ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the processes of heritage valuation and production in Taiwan through two examples of tobacco agriculture and settlement in the townships of Fonglin and Jian. Tobacco agriculture thrived for more than 60 years in Taiwan after its initiation in 1913 by Japan’s colonial policy, and it experienced a steady decline since the 1980s. I argue that Taiwan’s heritage is more complex and dynamic than people usually perceive. The interpretation of heritage is never simple and stable; in contrast, it is shaped by contemporary imperatives and ambitions. The initial action to protect heritage taken at the beginning of the post-war period affirmed Taiwan’s inheritance of Chinese culture and cultivated an imagined Chinese identity. This led to the marginalisation of mundane, regionally focused, everyday heritage, such as local tobacco heritage. The cases of Jian and Fonglin townships, both historic tobacco settlements in eastern Taiwan, illustrate how the value of local tobacco heritage was identified and interpreted by the local residents following the island’s social transition from autocracy to democracy. Later, tobacco heritage’s value reshaped in relation to the practice of Hakka culture recultivation and preservation.
