Around 1949, a large number of soldiers and civilians crossed the ocean and retreated to Taiwan. Some gradually settled down in Beitou. Gradually, the sound of children laughing and playing in the military dependents’ village were like new buds of life, brimming with vitality and hope.
Children of the military dependents’ villages mostly grew up together. Many kids in Heart Village attended the same kindergarten. The mothers therefore hired a man riding an iron three-wheeler to pick up the children. The three-wheeler would emit a “tuk-tuk” sound, so it was nicknamed as the tuk-tuk car. Sometimes, the rider would take the kids to play at the Beitou Children’s Park. The kids would crawl through caves and the poor rider could only worriedly chase after them.
Life was not affluent back then, so the village children usually entertained themselves by transforming daily items with their own imaginations. Just by tying a rope to a bamboo stick from the fence, the children can pretend that they were fighting on horseback. They would also venture into the woods across the village (now Taipei Municipal Xin-Min Junior High School). They shot birds with BB guns, watched fireflies flying around, played hide-and-seek in air raid shelters, explored the woods with lanterns made from milk powder cans and even roasted cicadas to eat. Back in the days when the film industry thrived in Beitou, it was common to spot the shootings of action movies (Wu-Xia), history films and war movies in the woods. The children even saw actors doing wire-hanging scenes.
In the era when television had just entered households, curious and excited children in Heart Village would sometimes lean on the windowsill of the Kuo‘s house, peeking at the first black and white television in the village broadcasting cartoons.
A Small Playground in the Village
There used to be a small playground in the village with a direct view of the Tamsui River. Children often played there and sometimes listened to stories told by a soilder who lived in the village. During the Lantern Festival, children would also carry their handmade lanterns to the playground. Sometimes, the villagers played movies there. Neighbors would inform one another of the screening time and bring their own benches or stools to watch movies together.
