Tainan Travel

During the reign of emperors Kangxi to Yongcheng, “jao” activities, known as “jao business”, began to rise. The term “jao” refers to the business organization formed by merchants importing and exporting goods between Taiwan and mainland China or by merchants in the same business. Shidingmei Hao was a large sugar trading company founded by Shi-rong Shi, director of Sanjao in Tainan. The Shi Ding Mei Old Residence was built for Shi to settle in Taiwan and for celebrating Yao-zhing Shi, the fourth son, passing the county imperial examination. It is a “seven-wrap-three” Minnan-styled traditional civilian residence sitting north to south completed in 1834. Due to long-time weathering and in lack of maintenance, the construction materials, color paintings, carvings, trencadis, clay figurine, and other decorations inside and outside the residence have been damaged.

According to Professor Wan-sho SHIH, “As the fourth son did not pass the examination, they couldn’t use the swallowtail ridge. Therefore, they started with the protection wing, and people laughed at them, saying, ‘can’t support the big house, start from the protection wing’. In that time, Shi-rong SHI did not follow the standard procedures to build the Shidingmei Residence.” Under the residence restrictions specified in “Daqing Huidian” (jurisdictional corpus on administrative matters of the Qing dynasty), Shi-rong SHI had high expectation on his son who took the county imperial examination and even planned to build a new house behind Shidingmei Hao for celebration. Shi Ding Mei Old Residents sitting behind Shidingmei Hao was the only mansion located outside Da Shimen (grand west gatehouse). The expansion has been demolished. The original part of the residence is preserved in a good condition. Although it is located in the busy Central West District. In the Qing dynasty, many descendants of the Shis’ passed different levels of imperial examinations. Today, many of them are poets, scholars, historians, geographers, etc. The scholarly tradition of the family is evident.

In 1966, Professor Wan-sho SHI, the current resident of Shi Ding Mei Old Residence, applied to the Tainan City Government for listing the residence as a historical monument. As it is a better-preserved civilian residence in the city, the city government thus listed the residence as a city historical monument.