Remnant of my childhood
Remnant of my childhood
Originally uploaded by el dubbPart of my childhood was spent in a military dependents village, or Juàncūn (眷村). This is a type of community in Taiwan to house the KMT Nationalist soldiers and their dependents. Built in the late 1940s and 1950s, these villages were pockets of distinct mainland cultures amongst Taiwanese communities and became a part of Taiwan's colourful history. Thus, amongst Chinese communities around the world, Juàncūn is unique to Taiwan.
Because these villages are government property, the residents has no ownership rights to the house they live in. Beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s, the government began to redevelop the dependent villages by demolishing the old houses and moving the residents into new high-rise apartments. My grandparents' house was among those demolished.
On the left side of the road was where my grandparents' house and their neighbours used to be. It is now just an empty lot, overgrown with weeds and walled off by a fence. It is a strange feeling to come back after all these years and find that the house I grew up in has completely disappeared and just not there anymore.