Qiao Xiang Kinmen - Wang Qingyun Western-style House 1934 Introduction
From the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China period, residents of Kinmen Island ventured out of their small home island to seek a livelihood across the sea, leaving footprints in both the Far East and Southeast Asia. However, successful individuals were few and far between, and only the fortunate could return home with remittances to build "Western-style houses" and bring honor to their families. A century later, these overseas Chinese houses have weathered the storms of time. This project aims to plan relevant cultural and historical guided tours related to these overseas Chinese houses, utilizing systematic course arrangements and resources from experts and local cultural workers to form a guide memory database. This initiative will help to systematically reorganize the historical and cultural significance of Kinmen's overseas Chinese houses, linking them with Kinmen's tourism development, allowing more seeds to sprout and become transmitters of Kinmen culture. The application base is the Wang Qingyun Western-style house, a traditional building in Kinmen with a history of ninety years, currently a local revitalization area. Kinmen is an important site for the development of overseas Chinese culture. In the past, making a living in Kinmen was challenging, leading many men to seek opportunities in Southeast Asia. Once successful, they would send money back home through remittances and, to showcase their success, build large houses in their hometown, thereby introducing architectural features from Southeast Asia to Kinmen. Between 1920 and 1937 marked the peak period for the construction of Western-style houses in Kinmen, illustrating the cultural history of men from Kinmen venturing to Southeast Asia in the early Republic era. The houses, brought from Southeast Asia such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, featured Western architectural styles, classic iron windows, wooden louvered windows, western gable walls, decorative clay sculptures, and patterned tiles, each with its representative significance that explained the architectural features of these houses and the cultural background of their decorative elements. Mr. Wang Qingyun, the owner of the Wang Qingyun Western-style house, initially opened a bookstore in Kinmen. However, when the Japanese army occupied Kinmen in the 26th year of the Republic, he sought to leave for Southeast Asia. Unfortunately, while traveling to Xiamen by boat, his wife passed away, forcing him to return to Kinmen with his family. He then purchased this Western-style house located on Juguang Road from Mr. Zeng Tianzhu. Subsequently, he lived in this house with his second and third wives and children, introducing techniques from a Western pastry shop in Tainan, opening the first Western pastry shop in Kinmen. Kinmen has more than a hundred Western-style houses, but many of their owners stayed in Southeast Asia, and their descendants moved to Taiwan for education and employment. Moreover, due to the age of the buildings, many are in a state of disrepair. This base, the Wang Qingyun Western-style house, has been restored and revitalized with the consent of its property owners by the Kinmen County Government. This proposal unit has rented the property for management, revitalization, and public tours. The goal is to awaken the cultural memory of the hundred-year-old Western-style house culture in Kinmen, exploring the potential connections between culture and tourism guided tours. This will turn the century-old Western-style house context and historical threads into a medium for seeking livelihoods, ultimately becoming the best cornerstone for "cultural creation" in Kinmen, and constructing opportunities for connecting cultural tourism with youth entrepreneurship in returning home.
Traditional architectural restoration of the western-style house interior
Century-old Paper Cutting
