A community in Hualien plans to celebrate its 60th anniversary next year by recreating the decor and atmosphere of the 1950s based on the theme of “Remember the Old Days.”
Dachen No. 1 Village (大陳一村) is a military dependents’ village in Hualien City that was founded after the evacuation of Republic of China forces from Dachen Island in February 1955.
Located off the coast of China’s Zhejiang Province, Dachen Island was evacuated, with the aid of US Navy ships, after China’s People’s Liberation Army gained control of the island.
According to media reports at the time, “Chinese fighter planes repeatedly made incursions on Dachen Island at the beginning of 1955. This little island, whose inhabitants were mainly dependent on fishing, had to endure the bombing raids... After the Lantern Festival, 170,000 island residents, young and old, locked the gates of their homes, as they waited for the evacuation... They retreated to Taiwan with the assistance of the US 7th Fleet.”
The reports touched on the helplessness and the resolve of the evacuees.
Some of them relocated to Hualien City and started the neighborhood settlement known as “Dachen No. 1 Village.”
With this history in mind, the local administrative office has organized the “Search for Memories of Dachen Island” project.
The project’s aim is to recreate the look and feel of the 1950s by reconstructing the memories of residents, officials said.
The community hopes the project will attract Chinese tourists visiting Hualien City, officials said.
One local official said that walking through Dachen No. 1 Village “felt as though time had stood still in the 1950s. The village square still has a bronze statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石). The Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) party emblem is still in prominent display on the stage of the village’s main temple.”
The official added that a rhyming couplet from one of the era’s patriotic theme slogans can still be seen on the main red pillars of the temple.
“Peace is at hand. It’s time to retake the Chinese mainland rivers and mountains. Implement the Three Principles of the People. It’s the clear path to happiness,” the couplet reads.
The local administrative office said it plans to solicit funding from other government agencies to help preserve this piece of 1950s culture and history.
Officials said the project’s main theme centers on “culture as the base, story as the tool and sustainable development as the goal,” to develop the village’s tourism potential.
“The project can inject new life into the old community. It can become another tourism bright spot for Hualien, and can breathe new life into the neighborhood,” an official said.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS