Tainan Second Air Force New Village 台南二空眷村

Rende Second Airforce New Village Treehouse 仁德二空眷村

The Second Air Force New Village (二空新村) is a former military dependents’ village in Tainan, Taiwan. It was established east of Tainan Airbase in 1950, primarily for members of the Republic of China Air Force and their families, and it eventually grew to become the sixth most populous of the official military villages in Taiwan. From 1950 into the 1960s several waves of construction and development increased the village to nearly 1,000 households, with a sizable number of unregistered structures scattered around the periphery. As with most other military villages this one was steadily dismantled and demolished over the course of many years in the late 2000s and early 2010s, part of a nationwide urban renewal program that relocated the remaining residents into more modern apartment blocks.

Yeliu Signal Station 野柳信號臺

An Abandoned Signal Station in Wanli, Taiwan

Green Bay is a forlorn stretch of sandy coastline in Wanli, a rural district of roughly 22,000 residents situated on the rugged northeastern coast of Taiwan. It is widely known for its many derelict resorts, most famously the so-called Wanli UFO Village (萬里飛碟屋), which is what initially drew me here in 2013. I returned a year later and noticed a dilapidated structure further along the beach, an unsightly institutional building similar in appearance to a Taiwanese police station of the 1980s. A closer inspection revealed an interior cluttered with intriguing artifacts and decaying documents—enough to conclusively identify this neglected ruin. This was formally known as the Yeliu Signal Station (野柳信號臺), an outpost responsible for monitoring maritime traffic in the shipping lanes and designated anchorages just west of the Port of Keelung.

Taiwan Motor Transport Maintenance Depot 台灣汽車客運公司機料廠

Taiwan Motor Transport Factory Entrance

Shulin is a heavily industrialized district of approximately 185,000 residents on the southwestern periphery of Taipei. Until recently it was home to one of the most well-known large-scale ruins in the metropolitan area: the former Taiwan Motor Transport Maintenance Depot (台灣汽車客運公司機料廠), more generally known as the Shulin Factory. This abandonment was far from secret—it was regularly used for photo and video production, airsoft and paintball games, flying drones, practicing graffiti and street art, and the occasional underground techno party. It was so popular, in fact, that it attracted several con artists who impersonated security guards and the property owner to charge a fee for usage of the site, occasionally extorting large sums from more professional operations, which eventually led to their arrest. As for the history of the site itself, Tobias at Only Forward has published an extremely thorough account of this ruin, and I don’t have very much to add apart from my own original photos from two separate visits to the now-vanished site.

A Nameless Community in Xinyi District

A Vanished Community

Xinyi is among the richest and most expensive parts of Taiwan—but it hasn’t always been this way. Decades ago it was sparsely settled and far more industrialized, particularly around Wúxìng Street (吳興街), where I lived for several years in the late 2010s. This part of the city was once anchored by an immense army maintenance depot previously mentioned in this post, but the entire complex was demolished in the early 2010s, replaced by parking lots, basketball courts, and wide open fields. The former depot was surrounded by several military villages, all of which were also dismantled apart from the grim concrete apartment blocks of Wúxìng New Village (吳興新村) and, somewhat further north, the restored and revitalized #44 South Village (四四南村) across from Taipei 101.

Until recently there was also a cluster of what were probably illegal houses on the southern periphery of the former army depot. Nestled into a tiny patch of land next to the mountains and jutting into the factory grounds, this community was demolished in early 2017, but not before I made several visits to document its disappearance. There is nothing particularly noteworthy or unusual about this small community—and indeed, I can find no information about it whatsoever. This post serves only to document a nameless, unremarkable place, one of thousands disappearing into memory all across Taiwan.

Grace Hill 麗庭莊園

Grace Hill in the Songshan Airport Flight Path

Grace Hill (Lìtíng Zhuāngyuán 麗庭莊園) is a former wedding venue situated in an industrial park in Neihu, Taipei. It opened in 2005 under the management of the Zhǎngxìng Wedding Company (長興婚禮事業有限公司), an outfit keen to disrupt the local market with a larger, more extravagant space for weddings and other events. The business struggled at first but became more widely known after it was featured in television series, music videos, and the news. In 2007 the space was leased to Dears Brain (迪詩), a Japanese wedding company hoping to enter the Taiwanese luxury wedding market. The original owners took a step back, ceding control of day-to-day operations to Japanese management, and the business continued to grow over the next several years.

Keelung Dahua Theater 基隆大華戲院

Exterior View of Dahua Theater 大華戲院

Dàhuá Theater 大華戲院 is an early post-war movie theater in the grim northern port town of Keelung City, Taiwan. It was in business as early as 1949 and officially registered by 1952. Beyond that, little trace of it can be found online. Until recently I assumed this theater had been demolished, just like every other vintage standalone in downtown Keelung, one of the most densely-packed urban environments in the nation. Acting on a tip that a signboard was still in place I went to scope it out one afternoon in 2018—and was completely surprised to find the theater still standing, albeit in an extremely dilapidated condition.

Xiluo Yuandong Theater 西螺遠東戲院

Yuandong Theater Ticket Booth Trash

Xiluo is a small historic town in rural Yunlin, Taiwan. Despite its diminutive size Xiluo was once home to three standalone movie theaters: the eponymous Xiluo Theater (西螺戲院), Yisheng Theater (一生戲院), and Yuǎndōng Theater (遠東戲院, literally “Far East Theater”), the subject of this brief report. Previously I misidentified Yisheng Theater as Yuandong, something I only learned after visiting a photo exhibition at Huashan 1914 Creative Park in 2017. After realizing my mistake I went to some lengths to locate and later visit this theater—which, in hindsight, I’ve passed on several occasions without noticing it down a small side street of the same name.

Guobin Commercial Building 國賓商業大樓

The Derelict Guobin Commercial Building 國賓商業大樓

Guóbīn Commercial Building 國賓商業大樓 is an ugly ruin in the heart of Zhongli, a city of around half a million people in Taoyuan, Taiwan. Built at the dawn of the booming 1980s, it was home to a variety of entertainment businesses over the years, and appears to have been mostly abandoned sometime around the turn of the millennium. Much to my surprise I’ve not found much about this place online, which suggests whatever newsworthy calamities befell this derelict commercial building predate the era of digital journalism. Without any sources to draw upon I can only make some educated guesses about what I captured during a brief visit in the early days of 2017.

Dalin Xinxing Theater 大林新興戲院

Asymmetric Cinematic Architecture

What remains of Xīnxīng Theater 新興戲院 can be found just east of the train station in Dalin, a modest town of approximately 30,000 just north of Chiayi City in Taiwan. Despite its relatively small size Dalin once supported five movie theaters, providing entertainment for sugar factory workers and the many soldiers stationed at nearby military bases. Xinxing Theater (not to be confused with the one in Xinpu) originally opened as Rénshān Theater 仁山戲院 in 1954 and remained in business until 1992. Eventually the theater was renovated and subdivided into a billiards hall and KTV (also known as a karaoke box) before it was finally abandoned sometime around 2013. Recently there was talk of buying the property and transforming it into a creative market but its ultimate fate remained unknown until it was finally demolished in 2019.

Xinying Chenggong Theater 新營成功戲院

An Old Projector at Chenggong Theater

Despite its relative obscurity Xinying is the largest settlement along the railway line between metropolitan Tainan City and Chiayi City. It was the capital of Tainan County prior to amalgamation in 2010 and remains the secondary administrative seat of Tainan. Located on the broad and fertile Chianan Plain, it was also an important transportation hub for the sugar industry, and what remains of the Japanese colonial era sugar factory can still be found on the south side of town. Xinying was also home to half a dozen standalone movie theaters in its heyday, but most have since been demolished. I was fortunate to visit the ruined KMT authoritarian era cinema Chénggōng Theater (成功戲院) in 2017, not long before it was completely destroyed.