The fight for 44 South Village

Curtis Smith is an upset Canadian preservationist living in Taipei, and he's trying to impeach Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九). On Feb. 16 he filed a motion with the Control Yuan to bring down Ma and other city officials over their handling of the redevelopment plan for the 44 South Village (四四南村), a decaying vestige from the early KMT occupation of Taiwan.

Smith and a group he helped form, called the Alliance to Make 44 South Village a National Relic (四四南村國家古蹟促進聯盟), believe the city government should preserve and restore all 10 buildings remaining in the village. "At present, there is not one single relic in the entire Hsinyi area [of Taipei]," said Smith. "In Taipei, they have a way of destroying the defining characteristic of a place."

Citing the recently bulldozed Yuanhuan (圓環) food circle on Nanking West Road and other vanishing city landmarks, Smith said he fears the village will become "another whole block flattened and sanitized, like the wasteland across from the [Taipei] Train Station and the useless park in front of City Hall."

Former residents of 44 South Village, several of whom have allied with Smith, make the case for restoration on historical grounds. "What culture does Taiwan have left? Nothing," said Hsu Cheng-hu (徐成虎), a former resident of the village, now 61 and living nearby. "Our presidential mansion is left over from the Japanese occupation. There are traces of the English, the Portuguese and the Dutch around the island, but there is almost nothing that represents Taiwanese history."

Hsu believes it is important to retain reminders of the arduous life in the early days of the KMT's arrival on Taiwan, especially given that period's enduring mark on the country's history, culture and identity.

"In Germany, they preserved the concentration camps," Hsu said. "I want our children and grandchildren to see the hard life of the mainlanders after they came over from China."

The Taipei City Government agrees with these preservationists, but only to an extent. City Hall's current plan calls for the restoration of four of the 10 buildings that remain standing in 44 South Village and the demolition of the other six to create a park.

More than just numbers

At present, the argument is whether to restore four buildings or all 10. So, what's Smith and his alliance so upset about?

Built between 1947 and 1949, the 44 South Village was Taiwan's first military settlement and housed technical workers brought to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek's (蔣介石) army. Typical of such villages, it's a cluster of long concrete tenements with black tiled roofs. In all, Taipei had 186 such villages, though most have been flattened in the course of the city's break-neck growth.

Most who lived at 44 South Village worked across Hsinyi Road at the 44 Arsenal, an extensive complex inherited from the Japanese. Formerly, the arsenal took up what is now the Taipei World Trade Center, Taipei City Hall and several adjacent lots. The names of both the 44 Arsenal and the 44 South Village were derived from the 44 Arsenal that once existed in Qingdao (青島), Shandong Province.

The village has become a disputed artifact while also occupying one of the hottest pieces of real estate in Taipei. A stone's throw from the 1.3 hectares that remain of the village's original 2.8 hectare plot is the site of the NT$24-billion Taipei Financial Center, which will stand as one of Asia's tallest buildings.