Chou Hsiang-ping (周湘萍) swears that her late father would “jump out of his coffin” if he knew the government was demolishing his family’s home of six decades.
“He would never have believed, as a military veteran, that the country would tear down his house and not even resettle his wife and children,” Chou, 45, tells the Taipei Times at her house, located in a corner of New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋) known as the Daguan Community (大觀社區).
Tomorrow is the deadline for residents of Daguan’s 21 remaining households to vacate their homes and hand over the land to the Executive Yuan’s Veterans Affairs Council (VAC). Demolition is expected to begin on Tuesday, making way for a proposed seven-story, long-term care facility.
Photo: Davina Tham, Taipei Times
It’s the latest example of an informal community on state-owned land being evicted in the name of urban redevelopment. Over the past decade in Taipei alone, communities in Huaguang (華光), Shaosing (紹興) and Toad Hill (蟾蜍山) have faced a similar pattern of government lawsuits and penalties for illegal profiting from the land, compelling their low-income residents to leave.
In a twist, the Daguan Community is using art and music to reclaim its narrative and reach out to an often apathetic public. And although the writing’s on the wall, creative expression remains an important outlet for residents and activists desperate for a solution to their predicament.
PROTEST ART
Photo: Davina Tham, Taipei Times
On June 2, Daguan’s residents gathered with student activists for the last day of an in situ exhibition about the community’s struggle against forced eviction. Less than two weeks from their eviction date, the event provided much-needed respite from constant anxiety.
“Every time we do these evening gatherings I’m very calm,” says Chou, who moments earlier was dancing to the beat of a live punk rock performance. “People always say, your house is being torn down and you’re still so ‘high?’ If not I’d just be crying, right?”
Photo: Davina Tham, Taipei Times
Earlier, visitors were led through three exhibition rooms — converted from vacated houses — by Tang Tso-hsin (唐佐欣), a National Taiwan University undergraduate and leading activist in the Daguan movement.
In one room, Tang, 22, points to a wall festooned with hate comments the community has received on social media. In another, protest banners and cigarette butts are strewn on a table, blurring the line between an installation and a real-life activists’ war room that could be used that very night.
Outside, residents stand against large photographic portraits of themselves — taken by Tang — and tell stories of their lives in Daguan. As the tour segues into a party, residents share food prepared in their soon-to-be-demolished kitchens, and dance and sing to Hoklo tunes.
Photo: Davina Tham, Taipei Times
CONTESTED SPACE
Veterans first settled in Daguan in 1956, when it was designated as the welfare center — in practice, a market — of a nearby official military dependents’ village.
The area was quietly designated as state-owned land in 1966. But over the years, residents continued to come and go on the understanding that it was their land to buy and sell. At one point, the informal settlement numbered over 70 households.
Economic and social ties deepened. Chou’s parents, for example, bought their house in 1959 and sold red bean soup in the market. Chou and her brothers grew up in Daguan and now perform odd jobs in the area.
Designed by activists in consultation with residents and Trapped Citizen (愁城) — a punk cultural collective — Daguan’s recently concluded exhibition was an attempt to personalize and draw attention to the community’s history and the human rights issues at stake.
It was also a distraction for Chou, who has refused to pack any of her belongings and does not know where she, her 83-year-old mother and two older brothers will live next.
Informal settlements like Daguan are a common phenomenon in countries that have seen rapid economic development, says Yu I-chia (余宜家) of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights. Their demolition encroaches on the right to adequate housing enshrined in international conventions under the UN.
On March 15, three years of protests and negotiations ended when Daguan’s residents agreed to hand over their homes to the VAC, which sued for the land in 2008. In exchange, the VAC lifted its harsh penalties for illegal occupation, and delayed by three months the demolition that was scheduled to take place in three days.
Residents and activists say they were pressured into the deal. And though the VAC has offered resettlement assistance lasting between three and six months, not everyone has taken up the offer. Residents continue to call for a “long-term plan for resettlement” that takes into account the disruption to their lives.
“Housing has implications on many other basic human rights, such as the health, livelihoods and social support networks of residents,” Yu says, adding that Daguan’s 21 households should be a manageable number for the government to resettle and recompense.
But not everyone can understand why Daguan’s residents have rejected the government’s assistance, limited though it may be. As Tang leads the tour around Daguan, these abstract arguments take on human proportions.
Residents cite the example of an elderly grandfather who died a week after his eviction from Daguan and resettlement in a veterans’ home. He’s become a cautionary tale for residents fearful of displacing elderly or sickly family members — the majority of the current residents — from surroundings where they have lived for decades.
One resident tells the visitors that if he were to agree to move his mother out, he might as well declare himself an “unfilial son.”
“For most young people, participating in a press conference under the hot sun is not an attractive option,” Tang says.
But dangle an immersive exhibition with music and food and the people will come, hopefully leaving with a better understanding of the residents’ plight. Tang and fellow activists want to see their efforts snowball into a wider anti-eviction movement that will prevent another case like Daguan.
On Monday, about 30 of Daguan’s residents and their sympathizers gathered in front of Premier Su Tseng-chang’s (蘇貞昌) official residence demanding an audience with him. Su never appeared. Protesters filled the silence with This Road of Struggle (抗爭這條路), an anthem of the local labor rights movement that the anti-eviction movement has adopted.
“Why oh why have I come on this road of struggle?” they sang. “It’s not that I’ve got nothing better to do, please understand... It’s because the government has not taken care of us, forcing us to take this road of struggle.”
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