Hualien is seeking cultural heritage status for a military dependents’ village that is nearly 80 years old, the city government said on Saturday.
Better known as juan cun (眷村), the villages are residential compounds that were set up to house soldiers and family members brought to Taiwan with Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) Nationalist Army in 1949.
There are 10 dependents’ villages within the city, but only Jie Shou Village (介壽新村) still has all of its original architecture, the city government said.
Photo courtesy of Hualien City Government
The village also has a background rooted in the Japanese colonial era, and preserves elements of the societal transition that occurred following World War II, it said.
The houses in Jie Shou were built in 1941 by the Japanese colonial administration as a public housing facility, as there was a housing shortage, the city government said, adding that it contained 27 Japanese-style buildings with two units each, totaling 54 units.
Less than five years after the village was built for Japanese, it was occupied by Nationalist soldiers and their families arriving from China, it said.
In 1969, the village had new residents once again when the air force relocated and the village became home to military doctors and nurses, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology assistant professor Hsu Hui-min (徐慧民) said.
The village retained its original character, as residents left it largely untouched, he added.
“From experience, there is a long road ahead before acquiring cultural heritage status for the village, which would include funding for the village’s restoration,” he said.
Government officials and public representatives would need to fight to secure that funding, he added.
As 34 of the village’s 54 units still have people living in them, he suggested finding a few who were interested in renovating first, so that their units could serve as models to present to the central government.
Renovations could focus on how to integrate modern and historical elements, he said.
Those concerned with preserving the village should gather all of the research material they can to help the public understand its history, Hualien Mayor Wei Chia-hsien (魏嘉賢) said, adding that if it can be preserved, the village would serve as an important part of the city’s unique cultural history.
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