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KEELUNG, Taiwan — Guests to Keelung, a mountainous port metropolis on Taiwan’s northern coast, would possibly fairly suppose that the white wall in the back of Shi Hui-hua’s breakfast store is, properly, a wall. Only some air vents recommend that there could be one thing on the opposite facet.
“It’s a bomb shelter,” stated Ms. Shi, 53, as she waited for the morning rush. “As a result of we’re Keelung folks, we all know these sorts of locations.”
“It’s an area for all times,” she added. “And an area for loss of life.”
Throughout her road and lots of extra in Keelung — which suffered its first overseas assault, by the Dutch, in 1642 — the panorama has been carved up for cover. Kitchens connect with underground passageways that tunnel into the sandstone. Rusty gates on the ends of alleys result in darkish maws which can be full of recollections of battle, and generally trash or bats — or an altar or restaurant annex.
There are almost 700 bomb shelters on this metropolis of 360,000 folks, main officers to declare that Keelung has a higher density of places to hide than anywhere else in heavily fortified Taiwan. And for a loosely organized band of city planners, artists and historical past lovers, Keelung’s bomb shelters have turn out to be a canvas — for inventive city renewal and civil protection.
A few of these havens have been recast as cultural areas. However these subterranean areas are usually not simply cool relics; on a self-governed island that China considers misplaced property it plans to reclaim, they’re additionally important infrastructure.
A lot of the bunkers had been mapped out and constructed by Japan, which ruled Taiwan from 1895 till the top of World Conflict II, when Keelung was a bombing goal.
The shelters round Ms. Shi’s store occupy one of many oldest elements of the town, sitting just under a hillside park that’s being upgraded with an elevator. One in all its entrances will quickly require a brief stroll by means of a cave with winding tunnels that, till not too long ago, had been used as a hearth division storage shed.
On a latest morning, it seemed extra like an artwork gallery or a nightclub. Rails of lights hugged the moist partitions, shining on sprouts of inexperienced vegetation, the underground’s solely bursts of coloration. Concrete flooring had been laid with drainage areas on the perimeters.
Hung Chih-chien, 33, a public servant in Keelung’s city planning division, stated metropolis officers had initially considered opening up the house and making it a restaurant, then determined they didn’t wish to damage the unique geology.
Keelung’s shelters are usually not straightforward to handle; deeds are uncommon, and entry usually defines possession. However the metropolis discovered paperwork displaying that this bunker had been constructed within the nineteenth century, close to the top of the Qing Dynasty’s rule over Taiwan. It was one in all a number of tunnels and bunkers inbuilt that period, when China, weakened by famine and insurrection, struggled to carry onto territory.
In 1884, for instance, the French invaded Keelung, seizing the town for a couple of 12 months till the imperial commissioner for Taiwan, Liu Ming-ch’uan, pushed out French troops. Quickly after that, to raised safe Keelung, he commissioned development of Taiwan’s first railway tunnel by means of Shihciouling Mountain, a pure barrier blocking Keelung from Taipei.
The tunnel opened in 1890 — and can reopen, renovated, in a number of months.
On a latest tour, Kuo Li-ya, who heads up the cultural heritage division of Keelung’s native authorities, defined the difficult restoration effort, which included working small cameras above the tunnel to gauge the energy of the ceiling. She stated she hoped it could finally be linked to native mountain climbing trails and roads.
“We wish folks to know the historical past, to understand how this helped defend Keelung,” she stated.
Standing within the tunnel, with new bricks of brilliant orange mixing with getting old grey stone, she spoke of historical past however acknowledged that the tunnel might additionally defend folks in one other battle.
For a lot of in Keelung, previous and current threats blur.
In latest months, China has elevated the frequency and depth of navy drills off Taiwan’s coast. Xi Jinping, China’s chief, has additionally turn out to be extra vocal about unification with Taiwan, reserving the right to use force.
At Pufferfish, a restaurant in Keelung that backs right into a cavernous bomb shelter, vacationers on the half-dozen wood tables snap pictures of the inside. However locals favor darkish humor.
“Many individuals informed me if a battle breaks out, they might come to my restaurant,” stated Miao Hsu-ching, 34, Pufferfish’s proprietor. “They’re sure that we’d nonetheless present meals.”
Rising up in Keelung, Ms. Miao felt it was a pity that many deserted bomb shelters had been full of rubbish and missed. For generations, youngsters in Keelung have scared one another with tales of their ghosts, troopers killed and killing.
“It’s essential to renovate them and join them with their surrounding areas,” Ms. Miao stated.
Wang Chieh, 53, a painter in Keelung, has embraced that mission. A couple of years in the past, he and 40 or 50 native residents mounted up 4 mossy blastproof partitions that stand in entrance of bomb shelters on one in all Keelung’s many hills. Impressed by the town’s wet climate and folks beliefs, Mr. Wang sketched out a mural design with extensively sprawled ferns and a legendary beast that’s carved on the gate to a widely known temple within the metropolis.
It took six months to finish the work on white tiles. Now the blast partitions and bunkers are a vacationer attraction, and a landmark of satisfaction.
“The civil society was the principle driver of the renovation,” Mr. Wang stated. “The youthful era was capable of replicate on the previous when the older era performed — and even hid — inside.”
To some, a passion for the shelters appears unusual. Ms. Shi stated she noticed a snake within the one behind her store — past the storage room — and has no intention of stepping into there, even when missiles begin flying.
She stated Keelung’s shelters needs to be renovated primarily to make younger folks — whom she known as comfortable, a “strawberry era” — pay extra consideration to the tensions with China that will drive them to combat or conceal.
For a few of her neighbors, the bunkers are a reminder of their previous.
A couple of doorways down from her store, Wang Huo-hsiang, 91, sat on the retailer the place he made rubber stamps, earlier than he retired.
He remembers when the Individuals bombed Keelung in 1944 and 1945, recalling the bump, bump, bump of the bombs he heard whereas hiding in a shelter close by.
He slept in a single tunnel at evening, he stated, lived by day in one other. He was only a boy, in fifth grade, however the reminiscence made him smile. The shelters had rescued him.
“That was the one protected place to be,” he stated. “They had been full of folks.”
He and his spouse later spent summer time nights within the man-made caves, hiding from the warmth. They’d share a drink and meals, discuss to mates.
“It was like an air-conditioner in there,” he stated. His spouse, Wang Chen Shu-mei, stood behind him. She laughed and agreed.
However when requested if they may think about returning to the shelters in case of one other assault, they each frowned. Ms. Wang Chen started to yell.
“We’re Taiwanese, now we have nothing to do with China,” she stated. Then, she spoke quietly: “We don’t know when the bombs will come. We hope they by no means come.”
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