Going Green – Experiencing the Ecomobile Lifestyle

The Place
Hamasen
in Former Times ...
By Chinghui Liao, ICLEI Kaohsiung Capacity Center
When deciding to host the EcoMobility World Festival 2017, the
City of Kaohsiung chose Hamasen as the demonstration site for ecomobility.
Formerly a coastal lagoon, Hamasen became solid land as Japanese
colonizers around a century ago built up the Takao Harbor—today’s
Kaohsiung Harbor—and filled it with waste sea soil. The newborn
Hamasen was turned into a high-class residential neighborhood with all
that was modern: tap water, electricity, postal and telecom services, grid
plan, police station, elementary school, city hall, banks, official residences,
parks, and even disaster prevention forests. The neighborhood was named
after a railway that linked the new harbor and the main line railway, and
the Japanese name “Hamasen” was pronounced locally as Taiwanese “Hama-seng”.
Hamasen is home to Kaohsiung’s modernization and centurylong
development into a major port city.
Travelers a century ago got off trains at Hamasen
station and entered the neighborhood either on
foot or by cycling, while goods were transported by
train, ship and human labor. Vehicles were rare, and the
human-centered neighborhood would be considered
livable even by current standards. The Japanese surrendered
and left Taiwan after World War II, while
migrants from Tainan, Penghu as well as Chaozhou and
Shantou in China thrived in Hamasen with fishing,
shipping, Chinese medicine imports, transportation, and
other harbor-related trades. Hamasen’s prosperity has
dimmed since fishing port functions moved to Qianzhen
District.
“
Hamasen used to be home
to the largest fish market in
Southeast Asia, which was connected
to the main line railway
by the Hamasen railway so that
fishery goods could be bought
here at the break of dawn and
sent directly to Taipei.
”
Mr. Rui-yao Ou, 74,
shipping company owner
and bird-watcher
“
In Hamasen, there used to be a cluster of
importers of Chinese medicine into Taiwan
from the Japanese era onwards, and they
gathered in Hamasen because the piers of
Hamasen were the primary port they used.
Their major clients were wholesalers of
Chinese medicine in Taipei.
”
Mr. Hung-hsiang Chen, 59,
importer of Chinese medicine and
online marketer for Taiwanese
aboriginal recreational resorts
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