Permanent Exhibition of the Residence of Jinshi Cai Ting-lan (蔡廷蘭進士第常設展)

The Residence of Jinshi Cai (蔡進士第) in Xingren, Penghu, is located in the Upper Village (上村) of Xingren Li (興仁里), southeast of present-day Magong City (馬公市). It was built after Cai Ting-lan (蔡廷蘭), a Jinshi (進士) from Penghu, passed the imperial examination. It has been 150 years since the 26th year of Daoguang (道光, 1846). The old name of Xingren was Shuangtougua (雙頭掛), located between Gongbei Mountain (拱北山) and Lion Mountain (獅山) in Penghu; it was named because the village is situated between two hilltops. At the beginning of the development, the lifestyle was mostly half-fishing and half-farming. Later, the reclaimed land gradually expanded inland, further away from the seaport, and the cultivated land increased daily, with agriculture gradually replacing fishing. The settlement is divided into Upper Village and East Village (東村); Upper Village is mostly inhabited by members of the Cai clan, and there is an ancestral temple called the Cai Clan Jiyang Hall (蔡氏濟陽堂). Cai Ting-lan, a descendant of the Xingren Cai family, passed the imperial examination in the 24th year of Daoguang (1844), becoming the first and only Jinshi from Penghu. Jinshi Cai Ting-lan was born in the 6th year of Jiaqing (嘉慶, 1801). At the age of thirteen, he became a Shengyuan (生員) at a young age, and then entered the school prefecture. He passed every exam and became a Bingsheng (稟生) of the Penghu Office. He was upright and quiet, loved reading, and taught at Chongwen Academy (崇文書院), Yinxin Academy (引心書院), and Wenshi Academy (文石書院). In the 17th year of Daoguang (1837), he passed the provincial examination as a Juren (舉人). In the 24th year of Daoguang (1844), he went to the capital for the metropolitan examination and became a Jinshi, and was assigned to Jiangxi Province (江西省) as a candidate magistrate. After that, his official career was mostly in Mainland China, and he was promoted to Tongzhi (同知). He died in office due to illness in the 9th year of Xianfeng (咸豐, 1859). Three years after becoming a Jinshi, in the 26th year of Daoguang (1846), he returned to his hometown to worship his ancestors and built the Residence of Jinshi (進士第) to the right of his old house in Shuangtougua to bring glory to his family. Since Jinshi Cai spent his entire official career elsewhere, the construction of the Residence of Jinshi had greater symbolic significance than practical residential significance. The architectural feature of the Residence of Jinshi is a porch with a width of 4.5 meters and a depth of about 3.3 meters, with the front facade designed in a recessed style. Its side rooms are built in the Mabie (馬背) style, and the roof is a swallowtail roof ridge (燕尾屋脊), which is the only one with swallowtail style in Penghu private residences. Other architectural styles and decorations in the residence are also quite exquisite. Since the descendants of the Cai family did not carry out large-scale renovations or reconstructions of the Residence of Jinshi, the overall structure has remained largely intact. However, due to lack of repair over time, the Penghu County Government carried out restoration projects from 2011 to 2012 (Republic Era 100-101) to restore the former appearance of the Residence of Jinshi.