Toyota Immigration Village (Tobacco Museum) Introduction
Toyotan, a name overflowing with cultural flavor. Driving along Provincial Highway No. 9, at the 224-kilometer mark, on the left side (heading east), there are three cement pillars. The middle one is labeled Toyosan, and on the iron pillar hang a windmill and a white heron; this is Toyotan. During the Japanese colonial period, the Taiwan Governor-General's Office implemented large-scale immigration policies in areas around Hualien and Dong, establishing several sizeable immigrant villages in Eastern Taiwan, such as Yoshino, Toyotan, Lintian, Ruifeng, and Luyuan. These Japanese immigrants mostly came from rural areas of Japan to create "Yamato people's model villages" in Eastern Taiwan, leaving a significant impact on the cultural development during Taiwan's colonial period. The Toyotan immigrant village is one of the better-preserved sites today. In the second year of the Taisho era, the Japanese first introduced American yellow tobacco, which was planted in the Yoshino immigrant village and gradually spread to Toyotan. In the early years, one could tell the wealth of a household by the number of "tobacco houses" they had. Although tobacco leaves have declined, the Hiroshima-style and Osaka tobacco houses still remain, serving as witnesses to the past tobacco industry and providing a useful footnote for the immigrant industry during the Japanese colonial period. After Taiwan's restoration, most residents of the immigrant villages were repatriated to Japan. Over the past 60 years, these Japanese immigrant villages seemed to have vanished in the river of time, leaving only a few old buildings and artifacts that witness the traces of that era decades ago. In recent years, the attention and emphasis from some local historical workers and residents have gradually brought this long-silent history back into public awareness.
