The battle over land expropriation rages on — when will the controversy subside?

"Today the government is seizing my land like this — how are we farmers supposed to live?!" In December of last year (2011), a group of victims of land expropriation and their supporters from all over Taiwan gathered in front of the Legislative Yuan building. An elderly farmer from Bali, Wang Ju, tearfully recounted the government's cruel treatment of her and her 100-year-old mother. The biting cold air of Taipei pierced everyone's heart, while inside the warm chamber, one "Land Expropriation Act" bill after another to grab people's property was passed in the middle of the night, fueling an even fiercer wildfire in the already raging battle over land expropriation.

Wang Ju, a farmer in her seventies, has lived for generations in the Dinggu area of Bali, right beside "Taipei Port." It was originally just a quiet little village, where most residents made a living by farming and fishing, or worked outside as blue-collar laborers. Grandma Wang Ju had a piece of ancestral farmland of more than 1,000 ping, planted with a large bamboo grove producing Bali's famous "green bamboo shoots," along with some scattered fruit trees and a small vegetable plot. Every day before dawn, while it was still dark, the still-hale Grandma Wang Ju would feel her way into the bamboo grove to work. In summer and autumn, when the bamboo shoots sprouted, she would load the green bamboo shoots onto a bicycle, sometimes mixed with a few longans, and take them to the farmers' association to sell. Through such hard work she raised several children to adulthood, yet in May of last year (2011), she received an official document from the city government saying that her land and house were about to be expropriated by the government for use as the "Taipei Port Special District."

[Note] The matter of "Wang Ju" described in this article was mediated between the public and the city government in June 2012. In accordance with the wishes of Wang Ju's family, more than 300 ping of the owned farmland was retained and allocated back for continued farming, while the remaining roughly 1,000 ping of land was included in the new town expropriation plan according to the wishes of her descendants.

(The author is a writer and video producer, and has made documentaries including "Bali Floating Life Record.")

[Further reading]

Petition to stop the "Danhai New Town Phase 2 Development Area, Zonal Expropriation Development Project"

The land and I, Taiwan's anti-forced relocation movement

The Danhai Phase 2 land speculation game is about to begin

A brief account of the "Taoyuan Airport MRT Line A7 Station" development project

The four households of the "Dapu Incident," still not satisfactorily resolved

A brief note on the Dapu Zhang Pharmacy

The grand dream of Taipei Port

Bali Floating Life Record