Staying the Night in Taiwan
Cathy Teng /photos courtesy of Kent Chuang /tr. by Geof Aberhart
When it comes to service, the British emphasize elegance, while the Japanese focus on meticulousness,
but both tend to generate a sense of aloofness. But in Taiwan, this little Pacific island off the coast of East Asia,
friendliness does not need to be “unzipped,” and personable hospitality is in endless supply.
This is what makes visitors into regulars, eager to come back over and over.
So how does one get to feel this hospitality for oneself? Come stay a night in Taiwan!
Good times in Old Tainan
Hidden away in the heart of Tainan is Old House Inn, its address unclear and
its Internet presence practically nil. But even so, if you want to be able to park your luggage here,
you’ll need to book three months in advance. The owner of Old House Inn is Kyle Hsieh, who had
the idea to convert the old family home into a bed-and-breakfast over a decade ago
when he noticed such houses being torn down all over the city. Taking advantage of the whole family
having moved out, Hsieh renovated the place top to bottom, hoping to make it a model showcasing the value still present in old homes.
“Time is what makes these old places so interesting and so valuable,” he says.
In the course of converting his old home, he didn’t want to wash away the marks time had left on it,
so he aimed to preserve about 70% of its original state, presenting it in three incarnations: its original look,
the adjustments made as the children grew up, and its modern role as a B&B.
For example, the ceiling lamp in the lounge has been reverted back to the original cream-colored hanging lamp,
but the marks left by its one-time replacement fluorescent lamp remain visible.
It is these little details, these remnants of times past, that have become the starting point for telling the story of the Hsieh family.
Every time he leads people through the place, Hsieh spends a good hour telling the tales
of the various little details in each nook and cranny. In the remodeled kitchen, there is an entrancing interplay of light
and shadow throughout the day as the sunlight streams in through clear corrugated plastic sheeting and bamboo lattices.
In the lounge is a big round table, but be careful not to push down on it:
“When I was a kid, my dad wanted to teach us all how to eat with proper manners,
so he deliberately left the tabletop loose. If we pushed on one side, the other would shoot up.”
It is little details of everyday life like this that give Old House Inn its homey feeling.
In opening up his home to guests, Hsieh hopes his visitors will take care of the old place
while also becoming more aware of the importance of preserving others like it.
Service from the heart
Hsieh has put as much thought into creating his own approach to hospitality
as he has into the physical experience of Old House Inn.
“We don’t have a set SOP for our services,” he says. “Instead, whenever someone books a room,
we do our best to understand what they really need and craft the most appropriate service for them.”
Rather than having guests just head straight in and chuck their luggage in their rooms,
Old House Inn organizes a meeting place, and a concierge leads them on a walk to the place,
introducing the neighborhood along the way. “The journey takes about five minutes, and we hope that
through this calm stroll, guests will be able to adjust to the pace of Tainan by the time they get here.”
Along the way, the concierge uses the opportunity to gauge the guests’ situations and moods.
Old House Inn’s services actually start even earlier, though—Hsieh has even worked with taxi drivers to provide lessons
in good service, helping create a friendlier environment for visitors from the moment
they arrive in Tainan right through their stay at the inn.
“Staying at a B&B is like moving in with the owner’s tastes; the guests want to get involved.”
Born and raised in Tainan, Hsieh will take guests out to play basketball, go skateboarding, or
watch the sunset, tapping his personal contacts and sharing with his guests as though they were friends.
He even works with local eateries and leisure industry businesses to help his guests experience the essence
of Tainan in the shortest possible time. At Old House Inn itself, the service is even more heartfelt.
“For me, real service should touch the heart.” A few years ago, when Tainan was struck by a major earthquake,
water pipes burst and left Old House Inn without water. “The easiest solution would have just been to just bow down and
refund everyone’s money, but even then they’d still be stuck in the same situation, so instead I organized some people
to haul water manually, spending three hours filling up the water tank on the fifth floor.”
Putting himself in his guests’ shoes and coming up with solutions is at the core of Hsieh’s approach to hospitality.
Over the past 12 years, Kyle Hsieh has kept busy repairing eight different old homes.
In some years he has hosted guests from as many as 24 different countries.
“Now everyone who comes to Tainan knows that old houses are the best places to stay.”
This year, in his efforts to help people get to know Tainan better,
Hsieh is branching out even further, expanding into Japan with an Old House Inn in the city of Kanazawa
and introducing still more people to Tainan-style hospitality.
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