There is a place where you turn the corner and the whole world fades into reality and you are reminded of whence you came and from where you are going. There is a place where the sky meets the water through the portal of history and herstory and you remember other people’s memories of struggle through a connection with brick and banana trees. There is this place in the middle of Taipei that contains the remnants of a people’s immigration and a reminder of hardships that so many youth no longer believe is real but in the stories of their grandparents. This place is called Treasure Hill.
Along the path next to the enclave. Below the houses are their gardens 🙂 They used to have them right up against the river, but it flooded too much.
On Thursday, I met up with a friend of a friend of a friend (yay for new friends J), Ben. He is a PhD student in Social Transformation and did his undergraduate degree in Urban Planning. We walked around the area where I am taking Chinese class and he explained to me the way the area was planned. As we talked, he told me about this place called Treasure Hill. (Short history lesson, for more details…ask me). In the 1940s, China was in a civil war. There were many different factions that were fighting, but the two largest forces were the Communist and the Nationalists. When the Nationalists had to retreat, many of their people came to Taiwan. Because so many people were coming to Taiwan at one time, there was not adequate housing for people. So people became squatters on public land and Treasure Hill is one of these enclaves. Treasure Hill was a designed to protect the southwestern part of Taipei, the men that were stationed there built houses and started lives there. Now the space houses some of the original people and I guess some artists groups are trying to start residencies there.
One of the buildings that has been converted into a cafe
Ben was working with a group called OURs (the Organization of Urban Res) that has been working with the residence and the government to preserve the space. Recently their actions have been called in question by a group that claims that because some people had to be relocated OURs acted against the people. From what Ben said, it sounds like the folks who are calling out OURs are interested in making the area into more of an artist space. Now the government is saying that if the conflicts are not resolved before the elections (in a week) the whole area will be razed. From what Ben has said, it seems that it the amount of progress that has been made, though small in the larger context, is still progress and the folks that are pushing for more change are pushing too hard.
A view of the rest of Taipei from one of the rooftops. It felt a bit like Detriot because many of the buildings had crumbled/burned down and also like the countryside in Taiwan. There were groves of banana trees and it is next to the river.
Therein is the age-old struggle of change. What is the balance of pressure one puts on a situation or a group that is enough to ask them to think critically without pushing them to reject your viewpoints based on the sole fact that you are ‘the opposite’ therefore ‘the enemy.’ Also, who has a right to a space and what criteria determines that right. Have the people that are directly impacted been asked their opinion? Who are the artists and what is their right? Who are the people living there and what is their right? How does this situation manifest itself in other contexts and what is just? Here are some websites with more information if you are interested. http://www.ours.org.tw/index_aboutE.htm (OURs) http://www.treasurehill.org.tw/ http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/feat/archives/2005/12/09/2003283705 (article about a new artsey store there).
Following My Feet 