Zhongping Road Story House Introduction
The Zhongping Road Story Museum is hidden within the bustling Zhongping commercial district. Originally built as a Japanese-style dormitory for civil servants, the building includes original materials from the Japanese colonial period, such as roof tiles, window grilles, sliding doors, and beams. The well-preserved condition of the building reflects the lives of local residents during that time. Registered as a historic building in 2010, it was refurbished and reorganized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau of Taoyuan City Government and now combines art exhibitions, cultural experiences, and creative products, providing guided group tours that offer visitors a glimpse into the life in Zhongli from the Japanese colonial period to the agricultural era. The Zhongping Road Story Museum is a historic Japanese-style duplex building constructed in 1930, originally serving as a duplex dormitory for Japanese civil servants, covering an area of over 30 ping. Mr. Wang Guozhi, who served as the director of the Mountain Affairs Section, and Mr. Liao Yunquan from the education bureau lived there successively, with their families spending nearly six decades in the house, embedding rich family emotions and historical memories within its walls. The most valuable aspect of the old house is the preservation of culture; after the original residents moved out in 2007, it was designated a historic building in 2010. To revitalize the old house, the Cultural Affairs Bureau began repairs in 2013, which took nearly two years, reopening in May 2015 as the "Zhongping Road Story Museum" with a new look. It retains the exquisite charm of the past with the concept of "a corner, a story," including preserved remnants of a large cooking stove, coal balls in the cellar, the everyday life of raising pigs, memories of chilling watermelon in the backyard well, and the traditional tatami layout indoors, all rekindling warm memories of a bygone era, making the Zhongping Road Story Museum a place with warmth. Not only does the Zhongping Road Story Museum guide visitors to understand the cultural landscape of the old house through story corners, but it also features regular exhibitions of old photographs and artifacts from the past, creative product sections, art exhibitions, urban lectures, Hakka cultural experiences, and other planned activities. Visitors can explore every corner of the museum and listen to the memories of the old house. When visiting the Zhongping Road Story Museum, amidst the atmosphere of the historic site, guests are inspired to appreciate the historical past. While reminiscing about the stories of the old house, visitors are also encouraged to share their own stories, allowing the old house to cherish them and complete the puzzle of historical narratives.
