From Takow to Kaohsiung

Zhubei (竹北) City, Hsinchu County

The name Zhubei (Hakka: Chuk-pet, Hoklo: Tek-pak; 竹北; lit. “[Hsin] Chu North”, in which the Zhu/Chu part means “Bamboo”) derives from the division of Hsinchu Prefecture into northern and southern (竹南; Mdn. Zhunan) parts, with Hsinchu City (新竹; HP: Xinzhu) in between.

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The area that became Zhubei was formed from three villages, known during the Period of Japanese Rule (1895-1945) as 舊港庄 (Kyūminato Jō; lit. “Old Harbor Village”), which was Hsinchu's (formerly 竹塹 Hoklo Tek-cham) original port until it silted up; 六家庄 (Rokka Jō; lit. “Six Families / Houses Village); and 紅毛田 (lit “Red-haired Field”).

Abe Akiyoshi says this last was earlier 紅毛港 (“Red-haired Harbor”), and was the place where Dutch forces landed in 1646* having been sent north from the colony at today’s Tainan in an attempt to pacify the area and make transportation along the northern road possible. Tsai Pei-hui et al. (蔡培慧等, 台灣的舊地名; 2004) identify today's Xinfeng (新豐) Township as the former 紅毛港, this name being considered "inelegant" and so changed n 1957.

Apparently either the climate or the local Taokas (道卡斯族) plains aborigines, whose traditional hunting grounds these were, didn’t suit the Dutch and, like the soldiers of the subsequent Zheng-family Tongning Kingdom (東寧王國;1662-1683) and early Qing dynasty, they largely failed. In any case, this area was of little interest to immigating farmers due to frequent uncontrollable flooding of the Fengshan River (鳳山溪) and Touqian River (頭前溪).



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