A century-old rice shop in Taipei undergoes a makeover and welcomes visitors with event

A century-old rice shop in Taipei undergoes a makeover and welcomes visitors with event

2023-04-05

Today we will take you to a rice shop on Taipei’s Dihua Street. Built in 1923, the shop is 100 years old this year and is currently run by its fifth-generation owner. The store recently underwent a makeover and is now an award-winning retail space. In order to attract new customers, it even partnered with a costume rental shop to allow patrons to wear qipaos and tour its historic facilities. Our reporter Stephany Yang spoke to the Yeh family to find out how they plan to revitalize the family store while retaining its history.

At first glance, it’s hard to believe this space is actually a century-old rice mill shop. In order to attract a new generation of visitors, the fifth-generation owner of the store, Yeh Yen-ting, partnered with a costume rental shop to allow patrons to rent qipaos and tour its historic shop. Visitors can learn about Taiwanese rice culture and rice farming. The shop is also holding exhibitions to help visitors understand its 100-year history.

Yeh Yen-ting
Shop owner
Why we need those kind of milling machines? Since 1923, in Dadaocheng, we purchased a lot of rice from the middle of Taiwan and south of Taiwan. They will use two types of transportation. One is railway and the other way is through the ships at Danshui river to Dadaocheng. The first process, they will do the drying all the rice grain. That is the first step. The second step after drying the rice grain, they will send to the rice milling factory. That is what they Yehjinfa Museum, the factory used to do those kind of business.

Shahad Huang
Costume rental owner
We are very happy to provide a modified Western-style qipao from the early years of the R.O.C. We also allow all visitors to experience the Japanese yukata experience. We want to provide the summer kimono experience because the history of Dadaocheng can be traced back to the Japanese colonial period. Many local cultural relics are preserved here.

In the past, the northern section of Dihua Street was an important town for selling rice and daily necessities in Taipei. The Sunrice Yehjinfa is a family-run rice mill that was founded by the Yeh family in 1923. In addition to being a rice milling shop, it was also the residence for the owners, as well as a traditional Chinese medicine store. Back then, more than 60 people lived here. The century-old rice mill shop is now run by the family’s fifth-generation owner Yeh Yen-ting and has been transformed into a museum. Yeh says, running the family business is not that easy.

Yeh Yen-ting
Shop owner
The difficulty is how we market this place. How we collect history material from the Yeh family. We do documentation research from libraries. Most important thing is how to run the museum like break even. We need to think about where the income comes from. Right now, we cooperate with a lot of schools. They do the education. We will also promote courses to teach everybody how to make rice.

Hoping to tell the story of rice milling factories in the early days of Taipei’s Dadaocheng area, Yeh hired designers to renovate the space, in a bid to draw in visitors. The architects designed wooden trusses that can stand on their own. The team is also constantly developing new innovative products to cater to its patrons, he said.

Yeh Yen-ting
Shop owner
We use rice material to produce some rice crackers. For the people, they will know how to make rice crackers. We try to do the education. Since in Dadaocheng, there are a lot of elementary schools or a lot of schools will come to this place and try to know the rice milling industry in Dadaocheng.

Stephany Yang
FTV reporter
Besides the rice tour, you can also come to the second floor and play on this self-playing piano that is 103 years old.

Yeh Yen-ting
Shop owner
The piano is one of a collection from a very famous American musical called the Wizard of Oz.

The Yeh family hopes that their historical space can be preserved and reused. They also hope to tell the stories of their ancestors so that everyone can learn more about the golden age of the rice trade in Dihua Street.