Cui Ping Li Hsu Tso Introduction
The Xucuo located inside Cuiping Road Lane is the ancestral home of the late general manager of the Dajia Farmers' Association, Xu Quan-xing. It was built around the 43rd year of the Meiji era (1910), featuring a traditional three-bay, two-story brick building. The second-floor balcony has green glazed bottle-shaped railings, and both the first and second floors are adorned with numerous colorful tiles with various designs. The architecture showcases decorative elements commonly found in traditional buildings, such as sculptures of the Eight Immortals and stories of the Twenty-four Filial Exemplars in the form of Chaozhou ceramics and painted scroll tablets. Notably, the building features rare brick carvings depicting figures and auspicious patterns. These brick carvings, along with the Chaozhou ceramics and painted scroll tablets, were created by Zhang Jiao, the father of the national treasure-level shadow puppetry artist Zhang De-cheng. Known as "Han Fan," Zhang Jiao was multi-talented; he was not only a prominent figure in the shadow puppetry world but also renowned for his calligraphy, pottery, wood carving, brick carving, and Chaozhou ceramics. Many wealthy families’ buildings in the old Dajia Township (later renamed Dajia District after the city-county merger) showcased Zhang Jiao’s works, but unfortunately, most of them have been demolished and rebuilt, and are no longer visible today.
