Qualla: Tainan https://qualla.com/tainan en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:37 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/6/tainan-wk/hero-small.webp Qualla: Tainan https://qualla.com/tainan Tainan: Introduction https://qualla.com/tainan/ Photo credit Winertai, CC BY-SA 3.0. Every other corner hides a temple in Tainan. Walk the winding back alleys of Taiwan's oldest city long enough and you'll smell incense before you see the shrine — a burst of red lacquer and gold leaf wedged between a scooter repair shop and a vendor ladling out oyster omelettes. This is a city that has been conquered, renamed, and fought over by the Dutch, the Ming dynasty, the Qing, the Japanese, and the Kuomintang, and yet something stubbornly Taiwanese endures in all of it. Tainan is not simply old. It is deeply, specifically itself.

Read more: Tainan on Qualla

Image: Winertai | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/6/tainan-wk/wsj6-tainan-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Tainan: Where Taiwan Began https://qualla.com/tainan/ Photo credit Bernard Gagnon, CC BY-SA 3.0. Modern Taiwan traces its origins to a single year: 1624, when the Dutch East India Company established a colonial base at Anping, on the southwestern coast of the island they called Formosa. The Dutch built Fort Zeelandia as a trading outpost on lucrative routes between Japan, Ch...

Read more: Tainan on Qualla

Image: Bernard Gagnon | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/6/tainan-wk/wsj6-tainan-where-taiwan-began.mp3 0:06 2 full Tainan: Occupied, Absorbed, Unbowed https://qualla.com/tainan/ Photo credit Mk2010, CC BY-SA 4.0. When Japan acquired Taiwan after the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, Tainan's civic leaders briefly tried to declare independence — possibly the first formal attempt at Taiwanese self-governance, though it lasted only days before Japanese forces arrived. Anti-Japanese sentiment found ...

Read more: Tainan on Qualla

Image: Mk2010 | CC BY-SA 4.0

]]> Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/6/tainan-wk/wsj6-tainan-occupied-absorbed-unbowed.mp3 0:06 3 full Tainan: A City Built to Human Scale https://qualla.com/tainan/ Photo credit Rybloo, CC BY-SA 3.0. With 1.85 million people (as of 2022), Tainan is Taiwan's fifth-largest city by population — but it feels nothing like its size. Very few buildings rise above five or six stories. Most are two or three. The result is a city spread horizontally across the coastal plain, its low pr...

Read more: Tainan on Qualla

Image: Rybloo | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/6/tainan-wk/wsj6-tainan-a-city-built-to-human-scale.mp3 0:06 4 full Tainan: The City of Snacks https://qualla.com/tainan/ Photo credit Cmglee, CC BY-SA 3.0. Tainan's nickname — the City of Snacks, or 小吃城 — is not marketing copy. It is a genuine culinary reputation built over centuries of port life, agricultural abundance, and a culture that treats eating as both pleasure and identity. The long association with Anping port means oyste...

Read more: Tainan on Qualla

Image: Cmglee | CC BY-SA 3.0

]]> Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/6/tainan-wk/wsj6-tainan-the-city-of-snacks.mp3 0:06 5 full Tainan: Old Customs, Living Temples https://qualla.com/tainan/ Photo credit Oliver515, CC BY 4.0. The temples of Tainan are not merely historical artifacts. They are active, central to daily life in a way that has largely faded in Taiwan's bigger cities. Old Taoist customs that were suppressed or forgotten elsewhere — on the mainland during the Cultural Revolution, or simply ...

Read more: Tainan on Qualla

Image: Oliver515 | CC BY 4.0

]]> Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/w/s/j/6/tainan-wk/wsj6-tainan-old-customs-living-temples.mp3 0:06 6 full