Reflections on Dongmen (2)

What were your reactions to the location in general?
- It was quite dirty. I would sit on the floor --it's still okay. But there were many dusty and dirty places I wouldn't dare to sit. On the higher levels during the night time (the first time I went there) it was pretty scary because the building was so quiet with exceptions of some distant voices of people talking and TV sets playings. With some light flickering, I was kind of scared. But if you think very logically, it's just another home to people- like being in another person's house; you don't know where is where and you're cautious of what you enter and where you step.

What is it like for you to witness people living in relative poverty in a place like DongMen surrounded by the relative wealth of Hsinchu?
- There was one time when I was going around the escalators when I saw a man setting up his cardboard "bed". After seeing the rest of Hsinchu, coming from such a good privileged school and then I see the people here, I felt really sad. However, I saw some really happy people, like the man playing with his dog and the woman who gave us drinks, and even though they lived in an old run-down building, they were still able to be happy. How can they we so happy with so little money and we have so much money yet we are never happy? I really helped me reflect on my life because in order to fully understand your culture, you have to submerge yourself into another culture. We are very privileged to go to a good school and get a good education and live such a special life.

What would you do with a place like DongMen if you were the mayor of Hsinchu? Would you tear it down? leave it? try to revive the industry there? allow people to live there or not?
- DongMen to many people is a sactuary -- a home. Tearing it down would not be one of the options if I were the mayor (unless we had a cleaner and safer place to put them). I would start up the industry on some of the levels; giving some more people jobs. But I would also let the people living there keep their homes because they have a right to live there and that mall has been their home for many years.