A Little Trip to the Wujie Township Local Culture Hall: Yilan Is a Museum 04 - Reading a Century of Splendor
Text and photos / Chen Xiumin
On the vast Lanyang Plain, every city, town, township, village, and hall has its own unique charm. When we focus our gaze on a locality, schools, temples, and granaries are all carriers of local learning, the passing down of faith, and industrial development. Walking into Xuejin Elementary School in Wujie Township, the school is joyfully welcoming its upcoming 100th anniversary. Walking into the Erjie Culture Life Hall, it turns out to be a historic building preserved from the 1997 thousand-person temple relocation. Walking into the Erjie Granary Rice Farmers Culture Hall, it is another "Japanese-Western hybrid style" building with a history of more than 100 years. Let us get to know these quietly shining century-old local spots of Wujie Township together.
The Xuejin Cultural Collection Hall brings you back to childhood memories of campus life
"A Century of Xuejin, Passion and Energy - 0526 Anniversary Grand Reunion." As soon as you enter the gate of Xuejin Elementary School, this bright yellow banner catches your eye. Looking more closely, it turns out the school is preparing for this year's centennial anniversary celebration.
Xuejin Elementary School is located in the Erjie area of Wujie Township. The campus is right next to Provincial Highway 9, a route that anyone traveling between northern and southern Yilan must pass through. The school was founded in the 7th year of the Republic of China, when the campus was set up at Wanggong Temple. It was not until the 10th year of the Republic of China that a new school building was constructed at the current site. This year it just reaches 100 years old, which is truly not easy. This is not only a major event for the school, but also a major event for the local area.
In 2019, they planned multiple art markets and performances across several consecutive holidays, opened a youth puppet theater experience camp during summer vacation, and promoted a parent-child camp for shared family fun. In addition, the "Puppet Village Grand Reveal," held once in the morning and once in the afternoon every Saturday and Sunday, should be the most suitable activity for visitors looking for a holiday puppet outing.
Whether it is the "Erjie Granary Rice Farmers Culture Hall" combining rice farmer culture with local culture and applying them in a multiplied way, even connecting with halls of different natures in other areas of Yilan in an attempt to create a new era of rice farmer cultural experiences and itineraries; or the zero-distance puppet playground of Lize International Puppet Art Village, linking puppet theater with Yilan's summer children's folk games festival. A local culture hall not only shoulders its original core operational role, but also carries the mission of local cultural inheritance and innovation. The local culture halls of Wujie Township each have their own charm. Everyone is welcome to come and read the stories of these century-old local halls and the local vitality that adds new elements to the variations of the times.