Research Journals
The preparation phase for Wuxing Si-Si Nan Cun Team, from September to October, 2013
At the beginning of this semester, Ms. Li, our computer teacher, asked us a question. “How many of you are available after school on Wednesdays,” she added, “and also interested in the research project of Si-Si Nan Cun, which is near our school?” Owing to the fact that lots of schoolmates have to go to English classes or day care centers on Wednesday afternoon, only five of us, including Ruoxuan, Yeeting and Weixuan from Class 608, and Yeechen and Qianyu from Class 501, were available and willing to take part in the project. Coincidentally, Weixuan’s grandparents had lived in the Forty-fourth South Village, and his great grandfather was the first generation of the Village. With the connection, our team members, who originally worried about the project would be difficult, got much confidence.
2013/10/30 ( Wednesday)
We designed an online questionnaire on the Forty-fourth South Village with Google Questionnaire functions and collected answers from the students (mainly fifth and sixth graders) of Wuxing Elementary school, in order to know how much they knew about Si-Si Nan Cun.
2013/11/15 (Friday)
We had had a conference discussing about the Si-Si Nan Cun project at the computer lab at 12:30 P.M. on Fridays. We searched for references of Si-Si Nan Cun from the Internet, and found that the Village had been transformed into Taipei Xinyi Public Assembly Hall after demolition and alteration, but there were still a lot of artifacts and relics of the Village. Then we wrote to Lin Jinghao, Curator of the Xinyi Public Assembly Hall, and asked if he could take interviews. However, being in charge of Xinyi District civil affairs, Curator Lin was too busy to take interviews, so he introduced us to Zhang Tianzhi, the head of Jingxin Li, who was very familiar with Si-Si Nan Cun.
2013/11/20 (Wednesday)
Today we came to the Museum of Military Dependents' Villages in Si-Si Nan Cun at 1:30 P.M.. We got a new member: Anchen, from Class 608, encouraged by her close friends Ruoxuan and Yeeting, joined Wuxing Si-Si Nan Cun Team. But Mr. Zhang was too busy to keep an appointment with us, so Aunt Luo, a volunteer guide, was requested to give us a guide tour. Aunt Luo also introduced us the only bunker that remained in Taipei City. Today we had a special person coming with us: Weixuan’s grandma. She brought us a lot of old photos of Si-Si Nan Cun, and shared the stories of the photos with us.
2013/12/11 ( Wednesday )
Today we went to Xinyi Public Assembly Hall in Si-Si Nan Cun and met Mr. Zhang Tianzhi, the Head of jingxin Li. He talked sonorously about Si-Si Nan Cun from its historic origin of the 44th Arsenal, but after a while he thought that it was not easy for kids as we were to understand the profound meaning of history. Then he turned to lighter topics, including aspects of food, clothing, housing, transportation, education, recreation, and Si-Si Dragon. Later on, Weixuan’s grandfather, who grew up in Nan Cun, dropped by and told us that Weixuan’s great-grandfather had taken charge of the financial work for the Dragon. We think that it was a cool but hard job to take charge of the Dragon because it was such a huge dragon.
2013/12/13 (Friday)
We heard from Weixuan’s grandfather that the extant Si-Si Nan Cun Air-raid Shelter is currently inside Xinyi Elementary School, and we would like to visit it, so Ms. Li wrote to Xia Decheng, Director of Xinyi Elementary School, in hope that we could pay a visit to the school. Director Xia replied that he has been so busy that it will be inconvenience for him to receive us, but we are welcome to go there on our own. Besides, we also found a snack bar run by Granny Li, which was originally run in the Forty-fourth South Village. Then the Village was demolished and the snack bar was moved to the first floor of the new building at the block across the street opposite to where it was. And we are also ready to taste the dainties of military dependents’ village.
2014/1/8( Wednesday)
We went to Xinyi Elementary School to see the air-raid shelter as well as an old house of Si-Si Nan Cun. Fortunately, we had permission from Mr. Xia, Director of the Xinyi Elementary School, or the school guard wouldn’t let us in. We saw the air-raid shelter as we walked to the school playground, and a tile with the image of Si-Si Nan Cun carved on it. But there was not any information board, and we are curious about where the shelter under the tree leads to.
2014/1/15 ( Wednesday )
At noon today, we went to the South Village Café, which is run by Granny Li, to taste the Si-Si Nan Cun snack flavors. As we walked in, the café was full of guests, and Granny Li was clipping, chopping and slicing stewed food, she was so busy doing her job seriously that we dared not disturb her. However, Weixuan kept on praising the ddelicate appetizers loudly! He can't even help drinking the cucumber sauce. Seeing this, Granny Li was very happy. At 1:30 P.M. when there were not so many guests, we took a photo with Granny Li. We thought that Granny Li was a very serious person at first sight, but it turned out that she is an amiable lady with a genial smile.
2014/1/17 ( Friday)
Granny SunWu Liching, who is currently attending Wuxing Night School, was introduced to our computer teacher Aqing by a colleague of hers. Granny SunWu had been a Si-Si Nan Cun resident. She is a Fuzhou Taiwanese, but married an old mainland soldier and had also been living on the second floor built onto the Village from then. Granny SunWu had been so busy that we could only have an interview with her during the graduation ceremony of the night school. She told me a lot of interesting things about Si-Si Nan Cun such as when the Village was flooded with the Typhoon coming, some villagers would take big iron pots as boats, and they just had fun sitting in the pots, and that was how they found joy in sorrows.
2014/01/23 ( Thursday )
Curator Chen Jinghao, who is in charge of the Si-Si Nan Cun buildings and plazas of Xinyi Public Assembly Hall, told us that he would show up in the District Office only on Thursdays, so we had to wait until the winter break, and now we finally had a chance to interview with him. When we were in the Xinyi District Office waiting for the Curator, we met Aunt Luo, who had given us a tour guide around the 44th South Village. Aunt Luo happened to be a volunteer worker in the District Office. Later on, Curator Lin share with us the operating direction of the Forty-fourth South Village in the new look of Xinyi Public Assembly Hall, and he also promised to provide us with valuable photos of the Village before it was demolished. Another good news was that Weixuan’s mother contact Aqing on her initiative and expressed her willingness to assist us to find more old photos and also to help ask Weixuan’s grandparents for more stories about the Forty-fourth South Village for us.
2014/02/07 (Thursday) In the Morning
We searched the Internet and found the website of the Si-Si Nan Cun Cultural Office. Luckily, Mr. Chen Chinghsiang, the cultural worker who spares no effort to preserve the culture of Forty-fourth South Village, expressed his willingness to have an interview with us. Then we went to Mr. Chen’s office at Nankang public housing. Mr. Chen showed us the briefing he made with all his effort, and talked of everything about the Forty-fourth South Village as if enumerated his family valuables, and we also heard his unique perspectives and expectations for the status of the Forty-fourth South Village.
2014/02/07 (Thursday) At 1:00 P.M.
After we visited Mr. Chen Chinghsiang, we went to Crescent snack bar which sold 44 South Village snacks, to taste the pancakes, leek boxes and zha jiang noodles. From the hot pickled vegetable boxes that developed by Crescent, we found that Hunan spicy was really spicy! Later on, we found that the owner happens to be a sister of Mr. Chen Chinghsiang’s. What a coincidence!
End of winter break, the day before school began, 2014
Everybody was deeply touched by the content of Weixuan’s interview with his grandfather. We are working hard to integrate our research results to make a web page for the Forty-fourth South Village!
