Qian Yuan Ginseng Medicine – 100 Years as Guardian of Health

The old wooden cabinets containing this apothecary's great trove of Chinese medicines are living history, as is the venerable abacus on the table and the suite of grinding instruments, the old cabinet-top medicine canisters, and the medicinal ingredients written out in careful calligraphy—a charming scene from the past that touches those in the present.

Qian Yuan Ginseng Medicine (乾元蔘藥行) has been standing guard over people's health in the Dadaocheng (大稻埕) community for over a century. The steadfast insistence on the quality of its medicinal ingredients is still faithfully followed today. The proprietor, Chen Jian-zhong (陳建忠), says that those who sell medicine must show true heart, for they hold the health of their patrons in their hands. And in keeping with modern understanding of quality and hygiene, the shop now stores its medicines in plastic lock boxes to avoid direct contact with the cabinet wood. However, all other key aspects follow the trusted traditions of the ancient masters of the profession, such as the preparation of its medicinal decoctions. Deeply aware of its time-honored role as guardian of its patrons' health, Qian Yuan is strict in choosing all its medicinal materials. Although the materials are more expensive, it remains the source of choice for many Chinese-medicine professionals.

Lin Hua Tai Tea Company – Foundation Built on Solid Trustworthiness

“Honor and honesty; that's the image we've created with customers,”says Lin Hua Tai Tea Co.'s (林華泰茶 行) Lin Mao-sen (林茂森), the fourth-generation leader of the family concern. Inheriting his father's approach to business, and learning it at his hand, integrity toward the customer is what has kept them passing under the Lin signboard for a century. Though many tea shops have gone with the times and turned to ever fancier packaging, Lin Hua Tai has stayed with simple plastic bags, believing that you cannot judge a book by its cover, the truth of this maxim is proven by the continuous streams of patrons through the door in search of fine leaves.

Unlike the situation with many family enterprises, Lin Mao-sen is not worried at all about who will inherit his business. His three children all love drinking tea, and all have shown clear interest in how the firm is running. Lin says that he constantly tells his kids that“a penny spent is a penny of goods”(一分錢、一分貨); tea cultivation is demanding, he says, and Taiwan tea growers are slowly leaving the business, so he spent money from his own pocket to hire growers to plant in the high mountains of eastern Taiwan to ensure the highest-quality“goods”for his customers. He is in the business of“fine”teas, he says, and this insistence on honest sales will keep the Lin signboard swinging gently in the breeze for another hundred years.

Lao Ming Yu Incense Shop – Incense with the Purity of Chinese Medicine

Lao Ming Yu Incense Shop (老明玉香舖) is located in Wanhua (萬華), the district with northern Taiwan's greatest concentration of temples. This old shop has been making incense for a century, and inside you enter a fantastic world of different types of incense sticks and coils along with various other articles needed for religious worship. An image of the shop's founder is found on each of the red packages containing the incense sticks.

The majority of the shop's customers are private individuals heading off to worship. Foreign tourists also regularly stop by, intrigued by the exotic array of worship paraphernalia. A single stick of incense may appear to be a simple item, but the manufacturing process is in fact quite complicated. The master craftsman must wield a large and heavy bundle of sticks made from bamboo, and spread the sticks wide enough to apply powder, layer upon layer, moving carefully to ensure uniformity. The bundle is manipulated back and forth for some time, requiring significant strength and endurance. Another specialty carried on faithfully for a century is the use of Chinese-medicine fragrances in the incense using a secret house recipe, which has its own distinctive delicate fragrance and contains no elements harmful to health. Burning incense and engaging in dialog with deities and ancestors is a tradition as old as the Chinese culture itself. And for locals, the sweet incense fragrance symbolizes blessings and protection. The passing of the incense craft is like the passing of the torch that will continue on for generations.

Peng Ying Fang Rice Shop – Doing Good While Doing Business

Another respected heritage shop serving its local neighborhood for over a century now is Peng Ying Fang Rice Shop (彭英芳米行), in Songshan (松山) District. Peng Bing-yi (彭炳義) says the Peng family's ability to thrive so long is that they bring a good conscience in addition to their sense of business. When his mother and father handed the business over to him, he said, they made it clear that good business meant more than just good business morals—they are to remain humane and lower prices for those who cannot afford even the basics.

The result over time has been prices are consistently lower across the board. For years, his prices per catty of white rice were lower than those sold at local markets. Today, with rising transport and labor costs along with the emergence of large discount supermarkets and outlets, the price difference has narrowed. In addition, various charitable citizens quietly place orders for the Pengs' rice to distribute to orphanages and other charitable institutions around the city each month. Helping in these gives added purpose to the lives of the current husband and wife proprietors, who know that helping others get through their days more easily is the main reason why the family business still thrives in the fifth generation.

Kuohezi Shilin Knife – The Knife as Work of Art

Located in the alleys behind Shilin Night Market is Kuohezi Shili Knife (郭合記士林名刀), an enterprise established way back in the Qing Dynasty. This heritage shop enjoys a fame that has even spread overseas. The famous“Shilin knife”(士林刀) has a blade shaped like a bamboo leaf and a handle shaped like an eggplant. It was in fact originally called an “eggplant-handle bamboo-leaf knife”(茄柄竹葉刀). After Taiwan was restored to Chinese rule in 1945, it has been called Shilin knife due to its place of manufacture. Its attractive shape makes it a work of art, and its folding blade makes storage convenient, an innovation that in fact preceded the development of the famous folding Swiss Army knife by a number of years. The delicate pattern design on the blade and the elegance of the ox-horn handle have brought a steady stream of orders from Japanese knife aficionados for their collections.