Chinese Name: 古洋樓有限公司
Time of Establishment: 2019
Location: Kinmen, Taiwan
Did You Know?
Through the implementation of a work-stay exchange program, Guyanglou Co., Ltd. has created a means for hosts to build an emotional connection with local youth while also bringing about changes in the local area. The team actively promotes local culture and provides assistance to those interested in starting a business in Kinmen. In 2021, Guyanglou was selected for the National Development Council’s youth program, establishing the Guyanglou Creation Base to continue to catalyze local creation in Kinmen.
Tsai Chih-shun (蔡志舜), the person in charge of Guyanglou Co., Ltd., is a third-generation resident of Taiwan proper from a family that moved from Kinmen. He first set foot on Kinmen when he accompanied his grandma back there for retirement, and he immediately fell in love with the old family home. Soon thereafter, he set about figuring out ways he could transform it into a youth hostel. Tsai began to develop his interest in renovating old homes in 2014, and after landing in Kinmen the following year, he obtained the right to manage a lease in Kinmen National Park. He was responsible for the design, decoration, and management of Beishan Guyanglou, setting up the first Beishan Old Western Style Hostel in a historic building in Kinmen. However, business wasn’t easy at first, and he found it a challenge to make ends meet. During that time, he studied business management and online marketing in his spare time, attracting backpackers by offering lodging in exchange for their labor and sharing his own travel experiences. Soon, his hostel became one of the top choices for backpacking in Kinmen.
In 2019, Tsai went to Japan to study, traveling back and forth between Taiwan and Japan to set up a formal business. And so, in December 2019, Guyanglou Co., Ltd. was established. The following month, January 2020, Shuitou Guyanglou B&B was established. Its building was formerly known as Huang-tian-lou House, and now it is used by Guyanglou as a bed-and-breakfast. In July 2020, Guyanglou took part in the 15th National Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, walking away with the Gold Award and the best results in the Special Enterprise Category—Kinmen Enterprises. In October of the same year, Tsai won first place in the 2020 Kinmen County Cultural and Creative Industry Development Plan—Cultural and Creative Industry Support Subsidies.
After Tsai returned to Taiwan from Japan in 2020, he felt deeply that Kinmen really had no one seriously running a local creative team and that there were no co-creation spaces suitable for entrepreneurs in Kinmen either, so he took it upon himself to create both. In 2021, he applied for the National Development Council’s youth program, establishing the Guyanglou Creation Base and committing himself further to catalyzing local creation in Kinmen. His team has many years of local entrepreneurial experience in Kinmen with a mastery of local resources, has coached entrepreneurial teams, and implemented a number of entrepreneurial plans. Each of his team members has their own strengths, and they all work with many Kinmen local clubs, organizations, and schools. Whether it is Kinmen youth returning home to find their roots or young people from mainland Taiwan Taiwan moving in, the team can offer all of them assistance and enable them to start a local creative business.
The Creation Base has launched four service projects to build a networked population of quality and quantity; build a fusion-style creative workspace; promote social welfare and local services; and promote creation and parenting programs. In terms of building a population, Guyanglou promotes the return of Kinmen youths to their hometown, the immigration of young people from Taiwan proper, and the retention of graduates of National Quemoy University, planning and building the best possible support system for all. As for the workspace, they provide consulting services, meeting and communication spaces, and catering services, as well as organizing local topic talks and reading clubs related to entrepreneurship and creativity. As an incubator, aspiring entrepreneurs are provided with workspace and counseling, translation of the essence of local culture, entrepreneurial workshop training courses, and the assistance of professional teachers. And as for social welfare and local services, Guyanglou organizes talks, Kinmen Hometown Association activities, social welfare service activities, and the Kinmen People's Friendship Association in Taiwan, among many other things.
Through these methods, Guyanglou provides young talents from outside Kinmen the means to deeply experience the local customs of Kinmen, take part in local activities, help each other, and learn together, while discovering Kinmen's local culture, promoting the development of distinctive local industries, making this "foreign" land home, and create opportunities for employment and entrepreneurship.
(Photo courtesy of Tsai Chih-shun)