Yesterday my great colleague Alex and I visited one very special place: Rainbow Village in Taichung.
“There are some people in this world who will just throw themselves out into our society to stand up for what they believe in. Some people protest, some people fill a petition with thousands of names, and then there’s people like Rainbow Grandpa (彩虹爺爺).
On the outskirts of Taichung, there lives a man by the name of Rainbow Grandpa, or Grandpa Huang (Huang Yung-Fu). He lives in an old military dependents village, made up of houses built in the late 1940s-1950s, used as housing for Nationalist soldiers, which were later converted into permanent housing. One day, the Taichung government announced that they wanted to demolish the place. But Grandpa Huang was having none of that. He immediately grabbed some brightly hued paints and a brush, and set to work. He would save the village, and save it he did. And not only did he rescue it from demolition, he also created an incredible rainbow village. The government decided to shift their urban renewal plans around to help preserve the whimsical little world that this passionate old man brought to life”.
(Taken from here: http://taipei543.com/2013/01/30/rainbow-grandpa/)
Note: this Grandpa is 90 years old and still lives in this village.
Between the Cultures 