The Military Village Cultural Festival on Sunday unveiled a collection of vintage objects at the Ciaoai Community (僑愛社區) in Taoyuan’s Dasi District (大溪) to recreate the atmosphere of the veterans’ village in the 1950s and 1960s.
Communities for military veterans and their dependents, known as juan cun (眷村), are residential compounds set up to house soldiers and family members who came to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) army in 1949.
The Ciaoai Community was built in 1957 after Chiang’s wife Soong Mayling (宋美齡) called on Taiwanese compatriots living in the Philippines to fund its construction.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
The community had soldiers’ homes, each smaller than 10 ping (33m2), as well as homes for citizens from the Ta-chen Islands (大陳群島), off the east coast of China, who were evacuated when Nationalist troops retreated in 1955.
The Ciaoai Community underwent renovations in 1998 and was modernized in 2002, including the taller buildings that can be seen today.
Juan cun are a unique part of Taiwan’s history, demonstrating how the nation’s residents persevered under hardships and looked out for each other regardless of their origins, Taoyuan Mayor Cheng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) said.
Photo: Lee Jung-ping, Taipei Times
The Taoyuan City Government organized this year’s festival around the theme of “transformation” with the hope of injecting new life into the 62-year-old Ciaoai Community after its long journey from juan cun to modern residential area, Cheng added.
The display features a living room — a “Ciaoai Old Living Room” — containing vintage objects that became a tourist hotspot for taking selfies, the city government said, adding that a mobile truck toured the community’s neighborhoods interviewing residents and recording their stories in an effort to preserve the community’s juan cun legacy.
The city government has long been dedicated to preserving juan cun culture, it said, adding that it has been invited to give presentations on its efforts and experiences at juan cun preservation at workshops held by the Taipei City Government.
Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the festival, so the Taoyuan City Government plans to hold an even larger festival — more artists, activities and participation by juan cun communities — in the hope of making juan cun culture a feature of the city, Taoyuan Department of Cultural Affairs Director-General Chuang Hsiu-mei (莊秀美) said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai