九份 (Jiufen) by L. Acadia

九份 (Jiufen) has a fraught place in recent Taiwanese history as the site in 1947 of the 二二八事件 (228 Incident) sparking the 白色恐 怖 (White Terror) era leading to martial law in Taiwan (1949–1987). I shot this photograph while visiting Jiufen for the first time a few days before the seventieth anniversary of the 228 Incident. While my nieces played and posed comically along the window seat looking over the hillside buildings and out to the Pacific Ocean beyond, I considered how the violent history still looms over the town. I’d been reading Shawna Yang Ryan’s novel Green Island, which begins with a retelling of how a Tobacco Monopoly Bureau agent beating an unlicensed cigarette-seller who objected to them confiscating her wares prompted mass protests from Taiwanese citizens upset with the new 國民黨 (Chinese Nationalist Party or KMT) government; the governor general’s guards opened fire on the protestors, leading to violent riots during which tens of thousands of people were killed or disappeared. I wanted the photograph to express how the 墳墓 (tombs) on the hill spill down into the homes of the living, their colors and shapes echoing one another, blurring boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead.