s decline. The abolition of restrictions on international travel in 1979 allowing Taiwanese to travel abroad in search of more cosmopolitan shopping places, the severance of the diplomatic relationship between Taiwan and the United States in the same year, and the construction of the Datong Department Store were all contributing factors.

In 1975, the Datong Department Store located at the northeast corner of Chung-shan Road and Wu-fu Road opened for business. Emulating the model of Japanese department stores, which combined shopping and entertainment, Datong quickly became a famous local attraction and made the surrounding area the new shopping destination in Kaohsiung. The Oscar Movie Theater, showing primarily foreign films, and the fast-food outlets that came into the area in the late 1980s further augmented the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the newer commercial district. In 1988, a group of real estate developers bought a piece of land on Wen-heng 167 Alley near the department store and converted a few apartment buildings into a shopping center named New Kujiang Shopping Mall (NKSM hereafter).
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In adopting the name “Kujiang,” the developers connected this shopping center to the older marketplace by drawing on its cosmopolitan image, which was still vivid in local memory. Bringing together the exotic image of old Kujiang with the novel modernity of the Datong Department Store, they created a shopping mall that would be recognized by increasing numbers of upscale consumers as cosmopolitan, daring, modern, and unique, combined with a tinge of nostalgia for the energetic free spirit of the old Kujiang.

From the very beginning, NKSM was carefully planned and centrally managed. Its spatial organization is meant to invoke an outside market area. Its corridors are called “streets” (
jie
) and are marked by signs, and the self-enclosed store units flanking them all have street numbers posted on the doors. Through screening applications for retail space, the management ensured that these shops sold only imported goods and were designed to complement one another. Cleanliness and visual consistency ordered the foreign novelties into easily accessible displays and constructed a distinctive space distinguished from the streets outside. All the shops have to adhere to strict codes dictating store hours and decor. With oversized glass windows facing the “streets,” these shops give consumers a full view of store interiors decorated with objects from, or associated with, foreign places. Small boutiques like the ones in NKSM were becoming more common in Taiwan
in
the late 1980s. They attested to a growing desire in Taiwan to construct “taste” and “identity” through consumer choice. In addition to emphasizing their sophistication, boutiques also were invested with “character” or “personality” (
gexing
) built on the personal taste of store owners who handpicked their merchandise. Tian, a store manager now in her early forties, recalled that when NKSM was first established, most of the retailers were first-time business owners who saw the shops as a means to become their own bosses in a growing market and achieve financial independence. Their enthusiasm reflected the optimism of 1980s Taiwan when the island was beginning to open up economically and politically. It was also at around the same time that teenagers started to become a consumer demographic in Taiwan. Regulations on high school dress codes were loosened, and the economic miracle produced a generation of young people who had more money at their disposal. This change occurred concurrently with the democratization process on the island and the global proliferation of youth popular culture as a marketable commodity. As a result, there emerged a youth culture largely generated and influenced by commodities, advertising, and transnational cultural flows. New Kujiang’s rapid fashion changes, led by
danbang
merchants; the playful juxtaposition of images and goods from all over; and the mixture of languages on business signs composed an imaginative world where consumers could imagine, touch, and consume the global. For both consumers and merchants, these enclosed spaces with windows all facing inward were experienced as an opening that connected them to a wider world beyond the city.

Less than ten years after the establishment of NKSM, the nearby residential area of Jen-chi Street, Wen-hua Road, and Wen-heng 167 Alley had developed into a shopping area that then came to be known to most Kaohsiung residents more generally as “New Kujiang.” Other shopping gallerias with spatial layout and managerial style similar to NKSM were built. The Oscar Movie Theater, numerous fast-food outlets, less pricey shopping centers, and cheap knockoffs sold on the streets all drew in a younger crowd, giving New Kujiang a reputation that was becoming more hip than the sophisticated chic that NKSM had aimed for. Merchants used the arcades (
qilou
), an outside space protected from the weather by overhanging structures, either for storage or as additional display space. Street vendors set up stalls and carts in the arcades for protection from the weather or on the sidewalks right outside, blocking access to the arcades and the shops. Pedestrians were often forced to spill out onto the streets, exacerbating the already congested traffic and
contributing
to constant turf battles among merchants, vendors, pedestrians, and motorists. In NKSM, as a result of later expansions that incorporated previously existing buildings, the floors were not of the same height, and the corridors took strange turns and crosscut each other at unexpected intervals. The joy of discovery (or the frustration of getting lost) made shopping in New Kujiang an adventure in itself.

The expansion of New Kujiang hit a roadblock when the Datong Department Store was destroyed by fire in October 1995. Without this anchor to draw shoppers, business in New Kujiang began to dwindle. Further complicating its plight was the construction of other department stores along the axis of Wu-fu and Chung-shan Roads already begun by the time Datong burned. The economic miracle of the 1980s had brought about New Kujiang’s prosperity, but it also encouraged the establishment of more and more places for shopping and entertainment competing for business. As New Kujiang began to lose its allure as a chic shopping destination in the mid-1990s, the city of Kaohsiung also began to lose its industrial base. While department stores were being built one after another, Taiwan’s increasing integration into the global market and rising wages were forcing industries to move offshore in search of cheaper labor. In response to the global restructuring of capitalist production, in which capital became increasingly mobile across spatial divides and production became increasingly dispersed (Harvey 1990), the effort to transform local places to attract investment and consumers intensified.

In this context of postmiracle economy, New Kujiang found its rebirth in Taiwan’s place-making project.
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The national government’s initiative to transform Taiwan’s landscape in the name of modernization started as an effort to remap Taiwan’s national space, consolidate a localized Taiwanese identity, and “indigenize” the KMT so as to legitimatize its rule of Taiwan (Lu 2002). Promoted mainly as a politicocultural project at first, these programs later shifted their focus to economic development.
12
Embedded in this new landscape were articulations with a global market in which Taiwan had to compete by serving up marketable images as well as easy-to-navigate marketplaces for cosmopolitan consumers. This transformation resonates with the global trend of reconstructing local places physically as well as discursively to make them attractive to investors, visitors, and residents alike (Harvey 1989; Judd and Fainstein 1999; Philo and Kearns 1993; Zukin 1995). In addition,
there
was an agenda of implementing social change through spatial reorganization (Chuang 2005).
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As stated by the Council for Economic Planning and Development (CEPD), the nationwide Township Renaissance Program would incorporate previous street-making (
zaojie
) and town-making (
zaozhen
) programs in a new effort to create a “healthy, clean, and beautiful” island. With an emphasis on “prosperity, modernization, and culture,” this effort would “elevate the nation’s competitiveness and improve its international image, enhance the quality of life for its citizens, achieve sustainable development for cities and towns, and strengthen the investment environment to further economic development” (CEPD n.d.). Modernization, economic development, and national competitiveness were all intertwined in these projects. A vision of progress marked by tidiness, legibility, and easily recognized local identities would be perpetuated through the funded projects.

Led by NKSM’s management, business owners in New Kujiang worked with local government to transform the area. In 1998, it became one of the Department of Commerce’s “Exemplary Business Streets” (
shifan shangdianjie
). The area proposed for development included Wen-hua Road, Wenheng 167 Alley, and Jen-chi Street between Wu-Fu and Hsin-Tian Roads.
14
Teamed up with consultants from the Corporate Synergy Development Center (CSDC), a private firm commissioned by the Department of Commerce, the Committee for Development in New Kujiang presented a detailed plan for the New Kujiang Business Street to the Kaohsiung Municipal Government and the Department of Commerce as the blueprint of New Kujiang’s development. New Kujiang’s future was envisioned as an open-air pedestrian mall resembling, in the words of Mr. Liao and CSDC consultant Chen, “the streets of Austria,” “the shopping malls of America,” and or even “the Harajuku area of Tokyo.”
15
To achieve this end, the project focused on addressing the “disorderly (
zaluan
) streetscape” and using spatial reorganization to regulate the flow of consumer traffic through the area (CSDC 1998). It sought to reduce visually chaotic elements by banning oversized business signs and street vendors to create a more consistent look. With all of these distractions removed, the plan was to set the area apart from other city streets by paving the streets with decorative bricks, planting ornamental trees, and converting the streets into a pedestrian zone. A picture of pedestrians leisurely strolling down brick walkways shaded by colorful awnings and flanked by flowering trees, outdoor cafes, and refined street furniture recalled the pedestrian malls of other urban centers striving to bring commerce
and consumers together in a controlled environment closed to automobile traffic. These pedestrian zones were consciously intended to simulate “organic” urban streets nostalgic of an idealized urbanity (Boddy 1992; Crawford 1992; McMorrough 2001; Shepherd 2008). In New Kujiang, however, the purpose was not to recreate a supposedly organic urban space but to make New Kujiang more competitive with the modernity represented by the newer shopping malls and “malled” downtowns. It was to make New Kujjang stand out from the rest of Taiwan by making it look like one of those cosmopolitan shopping streets in “advanced countries” (
xianjin guojia
) that are indistinguishable from one another.