Huang Yung-fu (黃永阜) greets visitors to his village in central Taiwan with paint-stained hands and shoes spattered with flecks of color, a sign of the daily artistic labor that has seen him single-handedly stave off the developers’ bulldozers.
At 93 years old, the former soldier still gets up at 3am every day to spend four hours daubing the walls of the small settlement with colorful figures, from birds and animals to celebrity singers and sportsmen.
Known as “Rainbow Grandpa,” Huang’s artwork has kept the village safe as the surrounding area has been flattened.
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
He walks with a slight limp and rolls up his trouser leg to reveal a bandaged knee — bruised from spending too much time kneeling on the ground to paint, he says.
However, Huang is determined to continue adding to the vibrant murals that decorate the walls and pathways of the veterans’ village or juan cun (眷村) as a way to ensure its survival.
“We had a letter five years ago saying the government wanted to knock it down to build something new. They said we could take some money or move to a different house,” said Huang, dapper in a navy flat cap and gold Chinese-style high-collared shirt. “But I didn’t want to move. This is the only real home I’ve ever known in Taiwan.”
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
The settlement in Taichung’s Nantun District (南屯) once comprised 1,200 homes for veterans and their families, but as the decades-old accommodation became run-down, developers snapped up the land and residents were offered NT$2 million (US$61,028 at current exchange rates) compensation or new housing.
Huang has lived there for 37 years, staying even after his neighbors abandoned their homes and only 11 houses remained. That is when he decided to paint.
“I was the only person left in the village and I was bored,” he said. “My father taught me how to paint when I was five years old, but I hadn’t done it since I was a child. “The first thing I painted was a bird inside my house.”
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
Huang decorated the interior of his two-bedroom bungalow, then the outer walls and the neighboring homes, which were standing empty. The ever-expanding artwork became a parade of dogs, cats, planes and his favorite celebrities, including kung fu legend Bruce Lee (李小龍).
When local university students discovered Huang’s work they launched a campaign to save the village and four years ago the authorities agreed it should be preserved. Now it is one of the area’s leading tourist attractions, pulling in more than a million visitors annually, mostly from Asia.
“The government has promised me they will keep this house and this village,” Huang said. “I was so happy and thankful.”
Photo: Sam Yeh, AFP
Officials say they are seeking to make the “Rainbow Village” a designated cultural area.
“Tourism is one of the reasons to keep it, but the main reason is that veterans’ villages are very special to Taiwan,” says Huang Ming-heng (黃名亨), chief secretary of the Taichung Cultural Affairs Bureau. “Unfortunately most of them have been knocked down, so it’s important to keep this historical memory.”
“I think they are amazing graphics — this place should be preserved,” said Hsiao Chi, 19, a student from Taipei.
“The color and the drawings are very special,” said Ivy Ng, 30, from Hong Kong, who was visiting Taichung with her family.
Originally from Hong Kong, Huang Yung-fu joined the Nationalist army in 1946 to fight Chinese Communist Party troops in China during the Chinese Civil War.
When the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) was defeated in 1949, many troops followed its leader, Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石), as he fled to Taiwan. They were given temporary housing in hundreds of dedicated military villages across the island — which became permanent over the years.
The Ministry of National Defense says many of the villages have been knocked down because residents wanted better living conditions, but some bemoan the loss of the old communities.
“When they move out, people feel isolated,” said Kang Han-ming, a former marine who manages the thriving Rainbow Village business and campaigns to protect the remaining settlements. “They feel they have no roots. That’s why a lot of older veterans who move to new buildings get sick.”
The ministry has now pledged to preserve the last 13 villages as cultural areas.
Huang Yung-fu says he never tires of the early morning regime that served to save his home — a bungalow crammed with paints, marker pens and memorabilia.
The Rainbow Grandpa sits back on a chair in the shade and watches the crowds.
“I like speaking with them and they tell me the paintings are beautiful. I’ll never get lonely with all these visitors,” he said.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods