Qualla: Old House of Siiao Family

Old House of Siiao Family: Introduction

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Deepblue5042, CC BY-SA 3.0. The construction took twenty years. The Siiao family began building in 1860 and finished in 1880 — two courtyards, five blocks, more than fifty rooms spread across 4,000 square meters of Jiadong Township, Pingtung County. By the time they were done, they had a compound worthy of a prosperous Hakka merchant clan that had traveled from Guangdong to make a new life on the edge of southern Taiwan. Fifteen years later, the Qing Dynasty handed Taiwan to Japan, and shooting started in the lanes outside.

Image: Deepblue5042 | CC BY-SA 3.0

Old House of Siiao Family: Merchants from Guangdong

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hsiaochenan, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Siiao family arrived in Taiwan from Guangdong, part of the Hakka migration that brought tens of thousands of people from southeastern China to the western plains of Taiwan over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They worked as businessmen — the precise nature of their t...

Image: Hsiaochenan | CC BY-SA 4.0

Old House of Siiao Family: A House Built in Five Blocks

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Outlookxp, CC BY-SA 4.0. Hakka domestic architecture in southern Taiwan follows a recognizable logic: a main axis running from gate to ancestral hall, with wings on either side that enclose a central courtyard, and an outer ring of buildings that provide additional rooms and define the compound's edges. ...

Image: Outlookxp | CC BY-SA 4.0

Old House of Siiao Family: The Year the Empire Changed Hands

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 雅婕, CC BY-SA 4.0. In April 1895, the Qing Dynasty signed the Treaty of Shimonoseki, ceding Taiwan to Japan. What followed was not a peaceful transfer. Across the island, local resistance to Japanese rule broke out almost immediately. In the south, where the Siiao family compound sat in Jiadong Tow...

Image: 雅婕 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Old House of Siiao Family: What Remains

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jessepylin, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Old House of Siiao Family was registered as a Class 3 historical site — the Taiwanese designation for a structure of local historical significance, entitled to a degree of official protection. In a region where rapid agricultural and industrial development has erased many Qin...

Image: Jessepylin | CC BY-SA 3.0

Old House of Siiao Family: Jiadong Township Today

Sat, 13 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 白襪, CC BY-SA 4.0. Jiadong Township lies east of Linbian and a few kilometers from the coast, set in the flat agricultural plain that defines this part of Pingtung. The Siiao house sits at roughly 22.42°N, 120.55°E — coordinates that place it in a quiet stretch of lowland country, surrounded by far...

Image: 白襪 | CC BY-SA 4.0