ABSTRACT
Chen's recognition of llan's achievement in place making was shared by the mass media, cultural workers, and the Ilan county government itself. "The Ilan experience" became "the exemplar for cultural construction by local governments" in Taiwan's cultural discourse.3 As stated earlier, a prevailing sense of cultural crisis emerged in many local regions of Taiwan in the late 1980s, in which the notion that culture, in particular native or folk cultures, as needing to be "preserved" or "developed" became widely acknowledged. The key factor distinguishing Ilan from other places, however, was its effective, coordinated bureaucracy. In the previous chapter I have described how the place-making project of Tanshui was interrupted by unwilling local politicians. The blueprint envisioned by the community workers was undermined because it failed to articulate the interests of local
political factions. It was not uncommon for Taiwan's community workers to be trapped in futile struggles of local politics, which have become a major frustration for them. The Han experience was a rare case in which local government successfully initiated and coordinated a place-making movement. This exceptional process, it should be noted, was only made possible by the distinctive regional politics of the county where non-KMT politicians had controlled the administration system since 1983.
