The ministry’s Military Dependents’ Service Department has asked local governments that want to participate in the NT$400 million project to submit their plans by March.
When Wang and his mother were touring their old village, they were guided by Chu Rong-mei (朱戎梅), who was also raised in Shueijiaoshe and now teaches Japanese at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan. She also wrote a book called Shueijiaoshe — A Juan cun in Memory that was published last December.
She said she forced herself to complete the book in two months, before an Asahi Shimbun crew visited Shueijiaoshe as part of an in-depth report on Taiwan’s juan cun and their culture.
“We could not let the Japanese outperform us in the effort to preserve our own unique but fading juan cun culture,” Chu said.
During the Wangs’ tour, Chu took them to an open field where several Japanese residences were located before they were leveled in 2007. The houses had built for Japanese naval officers and their dependents, but it turned out the area was home to even older relics.
Scores of old tombs were discovered there, some dating back to the Ming and Qing dynasties. The gravestones and wooden coffins with thick earthen and gravel shells, were unearthed in April as workers cleared the land for a new road.
Turning to another area of the now empty village, Chu identified a place where the homes of the first-generation pilots of the famous “Thunder Tiger” jet fighter squad were located.
The “Thunder Tiger” squad was a source of pride for Taiwan during the 1950s and 1960s and some squad members were national heroes for downing Chinese MiG-15 and MiG-17 fighters. The squad’s exceptional flying skills were also shown off at National Day parades and overseas shows between 1952 and 1989.
This “Thunder Tiger” squad was just one element that made village unique, Yu said. The name of Tainan Air Force Elementary School, attended by almost all the children in Shueijiaoshe before the 1970s, was changed to Tainan Municipal Chihkai Elementary School in 1967 in memory of air force hero Chou Chih-kai (周志開).
Chou was awarded medals by late dictator Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) in the early 1940s for downing six Japanese fighters before he was killed in an battle over Hubei Province in 1943.
Those who grew up in Shuei-jiaoshe all remember an open stadium where many movie stars from Taiwan and Hong Kong, even the US, visited to meet fans and cheer up the military troops.
But perhaps as enduring as any memory are the basic tastes and smells derived from the variety of food representing all corners of China that appeared in the village.
Through the efforts of Yu, Chu, and many other activists, those memories will now survive.
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