Behind the ornate shopfronts lining this street lies a long, hidden depth—the merchant houses that once carried goods down toward the river port. This is…
Multilingual AI audio guide exhibit on WOUDiO (PWA). WOUDiO pioneered the world’s first audio guide platform with built-in donation: listeners can support the cultural venue without leaving the listening experience. The text below is the localized description, details, and narration script for this audio guide stop.
Behind the ornate shopfronts lining this street lies a long, hidden depth—the merchant houses that once carried goods down toward the river port.
This is Heping Road in Daxi. Two-story merchant houses stand in a row, their upper walls facing the street carved in relief with plant motifs and geometric patterns. These façades were remade by merchants during the urban improvements of the Japanese colonial period. Western Baroque-style ornamentation was combined with auspicious Chinese motifs and the shop's own name plaques.
At the center of each wall, the name of the shop or family is carved. Along the same street, façades of the same height and the same style stand side by side. Yet no two patterns are alike, house by house. These are traces of merchants competing to stand out, if only slightly, from the shop next door.
The houses ran deep, their rear sides continuing back to the cliff facing the river. Business was conducted at the front, the family lived within, and goods were carried out from the back. A single house was, in itself, part of the river port's flow of commerce.
Today, the street is lined with shops selling dried tofu, woodcraft, and sweets. On weekends, it grows so crowded that people brush shoulders as they pass.
Only the shopfronts still wear the face of the era when the river once bustled with life.
