A Barbarian’s House by the River Tamsui

Abstract

The story of ''the barbarian's house'' is important for the documentation of local social history from the final years of Qing rule over Taiwan. By analyzing the house's occupants, this article provides a platform from which to make sense of the interconnected histories of people and the landscape in which they lived. This overlooked aspect of Taiwan history offers a framework for micro-historical analysis that not only covers a broad thematic element of historical studies but also uses a global approach to the understanding of regional history. KeywordsThe River Tamsui, The Barbarian's House (Fanzailou), John Dodd, Rising Sun Petroleum Company, Charles ShuttleworthAs the mass rapid transit (MRT; Taiwan's variant of a metro system) begins to slow on its approach to Tamsui Station, marking the northernmost point of the line, one can peer out of the left-hand side of the carriage and glance through the banyan and camphor trees at a seemingly unimportant mass of building detritus. Yet this pile of inconspicuous debris is, in a real sense, a remarkable survivor of a landscape that has almost completely changed.Upon arrival at the station, turning south as if to retrace the train's route, one may approach, as have countless others before, a house that for over a century was referred to locally as Fanzailou 番仔樓 or the "Barbarian's House."Before the area became largely part of the Tamsui Seaplane Base [Danshui shuishangfei jichang 淡水水上飛機場], one could also have reached the property via an exclusive jetty that extended into the River Tamsui. This side of the bank, stretching from Fishermen's Wharf [Danshui yuren matou, 淡水漁人碼頭] in the north to an area near the present-day MRT station, was known colloquially, from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century, as the bund. 1 The locale, originally settled