ABSTRACT
I N THE PRECEDING CHAPTER WE HAVE EXAMINED HOW A COMMUNITY HERITAGE WAS invented in Baimi to satisfy the public longing for a consumable past. Baimi's story is far from an isolated case. In Taiwan, just like other modern post-industrial societies, history has become a profitable component of local economies. As old lifestyles disappear through the processes of industrialization and urbanization, the modern Taiwanese struggle to seek sites beyond their urban dwellings to prompt memories of childhood. Elaborating on the notion that modern tourists look at other places to find their own authenticity, Caren Kaplan writes: "When the past is displaced, often to another location, the modern subject must travel to it, as it were. History becomes something to be established and managed through tours, exhibitions, and representational practices."1 By the same token, in the late 1990s many places were established to supply histories within Taiwan. While Kaplan's discussion was mainly focused on international traveling (which she too quickly equated to Euro-American activity), Taiwan's historic places were built to cater to domestic tourists, a newly emerging phenomenon which would affirm the spatio-temporal dimension of the nation.
