Established in 2003, the Taichung City Symphony
Orchestra's mission is to
increase the understanding of
classical music.

A mockup of the Taichung
Metropolitan Opera House,
designed by Japanese architect
Toyo Ito. The 2,000-seat venue
is scheduled to open next year.

Taichung's Botanical Gardens
house an entire tropical
rainforest ecosystem, including
exotic plants, tall trees,
butterflies, waterfalls and
tropical fish. (Photo by Lu Ko-
hsi )

Renaissance in Taichung (Part 2)

Resource: Taiwan Review
By Jacques Van Wersch, translated by Ann Lee
Photos by Taichung City Government
Published in March 2008

Upstaging Taipei
Taichung-based foreign musicians have to some extent influenced local nightlife habits, at least by increasing opportunities for residents to catch live music performances. Resonating with this bottom-up efflorescence of culture are Mayor Hu's efforts to upstage Taipei by attracting top-billed acts and exhibitions. Hu gave a taste of things to come even before he took office by helping to book celebrated tenor Jose Carreras to play one date in Taiwan, in Taichung, in November 2001. During his mayoralty, Taichung has achieved other coups. For example, in December 2005 Luciano Pavarotti made Taichung the only Taiwan stop on his farewell world tour. In December last year, an exhibition of sculpture by French master Auguste Rodin was held at the Contemporary Art Gallery--another Taichung exclusive.

At the same time, the city's Cultural Affairs Bureau has been working with industry partners to improve cultural literacy. One of the products and tools of this project is the Taichung City Symphony Orchestra, established in 2003. Cellist Evelyn Huang is one of the founders of the orchestra and its deputy director. "Education is one of the most important functions of our orchestra," Huang says. "At concerts, we have an interpreter on stage who explains the music and the story behind it to audiences before the performance as well as between acts."

The orchestra holds two or three major concerts per year. Combined with campus concerts and seasonal chamber recitals, its members perform 20 or 30 times annually--quite a heavy schedule for a part-time orchestra. The venues range from cramped college auditoriums to the city's two professional performance venues--each seating roughly 1,000 audience members--and an outdoor amphitheater in Wenxin Forest Park that can accommodate 10,000. According to Huang, promoting concerts has become easier over time. Selling free performances may not be particularly challenging, but the city has also found success in promoting performances that charge for entry. "Every year, we find it easier to attract audiences to our concerts," Huang says.

In 2009, the orchestra will have a new venue, the 2,000-seat Taichung Metropolitan Opera House, designed by noted Japanese architect Toyo Ito. Mayor Hu says he hopes "our opera house will be as well known as the Sydney Opera House," the distinctive expressionist structure that is intimately associated with the Australian city.

Planting Cultural Roots
Mark Huang of the culture bureau says it is natural that high-profile projects like the opera house, the amphitheater and a brand new baseball stadium are in the limelight, but he feels his most important work has been in education. "The key to establishing cultural roots is reaching the schools and communities so that you end up with a situation similar to Europe or the United States," he says. "Culture becomes part of the people's lifestyle." Huang says each of Taichung's eight administrative districts hosts a free performance each week during a two-week period during the summer. While he hopes parents will take their children to these performances, he has seen the reverse happening as well. "Children are taking their parents and even grandparents to concerts held at their school campuses," he says.

Over the past several decades, the former downtown area of Taichung, Central District, has been a victim of the city's transformation. Once the buzzing center of the city, the area around the railway station has lost its luster. Businesses have been moving out of cramped shops in what locals refer to as the old downtown and into malls or standalone boutiques in the area's new upscale commercial and residential hub northwest of the Central District. Even City Hall will be moved in late 2009 to a building now under construction in a trendier area. Mark Huang confirms that the old downtown has seen better days, but adds a plan is in the works to bring more tourists to the area. The city government, he says, has offered to turn over the old City Hall to the National Palace Museum (NPM) provided the museum sets up a branch there. "You have the Museum of Contemporary Art in the old Taipei City Hall right now," Huang notes. "So wouldn't it make sense for the NPM to put some of its 650,000 treasures on display in Taichung? There's a plan now for a branch in Chiayi [in southern Taiwan], but even with Taipei and Chiayi, they couldn't put all their pieces on display in a lifetime."

And, of course, an NPM branch in central Taichung would attract tourists from around Taiwan and abroad. This, according to Huang's reasoning, would induce new businesses to set up shop in the area to cater to droves of tourists.

There and Back Again
Taichung's first incarnation as Taiwan's City of Culture was facilitated by its location at the latitudinal center of the country. Its downfall coincided with the building of better roads, including two north-south freeways, and improved air links. It would seem that better transportation limited Taichung from being anything other than a regional center. However, the latest improvement--Taiwan's high-speed railway--launched in January last year, is often cited by Taichung government officials as a reason for optimism that the city's fortunes are on the rise.

"This thing called high-speed rail has made it very easy for people to leave Taipei after work, get here by about 7:00 [p.m.] for a 7:30 performance ending at 9:30 and be home by 11:00," Mayor Hu says. The same could be said for Kaohsiung residents traveling to Taichung.

Many people in Taichung cite Jason Hu's dedication and inspiration as the main reasons for Taichung's 21st-century renaissance. Hu, whose second and final term in office ends next year, shrugs off the praise. Asked if he worries he might have set the bar for his successor too high, he smiles and quips, "Come now. Anybody could improve on my performance." Despite Hu's humility, many in Taichung must wonder whether the momentum can be maintained without the combination of energy, force of personality and international outlook that Hu brings to the job. The culture bureau's Mark Huang, who followed Hu from the foreign ministry to the Taichung City administration, is optimistic: "The ball is already rolling. No matter who is the next mayor, whether it's a Kuomintang or Democratic Progressive Party candidate, the people have already spoken out very clearly: Since we now have these cultural facilities, these artistic activities, you as the mayor must continue to provide us with these kinds of cultural events."

If Huang is right, then Taichung has completed a Dantean odyssey--from City of Culture to City of Vice and back again.