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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, nicely, a wall. Only some air vents counsel that there is perhaps one thing on the opposite aspect.
“It’s a bomb shelter,” mentioned Ms. Shi, 53, as she waited for the morning rush. “As a result of we’re Keelung individuals, we all know these sorts of locations.”
“It’s an area for all times,” she added. “And an area for demise.”
Throughout her avenue and plenty of extra in Keelung — which suffered its first overseas assault, by the Dutch, in 1642 — the panorama has been carved up for defense. Kitchens hook up with underground passageways that tunnel into the sandstone. Rusty gates on the ends of alleys result in darkish maws which can be crammed with reminiscences 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 individuals, main officers to declare that Keelung has the next density of locations to cover than anyplace else in closely fortified Taiwan. And for a loosely organized band of city planners, artists and historical past lovers, Keelung’s bomb shelters have grow to be a canvas — for artistic city renewal and civil protection.
A few of these havens have been recast as cultural areas. However these subterranean areas aren’t simply cool relics; on a self-governed island that China considers misplaced property it plans to reclaim, they’re additionally very important infrastructure.
Many of the bunkers had been mapped out and constructed by Japan, which ruled Taiwan from 1895 till the top of World Warfare II, when Keelung was a bombing goal.
The shelters round Ms. Shi’s store occupy one of many oldest elements of 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 way of a cave with winding tunnels that, till not too long ago, had been used as a fireplace division storage shed.
On a latest morning, it appeared extra like an artwork gallery or a nightclub. Rails of lights hugged the moist partitions, shining on sprouts of inexperienced crops, the underground’s solely bursts of shade. Concrete flooring had been laid with drainage areas on the edges.
Hung Chih-chien, 33, a public servant in Keelung’s city planning division, mentioned metropolis officers had initially considered opening up the house and making it a restaurant, then determined they didn’t need to destroy the unique geology.
Keelung’s shelters aren’t simple to handle; deeds are uncommon, and entry typically 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 in-built that period, when China, weakened by famine and rebel, struggled to carry on to territory.
In 1884, for instance, the French invaded Keelung, seizing town for a few yr till the imperial commissioner for Taiwan, Liu Ming-ch’uan, pushed out French troops. Quickly after that, to raised safe Keelung, he commissioned building of Taiwan’s first railway tunnel by way of Shihciouling Mountain, a pure barrier blocking Keelung from Taipei.
The tunnel opened in 1890 — and can reopen, renovated, in a couple 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 power of the ceiling. She mentioned she hoped it could ultimately be linked to native mountaineering trails and roads.
“We would like individuals to know the historical past, to understand how this helped defend Keelung,” she mentioned.
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 individuals 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 grow to be extra vocal about unification with Taiwan, reserving the precise to make use of drive.
At Pufferfish, a restaurant in Keelung that backs right into a cavernous bomb shelter, vacationers on the half-dozen wood tables snap images of the inside. However locals favor darkish humor.
“Many individuals instructed me if a battle breaks out, they might come to my restaurant,” mentioned Miao Hsu-ching, 34, Pufferfish’s proprietor. “They’re sure that we might nonetheless present meals.”
Rising up in Keelung, Ms. Miao felt it was a pity that many deserted bomb shelters had been crammed with rubbish and missed. For generations, kids in Keelung have scared each other with tales of their ghosts, troopers killed and killing.
“It’s vital to renovate them and join them with their surrounding areas,” Ms. Miao mentioned.
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 town’s wet climate and people 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 pleasure.
“The civil society was the primary driver of the renovation,” Mr. Wang mentioned. “The youthful era was capable of mirror on the previous when the older era performed — and even hid — inside.”
To some, a passion for the shelters appears unusual. Ms. Shi mentioned she noticed a snake within the one behind her store — past the storage room — and has no intention of getting in there, even when missiles begin flying.
She mentioned Keelung’s shelters needs to be renovated primarily to make younger individuals — whom she known as delicate, a “strawberry era” — pay extra consideration to the tensions with China which will drive them to struggle or cover.
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 night time, he mentioned, 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 mentioned. “They had been crammed with individuals.”
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, speak to buddies.
“It was like an air-conditioner in there,” he mentioned. His spouse, Wang Chen Shu-mei, stood behind him. She laughed and agreed.
However when requested if they might think about returning to the shelters in case of one other assault, they each frowned. Ms. Wang Chen started to yell.
“We’re Taiwanese, we now have nothing to do with China,” she mentioned. Then, she spoke quietly: “We don’t know when the bombs will come. We hope they by no means come.”
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