New design to the shop of Patriotic Lady Club

The building of Patriotic Lady Club is located opposite to Confucius temple in Japanese colony age.  In couple years ago it was remodeled to accommodate a new municipal department of Tainan City Hall, and offered an exhibition site for those who in need.




The souvenir shop here, like the right picture, is different from the other, because their products are designed, produced and created by a group of different designers/manufacturers/artists of Tainan, a so-called "Cottage Industry" products.  I highly recommend the tourists to take a look in the shop.

However, what I am going to introduce is not the shop itself but the new decoration over the shelves, chairs, and racks, all made by the paper material, hard enough to support the weight of the adult.  Take a closer look, one can see the material is similar to the exporting carton board.

Look at the counter, the exhibition wall on right and the floor, one will find the designed pattern seems like the carton boxes stacked up together.

The floor needs a special description, which gives a three dimensional vision effect.  In fact, it took 3 small bricks in different color to assemble in order to get this effect.  So, the master to floor them must work very carefully and with great patience.

Wall Anchor at Confucius Temple

"Wall Anchor" like the blue square indicated on the picture was introduced by Dutch into Taiwan architecture, able to enforce the house structure.  As the earthquake and typhoon disasters did often hit Taiwan, this kind of skill was very useful to lengthen the life of the house construction.

It is to fix the wall and beam together, no matter how the earthquake is shaking up-and-down or right-and-left, the roof is not that easy to crash down.

This type of architecture skill can been seen in Netherlands when travelling there nowadays.  There the decoration on the wall may become like the cross mark "X" or other shapes, but the function is the same, to strengthen the upper roof of the house.

Wall Anchor can be also seen at An Ping Ford, its oldest brick wall built up by Dutch in the first quarter of 17 century in "Scissor" pattern.

Pigeon Berry, a gardening plant in Zhu Jiu Ying's residence

The world is really globalized gradually.  Now, everywhere in Taiwan, you can see a lot of different foreign plants standing by the side/middle of the busy traffic streets or public/private gardens.

In front of Zhu Jiu Ying's residence a plant, called "Jing Lu Hua" in Mandarin as the left picture shown, can be traced to its birth place Mexico, now widely introduced into Taiwan and become a mean of the gardening plant.

My friend from States felt great interesting over it, because it looks like some kind of the edible berries, lovely color and attractive outlook.  No wonder it could draw many tourists to take its pictures.  I am not professional at gardening, but promise to search for the answer and reply my friend.

Here is the answer - its scientific name is called "Duranta Erecta," another name in English are Skyflower, Pigeon Berry and Golden Dewdrop, and importantly the lovely golden fruit is poisonous.  Don't ever mistake to taste it.

Confucius Temple

There is no other place graceful like Confucius Temple of Tainan.  The building is China southern style architecture with Swallow Tail symbol at the roof end, double roofs but actually one floor only to have a better air-flowing system and enough brightness from the outdoor.

In the front of the temple there is a platform, giving the ceremony dance in the spring and fall Confucius rites, subject to the lunar calendar schedule.   Around the temple there are the west and the east chambers to have the relative Confucian masters through ages worshiped together, including five generations of Confucius' male ancestors in the back of the main temple.

Be noted, the entrance is two-stair up and down.  It is said the high block is to prevent women wearing long skirt in the old age to have the education of Confucism.   This is a joke!  Because in the temple there is no schooling but worship ceremony.  The correct purpose of this high block is to avoid the animal to get in.

The left picture in the red circle is a clear view to the "Swallow Tail" symbol.

Calligraphy - Zhu Jiu Ying his late residence

Calligraphy is an art and a word.  Nowadays it is regards as an art, however, for those who study the history and literature, it is the message carrier to let people know the old life left by the previous ancestors.

The residence of Zhu Jiu Ying, a famous calligrapher in last century, is the two-floor exhibition house.  The first floor is to introduce Zhu Jiu Ying and his art.  The fun there is you have a chance to take up the brush pen and write down some Chinese words (tradition form).

The second floor is to exhibit the present artworks, and to show the architecture of Japanese house.

The calligraphies here are taken on the second floor.

Sword Lion - An Ping town

There are different stories to talk about "Sword Lion."  Here I only tell one.  It is said in Koxinga age the life of the soldiers need to do either fighting in the battle or cultivating on the ground.  When they are not fighting, they put the sword through the back of the shield made by the rattan but covering a metal shell painted with the lion, or put the set on the outer wall before they go into houses for meals.  No thief dare to violate those houses hanging the set.  In a long run it is derived to "Sword Lion" as a symbol to get rid of bad people and bad things.

The location to put Sword Lion was the place the family wants to get free of the bad things.

Picture A, two swords crossing in the middle of the lion's mouth, means the family hope "the evil/bad luck can be kept away."



Picture B, the sword tip toward right, is to wish "Free of the evil."








Picture C, the sword tip toward left, means to bring all the good luck/safety/peace for the family.

Coral Wall - Walking into An Ping Town

In the beginning when the immigrants moved into Tainan, the solid and free housing material they could have was "corals", a lot of them were free to take near the coastal area.

The earlier immigrants used the coral and the clay to build up the walls for their shelter, like the left picture shown.  Now, just few of this kind of old wall can been seen in An Ping town. 

Coral Wall is the very common construction in the ancient age when Han race landed in Taiwan.  However, after the family economic was improved, the house was remodeled with the bricks.  At this age the other common symbol on the top of the wall is the "Horseback" architecture as the following right picture.

This kind of the wall is for the ordinary people, and it was said the host will shape the house top by 5 different options on the red circled location according to their family character.

*Remark:  Five different options is based on Five Elements (Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth) - a kind of Fong Shui knowledge, shown at the bottom of the picture. (Five house top pictures are referred to the blog of "gogohsu.") 

For those rich and governmental officer families, now most for the temples, the house top is "Swallow Tail" shape, which will be introduced later.

Banyan Tree - An Ping Tree House

Banyan Tree is the late comer in An Ping Tree House, but now plays a major part here.  In the south of Taiwan, Banyan is the common plant, growing big and wide, because of no economical value itself.  People here take no bother to violate its existence.  Simply speaking, the only benefit to have Banyan is to rest under its shadow in the extremist hot summer day.

In March/April to visit Tree House, tourists got the chance to see its flower, not blossoming, but figs on the trunk, so there are a lot of lumps on the trunk after the figs dropped. The specialty of Banyan is its aerial roots, like the beard of the human beings growing from the trunk to help absorbing the moisture in the air and whatever the tree want around its living surrounding.  Only until the aerial root touches the ground, it will become a solid root, like the left picture shown.  To avoid its growing wide, the gardener has to cut the banyan beard all the time.

The roots of Banyan can leak a special chemical acid, which can erode the concrete and damage the housing structure.  This is the reason why the salty company warehouse was rooting by the banyan tree on the roof and the wall, almost covering the whole warehouse top.  To see the nature power of Banyan tree, the walking rail here was building on the top of the house to give a complete picture of the so-called tree house.