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Toyota Immigrant Village (Tobacco Loft)

2013-05-22
886-3-8653830
花蓮縣壽豐鄉、豐坪村等三村總稱
Toyota, a name brimming with Japanese charm. Drive along Provincial Road No. 9, and at the 224-kilometer mark, on the left-hand side (facing east), there are three concrete pillars on iron posts. The middle one is marked "Toyota" on the pillar, with a windmill and a white egret hanging above it—that is the village of Toyota. During the Japanese colonial period, the Japanese Governor-General implemented large-scale "immigration policies" in Hualien and Taitung regions, establishing several considerable-scale immigrant villages in eastern Taiwan, such as Yoshiya, Toyota, Rinda, Juifeng, and Luye. Many of these Japanese immigrants came from rural Japan, aiming to create "Model Yamato Village" in eastern Taiwan, leaving a significant impact on the cultural development of Taiwan during the colonial era. Toyota, as an immigrant village, is currently one of the better-preserved sites. Japanese immigrants introduced American yellow tobacco for cultivation in the Yoshiya immigrant village in the second year of the Taishō period, and later expanded cultivation to Toyota. In the past, the number of "smokehouses" in each household revealed the family's wealth level. Though the tobacco industry has declined, the Hiroshima-style and Osaka-style smokehouses still remain, bearing witness to the bygone days of tobacco production, and serving as valuable historical evidence for Japan's colonial immigrant settlements. After the ROC Government took over Taiwan, most residents of immigrant villages were repatriated to Japan. For over six decades, these Japanese immigrant villages seemed to vanish in the flow of time, leaving behind only traces of old architectural structures and cultural relics to reflect the historical traces of several decades past. In recent years, due to the attention and emphasis from local historians and residents, this long-forgotten history has gradually become known to the public once more.
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