Department of Cultural Affairs

Taipei City Mayor Ko Wenje takes a selfie with former Mayor Huang Dazhou and
Core Pacific Group Chairman Sheen Ching-jing. Photo from DOCA

By Ariston Ramos
 
Taiwan`s former military villages have been important landmarks in Taiwan’s history. To preserve their memory, Taipei City Government’s Department of Cultural Affairs (DOCA) and the Sheen Chuen-Chi Cultural & Educational Foundation jointly organized the Love Taiwan: Charity Concert for the Historical Memories Storehouse Relocation, on November 14 in Daan Forest Park.
 
Taipei Mayor Ko Wenje and former Taipei Mayor Huang Dazhou attended the concert.
 
The concert was also the final event for DOCA’s 2020 Taipei Military District Cultural Festival. More than 5,000 people attended the concert and listened to classic and modern Taiwan songs. The musical repertoire of the performers was itself a walk down memory lane. Some of the songs depicted life in the military villages.
 
Huang Dazhou: Builder of Daan Forest Park
 

A performance during the concert. DOCA Photo
 

 

Daan Forest Park used to be a military village of 12,000 residents. DOCA Photo
 

This year also coincides with the centennial of the establishment of Taipei City. On October 1st, the government invited 6 former mayors and Mayor Ko Wenje to visit the Centennial Commemoration Exhibition that showed photographs and documents of the city’s history. Among the mayors, former Mayor Huang Dazhou stood out as the one who built Daan Forest Park.
 
In his speech, the former mayor said that Daan Forest Park was once a military village for retired soldiers who had come to Taipei from other places.
 
“That village had 12,000 residents,” he said. “Many came to this city dreaming of finding stable jobs and finding a home on this spot.”
 
During his term as mayor, Mr. Huang sought to transform Taipei into a green city and he frequently expressed this to the people of Taipei. Building the Daan Forest Park was one major step towards that goal.
 
“I am very grateful to the citizens of Taipei for supporting the construction of the park,” he said.
 
During his speech, Mayor Ko praised former Mayor Huang for his resolve to transform Taipei into an environment friendly metropolis and said that great cities could only be built with the support of its citizens. “It does not just depend on the mayor`s planning and implementation,” he said.
 
Besides transforming a military village into a city park, former Mayor Huang also straightened the formerly winding path of some portions of the Keelung River and demolished the Zhonghua Shopping Mall to build an accessible entry into Taipei`s western district.
 
“During his term, Mayor Huang built six Metro lines,” said Ko, “now, in Taipei, we`re only building one.”
 
The city government wants to preserve the memory of military villages. Only then could young people have a historical treasure and understand the lives of those who preceded them, he said.
 
Core Pacific Group Chairman Sheen Ching-jing was also present at the concert. “We need to cherish our common values,” he said during his speech. “This is why I was very happy to help in the work of relocating the storehouse of Taipei City’s historical memories.”
 
“I wanted to do my part in maintaining the treasury of narratives that form the foundation of those values. All of us should lend our shoulders to this task of carrying the burden of building the future while keeping alive the memories of our past.”