A suitcase and a letter evoke homesickness on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. By crossing the Black Trench and entering the Time Tunnel, showcase the pioneering spirit of our ancestors. The Taichung itinerant exhibition of "My Family's Stories on Both Sides of the Taiwan Strait," sponsored by the Sheen Cheun-Chi Culture and Education Foundation, will be grandly displayed in Building AB, Yatang Hall, Cultural Heritage Park, Ministry of Culture from today (5th). A rich collection of character videos and cultural relics reproduce the history of moving to Taiwan during the turbulent era. Shiow-Yen Lu, the mayor of Taichung, attended the opening ceremony and said she grew up in a family of different ethnic integration. This exhibition sorts out the history of military and civilian crossing to Taiwan around the 38th year of the Republic of China (1949), "Don't forget the past and look forward to the future." She hopes that the people will reflect on history and contribute to making Taiwan a better place.

Mayor Lu emphasized that Taiwan's history is closely intertwined with mainland China. Five hundred years ago, "Leaving the Mainland for Taiwan" was the ancestor of Taiwan that drifted across the sea from the mainland, passed through the Black Trench, and took root in Taiwan. Another group of millions of soldiers and civilians, including exiled students, also came to Taiwan around 1949. Mayor Lu said that with the advancing tide of the times, many people, events, places, and objects will gradually pass away. Therefore, she considerably admires a group of people in Taiwan who are working very hard to preserve Taiwan's history. She appreciated the "Legacy" created by Hwai-Min Lin, the Cloud Gate Dance Theater founder, in May this year. This drama tells the story of leaving the mainland for Taiwan 500 years ago, the story of the ancestors enduring great hardships crossing the Black Trench to Taiwan.

"I am a child who grew up in a peaceful family with integrated ethnic groups on both sides of the Taiwan Strait!" Mayor Lu disclosed that her father was a soldier who came to Taiwan in 1949, and her mother was born in Taiwan. Grandpa is a descendant of the ancestors who left the mainland for Taiwan, and his great-grandfather sent him to study in Japan. My mother grew up in Japan until she was eight years old before returning to Taiwan, and her mother tongue is Japanese. Despite having a family background that could potentially lead to provincial or national conflicts, Mayor Lu grew up in a loving family. She also expressed her desire for everyone to be happy Taiwanese.

Mayor Lu highlighted that the Sheen Cheun-Chi Culture and Education Foundation, led by Mr. Ching-Jing Sheen, sponsored artist Feng Ling to produce the TV program "Trudging eight thousand miles and seeing nothing but clouds and moons" decades ago and invested a lot of labor, material, and financial resources to support many art and cultural teams. Now, the foundation has taken five years to sort out the people, events, places, and objects related to the stories on both sides of the Taiwan Strait to create this exhibition, which has contributed profoundly to Taiwan's modern history.

The Cultural Affairs Bureau has highlighted that in the early days of Taichung, numerous military dependents' villages not only preserved the essence of their hometowns but also fostered emotional connections and stories among ordinary people from diverse ethnic backgrounds on both sides of the Taiwan Strait. They include Yide New Village and Beitun New Village in Beitun District, Mofan New Village in the West District, Guangfu New Village in Wufeng District, and Xinyi New Village in Qingshui District. The city government actively preserves and inherits space and life memories of these military-dependent villages in different forms through the preservation, restoration, and operational activation of cultural assets. At the same time, it connects with the life of the current citizens, and it also cooperates with the project of the Taiwan Culture Memory Bank of the Ministry of Culture to promote the preservation of images of ordinary people's memories. According to the Cultural Affairs Bureau, the Taichung Military Kindred Village Museum used the three representative military dependents' village buildings in the original "Beitun New Village" to plan cultural relics exhibitions, develop military village-style dishes and creative markets so that the public can feel the fusion of old and new the style of the military dependents' village. The Qingshui Military Community Culture Park is the only military dependents' village with dual cultural asset status of archaeological sites and settlement buildings. The Cultural Affairs Bureau encourages artists to create in the community, transforming the area full of historical memory into a creative experiment base for the new generation of artists.

According to the Sheen Cheun-Chi Culture and Education Foundation, the itinerant exhibition "My Family's Stories on Both Sides of the Taiwan Strait" embarked on its journey from Kaohsiung in 2019 and has now reached its sixth stop in Taichung. The exhibition content comes from a collection of precious old photos, audio-visual materials, and related cultural relics collected by the public. It divides into exhibition areas such as "Crossing the Black Trench," "Life Route Map," "Go to Taiwan with a Suitcase," and "Eight Thousand Miles Road." Let visitors witness the valuable films and cultural relics of the significant era. The foundation combines interactive technology and new media art and uses situational curation techniques to lead the audience back to the historical scene and re-dialogue with history.

The foundation emphasizes that it includes local historical witnesses and old photos in Taichung, such as the grandfather of the Rainbow Village Yung-Fu Huang, the mothers from Yinlian 3rd Village, a century-old woman Shu-Zhi Lee Jia who has gone through significant times and escorted the national treasure to Taiwan during the war Yu-Ming Suo et al. Trace the pulsation of a page of the relocation history of Taiwan through their life stories. "My Family's Stories on Both Sides of the Taiwan Strait" Taichung itinerant exhibition will run from July 5th to September 20th. They use rich audio-visual images of characters, cultural relics, immersive games, and VR virtual reality to reproduce the history of Taiwan's relocation in the turbulent era. For details, please visit the exhibition fan page (https://www.facebook.com/mocsr).