Appendix I: American Films

Mingde Village was a small dependants’ settlement of forty households beside Fugui Cape, yet as early as the 1960s this remotest little village often had the latest American films to watch—a singular experience.

Father’s unit was about twenty minutes on foot from the village. In our childhood a US Military Advisory Group had been stationed there. We heard the films the advisory group watched were fresh from America—new releases not yet even on first run in Taipei. Usually after the advisory group had seen them they lent them to the unit, which showed them in the open on the basketball court for the soldiers and dependants.

“Going to the pictures” was a big event in the village. After supper, adults and children who were going would take stools and torches and gather in the square at the village gate—often twenty or thirty people. They formed a column and set off along the uphill path to the left of the village towards the unit.

In winter it was already dark by then. A line of people with stools and torches filed through the path where trees met overhead and you could not see your hand—children excited and afraid at once. Coming up through the dark path to the plateau above, the stars filled the sky. Everyone arrived at the unit in high spirits.

Sometimes before the film started the children played basketball with the soldiers. Of course the soldiers spun us little sprouts in circles. Sometimes Americans joined in. To our eyes those foreigners were giants. Playing ball with giants, you could only get the ball when they let you.

When the film ran we sat row on row on long benches. The projector’s strong beam hit a huge cloth screen; when the wind moved the cloth, the people and scenery in the film rippled too.

The reels included James Bond, Snow White, Mickey Mouse cartoons, Fantastic Voyage, and other recent American pictures. Adults and children alike enjoyed them. Sorry to say—the films were American imports with no Chinese subtitles, so how much plot each person understood only heaven knew.

Postscript: 1. This piece was entered in Taipei City’s 2009 Military Dependants’ Village Culture Festival essay activity “See the Village, See You” and won an honourable mention. (Slightly revised afterwards.)

2. The US Military Advisory Group was posted for about nine months. There were films every weekend. Mother still remembers seeing Leave Her to Heaven, Cleopatra, and others.