Dapu Village Chang Pharmacy

Date CapturedJuly 18th, 2014 at 11:43 UTCCameraNIKON D3100LensAF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED or AF-S DX VR Zoom-Nikkor 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF-ED [II]Apertureƒ / 4.2Shutter Speed1/40 secFocal Length36.0 mmISO100Exposure Value9.5 EVOriginal Size1920 × 1280

Last night I went to Dapu Village in Zhunan, the northernmost township in Miaoli, for a concert and movie screening commemorating the treacherous demolition of four homes last year. The event took place on the former site of Chang Pharmacy, whose owner, Chang Sen-wen (張森文), was later found dead in a drainage ditch in an apparent suicide. This occurred not long after the government razed his home and business to the ground with all his possessions still inside. In a cruel twist of fate the Chang family was served a bill for demolition equalling the financial compensation offered by the government—leaving them with absolutely nothing. Eminent domain may serve the public interest in special circumstances—but this was outright robbery by the state.

The Dapu incident¹, in brief: Miaoli magistrate Liú Zhènghóng (劉政鴻, pictured above, at left) ordered the expropriation of 156 hectares of land in Dapu Village in 2009, ostensibly to build a new campus of the Hsinchu Science and Industrial Park (新竹科學工業園區). Only 28 hectares were to be used for the park itself—the rest of that land was intended for residential use. In other words, the government seized land from 945² households primarily to construct hugely profitable residences next to their shiny new industrial development, an obvious case of profiteering referred to as zone expropriation. Put simply: people’s lives were torn apart to line the pockets of a bunch of greedy politicians and their construction industry cronies, all under the banner of “progress”.

The injustice visited upon the four holdouts spurred protests, violent confrontations with the police, and a massive outpouring of public sympathy all across Taiwan. While the protests were not enough to stop the government in Dapu (nor save Mr. Chang) they helped to plant the seeds of the Sunflower student movement that blossomed in March 2014 with the nearly monthlong occupation of the Legislative Yuan. In this respect the slogan “Today Dapu, tomorrow the government”「今天拆大埔，明天拆政府」 was remarkably prescient.

The mural in the photograph (above) was painted by Taiwanese artist Liu Tsung-jung (劉宗榮) on the bare wall where the Chang pharmacy used to stand. The figure on the left is Liú Zhènghóng (劉政鴻), widely reviled for corruption and his role as the arch-villain in the Dapu drama, with a shoe on his head—a reference to when future Sunflower student movement spokesperson Chen Wei-ting (陳為廷) struck Liu with a tossed shoe as he attempted to attend a memorial service for Mr. Chang. On the right you can see the unpopular President Ma Ying-jeou in his PRC finery, decked out with a fancy beaded headdress³ typically worn by gods and emperors in Chinese culture. The blood-red star overhead is the emblem of the ruling Kuomintang political party of which both are a part.

New Bloom covered the event here (photos) and here (article).

Footnotes

1. To catch up on the backstory I highly recommend a series of posts on Ketty Chen’s blog: here, here, here (immediately after the July 18th demolition), and here (the tragic, heart-wrenching outcome). ↩

2. I sourced this number from a completely tone-deaf article in the China Post. ↩

3. Possibly known a miǎnliú (冕旒). ↩