Rainbow Village () is a

military dependents' village A military dependents' village () is a community in Taiwan built in the late 1940s and the 1950s whose original purpose was to serve as provisional housing for soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines of the Republic of China Armed Forces, alon ...

that was converted into street art in

Nantun District Nantun District () is an urban district in Taichung, Taiwan. It was a part of Taichung before the City and County were amalgamated in 2010. History The district used to be part of Taichung provincial city before the merger with Taichung Count ...

Taichung Taichung (, Wade–Giles: ''Tʻai²-chung¹'', pinyin: ''Táizhōng''), officially Taichung City, is a special municipality located in central Taiwan. Taichung has approximately 2.8 million residents and is the second most populous city of Ta ...

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...

History

The artwork of the area was created by former soldier, Huang Yung-Fu, who was born in

Taishan __NOTOC__ Taishan may refer to: *Mount Tai or Taishan (), Shandong, China * Taishan District, Tai'an (), named after the Mount Tai, a district in Tai'an, Shandong, China *Taishan, Guangdong (), a county-level city of Jiangmen, Guangdong, China ** G ...

county,

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020 ...

province in 1924, the eldest of four brothers and two sisters. Huang's artistic talents were revealed early on. He began painting houses in his settlement, now known as Rainbow village, to save them from demolition. Over the years his colourful artwork, which includes birds, animals and people, has spread over the remaining houses in the village, which once contained 1,200 homes. Huang, originally from Hong Kong, joined the

National Revolutionary Army The National Revolutionary Army (NRA; ), sometimes shortened to Revolutionary Army () before 1928, and as National Army () after 1928, was the military arm of the Kuomintang (KMT, or the Chinese Nationalist Party) from 1925 until 1947 in Chin ...

(NRA) in 1946 to fight

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...

in mainland China during the

Chinese Civil War The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led government of the Republic of China and forces of the Chinese Communist Party, continuing intermittently since 1 August 1927 until 7 December 1949 with a Communist victory on main ...

. In 1949, many of the defeated NRA troops followed their leader,

Chiang Kai-shek Chiang Kai-shek (31 October 1887 – 5 April 1975), also known as Chiang Chung-cheng and Jiang Jieshi, was a Chinese Nationalist politician, revolutionary, and military leader who served as the leader of the Republic of China (ROC) from 1928 ...

, as he fled to Taiwan. Soldiers were given temporary housing in hundreds of dedicated military villages across the island. Eventually, some settlements became permanent and many veterans and their families were left to spend much of their lives in them. Many houses became run down and developers began buying up the land for redevelopment. Residents were offered compensation or new housing to move but Huang remained even after his neighbours had left and only 11 homes remained. Bored with being the only person left in the village he began painting a bird inside his home and his artwork grew from there. Local university students discovered Huang's work and campaigned to save the village. Authorities eventually agreed that it should be preserved and hopefully become a designated cultural area. It is a popular tourist attraction, along with nearby Art street pulling in more than a million visitors annually, mostly from Asia.

Transportation

The village is accessible north of Xinwuri Station of Taiwan Railways.

References

External links

Art centers in Taichung Houses in Taiwan Military dependents' village, Taiwan {{Taiwan-geo-stub